(upbeat music) – Welcome to Ear Biscuits, I’m Rhett. – And I’m Link, joining us at the round table of dim lighting tonight we have Jason Markk. Dude has got a great story and a great business, he is the originator of the sneaker drop off cleaning service. – Yes. – Where you drop off your sneakers and they’re cleaned. – Sneaker care. – It’s not just cleaning. – Is the official description. This guy cares about sneakers and he cares for sneakers and we wanted to talk to him. – In a world where a lot of people care a whole lot about sneakers, and it’s fascinating. – We wanted to talk to him not because, now first of all, we’re a whole lot more sneaker head than we were, say, five years ago. – I’m informed a little bit. – But definitely not actually sneaker heads. But we are fascinated by people who have made a decision to do something where they followed a dream, had an innovative idea and it came to fruition and the story of that, that’s a mythical thing, just like we’ve been talking about, we wanna talk to mythical people about mythical things that they’re doing that kind of embody mythicality, and Jason Markk embodies mythicality because he’s doing something that is completely original and creative. Something that kind of challenges a paradigm, and he’s just a good guy, local guy here. – Some would say, even if you’re not into sneakers, I think you’re really gonna be into this conversation because it’s got this inspirational quality to it that you can benefit from, mythical beast. – Nobody cried, though, I mean, spoiler, I mean, you got close. – There was a discussion about crying. – Yeah. – And there was a story that brought some people to tears. – Some people and some people might, you know. – I’m just saying. – And he also … – There was some blood involved at another point. – Serendipitously. – Wow. – He wore his mustache tonight, as did you. – Yes. – So did you shave this in because you knew Jason was coming and had a mustache? – No, I thank you for acknowledging my mustache. – Oh, is there another reason for it? – The reason is, you know the reason. – Haha, yeah, I’m doing what they call playing dumb, Link. – First thing I noticed was not his shoes, it was the fact, oh, he’s got a mustache too, and we’re mustache brethren. – And did you, one of the things we talked about is how you acknowledge when somebody has the same car, the same shoes or whatever, but did you do a mustache acknowledgement nod? – No, I did not nod at the mustache, but I assessed it. – So you looked at his lip. A lot of times … – No, I looked at the mustache above the lip, the whole conversation. – You can’t tell when somebody’s looking at your mustache or your lip. – I can tell. – Okay, what am I looking at right now? – Uh, the microphone, you’re looking at my mustache. – No, I’m looking at your lips, I mean, I’m not comfortable doing it. – Now look at my mustache, look at my mustache. Now look at the lips, okay, I can see the difference. – You see the comparative difference, but that’s something like, I remember in like middle school, Tate told me that if you want, could have been Michael Jeebie, I don’t know, one of those guys that had kissed some ladies, he was like you let a girl know you wanna kiss her when you look at her lips, so like you’re looking at her and then you look down at the lips, and you look back and you look down at the lips, and then she’s, like, oh, I know what’s up, or you could just go in for the kiss. – Well, or you could, I mean. – I’m not talking about just any … – You don’t wanna just go in for the kiss, you wanna ask permission, at least with a look at the lips. – I’m not talking about you’re just sitting next to anybody, I’m talking about, like … – A loved one. – There’s a relationship already happening. I’m just letting you know, that’s not what’s happening right now, I’m just evaluating your mustache. – I wasn’t, I actually wasn’t, the thought didn’t cross my mind, Rhett, so you clarifying it just made it weird, made it awkward. Of course my mustache is not making anything awkward, is it? (Rhett laughs) This is day two of me having the mustache. – Cutting the mustache in. – Of cutting it in, you know, I knew I wanted to grow a mustache as an option for buddy system season two. – It’s probably gonna be there. – It’s probably gonna be there. – But we still reserve the right to not have it, you reserve the right. – You say we, I mean, you do have a say. – But I think you get 51% in this decision. – Right, I get the … – Which is basically the whole decision, there’s only two votes. – Well, no, I’m interested in what you have to say but I miss the days when my facial hair would change constantly and I just like, I like having the option to do that for Buddy System because it could enhance the story, it could fit into what we’re doing. – I dropped something. – You dropped something, you all right? – Oh, gosh. – What, are you serious, did you go in that hole? – Oh God, did it go down, no way, it went in the hole. – Dude, it’s behind you, man, what is your … – I’ll tell you where that is later. (men laugh) – He’s gonna keep me in suspense. – I thought it went in one of those holes too, I was, like, I don’t even think it fits. – There’s a hole down there. – Yeah it does, it does fit. – What is that Rhett’s talking about? What was I saying? – That’s a teaser, you talked about how you … – The reason, I had an opportunity to have a mustache for Buddy System season two. – And it may enhance your performance. – And we’re just a few days away from starting to shoot, I’m very excited, I’m kind of nervous, but the mustache, I mean, I had the beard, I didn’t wanna just grow in a mustache, you don’t do that, no one in their right mind just grows a mustache, you grow a beard and then whenever you have a mustache within that beard, then you take the beard away. – Okay, I mean, I think it is possible to do it the other way, but I do think you’re doing it the easy way. – Well, then you gotta explain, like, why you’re slowly growing a mustache, every day. – There’s more awkward phases. – There’s more, yeah, and all the conversations, like, when you’re growing a beard, it’s, oh, you’re growing a beard, when you’re growing a mustache, it’s, like, you’re growing a mustache or, you need to bathe up there. – But now you have to deal with … – I grow a beard, and then yeah, I have to deal with the shock of the moment that I leave the bathroom and there’s my family and they all turn and look at me in horror because I have a mustache, they all hate it. – Do they know this was happening? – I told ’em it was happening, but until you see it, it’s not something, it turns out you’re not prepared for. According to their response, you know, and then I come into work yesterday morning. – So your wife hates it? – Oh, she hates it. – Ooh. – Her dad had a mustache for a long time. – Really? – And he occasionally still has one, and I don’t think she wants to be married to her dad. – Hmm. – That’s weird. – That says something about their relationship. I’m not gonna play psychologist here. – I just mean specifically, she doesn’t wanna marry her dad, it’s a pretty simple thing. – That’s a healthy thing. – It’s simple. – As a non psychologist, I can confirm that’s a thing. – Yeah, you don’t have to be a psychologist to know that’s not a good idea. Don’t marry your dad, dude. – But I think the interesting thing is that there are, there are cultural connotations associated with certain facial hair configurations. – Uh-huh? – Right, that is a fact, and it’s based on, it’s based on these principles that only exist in the context of culture, in other words, if an alien were to come down in his or her ship and meet you and you were the only human, they would just make an observation, (alien voice) has hair over lower hole, you know what I’m saying, that’s what they … – That ain’t the lower hole. – Lower hole of the face. – That’s the higher hole. – Face orifice, well, they wouldn’t be speaking English, but you get, I don’t know why they talk like a robot. – A robot, I don’t know either. – Because they are … – Has hair over lower orifice of facial … – In other words there would be no, like, must be fireman, they don’t know that, you know, they don’t know that yet. – Must be volunteer fireman. – Must be, there’s other things that … – Must be stuck in 80’s. – Well, there’s lots of things with people, there’s certain, you know, things that people think that you might be into if you have a mustache, stuff that we won’t even go into. – But my mustache isn’t that thin. – It doesn’t even matter, though, I’m saying that … – It’s taller than that. – You have to now deal with the perception that people have of people with mustaches. – My main concern is that, it’s, like, you look old, you look so much older, you look like a dad, well, first of all, I am a dad. – Who gave you that piece of advice? – My family, Christy said you look old, and I’m like, well, you know. – I am old. – Rhett has a beard, lots of people have beards now, and they no longer have a connotation of old or mountain men, but that was probably how it was before. – But think about when I cut my beard off for last season. – You did look … – I looked 24. – Right. – Like a baby. – But you with that beard doesn’t look as old as me with this mustache, but the reason why is not ’cause it ages you, it’s because culturally people associate it with their dads. Or I mean, I think we’re getting out of that now, I don’t think millennials’ dads have mustaches, or less of them did than like our dads. Had mustaches. – Well the thing is that … – My dad had a mustache. – Most people … – Which subconsciously is why I want a mustache. – Most people have mustaches now have ironic mustaches, so we haven’t gotten past irony when it comes to the modern mustache. – But a guy like Jason, who we’re about to have the conversation with … – That’s an ironic mustache. – He has an ironic mustache but he’s such a sincere guy that I don’t think … – He’s just cool. – Yeah, it’s just cool. – But I’m saying … – Why can’t I have that, why can’t this be, can this be ironic? – Well, that’s actually … – In real life? – Of course it can, I’m saying, it definitely is and that’s kind of what I wanted to say, if I were to meet you. – I don’t have to fight fires, I’m just concerned … – No, no, I’m saying that, and this is why I wanna have an extended, like, once we complete your look, okay, and whatever that’s going to be I think we have to have the conversation of what is the interpretation of the mustache because I think that we would both agree that we don’t want it to be interpreted as an ironic mustache. – I don’t totally agree with that. – But is it okay … – There’s a percentage. – Is it okay if it’s just this ambiguous thing? – Yeah. – Because … You know, okay, if I meet you in LA and I’m, like, okay, well his clothes fit, you know what I’m saying? You don’t have on, like, a NASCAR shirt that’s three sizes too big, not to pick on the NASCAR people, I’m just saying that if you’ve got a NASCAR shirt that’s three sizes too big and you got a mustache, it’s not an ironic mustache, I don’t care how hard you wish, it is, it’s not. – Right, you also have a volunteer fire department beeper on your belt. – Yeah, right, yeah, exactly, if you’re a volunteer fireman and you have a mustache you have a purposeful fireman’s mustache and I respect that, but it’s not ironic. – By the way, you know why? The smoke. – Mmhmm, it absorbs the smoke. – It filters the smoke, you still breathe the smoke, but you don’t breathe the bad parts of the smoke. – You know the real reason why firemen and policemen have mustaches? – Yeah, I just told you. – No, the real reason. – Yeah, I know that one, but I’m not gonna tell you. – The real reason is because it is the only facial hair that is allowed in many fire departments and police departments. – Regulations. – Beards are not allowed in the military or in most police forces. And probably fire departments. – And a man wants to have facial hair. – If I’m gonna have facial hair, man, well, where can I have it, okay, that’s where I’m gonna have it and so it became associated, it was actually, it was the result of a regulation that they had no say in, right, that then became a cultural association with people who do a certain vocation. – Mm, that’s sweet. – That’s crazy. – And I’m glad to be folded into that legacy. – No, but there’s nothing else about you that says fireman. – No, there’s not. – Nothing, right? – Well, I mean, if a fire started right here, I could probably put it out. – Yeah, but no better than me. – Well, let’s … – Let’s set a fire and find out. – Let’s not presume. – Can we do that? – Let’s not presume that I couldn’t do it better than you. I do have a mustache. – You do have an ironic mustache and that may be okay, I don’t think there’s any way that it’s not gonna be perceived as ironic, but how would you feel about yourself if you met yourself because I can tell you how I feel about you if I didn’t know you were growing it out for a role. I’d be, like, oh, this guy thinks he’s cool. – Oh, is that it? – This guy thinks he’s so cool, and of course, I would think the same thing about me if I saw a guy with my hair or whatever, and your hair too, you know. – Even the beard. – Yeah, even the beard in the context of where we live. That guy’s trying too hard, guy thinks too much of himself. Thinks he’s cool, cares too much about his face. – So you thought … – Spends too much time on himself in the morning, that kind of thing. – I’m flattered that you think no one would have thought that about me before the mustache. – I think they would have thought that, but they definitely think it, but I think it’s okay to think that, I kinda, I mean, I don’t want, I’m not trying to make it seem like I don’t care what I look like, I’m just trying to conceal it a little bit but when you do something that’s like and what I’m planning to do, what I’m planning to do, potentially, which I won’t reveal now … – Is kind of the same thing. – Is worse, is way worse than an ironic mustache. In terms of what people would conclude about me because of it, way worse, I would say on a scale of one to 10, when I’m planning on doing is a nine on the that guy is somebody I don’t want to have a conversation with, so why are we doing it? (clicks tongue) – Because it is cool. – Because we can. – I think because it is cool. I think it’s cool, I don’t, you know, it’s like, again, we get into why I have the tennis shoes I have in the thing, I give the reason. – You just made a clicking noise when you spoke. – I thought that was cool too, I think it’s cool to make a clicking noise. – How did you do that? – I think it’s cool to myself to make a clicking noise. – I’m gonna sound like an artifact from the microphone. – It was out of my mouth, I don’t know how I did it, but it was pretty cool, right? – Yeah, it was, now I think differently about your mustache. – I think we’re gonna be posting footage of us while … – Lots of footage. – Not from Buddy System but from the set of Buddy System and I think that will be the answer to your question, the question that we put out there is Link gonna have a mustache, like, well, you’ll find out. – And is Rhett gonna have something else that’s worse? – I’m thinking we’re gonna post those behind the scenes video moments on the This is Mythical channel so be subscribed to that. – But if we don’t, they’ll be somewhere. – I’ll just leave it at that. – We’re not gonna make any promises, it’s not a promise, it’s just an assumption that may change. – I like being a guy who has a mustache for a little bit of time because I know ultimately I will be a guy without a mustache. – Yeah. – I like being different. – Hmm. – Than myself. And most of the population who has more taste. – Hmm. – Part of being cool is that you throw taste out the window, you know, it’s, like, in spite of taste. – Yeah, people who are cool don’t even know it, the coolest people don’t even know it. – Yeah, I think Jason is one of those guys. – I think he is. – He was such a, like, we try so hard, we think about all this being cool crap. – Oh, we’re trying so hard. – It’s sad. – Yeah, it is a little bit. – We calculate so we can seem like we un calculate it. – Seem like you don’t care, care so much. – The dude just did a great thing. – He did, and we had a great conversation with him. – And he has a great mustache to go along with it. – He does, you’ll see it in a second and you’ll hear it because you can actually, if you just listen, you can hear the slight muffled sound because it’s coming through that. (men chuckle) That flavor saver. – It’s softened just the right amount by his ‘stache. – But first, we’re going to take a short break to let you know that we have pomade. – Hold on. We have mythical pomade, do they all come dented, why is that one dented? – I think this one may be dented because I don’t know, it wasn’t that way when i got it, it was that way when it fell out of my chair and rolled around on the ground – Did you drop it? – I did, well, dropping would mean I had possession of it. It was just in between my legs and then (pops lips) it popped right out. – You’re bad at possessing things between your legs? – Yeah, now the thing I wanna talk about this, you know we’ve had this mythical pomade for a while and it’s what we do to get our hair to look like it is, you already know we care too much about what our hair looks like. – You wanna be cool, here’s what we’re saying. – You wanna be super cool. – You wanna be super cool? Get this mythical pomade. – But the thing that we wanted to talk about today is the fact that this is also very good for the ladies, this is not just a men’s product just because the two of us are men, doesn’t mean that you have to be a man to use this product. There’s a lot of, a lot of the ladies around Mythical Entertainment actually use this to great effect because it’s light, it’s a light pomade. – It’s light on the scents. – It’s, like, a medium hold, but it also has a matte finish and so it’s just very versatile so we encourage even you ladies to check out mythical pomade, it’s, super high quality ingredients, all natural. – Make your hair mythical. – All that, get it at rhettandlink.com/store. – Do it. – And now on to the Biscuit. (upbeat music) I couldn’t help but notice your shoes when you walked in because I feel like that’s what people probably look at first. – Absolutely. – When you walk into a room. – If they know what you do. – But I didn’t look, like, directly at ’em, it was, like, staring at the sun, can’t look too long, I don’t wanna be, so what did you wear in here, what do we got? – I got the 97 Airmax in gold. – Just retro. – Can you put it up here? – How flexible are you, oh, just take the shoe off. (men laugh) – This is like my second time wearing them, so. – Really, and look at all that … – Hey, ask permission, man. – Oh, may I? – That’s Jason Markk. – Sorry. – Please. – Can he touch the shoe? – May I touch the shoe, I’ve already touched it twice, I’m blowing it. – Please do, please do. – Is there an etiquette? – Yeah, you’re only supposed to put your finger in the back loop, that’s all. – Well, for me, like, I don’t think, I’m not too, I’m like whatever. – You’re not too precious? – No, but when touching other people’s shoes, I’m conscious of, like, the oils in my fingers and like when, this shoe doesn’t have any really super delicate material in it. – That’s a subtle way of saying you’ve already violated the code, Link. – But if it was like a suede, I’m kind of just really particular about, like, oils might transfer onto the suede so I’m just gonna hold it from the midsole. – It’s like when you go to a hat shop, like, you know, I will buy the occasional fedora. – Are you talking … – Gorn brothers, and I … – What is that, you talking about lids? – I’m talking about like Gorn Brothers, like the hat hat shop, you know, there’s one in Pasadena, you know about Gorn. – Like a cowboy hat? – No, like, the fedoras or those that I wear. So I go in there, and for the longest time, I went in there and I was grabbing the hat on top of the hat and picking it up and moving around and then, like, the fifth time I was in the store, I saw a sign that says, please do not handle hats from the crown. – Crown. – You’re supposed to take the brim and hold everything from the brim, so what’s the, basically the equivalent of a brim of a hat is the … Sole of the shoe. – I don’t know if that’s etiquette, though, that’s sort of my personal thing, but I, you know. – You have the power to create etiquette. – (laughs) I don’t know about that. – That’s the beauty of it. – I don’t know about that, but. – But you did help create the way people think about the cleanliness of their sneakers. – Yeah, well, I mean, I think, like having clean sneakers just sort of goes hand in hand with being into sneakers, I didn’t create that, I think what I created was in some ways, it wasn’t to make shoe cleaning cool, like, you know, I guess, I guess it just kind of became that as well, I mean, what I wanted to do was create a shoe cleaner that was made specifically for, like, the sneaker culture and sneaker market. – And you’re talking about a cleaning product. – Cleaning product, yeah. – So just bring me up to speed, so what is you do, what’s the breadth of what your company does at this point, you clean shoes, you’ve got a product that cleans the shoes with it, like, what are all the facets of the business here? – So it started 10 years ago, and it started with a shoe cleaner, and that’s it, like, I had a shoe cleaner kit, it had like an eight ounce bottle of cleaner and it came with a brush and I had … – Because that did not exist. – No, well, shoe cleaner existed, it was just more of like mass market stuff, like stuff that you would just find in the mall. – Like you bought your shoes at Foot Locker and then at, the cashier’s, like, hey, let me just give you a little … – Never fails, exactly, yeah. – A little squirt bottle of this stuff. – Yeah, so that stuff existed. I’ve tried it and I’m sure, you know, a lot of people have but for me, I just personally didn’t trust that stuff because it was an aerosol can, it had this like spiky … – Cap. – Cap that acted, that was supposed to be a brush, and it was these sharp, like, I don’t know if you guys remember this but it was like super sharp bristles so, like, I just never, I mean, I’ve used it before back in the day but I usually resorted to just kind of making my own stuff at home. – You want your shoe back? – Yeah, that’d be good. – That’s a clean shoe, that is a sweet shoe. – I just thought of you sitting there with one sock on, I was, like, we can’t have, we can’t keep talking to Jason Markk, you got one shoe on. (man laughs) Give the man his shoe. – I kind of hoped he’d forget about it, I could keep one of his shoes. – Yeah, yeah. – You blew it, man. – He would have remembered when he started walking. – I was about to grab it and slowly start inching it to my side of the table. – Nah, I woulda noticed, he woulda noticed. – I would proudly wear one shoe if it was that shoe. – Yeah, okay. – So we should have discussed that ahead of time. – Okay, right, so the existing product was inadequate. – Well, I mean, yeah. – Well, it was scary, it was like a porcupine on top. – It was dangerous. – He spent hundreds of dollars on his shoe, this is like a prize possession and then they throw in this thing in your bag, like, a polyurethane porcupine. – That feels like an upsell, you know, it feels like an upsell anyway. – Definitely, and yeah, I remember the bristles used to break off and it just wasn’t the best product but I think for me at least the biggest thing was, like, sort of not trusting what’s in there, so I’d just go home and make my own like dishwashing soap, warm water, sometimes I’d mix, like, if it was like, to clean my laces, if they were white laces, I’d put ’em in like a little ziploc bag with like warm water, some dishwashing soap and some bleach and I’d shake it up and they’d get really bright white, but the thing is, after you put your laces back in, the bleach would have weakened the lace, and it would just, like, pfft. – Like hair. – It would just, so there’s certain things that, like, there’s certain tricks that everybody has. – So you were, so this was talking 10 years ago when you wanted this for yourself, were you a self described sneaker head at the time? – I mean, yeah, I was into sneakers, for sure. – You have like a vast collection back then? – I had a good amount of shoes, you know, I’m not like a, I still don’t consider myself, like, a collector per se, like, I just always been into shoes, everything that I buy, I wear immediately, it’s not like I flip ’em or buy multiple pairs and I have this like, I have a sneaker room now, but, like, I just used to have light boxes, you know, wasn’t anything like thousands of pairs. – Right, the funny thing is I think about, like, the way that we approached shoes growing up, you know, like, we grew up together, and especially as a kid, I think I didn’t understand the whole sneaker head thing until I became an adult because as kids what we would do is you’d get a new pair of shoes and then you would just wear it indiscriminately everywhere and it just got so dirty and you just knew how long you had the shoes by how dirty the shoes were. – But, like, when you played basketball, even in middle school, I remember, I wasn’t on the team, I kept score for the girls. – Right. – And they didn’t give me shoes. – You were close by. – You did not need any … – Scorekeeper shoes. – Specific type of shoes for that role. – You could have had slippers. – Yeah, I could have been barefoot, man. Which is good for your feet, I’m told. – He’ll say that. – Sorry. Clean your feet. – I clean ’em. – You gotta have shoes. – But I remember those first tennis shoes, not tennis shoes, basketball shoes that you had, you didn’t wear those out when you were off the court, did you? – I did, I did. – Just like running through the fields and stuff. – Now first of all, my son knew about you, bought your kit because he’s a sneaker head in my family and he’s also, he’s a basketball player now, he’s gone from diving to basketball, and so he’s got his shoe collection and he has his court shoes, and I was telling him the other day, I was, like, you realize that our coach would first of all, everybody on the team got the same shoes so now it’s like every player gets their own shoes and that’s not just something that’s happening in the NBA but now it happens in college and it also happens in high school now, but we had the team shoe, like the year that pumps came out we bought pumps, our whole team got the pumps. – That was big. – But I would wear those pumps, not only would I wear them to school, I would wear them when I played street ball in my front yard on my street on the like really rough gravel and then I would wonder why I was in a game I had no traction at all. – You’d be sliding around like air hockey. – And it’s like, I don’t know why no one told us how we should think about things, like, why didn’t my coach just say, you guys shouldn’t wear these shoes anywhere but this court because you need the traction that they were designed to have, it’s like, it just blew his mind that that was something that we did, but we didn’t understand shoes. – You know, honestly, like, I’d wear my shoes on the black court when I’d play in the gym, it was one of those things where it was just like, I wasn’t broke, but I didn’t have all the money in the world to buy all the shoes that I wanted to buy so I’d just wear ’em and try to keep ’em as clean as possible. – Which actually made it more important to keep your shoes, you know, they would get dirtier and you weren’t just gonna go out and buy another pair and another pair. – Right. – You were gonna get ’em clean – Right. – So were you always, like, meticulously cleaning and trying to figure that out? – Yeah, I mean, I think, just my personality is, I’m a little bit of a clean freak, you know, just even outside of shoes. – Me too. – You too. – Yeah. – I’m a bit OCD. – But you’re not a shoe clean freak. – I’m not, no, but in many things. – Because I think that most people think of it like okay, if I got a shirt and it’s got, like, a mustard stain on it, I’m, like, mm, can’t wear that, but then for some reason they believe that that rule stops at the ankle, right, and they’re, like, well, I got a weird grass stain on my shoe but. – Well, it’s a lot more pricey. – I wanna just help people understand the mentality behind seeing the cleanliness of shoes as being as important as the cleanliness of your shirt. – Absolutely, I mean, I think, the reason why, like, just to go back, when I created the logo, the original logo has a speech bubble in it, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it has a speech bubble in it, and the whole thought behind that was, like, your sneakers are an expression, a statement, like, basically, you don’t have to say anything and it’s sort of like you look at the person’s shoes and you’re like, okay, like, what’s up, you know, like, it’s, like, game recognize game type of thing. So keeping your sneakers clean, like, you couldn’t just walk out the house with busted sneakers because it just, it completes your whole outfit. – Right. – What you’re wearing, so. – And was that something that … – You don’t wanna look like a hobo from the ankle down, man. – Right. – So your group of friends, was it something that, like, everybody understood this, don’t go out of the house with busted shoes, or was this something that you kind of brought to … – No, it was sort of, like, amongst my peers, that were into shoes, you kept ’em clean as possible, as much as possible, and I think you know, the big thing with me was, like, growing up was playing basketball, like, I thought I was gonna be the first Asian, like, pro player, you know? Which, like, seeing … – Were you? (Jason laughs) – Far from it. (men laugh) I thought I was so good, I thought I was so good and I really was not that good, you know, I was, like, in the eighth grade, I remember just playing and just dribbling circles around my teammates and doing no look passes and everything and I get to high school and I remember trying out for the freshman basketball team and I was just, like, it was just a huge awakening that I really was not that good, I tried out, I went to summer, whatever summer camp, and then I didn’t make the team and then I tried out again for the sophomore team, I didn’t make the team and it was, like, okay, you’re really not that good. (laughs) – Ooh, but you can look good. – Yeah, it was just fun, it was, you know, that was a big part of growing up, was playing ball. – Yeah, I mean, that’s what got, and actually both of our kids are more into shoes than we are, that’s what got them into shoes is that we started taking them to, like, my kids were not into basketball at all which was my sport growing up, because like I said, Locke was into diving, there’s no shoes for diving. There’s just a little Speedo that’s kind of embarrassing to wear. – Hmm, keep it clean, though. – But taking him to the Clippers games, I know you’re a Lakers fan, Clippers fan, we won’t even talk about it, we won’t even, that’s … – You already brought it up. – And … – Because of that our boys got into basketball. – Yeah, they got into basketball, which leads you to shoes real fast. – It was actually getting an X-box and then they got … – 2K, NBA 2K. – Yeah, which they started playing the video game and then we started going to NBA games here. – But you start to see how all the businesses are so related, right, it’s like oh, gonna get you into this game and then you’re gonna wanna understand how to win the game because the game is so realistic, actually watching basketball happen is gonna help you play the game better, oh, I’m actually interested in this, what are these guys into, oh, they’re really into their shoes, they all, and now I’m into shoes, so now Locke has, I had to install these, like, two shelves next to his bed where he’s got, you know, all his shoes and then we had an agreement, I was, like, when you beat me in HORSE, I’ll buy you a pair of shoes and that finally happened, like, two months ago so then I had to buy him a pair of shoes, so it’s, like … – What did you get him? – What did he end up, actually, he went with us to … – He couldn’t pick out a pair. – To Riff LA. – Okay. – And he couldn’t pick out a pair. – He got stage fright. – Know what he did, he got, much to my disappointment, he got the Duke themed Ky Reese, and I’m an NC state grad, and my wife is a UNC grad, and he got the Duke themed Ky Reese. – Are they called the flat earthers? (group laughs) – No, but that’d be good, that’d be good. – Be good, it’s got like … – Squished earths. – No, you raise up the bottom and it’s got, like, a map, it’s got the earth on the bottom because it’s flat. – As it actually is, that’s good, incidentally, I tweeted Ky Ree a lot, whenever I see, like, a NASA video that shoes the roundness of the earth, I just at him just to remind him that is round. – And what does he say back? – He doesn’t say anything back. – Oh, he doesn’t. – No, Ky Ree has not responded. – Well, he’s busy. – He’s got some awesome shoes, though. – Got some great handles too. – That’s what we play ball every Wednesday, and that’s what I run in, the Ky Rees. – There’s three pairs at our house, my eight year old has a pair that he plays in during his basketball league and then Locke has two pair. – But how it did go from, you wanted to formulate your own cleaner just for yourself, or was it immediately a business idea? – Well, I’ve always been sort of like business minded, I always wanted to be my own boss, I’ve written, like, business plans that never really panned out, and I was cleaning my sneakers one night and I was using my homemade concoction or whatever and it was, like, I told you, it was a mix of Oxiclean, dishwashing soap, and warm water, and a toothbrush, and I was cleaning my shoes and I was, like, that was sort of the first aha moment. – Mmhmm. – There’s gotta be, I’m using household cleaners to, like, clean my shoes, there’s gotta be a better way so I didn’t know if, like, I wasn’t aware of something existing, specialized for the sneaker market, so I just … – Or if you were on to something. – Right, so I … Jumped around the internet, didn’t really see anything that was, like, special, I’d go to, like, sneaker lineups and tell my local sneaker shop, at that time, I was living in Harbor City so proper in Long Beach was, like, my spot and I’d go down there and just ask people, hey, what do you use to clean your sneakers and everybody had a recommendation, it wasn’t, like, oh, go use XYZ product, it was, like, take a white tip eraser, do this, use the Tide pen, oh, you know, if you do this and you mix that with this, and that’s when I was sort of like, okay, there’s something here now and so that was sort of the real aha moment. – So what was the next step, come up with a name or come up with a formula? – The formula. – Ooh. – So I’m not a chemist, you know, I, so the first, once I knew I had, like, the opportunity and idea there, what I wanted to create, I started googling chemist, like. (men laugh) – Really. – Chemist in my neighborhood, like, you wanted to show up and just … – You Yelped a chemist? – No, no. – Excuse me, it was 10 years ago. – It was, like, chemist Los Angeles, and then, you know, the language was, like, contract manufacturer, and I was, like, okay, contract chemist, and so, like, I would just, you know, that’s where I had met, like, my main chemist, but I went through two chemists before landing on him and being, like, okay he gets it, you know. – Well, how hard is it to get? Make something really good to clean shoes. – See, that’s the thing, that’s the thing is like, you would, so, the first guy that I had called said, yeah, come down, whatever, and I was trying to explain to him exactly what I wanted to do, my vision, like, you know, the first priority for me was making it safe so people don’t even have to think twice, like, oh, I gotta clean my sneakers, I’m just gonna grab that product and use it. – I might eat my sneaker later. – Yeah, so, that was the first thing and the guy was, like, yeah, shoe cleaner, I can make shoe cleaner all day, you could do your logo here, it was just, he wasn’t really trying to hear me out. – I got you. – And the same with the second guy, and then the third guy who I ended up going with, I remember, I called him, I was working my full time job, I was working in advertising, and I called him on my lunch break and we talked for, like, an hour and a half, and I was just, just talking about the vision and what I wanted to do and how important it was that it didn’t, you know, damage suede or that it didn’t turn the shoe yellow and I was trying to explain to him, there are so many different grades of suede and there’s patent leather and he was, like, what’s patent leather. – Oh, red flag. – Yeah, so it was just, you know, after speaking to him for like an hour and a half, I set up a meeting and I remember I brought in like five or six different pairs of shoes and we sat in his office and it was just, like, educating him on, like, materials, which is a trip, the next step was I went out and bought, like, every shoe care product that I can find that was on the market that I didn’t even use, it was just, like, pfft, like, here you go, here’s what’s on the market and here’s, like, my vision and direction, this is what I wanna create and it was just off to the races from there. – And how long did it take to develop the secret formula? – It took about, I wanna say less than six months, it wasn’t, it was a lot of testing, like he’d, he’d give me like three or four different samples to take home and then I’d go test ’em and then I’d write my notes and feedback, like, oh, you know, I wanted it to foam more, it doesn’t clean that well on rubber, or vulcanized soles or different types of things and I’d write it back and I’d give him the feedback and then, like, another two, three weeks later he’d be, like, oh, I got some more samples for you, come pick ’em up. – And then once you had what you had decided was the final formula, like, what was the transition from quitting your day job to kind of chasing this dream? – Once I had the formula, I, that’s when the fun stuff, like, it was the formula and then picking the color and picking the smell and then, like. – What was it called? – It’s called Jason Markk, it’s my first and middle name, but, so that was all, like, I’m pretty creative minded, so that was where I, like, fit, I was, like, okay, now I can call it this and I had some really … – You took that advertising mind. – Yeah, just, like, it was just, I felt, that was, like, my zone, you know, so. – There’s very few things that are as satisfying as if you’ve got an advertising mind, taking that and applying that to something that you’re trying to sell, as opposed to taking all that energy and trying to sell somebody else’s product that you may not believe in. – Right. – There’s something different about that. – Right, I think, I know, yeah, exactly, just that it was mine, you know, I really took the time to really think it through and I had some cheesy names. And … – Like what, do you remember? – I think the one that … – Jason no more marks? – Oh, that’s good, no more marks. – I think the one that was like the front winner which I think back now is really cheesy, but I was in college, sneak peak, like, sneaker, like, sneak, and peak like a mountain, like keep ’em in peak conditions. – Sneak peak. – Sneak peak. – It’s not that bad, but I mean … – Yeah, I remember. – You could have like a creepy dude looking over a fence, no. – Using the name, though, it almost makes it seem like a premium product in some way, it doesn’t seem like a gimmick product when you put your name on it. – It doesn’t, and I remember the exact, like, morning where it kind of dawned on me, oh, use your name was I was brushing my teeth and I go to open the medicine cabinet … – With it, with the product? – No, not with the product, I’ve actually tasted the product. – You have any, I’d love to taste it right now. – It’s not very good tasting, I would not recommend it. – It probably tastes great compared to some of the stuff we’ve been fed around here. – That’s true. – Oh, yeah, I opened the medicine cabinet and I had a Paul Smith, like, bottle of lotion or face cream or something, and I was, like, oh, Paul Smith, that’s the designer’s name, you know, like, that’s pretty, like, timeless, I guess, it’s not trendy, so I was, like, oh, I’m gonna call it, and my middle name is Mark but it’s spelled with one K and the reason I added the extra K was I wanted it to be kind of easy to search, like, I don’t know how many Jason Mark with one K there are in the world, but with two Ks, probably not that many. – Yeah, that’s important, man, that’s important, that keyword thing, SEO. – Gotta keep googling. – Gotta get that SEO going. – So you had that and you know, you’re working on all of your marketing mojo, but then you’ve gotta, like, you’ve got, like, a nest egg that you’re investing into manufacturing or something? – No, to raise money, I, this was 2000, I launched the company in 2007 and the development and all that was, like, 2006, and I remember I put together, like, this Powerpoint deck and I invited my family over. (Link laughs) I was living with my parents, but I invited, like … – So you invited them into the living room. – Yeah. (laughs) – You guys come over. – I had, like, you know, my favorite auntie and, like, my sisters and their husbands, and we had dinner, I cooked dinner for them. – Oh yeah. – They knew something was up, you know, it was this weird… – Why are you getting us drunk? – (laughs) And then I remember, like, busting out my laptop and like walking them through my presentation, and I raised, like, I don’t know, like, 15 thousand dollars, like, my sister would give me, like, five, my parents gave me, like, whatever, I remember it amounted to, like, 120 and that’s what I had to work with. – That’s awesome. – For, like, website and the first production run. – Well, you know, if you believe in something that you’re doing and you can convince the people that love you and have the means to support it to support it, that’s … – I mean, I believed in it for sure. – That’s the way to do it. – I just figured … – What are they gonna do, de-family you? – Yeah. – I think that’s called disown. – No more Powerpoints, yeah, they’re gonna ban you from Powerpoints in the living room. – Yeah, so. – It didn’t happen. – No, it didn’t happen, they supported me and they still do very much support, yeah. – So you made your first batch. – Right. – Or you had it made. – I had it made. – And then, I mean, what’s the strategy, how does this thing get from … – Yeah, so I think the first production run, the minimum was, like, 2500 units or something like that if I remember correctly, and back when, when I launched it, it was packaged in this mini sneaker box and I remember, I had like a filling, pizza party, like at my sister’s house and I got pictures somewhere but it was just, like, you know, three or four six foot tables and it was literally, like, us filling bottles by hand, we had those, you know those Gatorade, like, those orange Gatorade, like, at soccer games? – Yeah, like a cooler. – We go to Home Depot and I remember I got two of those and I got, like, a piece of rubber hose that would, like go onto the spigot and it would just prevent, like, foam, so you just put the hose in the bottle and you’d, like, fill each one and so we had, like, a filling party, we had, like, an assembly line, people making, like, mini sneaker boxes, I ordered pizza and … It was fun, it was fun, you know, it took, back in the day it used to take me, like, a 2500 unit run would last me, like, a whole year. (laughs) Which … – And you would sell it out of your house or sell it out of, like, the sneaker shops? – No, I, so basically what I did, before I even quit my job, I think going back to that question was, I had the product but I didn’t launch it officially and I felt like I might need to have some sales skills so my younger brother at the time, he was selling kitchen cutlery, you know, like, one of those when you go to campuses and people hand you, like, those flyers and it’s, like, yo, need a job? – Door to door knife sales. – Like literally, Cutco, yeah, shout out to Cutco. – We’ve had a couple of Cutco situations. – I still use Cutco because that guy Joey came to my house, man. – Joey came to my house, man. – Selling me Cutco. – Thought he was gonna cut me. That was his tactic. – I’ve had ’em for 16 years, I had ’em sharpened last year. – Well, Joey would break out the knife and like, (clicks tongue) he would threaten you with it, that’s how I bought the whole fricking set. – But no, he had that thing, that clencher moment in the presentation where he would cut a penny with those scissors. – That’s the one. – And I was, like, I gotta get these scissors, how am I gonna cut my pennies if I don’t get the scissors? – Yeah, yeah, yeah, gotta cut those pennies. – Oh, man, so … – Yeah, I basically quit my advertising job and then I … – But you got, your brother was a knife salesman, you got him to be a … – He was a salesman and he had his own, like, office in Torrance, like, he was running his own thing. – Selling lots of knives. – He had people selling selling for him. – Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I saw his sales manual one day and I was just like flipping through it and it was, like, the ABCs of selling, like, how to handle objections, and I was, like, this is really good stuff like, I might need … – It helps when you have a sharp knife, that’s step one with handling objections. – Yeah, just, I was, like, yo, I wanna learn how to sell, so he hired me, it was funny, I had to go through this whole interview process, and he hired me for a summer … – Oh, you didn’t hire your brother, you asked him to hire you so you could learn. – He had me, it wasn’t just, like, you got the job, it was, like, I remember sitting in the, it was, like, this bungalow, it was, like and there was like three people ahead of me and they were all there for interviews, and it was, like, my brother, dude, just hire me, what are you … – I can cut a penny, man. – So you sold knives to learn how to sell shoe cleaner? – Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I just, never, well, maybe I did use some of the knowledge that I picked up, but yeah, so I sold knives for a summer, I almost sold like 30 thousand dollars worth of knives and at that point, I was, like, okay, I’m done, like, I’m good, yeah, I’m pretty good, I don’t need to, like, you know, so I quit, I was only there for like, three, four months, and then, okay, so I had the product, and then before I quit, before I quit my job at the advertising agency I, like, hit up all my homies that were in the creative departments, like, the designers and I was just, like, yo, I’m gonna quit in like two weeks, would you help me, like, design logos and stuff, and they were, like, yeah, so I just kind of like built a team there before I left and then yeah, so I had the logo, I had the name, I had the packaging, and actually the guy that is my main creative director today is the guy who designed my logo 10 years ago. – You got him, he came with you. – Yeah, so he’s been on the whole, he’s seen the whole thing, he designed the logo and he’s designed every piece of packaging that we’ve done in the last 10 years. – And at this point it’s moved well beyond selling the individual packs, right? – Well, I didn’t, right, so I didn’t even launch yet, but what I did was I created, I knew how to create a press kit, like, from advertising and whatnot and my best friend was a graphic designer and I remember … – So basically which is a swag box that you send to people who can, like, talk about how great it is. – Yeah, yeah. – Write articles and stuff. – Yeah and you had to have pretty good quality pictures, all that stuff, so I remember we shot the pictures in his garage and had, like, IKEA lights and I gotta find the originals, but they were so photoshopped because, like the lighting was bad and the shadows, but it worked, so I put all this stuff into a press packet and I just remember, this was 2007, so I remember hitting up all the blogs, it was, like, Hype Beast, Slam Hype, Mr. Kim says, it was, like the Jeff Staples of the world and those guys that had blogs and I just would hit them up, like … – Those are sneaker heads, just like … – Yeah, just like sneaker, like street wear blogs and I would just email the info line, like, hey, my name is Jason, I’m starting this company, I have this product, can I send you out a kit and so a lot of them were, like, yeah, and back when it was easy, it was, like, yeah, and before they even got it, oh, well, we’ll post it, I sent them, emailed the thing, and then, we’ll post it on this day at this time and I’m like holy shit, like, this is super cool, and they did, like, they really just, so when it launched, I was prepared to go door to door if I had to go door to door and when it launched it got on all the blogs and I got tons of emails from around the world, like, instantly it was global. And I didn’t even have a website, I had a splash page with, like, it had a logo and you click it and it would open, like, an info, email info@jasonmarkk.com and you would just, like, type, so I remember it launched. – So you couldn’t take people’s money? – Mmmm. – Just emails. – And what’s funny … – Those are fun. – Just emails, and I would be processing these orders via email, like, how many kits did you want and that’s gonna be 25 dollars and then I was, like, I was the customer service guy, I was the shipping guy, I was everything. – And their pen pal, potentially. – Yeah, and their pen pal. Yeah, so it was crazy, it was, I was in the South Bay, southern California, and I thought, you know, I’m gonna launch it here and I’ll probably have to drive up to San Francisco, just thinking about, like, accessible cities, maybe San Diego and just if I had to go hustle and I never, thank God, never really had to go door to door, it was just, stores from around the world saying, I wanna carry your product. – Right. – And there was no product out there yet. – Yeah. – It was just based off of, I guess, the branding, packaging and the press kit I guess and all the press that it got. – At what point, didn’t, at some point you expanded to where there was actual cleaning service, right, when did that come along? – That was about three years ago. – How did that? – So six years after your launch, six or seven years. – Yeah, seven years. – Expanded. – Yeah, seven years and it was, I wanted to open a store, like, a physical store because we had a pretty good loyal following on social media and people would follow us and do all that, but I just felt like, it was this, I remember how the store came up because I was doing a trade show in Vegas, it was like Agenda, or might have been Magic or one of the ones and I remember, we had a great show, and I remember sitting there and I was sitting with our marketing guy … – Now, like, for the trade show, are you like, you got one of those microphones and you’re, like, all right, step right up, hand me your shoes, I can make any shoes clean, see? – That’s not very cool. – That’s not cool, I don’t think that would work. – You’re not gonna get the right clientele doing that. That’s for old ladies. – They gave us a free booth. – Old ladies got money, old money’s worth just as much as new money. – Old ladies got old dirty shoes. – Different type of trade show. – Yeah, we just, we had a booth and it was just such a great reception and I was just, like, what do we do now, and for some reason it was, like, let’s open a store, that’s the next thing to do is open a store. – And had you expanded the product offerings beyond that initial kit? – Not really, I mean, I remember for the first five or six, seven years we literally had, like, five SKUs and I just, we had, like, the towel, we had two brushes, we had the cleaner, and I think we did, like, a handful of collabs at that point with like really, like, cool sneaker shops, like, Undefeated was the first one that we did and we did Nort, that was a New York based sneaker boutique, and then we did Staple Design and then it was just, like, collabs were, and we still do several collabs now. – So, like, give me an example, like what kind of product is it? – It was just, like, I remember the first Undefeated one, we basically just took the kit, it was an eight ounce bottle and a brush, little mini sneaker box, and they just, like, they just flipped everything about it, so, like, the packaging and the pattern and the color of the bottle and the scent and the labels and we just did, like, a limited run of 1000 pieces and then from there that kind of just, like, we were off and running. – It in and of itself became a collector’s item. – Yeah. – When you did that. – Limited edition stuff. – Pretty cool. – Yeah, this was 2007. – But then when you wanna make a store, so that’s the next step, it was not just to sell the product but also to be an epicenter for a service? – No, like, the concept for the store was simply to create a space where people can come and experience the Jason Markk brand, like, past the computer, you know, it was just, like, what are these guys into, what are they listening to, like, sights, smells, like let’s talk sneakers, and it was really a place to buy product, and then, like, as I was designing the space out, we had this, we called it the JM throne, it’s, like, this old school shoe shine chair and we had one of them and we got it made in Atlanta and it was, like, being sent to different stores, we did a popup shop at Reedspace, where we had the chair and people would come and get free, we call ’em quick cleans, and then, like, it was just gaining, I guess popularity, okay, they saw it at Reedspace and they wanted it wherever, so this chair would just travel and the experience that people would get was just, like, I don’t know if you’ve ever got your shoes cleaned before, but it is sort of like a, I don’t know, it definitely is an experience, it just feels like, I don’t know, comforting. – Yeah, I don’t think … – I’ve never had … – A shoe shine. – A shoe shine or a shoe clean, but I was told that it’s, like, it feels kind of like a massage. – It is, it’s very therapeutic. – Like a spa therapy. – Especially when you don’t have a shoe on. – Uh, no. – It’s even more like a massage. – That is a massage. – That’s just a foot massage. – That’s just a foot massage. – With shoe polish. – Yeah, it’s like, that’s just a weird fetish. – That’s something different. I probably shouldn’t have brought it up. – That’s just a foot massage. – Right, but this is something that you offered. – Yeah, so we were just doing it. We were just doing the chair tour, I guess, and as we were designing the store, I’m, like, okay, well, I want the chair, it’s become sort of, goes hand in hand with the Jason Markk brand, I want the chair in the front of the store, and then I was like, well, why don’t we just do a service and I really underestimated it at that point, I didn’t think I had this big, like, oh this is the next thing. – Yeah, just a cool idea, just the next step in an evolution of what you were doing with it, people were resonating with it. – It totally makes sense though because … – In retrospect. – You’ve got people who like the idea of cleaning their shoes and then there’s a much wider circle which is people who just like to have clean shoes. You know what I’m saying? But am I gonna actually, like, you would probably be, like, okay, I’m gonna take this afternoon and I’m gonna clean these shoes and that’s gonna be fun and I’m gonna be like, can I get somebody to do this? So I mean that, it just totally makes sense to me that if you care about that, and especially if you know that you’re not doing a good job and there’s somebody who’s a professional that had the right product. – But you had the chair in the store and it was still just like part of the experience of being there, it wasn’t part of the service yet. – No, it was just meant to be like the Instagram moment. Like, oh, I’m at the Jason Markk store, let me go sit in the JM throne and get my snap on, you know, my IG on and that’s what it was, the chair was there for. And then I started thinking, like, oh, well, why don’t we just do some kind of drop off cleaning service and totally, again, just really underestimated the whole thing and it’s kind of grown into this thing where it’s just, like, I never would have thought, I just didn’t even expect that it would be what it is now. – Because at this point you’ve got celebrity clients who, like, you’re their guy. – Yeah, yeah, we’ve had, you know, we’ve had a fair amount of celebrities come in, a lot of basketball players, we’ve had DeAndre Jordan come in, we’ve had Jordan Clarks in, we’ve had Swaggy P come in, PJ Tucker, who’s a big sneaker head. We’ve had, like, hip hop artists, you know, we’ve had, Kelly Rowland come in, like, two days in a row. – Really. – Yeah. – Came back from … – Different shoes, though. – Different shoes. – Not just saying, I’m back, had a rough night, I’m back. – But the typical experience, if I were to go in there, I would drop ’em off and then come back and pick ’em up like a dry cleaner. – Yeah, exactly. – Okay. – As simple as that, it’s just … – So you gotta take another pair of shoes to wear out, Link, just planning ahead for you. – I would probably maybe carry them in a bag into you and not have to change my shoes in there. – Most people do that. – That’s a better strategy, shoulda thought of that. – I’m a strategic thinker. – Yeah, so it’s just this, to put it simply, like, that’s how I explain it to people, it’s dry cleaning for sneakers. – Are there, are the people in the back who are cleaning, are they doing something different than I could do at home with your product, is it a special thing or is it the same thing? – They use, it’s the same product but what it is is they’ve, like, come up with different techniques and methods how to … – Technique. – It’s serious, it’s, like, a real thing. – I believe it. – We encourage people to like buy the product, obviously, like, go buy the product, do it at home, but a lot of times people have that really special pair, whether it has a big, you know, monetary value to it or sentimental value, and they just don’t wanna, they are just like, I don’t wanna mess it up, I’d rather have you guys do it, and so we get that a lot. – So I imagine that most people are bringing in their prize possession shoes, it’s not like normal people are just, like, I got these nasty Keds. – We get it all, that’s the thing. – Nasty Keds. – And I think, part of the reason why … – Velcro. – No, we get it all, we get, like, just your basic whatever sneaker and we even get, like, the designer, Balenciagas, we get St. Laurent, we get all the crazy, plus really rare, like, really rare sneakers as well and then we just get, we get everything. – What’s the most, something I learned, just going into Riff, because you’re right down the street. – Right across the street. – Right across the street, going down there with Locke and seeing, like, this special case with the, I think they had a 17 thousand dollar pair in there at one point. – What? – It was those green … – Oh, yeah, the Undefeated fours? – Yeah. – Yeah, and that was, no, no, it wasn’t the Undefeated fours it was the Eminem fours, and it was, like, I think it was like a size 14 and it was apparently, don’t quote me on this, but apparently the only one in the world, I don’t know, it was, like, really rare, but yeah, we get stuff like that. – Yeah, and at that point it seems like it’s, like, painting restoration, you know, like, you’ve got the lady who took that old picture of Jesus and made him look like an owl, remember that from a couple years ago? (Link laughs) Remember that, because we actually, I knew a guy who … – I know you just didn’t owl-ify Jesus. – Worked at a museum, and specializes in painting restoration and preservation, and of course, you know, they come in there and there’s a million dollar painting and it’s, like, you have to use the right chemicals and everything, it’s a slightly less expensive version of that, but you are dealing with people’s, like, babies. – We are, and that’s the sort of nerve wracking thing, like, especially during the first year, because it was, like I again underestimated the whole thing, like, we just, you know, we didn’t realize how, I didn’t realize how fulfilling it would be, I thought it was just, I thought it was a service that people may or may not use, it goes hand in hand with the brand, we offer a cleaning product, and we’ll clean shoes and you know, we’ll use our product and it’s an icebreaker, oh, have you used our product, it’s just a thing. – But it became fulfilling when someone hands you their baby and then it comes back … – Seeing the reaction was the craziest, the craziest thing. – But then there’s also, like, you got people in tears, like, you gave me my Jordans back and they look beautiful. – We had one customer who actually was brought to tears, and it was … – I love it. – It was a pair of ’85 Air Jordan ones, OG, and I guess they were in a, they were her dad’s, and she found them in a shack or backyard shack and they were, like, super beat up, and it was, father’s day was coming up and she asked us to, you know, bring ’em back and I remember this was, like, maybe six months of being open or something, so I had told, it’s not even about, like, churning out shoes, like, I told my staff, like, just make sure the customer’s happy, that’s it, I don’t know, like, we’re supposed to be spending a certain amount of time on a certain service, you know, that’s a business, like, you’re making margin and all that, I just threw that all out the window, especially for the first year, like, I just want you to focus on doing a great job, I don’t care if you take two hours to clean the pair of shoes, like, I don’t care. And they did and they brought these Jordans back and she had come to pick ’em up and she was literally, like, brought to tears, and I had just happened to be there, like, behind, we have this cubby system where the shoes and I just happened to be kind of like watching, I was like holy … – You’re, like, this is all worth it. – Can you imagine how much the dad bawled? I bet he was in tears, too. – Probably, and like, my guys, they were just, like, you should go buy this acrylic case and giving her tips on how to present it to him. – Are there people who bring in, maybe it’s a Ked or maybe it’s a high dollar shoe … – You’re stuck on Keds, do you have a pair of Keds? – I love Keds, I stepped in something bad, and I stepped all the way in it … – Like stepped in some dookie? – Just, like … – Dookie steps. – How bad does it get? – That’s at least 12 dollars. – The worst pair of shoes we’ve ever gotten were a pair of Bapes and they were covered in blood. – What? – Soaked in blood. – Like real blood? – Yeah, real blood. – Like from a what. – So he had a fourth of July accident and he, like, almost blew off his hand and he was a friend … – Like, firework mishap? – Yeah, I met the guy, so he was a friend of my main guy that was kind of like running, we call him, sneaker care technicians is something that we came up with, for short, SCT, and he was, like, my lead SCT and he was like, oh, I got this homie and he’s got this pair of Bapes and they’re bloody and like, I wanna bring them in and I wanna do before and after, and I’m, like, how, is it evidence? (Link laughs) – Before, very bloody. – Is it evidence. – He was, like, no. – That’s a good question. – Yeah, like, you know, he’s, like, nah, nah, my friend, he had an accident, I’ll intro you and stuff so I remember he came to the shop and you know, I met the dude and it was, like, his hand was still kind of swollen, like, it had healed okay, but you could tell something had happened. – Like blown up in there. – Yeah, yeah, so. – Light it, throw it. Or set it down, then light it, then run away. – Yeah, don’t hold it. – Or don’t purchase at all, or light, or throw. I’m just saying. – You’re talking about fireworks? – I’m talking about fireworks now, right. But who am I to say, I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, so did you go for it, did you say yes? – Yeah, I was, like, okay, well, as long as they’re not, like, you know, again, like evidence for some crazy that we were gonna be mixed up in. (Link laughs) Okay, I met the dude, I was, like, all right, and I was like, just make sure you wear protective, you know, gloves and make sure you’re all covered up. – Hazmat. – And they did, and it was just, like, they brought the pair back, it looked brand new, honestly, and luckily it was, like, it wasn’t, I don’t think the shoe had any suede on it or anything absorbent. – Right. It would have been completely ruined. – But it was, but the sock liner and everything, it wasn’t just on the outside of the shoe, it was, like … – What did he do, clean himself up with his shoes? – It was … – Desperate times. – I’m gonna stick my hand in my shoe like it’s a glove and now I’m gonna do it with the other one. What about stanky shoes, like, how often is it, like, this is an awesome pair of shoes, but the real problem is the stink foot? – Yeah, we get a lot of those. – And do you have, like, a powder? – We do a combination of things. If it’s really bad … – Asking for a friend. – (laughs) If it’s really bad, like, we’ve even stuck ’em in the freezer overnight to kind of kill all the bacteria and we currently use this antibacterial, like, it’s pretty, it’s this brand called Rita and they’re out of Japan, and it’s this kind of like really elevated fragrance company that makes a shoe spray, so that’s what we use. – But it, so if you’ve got the stanky Keds, you can put ’em in the freezer. – You can. – And it will … That makes total sense. – That’s what we used to do in our first year. Now it’s just, like, really giving it a thorough, like, really taking out the insole and really giving the whole inside and you know, giving it a good spray. – If I may. – Uh oh. – I’m wondering, this is my shoe, I just took it off my right foot, I would like for you to just, I’ll give you the left one too, just assess, I mean, what does this say about me that I’m wearing these shoes, and based on, you know, profile me and then profile the shoe, tell me everything you know about me and the shoe based on this. – I mean, as far as, I mean, it’s a dope shoe, I mean, it’s, what are these, are these the, I don’t even know exactly what … – He knows, though, he knows, though. – Bonos. – I know they’re a trainer. They’re in pretty relatively good shape. – Pretty relatively. – Pretty relatively good shape. – That means not great, Link. – I don’t know too much about ’em, all I know is I watched that documentary Sneaker Heads, and in the middle of it, I said, I turned to my family because we were all watching it, I was, like, man, these people are obsessing about their sneakers, this is kind of inspiring, I never got too into sneakers but I remember I had one pair that I was, like, the Bo Jackson Bo Knows shoes I really wanted, and my dad got ’em for me for my birthday, I think. – You wore those things everywhere. – And I remember when I got ’em, I remember opening the box, I remember taking ’em out, it was like the only pair of shoes that I obsessed about wanting, and I was, like, and I am gonna do something I never do, I’m gonna make an impulse buy, I’m gonna go on the internet, I’m gonna find ’em, I’m gonna order some right now. – ‘Cause these are originals, right? – I don’t even know, I … – Was that a reissue? – That’s, like … – That’s definitely a reissue, yeah. – Yeah, I did not, to me, it wasn’t, I was tempted to be, like, all right, do I want, I bet you can get the original, bet they’ll cost a lot of money, I bet they’ve reissued ’em if they have, I’m not gonna, this is for me, I’m not gonna, like, obsess about what this will beat anybody else or if they’re actually valuable, and I was, like, I’m just gonna make an impulse buy and I’m gonna enjoy it and so … – That’s how it should be. – I assume that these aren’t actually valuable to anybody except me as a reissue … – No, but I think, like, walking down the street and another sneaker dude will sort of recognize, like, the, you know, those are the Bo Knows, sort of just a head nod, like, it’s a classic shoe. I think it’s, you know, for me, like, classic silhouettes, I don’t go, that’s when you mentioned, oh, I don’t know how much these are worth or if there’s much hype, but I always wear what I like. – I love these. – I mean, if it’s … – Gratuitous velcro strap that’s useless. – It’s gotta offer some support on the foot. – I read about ’em a little bit right after I ordered ’em and one of the reviews said, they’re not, I wouldn’t recommend wearing ’em for cross training now. – But this is the, I think this is the first cross training shoe. – First cross trainer. – Yeah. – Had to start somewhere, Bo. – Are they dirty enough to be cleaned already? – Oh yeah. – I mean, yeah, I mean, this would be, like, if you brought these into the shop, this would be like a 10 dollar clean. – Yeah. – [Rhett] Well, you should just take ’em with you. – And they would look, you know, you would definitely be happy, it’s not, like, oh, I could, you know, we, just because it’s a classic clean, our basic clean, it’s not like we just take a few minutes on it. – This would be cool to do a before and after. – Can I sit on the throne? – You can definitely sit on the throne with these. – I mean, is there a, is there still a, like, clean ’em while they’re on your foot service in the store? – We don’t have that currently, but we could make that happen, like, what we do with the throne is, like, we just had our three year anniversary last week, and we’ll do just free quick cleans, like, you jump up there and we’ll clean your shoes for you. – So what’s next for you, I mean, you’ve got this knack for knowing where there’s a need and then, I mean, it’s, creating things that are just hits, I mean, what’s the next one, what are you doing? – I think for our 10 year anniversary, you know, we’ve got a whole new line of product coming out, so we’ve been working really hard on that, I’m really excited about that, so in the next, you know, month or two you start to see some of those drops happening. Definitely looking to expand the service in the retail, we only have the one right now in Little Tokyo, but I’m looking at New York. – And you’ve got an event coming up in New York that I think we won’t be, this won’t be live before that, right, don’t you have, there’s like some popup thing that you’re doing in New York? – We … – Or is this something that you did do in New York, maybe? – We’ve had a number, I think, yeah, we’ve had, last year we did two popups in New York, and so we always have something going on in New York, whether it’s like an active one day or two day thing at a retailer or something like that, but yeah, we had a couple popups last year and I’m looking for a space to have a permanent flagship. – Okay. – Well, I’ll tell you man, we really appreciate you coming in, I mean, it’s been really inspiring to hear all that you’ve developed and all you’ve done, you know, even if you’re not into sneakers, like, I’m very much into Bo Jackson sneakers. – Yeah, you’re into one particular pair of sneakers. – I think that there’s lots to be inspired by so congratulations on all the success. – Thank you. – And thanks for coming in, man. – Yeah, I really appreciate you guys having me. – We’ll come down and sit on the throne just to feel like kings. – Please, please do, that would be dope if you brought those pair of Bos in and we did a before and after or something, that’d be cool. – Let’s do it. (upbeat music) – There you have it, our Ear Biscuit with Mr. Jason Markk. – Were you inspired by his story, it was inspiring, right? – Yeah, I’ve got lots of ideas right now. – Do you? – Yeah, yeah, yeah, one thing I said about the shoe shine with no shoe, that’s a foot massage, I got a lot of ideas about that. – The shoeless shoe shine. – You draw people in. – Who wants a shiny foot, man? – No, it’s about the massage, but it’s for men who are self conscious about getting foot massages but are going in for the shoe shine and you get ’em in there, you shine the shoe and then you say, hey, look at that cool bird. – Shoe starts coming off. – You get him to look at something, and then you … – I said shoe shart, I meant to say shoe starts. – Yeah, shoe shark coming off, you get ’em to shart, maybe that’s what you do and then you pull the shoe off and you start massaging, now I’m not gonna do it, I don’t, I’m not into that, I got strong hands but I’m not really into touching people’s feet. – I like birds. – I do like birds, and anyway … – I’m susceptible to birds being pointed out to me. – It was inspirational, inspirational conversation to a guy who just said, I got an idea and now I’m going to, so many people, so many people just talk, they just wah wah wah, like babies just talking and never saying anything, I’m gonna do this, you wait, Jason Markk did it, he did it. – Make a Powerpoint and invite your aunt over, make her dinner. – Quit talking about what you’re going to do. – And start cleaning. – And do it, okay? Quit talking, make a Powerpoint. – Listen, they were already inspired. – I’m just saying. – You don’t need to shame ’em. – People just talk, they just do a lot of talking. – Not you. – Somebody out there, somebody. – Not you. – You, you’re a talker. – We believe in you. – Become a doer. – You’re great at Powerpoint. – At least do the Powerpoint for the person who’s gonna do something. – Let us know what you think at #earbiscuits. – Oh, you went with @ #earbiscuits, I don’t even think that’s a thing, but I know what you mean, I understand. – Oh, just do it okay? – Yeah, you know how to do it. – I apologize for him, we’ll speak at you next week. (upbeat music) – [Rhett] To hear this Ear Biscuit in its entirety so you don’t miss a thing, follow the links in the description to Art19, Apple podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere else podcasts are available. – [Link] To watch more Ear Biscuits, click the video on the left. – [Rhett] To watch more from This Is Mythical, click the video on the right. – [Link] And don’t forget to subscribe by clicking the circular icon. – [Rhett] Thanks for being your mythical best.