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[00:00.67] So you've probably figured out by now that I'm not actually here to sell you keys to a car.

[00:06.52] Today I'm here to talk to you about bad ideas.

[00:08.91] The kind of ideas that typically die on the vine because reason or work colleagues get in the way.

[00:16.08] But to me, these are the most exciting ideas because you just never know what might happen.

[00:21.66] Take these crazy-looking shoes, for example.

[00:24.31] I think it was like the spring of 2023.

[00:27.24] My colleagues and I were sketching out the initial prototypes of the Big Red Boot.

[00:30.96] I remember us being equal parts terrified because, of course, like, who's going to wear these, much less spend money on them?

[00:37.33] But at the same time, the moment that we put on the initial prototypes ourselves --

[00:41.85] We were filled with such a chaotic sense of glee that we were like, you know what, we just got to do it.

[00:49.29] So we committed to making a couple hundred pairs, we priced them at 350 dollars and we just prayed that there would be a few hundred people out there in the world who would spend money on these crazy-looking things.

[00:59.91] So a week before the drop, we leaked this image through a friend's Instagram account.

[01:05.49] Again, just hoping that people don't hate it, or even worse, that they don't ignore it.

[01:10.27] In hindsight, we needn't have worried.

[01:12.40] The algorithm smiled quite fondly upon the Big Red Boot, and all of a sudden this thing was everywhere.

[01:17.97] Like, I don't even, I can't even.

[01:21.96] It's basically like a blur.

[01:22.76] I don't understand what happened.

[01:25.15] All of a sudden, people were wearing them courtside at NBA games.

[01:27.54] I saw Lil Wayne wearing them in a music video.

[01:30.99] I remember my dad calling me and saying, "Hey, Gabe, there's a professional WWE wrestler wearing your boots on live pay-per-view TV.

[01:37.90] And he just curb stomped another guy."

[01:40.29] It's incredible.

[01:43.74] And yet we almost didn't do it.

[01:45.07] This is almost where it ended.

[01:46.66] Just as an internal project on the cutting room floor.

[01:49.32] People told us it was not a great business decision.

[01:52.51] And honestly, I get it.

[01:54.10] But what started as a bad idea ended up becoming a very interesting idea.

[01:59.95] Here's another one. The idea was an ATM machine.

[02:04.46] Totally normal, functional, operational, extremely legal ATM machine, with one catch.

[02:10.04] Attached to the ATM machine, as you see, is a digital leaderboard that ranks people based on the amount of money in their remaining account balances.