515: Building Yeezy with Kanye and Why He Left Adidas | Eric Liedtke

The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan

When Kanye calls you on a Sunday night, you pick up. That was Eric Liedtke’s life for years as the head of global brands at Adidas, where he was instrumental in building the Yeezy brand and scaling the Adidas ecommerce platform to a multi-billion dollar business. After a 26-year corporate career, Liedtke gave it up and started from scratch as the CEO and co-founder of UNLESS Collective, a plant-based streetwear brand designed to leave zero plastic waste. Nathan Chan and Liedtke go deep into his war stories from Adidas, working with celebrity talent like Kanye, and why starting UNLESS was a humbling experience.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How Liedtke climbed from a sweeper to a board member at Adidas
• The origins of Yeezy, its growth, and what went wrong
• That Adidas built Kanye a sample room in Calabasas
• What Kanye taught him about branding
• Why UNLESS partnered with skate, surf, and snow influencers
• The different skills between a corporate leader and an entrepreneur
• Why he thought starting a business would be easier
• Why Kanye almost bought UNLESS
• Why you always need to have a Plan B
• Supplying t-shirts for Robert Downey Jr.
• And much more product branding advice…

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