David Rosenthal: recommendation

Transcript context

…We still hope, Ben. I think it really what it relates to. This is, I think, what Brooks got before any other brand. We are sweating product. I think we invest more in R&D in a focused running metrics manner than any other company. We don't have as much money as many of them still, but it's so focused on the clinical work we do and the materials work we do. We engineer materials just for the motion of running, and all the engineering that it would have to do, and respond in between gates, and all of that. That's the key. I think our brand positioning, I didn't create it. It was sort of there when I came in, but it's brilliant for this reason. It's approachable. The unseriousness is basically trying to take the pretension and the, I'm not worthy, I'm not a runner out of our sport. So many of our retail running shops have done a fantastic job of that. First of all, I'm old enough to remember Title Nine in the 70s, equalized college sport funding for men and women. If you weren't addressing women in the last 40 years in sporting goods, you're gone. We doubled the business. Women have driven this sport since the mid 90s. Approachability, I think, was super key. Brooks is a very inclusive brand. It's you and your run. All are worthy, but the product. Here's the other thing that's so interesting about our sport. Maybe in some sports, the pinnacle equipment absolutely needs to be available to the pinnacle athlete. Maybe that's in golf. Certainly for a two-hour marathon, everything has to be clicking. But what's interesting in our sport, the person that really needs the best footwear, and the best run bra, and all of that are the people that are just beginning because the injury potential for those people is really high. That's another element of our category that's pretty unique. I would say that the unseriousness of our brand is all about in welcoming and including everyone, no matter if you're just starting or it's your 20th marathon. All right, for our second sponsor of this episode and all of season 10, a huge thank you to our friends who were in the building for this show and then hosted the amazing after-party afterwards, Vouch, the insurance of tech. Today in our insurance 101 that we've been doing all season with Vouch, we are talking about cyber insurance. This is the final big coverage you're going to need at some point. We don't need to tell you why cyber attacks are a big deal or the damages and losses they can cause. You probably know that. And it stands to reason that startups are probably more vulnerable than Microsoft or Google who's had decades to get their security teams all ramped up. When they happen—cyber incidents—even for startups, are really expensive. All in the breach for even a very early-stage startup is typically around $400,000. That's where it starts as your company scales and the company grows. The average overall cost for a cyber incident for a company of any size is about $4 million. Because the money we're talking about here is truly an existential threat to your company, you probably should get this coverage Vouch recommends starting at Series A. If you're a fintech or a health tech company, even earlier after you raise your seed round. If you have coverage and you get hit with a cyber attack, what happens? The first priority is always deal with the breach itself. Time is for sure of the essence here. A great cyber insurance provider like Vouch has the playbooks. They see this all the time to help initiate and pay for a whole suite of remediations that can reduce the likelihood of a major claim or class action lawsuit against you, which yes, can happen to startups, too. This part of the insurance is called first party coverage. It's about paying the cost of getting your business back on track, your systems secure, taking care of the impacted parties, et cetera. Unfortunately, though, sometimes that's not enough to stop a lawsuit, or a class action lawsuit, or a regulatory action against you. If that happens, cyber insurance can cover your defense costs, settlements, fines, judgments, all that. That part of it is third-party coverage. That's what protects you from claims of damage from customers, partners, regulators, et cetera. It is super important, if you're getting cyber coverage, to get both first- and third-party coverage. You do not only want one. Coverage from a high quality insurer like Vouch always will come with both. Head on over to vouch.us/acquired where Acquired listeners, if you use that link, you will get an extra 5% off your cyber and all of your other insurance coverages that we've been talking about all season. Once again, thank you Vouch for doing this insurance 101 with us. This has been such a blast this season. You guys are the best. We love you. Thank you, Vouch. Thanks, Vouch. Going back to our story again, you just lost the Big 5 business intentionally. You walk away from 160 revenue. I think you walk away from more than that. It's not like it went from 60 to 50. It went significantly lower.…

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