Building A Billion-Dollar Shoe Brand From Scratch: Aldo Bensadoun

Harley Finkelstein (00:00):
Okay. So this interview with Aldo-

David Segal (00:01):
I got goosebumps.

Harley Finkelstein (00:02):
I did too.

David Segal (00:03):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (00:04):
Not only was he thoughtful but his responses in telling us his story but he went through basically the journey of being... He moved to Morocco and then watching his dad have a one single store and the way his father treated... His dad had a shoe store.

David Segal (00:20):
Shoe store-

Harley Finkelstein (00:20):
And the way he treated his employees and his community-

David Segal (00:23):
Wants his kids to have stable jobs. Aldo's a natural-born salesman.

Harley Finkelstein (00:27):
What I think is so interesting about him in particular is you typically associate hutzpah and ambition with this aggressive winner take all, dog eat dog sort of thing. But actually, what Aldo Bensadoun proves is that you can be kind and you can have high integrity but you can also win and actually, he believes that... There's actually a real correlation between the two. The more kind you are, the more you win. The more you win, the bigger you can build and the bigger you can build, the more impact you can have and it's this cycle of reciprocity and it's-

David Segal (01:01):
He talks about this moment in his career where he's at risk of losing a very big deal.

Aldo Bensadoun (01:07):
He would give me the equivalent of those shares, those value, but I felt that he had led me to the wrong direction and I didn't like his value basically.

David Segal (01:22):
He makes a really hutzpah, gutsy decision that is as much principle based as it is business based. I'm not even so sure it was the right decision from a business perspective on the surface.

Harley Finkelstein (01:33):
That's right. Well actually, there's also opportunities he talks about where he's about to do something and it's a good thing from a financial perspective, it's the right thing to do, but there's something about the deal that doesn't feel right to him. And so, he walks away from it.

David Segal (01:45):
Aldo Bensadoun, what can I say?

Harley Finkelstein (01:47):
I'm so excited. This is just such an amazing interview.

Harley Finkelstein (02:06):
Our second episode of Big Shot. As I've said to you when I first contacted you about doing this, David and I have been obsessed with entrepreneurship and specifically, Jewish entrepreneurship. There's this thing about Jewish entrepreneurship that we love, it's the hutzpah, the audacity. There's something strange about how Jews start businesses and have built great companies and we think it's partially hutzpah. It's partially the plight of the Jewish people over thousands of years but we've wanted to create an archival of Jewish entrepreneurship. Aldo, you have been someone that has not only been a great Jewish entrepreneur but you've really changed the face of retail in many ways. I think at its peak, Aldo had 3000 stores in 100 countries, $2 billion in sales. And so, we really wanted to have you on and one thing we thought we'd start with is your early days, the upbringing.

Aldo Bensadoun (02:54):
I was young when I left... We left Morocco when I was about 11 years old. We looked at retail as a really lower level activity in business-

Harley Finkelstein (03:08):
Like not a sophisticated-

Aldo Bensadoun (03:10):
In my case.

Harley Finkelstein (03:10):
Not sophisticated.

Aldo Bensadoun (03:11):
No.

David Segal (03:11):
Why was that?

Aldo Bensadoun (03:15):
To me... I mean, I'm talking about us in our-

David Segal (03:18):
Right.

Harley Finkelstein (03:18):
Sure, in your house.

Aldo Bensadoun (03:19):
In our house. My father and my mother, they were really pushing us to go to the best school, they hired the best teachers, and I'm the youngest of the family and basically, my two other teacher were teachers and my brother was also a teacher. And so, me, I would say, "No way am I going to go in retail. I don't want to be a failure. I want to make my parents proud and I'm going to be either a teacher or an engineer or a lawyer or something like that."

Harley Finkelstein (04:01):
I mean, it's so ironic of course, because you changed retail but you thought it was a lower level thing.

Aldo Bensadoun (04:04):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (04:05):
And so-

David Segal (04:05):
We just had Charles Bronman on and we were talking about this concept of entrepreneurship by necessity and whereas your father probably was in retail, was an entrepreneur, not because he was deeply inspired by shoes but because he had to put food on the table.

Aldo Bensadoun (04:19):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (04:19):
He had to make money-

Aldo Bensadoun (04:19):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (04:20):
For survival.

Aldo Bensadoun (04:20):
That's exactly. Exactly. By the age of 11, they were starting to have political problem in Morocco and a lot of the French teacher were moving away from Morocco so my parents felt that I should go to France in pensionnaire, in boarding school. And so, I went to Lisieux Ricarte in Paris in a boarding school at Lisieux Ricarte and I studied until I finished the baccalaureate and-

Harley Finkelstein (04:57):
In engineering, right? Engineering, was it?

Aldo Bensadoun (05:00):
No-

Harley Finkelstein (05:00):
Yeah? Before-

Aldo Bensadoun (05:00):
Baccalaureate is basically before high school.

Harley Finkelstein (05:00):
Okay. Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (05:03):
Just end of high school. And so, that's what I did. And then, by that time, my brother was finishing his PhD at Cornell and he said, "Instead of trying to go to a different school in France, why don't you apply at Cornell?" So I applied at Cornell, I was accepted, and I went to study at Cornell. And then, even at that time, there was... How do you call it? Fraternity, Tau Epsilon Phi. It's a Jewish fraternity at Cornell. So they paid for my meal, my room, everything so it didn't cost me any money at all.

Harley Finkelstein (05:54):
Did you-

David Segal (05:54):
At Cornell-

Harley Finkelstein (05:55):
So now, Cornell's of course in Ithaca, New York, right?

David Segal (05:58):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (05:58):
It's an Ivy League school, an incredible school.

David Segal (06:00):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (06:00):
But did you speak English?

Aldo Bensadoun (06:02):
No, I didn't speak English at all.

Harley Finkelstein (06:03):
You didn't speak English?

Aldo Bensadoun (06:04):
No. I mean, hardly. I mean, I studied English at school in Lisieux Ricarte but I would take maybe three, four hours per week or something like that.

David Segal (06:18):
There's a story in there that we were talking about that we just find fascinating where you were, at one point, selling encyclopedia.

Aldo Bensadoun (06:25):
No, no. What happened, so I studied at Cornell for about a year and a half and at that time, my sister came to visit me with her husband and they said, "Let's go for the weekend to Montreal," and so I said, "Fine, I'll go with you," so I came to Montreal and I love the city. Everybody was speaking French, English, and I felt much more at home and I decided to transfer from Cornell to McGill and I went to McGill, if you want. But the story you're talking about-

David Segal (07:08):
Yeah, the encyclopedia-

Aldo Bensadoun (07:11):
The encyclopedia, that's where I learned my English-

Harley Finkelstein (07:12):
Well, it's fascinating just to set the stage here for people that are watching. So you're selling... I mean, so it's encyclopedias, it's door to door.

Aldo Bensadoun (07:21):
Yes.

David Segal (07:21):
And no English?

Harley Finkelstein (07:22):
And you don't speak English?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:24):
No. Well, by then I had been-

Harley Finkelstein (07:26):
A little bit.

Aldo Bensadoun (07:26):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (07:27):
But not enough that you were able to be overly articulate or charismatic in English, right?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:34):
No, no. That's right.

David Segal (07:34):
Did you sell a lot?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:34):
I did.

David Segal (07:34):
You did?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:34):
I became the best one.

Harley Finkelstein (07:35):
Yeah. How'd you do it?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:36):
So we would knock at the door and the idea was basically to tell the people and you wouldn't go to very expensive area, you would go to working class area.

Harley Finkelstein (07:51):
Why is that?

Aldo Bensadoun (07:53):
You'll understand why. So basically we would say, "Okay. Fine. I'm here to sell encyclopedia." "What is an encyclopedia?", we tell them what it is. And then, 9 time out of 10, they would just bang the door and say, "Forget it. Go away." But some of them would let us in and we would make the presentation, we'll explain to them what an encyclopedia is, and we would say, "You see, if you want for your children to be educated and to reach their full potential and be at a higher level, they need to be educated and read and receive every month a book from the encyclopedia." And then, we would tell them, "What is the cost?" They would ask us and we would say, "It's less than the cost of a cigarette today."

(08:56):
And so then, they would say, "Okay, fine. So how much is it really?" So we would say, "Well, it's $1 per day." So they would say, "Yeah, but how are we going to pay it?" and they say, "Well..." We would show them the paper, they would start filling it up, the address, their name, etc and then we would say, "Okay. The total price is $350 but you only have to pay it $1 a day. At the end of the week, we would come and pick up the $10 or $7 and that's it."

(09:44):
So then, we would say, "Since our price is so low, the only time that we can come is on Sunday so we will have somebody coming here between 7:00 in the morning and 9:00 in the morning to pick up the money every week." They would say, "No, no, no. I don't like that," but they already had made that decision that they wanted to buy it. It was just a question of how to do it. The decision was made already. See? So then, we would say, "Okay. Fine. If you don't want us to come every Sunday at 7:00 in the morning, you could write us some checks, pre-date it, and you send it every month," so that's what they would do-

David Segal (10:34):
And that's what you wanted anyway.

Aldo Bensadoun (10:35):
Exactly, because there was nobody coming on-

David Segal (10:39):
There's nobody coming at 7:00-

Aldo Bensadoun (10:39):
There were no collectors or anything like that.

Harley Finkelstein (10:41):
Yeah. I mean, you basically created the worst payment schedule ever-

Aldo Bensadoun (10:44):
So basically, that was their spread.

Harley Finkelstein (10:49):
So now you're back in Montreal, you finished school, you don't want to be a shoe... You know what I mean? The shoe industry because you have generations behind you of cobblers and you don't want to do it but yet somehow you ended up in the shoe business.

Aldo Bensadoun (11:02):
Well, I think what happened is that you see, after I finished McGill, being a French citizen, I had to do my military service in France. So I went back to France, did my two years, 18 months, military service and then came back and I worked at CIL, not too far from here on René-Lévesque and university. So I worked there for two years.

Harley Finkelstein (11:34):
What'd you do there?

Aldo Bensadoun (11:36):
Market research analyst.

Harley Finkelstein (11:38):
Okay. Good.

Aldo Bensadoun (11:40):
It was fun. So basically, at one point, they sent me to a shoe company and that shoe company had a problem in shipping their goods from the warehouse to their store.

Harley Finkelstein (12:05):
So you were a consultant sent in to try to understand that?

Aldo Bensadoun (12:08):
Yeah. Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (12:08):
Okay.

Aldo Bensadoun (12:13):
So I looked at their problem and I came up with a very pretty good way of doing it, of working, and the owner was extremely happy about it. He said, "Why don't you come and work for me?" So I came back, I called my mother and my dad and my mother said, "No, no, no, no. You shouldn't. CIL is a very big company. You should stay there. You're going to get a pension and you'll be able to have a good life. Don't go and work for a small company." So the-

Harley Finkelstein (13:03):
Was the issue also that it was a shoe company, do you think? Do you think that she didn't want you to go because it felt like retail-

Aldo Bensadoun (13:07):
No, no. It was just because of the size and security basically. But then, the owner of that company offered me three times the salary that I was going to have. Plus, he really told me, he said, "Why don't you come and work?" and I said, "Well, I'm going to be one day the president of CIL," so he said, "What?" He said, "Aldo, you're a dreamer. There is no way you'd be the president of CIL. Your name is Bensadoun. You're a Jew and look at the Royal Bank of Canada, look at all the big company, you don't see-"

Harley Finkelstein (13:59):
There's no Jews.

Aldo Bensadoun (13:59):
There's no-

David Segal (14:01):
None of these Jews are president. Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (14:01):
Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (14:03):
I said, "You'll see." At the end, I accepted to go and work for him. And so, I worked there for seven years, basically, six, seven years and he was fantastic because he told me that he had full confidence in me. He set me up in an office that was away from where he was working. I had different places and he had given me certain condition to attract me saying that, "If you..." I don't know if that part I should talk about that.

David Segal (14:49):
You don't have to-

Harley Finkelstein (14:49):
Have to use names. Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (14:51):
Yeah. Yeah. So basically, he gave me all kind of excellent condition and he said, "If you can reach that level, I will give you 5% equity in the company."

Harley Finkelstein (15:02):
You'd become an owner.

Aldo Bensadoun (15:03):
And I will become an owner and I really worked very, very, very hard and I enjoyed every single minute and I learned an awful lot from him.

Harley Finkelstein (15:15):
Did he give you the piece of the company?

Aldo Bensadoun (15:16):
So then, at one point, my son David was born. I got married. I felt good like everything was going well. I moved in a place... Could you imagine? I moved in a place where you had a doorman.

Harley Finkelstein (15:32):
Yeah. You were a big shot.

Aldo Bensadoun (15:37):
I was a big shot and-

David Segal (15:37):
The doorman's definitely big shot.

Aldo Bensadoun (15:39):
And so, I moved there and I'm sure you know the place, it's Fairway House-

Harley Finkelstein (15:46):
Sure. Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (15:49):
Côte-Saint-Luc.

Harley Finkelstein (15:49):
Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (15:51):
It was just built and it was a beautiful place. And then, my son David was born and I said, "Well, I better be serious now and go back and get those shares." So I went back to him and he said, "Look, I'm sorry, I changed my mind. I don't want to have my son have a partner and I'd rather... I will double your salary and please stay," and I was devastated and I said, "No, I don't want to stay," and I basically left and-

Harley Finkelstein (16:41):
Even though he was giving you a lot of money.

Aldo Bensadoun (16:43):
Even though he was giving me two or three times even-

Harley Finkelstein (16:45):
Which-

Aldo Bensadoun (16:46):
He didn't keep his-

Harley Finkelstein (16:46):
That's-

Aldo Bensadoun (16:48):
He would give me the equivalent of those shares, those value, but I felt that he had led me to the wrong direction and I didn't like his value basically.

Harley Finkelstein (17:02):
One of the things in anticipation of this interview, Dave and I spoke to people who know you well, Norm Jaskolka, Robert Hoffenheim, and one thing they all say is that the way that you run your business is with incredible integrity. In this moment, you felt something didn't connect, right?

Aldo Bensadoun (17:18):
Exactly. Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (17:18):
It was bigger than the money.

Aldo Bensadoun (17:20):
That's right. Yeah. It was, as you say, bigger than the money.

David Segal (17:25):
So you're there, you-

Aldo Bensadoun (17:27):
So then at that point, I said to myself, I said, "I better... What am I going to do?" So I went to see my a lawyer, Peter Mendel and-

Harley Finkelstein (17:38):
Jewish lawyer.

Aldo Bensadoun (17:38):
A Jewish lawyer like David-

David Segal (17:40):
Are there any other kind?

Aldo Bensadoun (17:44):
I explained to him the case and Peter give me the best advice and he said, "Look, Aldo, there is no point for you to sue him or anything like that. You battle, settle, you battle..." "Because he has so much more money than you that he's going to drag you in court for years and years and forget it," he said. So I went back to him and I said, "Look, that's fine. I'm going to leave," and then I asked him, I said, "Is it possible that I have bought from you a company?" On his behalf, I had bought a new company called Castle Shoe and I said, "So then, I'm getting closer to your family."

(18:33):
So I had bought Castle Shoe that had the right to sell shoe within Le Chateau. You see? Basically, he said to me, "Okay. Fine. I will sell it to you," and I said, "How much?" and he said, "Well, how much did you pay on my behalf?" He didn't even know.

David Segal (19:01):
He didn't know.

Aldo Bensadoun (19:02):
He didn't know. So I told him and he said, "Well, $5,000 more than what you paid." I felt that it was not right but I said, "Okay. Fine," and I said, "Yeah, but I don't have any money," and he said, "Okay. I will lend you the money at 6% interest."

Harley Finkelstein (19:19):
Oh, wow. Generous guy.

Aldo Bensadoun (19:20):
Yeah. No, but at the time it was the level that's basically-

Harley Finkelstein (19:26):
It was prime at that point.

Aldo Bensadoun (19:27):
Yeah. Kind of, and-

Harley Finkelstein (19:29):
When you say store within a store, what do you mean by that? What do you mean the right-

Aldo Bensadoun (19:32):
Basically, what we had is that we had made... Le Chateau, at that time, was run by a very, very nice man called Yvon Goyette and Yvon Goyette was the CEO. Basically, he give me the right to sell shoes within Le Chateau so he gave me a space of three shelves.

Harley Finkelstein (19:58):
On St. Dunedin, yeah?

Aldo Bensadoun (20:00):
What?

Harley Finkelstein (20:00):
On St. Dunedin, no?

Aldo Bensadoun (20:00):
No, on Sainte-Catherine.

Harley Finkelstein (20:01):
Sainte-Catherine. Okay. So three shelves-

Aldo Bensadoun (20:02):
Three shelves, six feet long, each one, that's 1, 2, 3. He said, "You can put shoes there and when people buy them, you have your own cash. I don't want to have anything to do."

Harley Finkelstein (20:17):
Wow. So a consign.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:19):
It was like a franchise. I mean... Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (20:22):
But real estate was their real estate so you don't have pay the lease.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:27):
That's right but you have to pay 10%-

Harley Finkelstein (20:28):
Right. You pay commission.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:30):
8% commission on your sale.

Harley Finkelstein (20:31):
Yeah. So you're paying 8% commission on the sale, you're paying 6% in debt on the capital.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:36):
Yeah, yeah.

David Segal (20:37):
Okay. So you better sell some shoes.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:40):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (20:40):
Yeah. You better sell a lot of shoes. Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (20:41):
So what happened is I decided most of the people in North America were buying from wholesaler. All the chain of stores were buying from wholesaler and I decided that to start a business, I would do something different and eliminate the wholesaler, go directly to the factory, and go like DTC.

Harley Finkelstein (21:10):
Yeah. Vertical integration-

Aldo Bensadoun (21:11):
Yeah. Completely integrated. And so, that's why I decided to go to Italy. I visited a few factories and I was fortunate and lucky to meet a great designer over there and that's how I started building the clod. When I started the company, I said, "How am I going to do? You need to..." I've been hurt and I'm angry at my former boss and I want to show him that I can succeed. I'm worried because are we going to have enough money to feed David and the family and my wife?

(22:02):
My family, I wanted to make sure that they were proud of me. And so, you had all those movement and I said, "Okay. I'm going to start that company at Winslow Chateau but I'm going to make sure that it's very different. The business model will be different, that we're going to eliminate the wholesaler. But also, the company will be... I'm going to prove to my old employer and to my friend, to Charlie Nieax that it's possible to be a catalyst and still be a fair person and be a person that is socially minded and create something that can help the world and make the world a better place to be."

Harley Finkelstein (22:57):
Wow.

Aldo Bensadoun (22:58):
That's when the value of our company was created, the value of love, respect, and integrity. So when I hired my first employee, I would say, "Listen, Robert," there was Robert, there was Serge, there was... I would say to them, "I don't want you to lie to me. If one day you don't want to work or you're sick or you want to help your wife-"

Harley Finkelstein (23:28):
Just tell me. Yeah.

Aldo Bensadoun (23:28):
"Just tell me about it and let's work, let's do well, let's..." Basically, I explained to them a value of love, respect, and integrity.

Harley Finkelstein (23:42):
But at the same time, you also were very ambitious. You wanted to have a company that did good, that was socially responsible, that was thoughtful, that had love but you were also incredibly ambitious. I mean, the vertical integration, being able to basically design your own shoes, manufacture your own shoes, and then get it right to the hands of the end consumer-

David Segal (23:58):
And control the brand and-

Harley Finkelstein (23:59):
And control the entire brand. That was a very novel thing to do. I mean, very few companies did that. So the juxtaposition is, on one side, you're so ambitious but on the other side, you want to build a different type of company.

Aldo Bensadoun (24:10):
Exactly.

David Segal (24:11):
It's more humane and-

Aldo Bensadoun (24:11):
Exactly, exactly.

David Segal (24:12):
What I love about that is the integrity piece of it. I mean, you were angry at your former employer. And so, it sounds like it gave you energy to make sure you can do it better.

Aldo Bensadoun (24:20):
Exactly. It's all the energy that I had because I wanted to prove to them that I could do it. Plus, I wanted to make sure that we could help everybody and that everybody that would be with us would reach their full potential. What happened is that when we started with Le Chateau, it was Le Chateau. Then after a few years, we were doing well and they started increasing our percentage rent instead of 8%, they went from 8% to 10% to 12% to 15%. And then, I went to... What's his name? Goyette. I said, "Hey, how could you do that? I cannot pay 15% occupancy and commission," and then I was afraid also because at that point, Le Chateau had very, very good season, then a poor season, a very good season, a poor season, and I was tributary to the traffic of Le Chateau. I had to... If the people were not going inside the store, they couldn't see my shoes.

Harley Finkelstein (25:42):
Sure. Of course. So you eventually opened up your first store?

Aldo Bensadoun (25:44):
I've opened my first store.

Harley Finkelstein (25:45):
Where was that?

Aldo Bensadoun (25:46):
1980.

Harley Finkelstein (25:47):
And where?

Aldo Bensadoun (25:48):
On Sainte-Catherine.

Harley Finkelstein (25:49):
On Sainte-Catherine.

Aldo Bensadoun (25:49):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (25:49):
Near Le Chateau.

David Segal (25:50):
Right next door.

Harley Finkelstein (25:51):
Next to Le Chateau. Amazing. That hutzpah, I love it. That's great. At this point, you're vertically integrated, you're making your design, manufacturing-

Aldo Bensadoun (26:00):
That's right.

Harley Finkelstein (26:00):
All the way to the end.

Aldo Bensadoun (26:00):
Oh, yeah. All the way.

David Segal (26:00):
And you have the relationships with stores-

Aldo Bensadoun (26:00):
Oh, yes. Yeah.

David Segal (26:02):
This is a great time, actually, just to pause for a second.

Aldo Bensadoun (26:04):
So then, I couldn't open 30 stores, I didn't have the capital, or I didn't have the location. I couldn't find them. So I had maybe 10 or 12 stores at that time, from 30 dropped to 10. Yeah.

David Segal (26:19):
Wow. So there's... We're fascinated with the idea of hutzpah and what it means. What does hutzpah mean to you?

Aldo Bensadoun (26:27):
I guess it's a courage to make... There is key moment in life where you make those decision and that it could go one way or another and that's why quite often, I always say luck played a big role and I could think of hutzpah like you said is when I made the decision to leave my former employer, then leave Chateau, and there was other moment in my career that you had to make big decision. Like for example, we used to sell not only Aldo but we used to sell Dr. Marten in our store-

David Segal (27:31):
Which is a big brand in this time.

Aldo Bensadoun (27:32):
It was a... Yeah, and we were doing extremely well. At one point, they told us that we were the second largest user or account after England-

Harley Finkelstein (27:45):
Wow. On the planet?

Aldo Bensadoun (27:48):
On the planet.

Harley Finkelstein (27:49):
Incredible.

Aldo Bensadoun (27:51):
We had a great relationship with them and we designed, our company designed some of the product that Dr. Marten is still carrying today and we had a very, very close relationship. They were very, very nice people too. And then, they said, "Well, if Aldo is doing so well in Canada, maybe what we should do is that we should not only sell to him but we should sell to-"

Harley Finkelstein (28:24):
Everybody.

Aldo Bensadoun (28:24):
Everybody.

Harley Finkelstein (28:25):
Of course.

Aldo Bensadoun (28:27):
At the time, the only people that were selling to Neon and to ourselves and that's it. In fact, Neon was going through us to buy the shoes.

Harley Finkelstein (28:41):
So you were almost like a distributor for-

Aldo Bensadoun (28:43):
We were. So then they said, "We are going to open our own," and we said, "No." At that point, certain store, like we had a store in Chicago, when 90% of our sales came and come from Dr. Marten rather than our-

David Segal (29:00):
Wow. See, high stakes for you.

Aldo Bensadoun (29:02):
When you talk about hutzpah, I remember I was with my wife at a meeting with the Griggs which owned Dr. Marten in Scotland or in England, I should say. There was also... What's his name now? Robert Greenberg that was also selling in United States and they had asked us to come and visit them, the Dr. Marten. So they announced to us that they were going to open their own distribution in North America, in Canada, and in United States and we went to bed that night. And then, in the morning we told them, we said, "Listen, we don't want to buy anymore from you."

Harley Finkelstein (29:57):
Wow. So that was one of your biggest products and because you didn't like what they were proposing, you said-

Aldo Bensadoun (30:02):
Correct. Because-

Harley Finkelstein (30:03):
That's it.

Aldo Bensadoun (30:03):
Our business model was always going from factories to the-

David Segal (30:07):
That was-

Harley Finkelstein (30:07):
If there was intermediaries-

Aldo Bensadoun (30:11):
I want our own brand-

Harley Finkelstein (30:11):
You don't want to do that.

Aldo Bensadoun (30:11):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (30:11):
I mean, were you scared? I would've been terrified.

Aldo Bensadoun (30:12):
I was very scared. Very, very scared.

Harley Finkelstein (30:16):
How did you not listen to that voice?

Aldo Bensadoun (30:19):
I know. So we said no. And so then, at that point, we decided to stop working with them and then the following morning they came to us and they said, "Could you set up for five years a distributorship in Canada on our behalf?"

Harley Finkelstein (30:46):
Oh my god.

Aldo Bensadoun (30:47):
It would go through us but it belonged to them and we said, "Okay. Fine." We could at least control where we were going to sell the-

Harley Finkelstein (30:59):
Sure.

Aldo Bensadoun (31:00):
And we were making a commission too so we accepted it. Same thing in the case of Robert Greenberg in United States and what he said, he said no too and what did he do?

Harley Finkelstein (31:13):
They give it to you.

Aldo Bensadoun (31:15):
No. He started... He said... Remember at that breakfast? He said, "So Aldo, what are you going to do?" I said, "I'm just going to sell Aldo," And he said... He pulled a few sketches from his pocket and he said, "What do you think of those sketches?" and I said, "It looks pretty good. I mean, like that style or that style," and he said, "Perfect," and that's how he founded Skecher.

Harley Finkelstein (31:43):
Wow.

David Segal (31:44):
Wow.

Harley Finkelstein (31:45):
So he founded Skechers because he didn't want to deal with Doc Martens anymore?

David Segal (31:48):
He didn't want to be just another customer-

Aldo Bensadoun (31:48):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (31:50):
Yeah. So he decided he wanted to also be vertically integrated like you-

Aldo Bensadoun (31:52):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (31:52):
And that's the beginning of Skechers.

David Segal (31:54):
And did you-

Aldo Bensadoun (31:54):
From those little sketches.

Harley Finkelstein (31:55):
That's unbelievable. I mentioned earlier when you walked in that we did some research to talk to some people that knew you well and I got a chance to talk to Norm Jaskolka who refers to you as his mentor and I think you would agree with that. Norm worked for you for decades and still does, I believe.

Aldo Bensadoun (32:09):
Yes.

Harley Finkelstein (32:10):
And so, I asked Norm about your style of doing business, how you think about business and entrepreneurship and he told me this story, and I love this story, and I want to ask you a little bit about him. He said he was opening up a store in a country in Europe that historically had been quite antisemitic and he came to you and said, "Aldo, I'm going to open up here and here's the business case for it. Here are the economics. We think it's a great idea," and you asked him, you said, "Norm, should we do this given the history of antisemitism in this particular place?" and at that particular moment, Norm realized that you care about business but you also deeply care about your people and integrity. I'm wondering, how much of that came from... Where did that come from? Was it your family that taught you that? Where did that sense of, "I can build good things and I can do it in a good way."?

Aldo Bensadoun (32:58):
I think it came from my mom and my dad. I mean, I remember in Morocco, my mom was always very, very kind and my dad also with local people and I guess it came from there. Also from the desire to be fair, to be just. I remember Trudeau saying, "Let's create a just society," and all of us, we were socially minded but we were catalyst but socially minded, if you want. I think it's that fairness, that desire to do good, to be a good human being if you want.

David Segal (33:55):
Which is a concept that you, in many ways, pioneered. Going back to this idea of cause marketing, how did that come about? Where did you make the connection between, "I'm going to use my power as a businessman to raise awareness for AIDS and contribute to this cause."?

Aldo Bensadoun (34:12):
To me, I think... Even Jewish heritage, we are put on earth to fix the world. What was the name of that? Judge Ginsburg.

David Segal (34:32):
Right.

Aldo Bensadoun (34:34):
She said, "I'm there to fix the tear of our society and each one of us should make sure that whatever we can do to make the world a better place to be for each one of us," so I don't know.

Harley Finkelstein (34:52):
You talk a little bit about the connection to Judaism. One of the things David and I are fascinated with is-

Aldo Bensadoun (34:56):
What is that? Is [foreign language 00:34:59].

Harley Finkelstein (35:00):
[foreign language 00:34:57], that's right. But there is something unique about Jewish entrepreneurs. We've been thinking a lot about the fact that Jews in general are a very small percentage of the population but there is something special about the Jewish plight, the Jewish ambition, especially when it comes to entrepreneurship and creating businesses. I'm curious, why do you think that's the case? Where does this uniqueness that Jewish entrepreneurs have, whether it's building big companies or creating great social impact, where do you think that comes from?

Aldo Bensadoun (35:35):
Maybe could it be because of antisemitism? Could it be because people criticize us so much that we want to prove to the rest of the world that on the contrary, we are there to have a big light torch that shine and that's beautiful maybe.

Harley Finkelstein (36:06):
There's sort of the survivalness-

Aldo Bensadoun (36:07):
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (36:08):
Built inside of us that we have something to prove but we also want to survive.

Aldo Bensadoun (36:11):
That's right.

Harley Finkelstein (36:12):
Entrepreneurship, it feels almost like it's baked into our DNA in some ways.

Aldo Bensadoun (36:16):
Yeah. That's right.

Harley Finkelstein (36:17):
Which I find so fascinating. We also think a lot about-

Aldo Bensadoun (36:19):
Also, maybe because of antisemitism, we want to create a bubble around us and create something like maybe to dream, constantly to dream and to keep dreaming and dreaming and dreaming and then executing in our dream.

David Segal (36:49):
So this is a time capsule in many ways, it's an archive of stories that we believe there's timeless wisdom in. If someone were to pick up this recording 100 years from now, what lessons would you want them to take away from this?

Aldo Bensadoun (37:04):
It's to always position ourself at a higher level and to keep dreaming and to dream, to dream, and to act on our dream even through failure and like what you are saying, hutzpah, to act right on those, to continue dreaming that yes, it's a black day, it's a horrible day, but you get up in the morning and you say, "No, I have to... How would it be? How could I do it better?" I don't know. I mean, I don't know about you but when I... I sleep well at night and when I go to sleep, my first thing is I dream of certain thing. And so, I always keep nice thing in my head, if you want, as I'm falling asleep.

Harley Finkelstein (38:08):
Do you have any regrets? Is there something you wish you would've done differently as you reflect on some of those incredible milestones? Is there something you're like, "That's one thing that I wish I had not done," and maybe, that'll help us not do those things?

Aldo Bensadoun (38:20):
I don't have regrets.

Harley Finkelstein (38:22):
Nice.

Aldo Bensadoun (38:23):
No, I don't have-

Harley Finkelstein (38:23):
That's dope.

Aldo Bensadoun (38:24):
I mean, to be honest, no, I don't have regret. I mean, I certainly make a lot of mistake and I certainly can improve myself as a human being and sometime, like I said, "Hey, why are you doing that? It's wrong, what you're doing," and I try to correct it but-

David Segal (38:49):
One of the people I spoke to had paused when thinking about you and said, "Great entrepreneurs can make mistakes and recover from them."

Aldo Bensadoun (38:58):
[inaudible 00:38:59].

David Segal (38:59):
"Great entrepreneurs can make mistakes and recover from them," and that's Aldo.

Aldo Bensadoun (39:04):
I'm proud of what I'm doing but the purpose is really to share to, again, it's [foreign language 00:39:13]. It's to make the world better. As a retailer, I realize that it's not only accounting that's going to help you be a good retailer but it's psychology, it's architecture. It's all the various computer science and I said, "Could you imagine if we could create a school that has all those various discipline together? Then you could form some great retailer," and that was basically the source of my gift to McGill.

David Segal (39:56):
Wow.

Harley Finkelstein (39:57):
That's amazing.

Aldo Bensadoun (39:57):
Yeah.

David Segal (39:58):
Did your parents get a chance to see you be successful in retail?

Aldo Bensadoun (40:00):
Yeah.

David Segal (40:02):
I imagine very differently about it after that?

Aldo Bensadoun (40:04):
Yeah. I mean, at the time my dad passed away, I think at that time I had about 150 or 200 stores so he was very-

David Segal (40:13):
That's great.

Harley Finkelstein (40:14):
Did you ever talk about to him that, after all this, after saying-

Aldo Bensadoun (40:17):
He was-

Harley Finkelstein (40:18):
You didn't want to go in the shoe business, you ended up in the shoe business?

Aldo Bensadoun (40:20):
Yes. Yeah. We used to laugh and yeah, definitely.

Harley Finkelstein (40:24):
Do you want your kids... I know your son's in the business.

Aldo Bensadoun (40:26):
Yeah. David is the-

Harley Finkelstein (40:26):
David's in the business.

Aldo Bensadoun (40:26):
CEO.

Harley Finkelstein (40:28):
Did you want that? Did you want your children to follow in the family business?

Aldo Bensadoun (40:32):
I love the company to continue but I don't think... I never pushed David or Douglas or Daniella to be in the business, per se. I think I really want them to be happy and in the case of David, he joined us two years ago.

Harley Finkelstein (40:53):
Wow.

Aldo Bensadoun (40:55):
He became the CEO only three years, three, four years ago.

Harley Finkelstein (40:59):
Amazing.

David Segal (40:59):
Are you still involved in the business?

Aldo Bensadoun (41:01):
What?

David Segal (41:01):
Are you still involved in the business?

Aldo Bensadoun (41:02):
Very much. Yeah. I love it.

David Segal (41:04):
Amazing.

Aldo Bensadoun (41:05):
I love it. Yeah.

David Segal (41:06):
What are you dreaming up these days?

Aldo Bensadoun (41:08):
Basically, to continue what we started as a company, what... Because today, it's not me anymore. I mean, yes, I am the sole shareholder but all the people that work in the company are the one that make that company and I think what's beautiful is to see in Saudi Arabia coming to visit us to buy shoes and they're sitting at the same table as Israel or as whatever. And so, they're talking. And then, so what I'm proud is the fact of saying the way colleagues and employee in Saudi or in Dubai or wherever or in Philippine are treating their co-worker inside their store in the same way as the way we treat them with love, respect, and integrity. That way of treating human being in different part of the world, to me, makes the world a better place.

Harley Finkelstein (42:19):
That's the same way your father treated his employees-

Aldo Bensadoun (42:21):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (42:21):
In 1930 in Morocco.

Aldo Bensadoun (42:22):
Exactly. Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (42:24):
Yeah. It's an amazing thing.

Aldo Bensadoun (42:26):
And I'm a strong believer that you really grow, you stand on the shoulder of your past and of your family.

Harley Finkelstein (42:37):
Sure.

Aldo Bensadoun (42:38):
I really do believe that.

Harley Finkelstein (42:40):
That's why Big Shot exists. We've been standing on the shoulders of giants like yours for a long time as we've built our families and our businesses and we are so grateful that you joined us for this archival and we hope that you enjoyed as much as we did because it's been truly an honor to have you sit with us.

Aldo Bensadoun (43:00):
I hope it was useful.

Harley Finkelstein (43:02):
That was amazing. It was incredible. Yeah.

David Segal (43:04):
That was incredible. When did you know made it? I mean, all this success, there must have been a moment where you were like, "I made it."

Aldo Bensadoun (43:10):
No, I didn't.

David Segal (43:11):
No?

Harley Finkelstein (43:12):
There's never a moment? Actually, I do have one question which is-

Aldo Bensadoun (43:14):
No, I haven't.

David Segal (43:16):
You haven't made it yet?

Harley Finkelstein (43:16):
After all-

Aldo Bensadoun (43:18):
I'm very insecure. I guess it's that insecurity that you're talking about like entrepreneur... Yeah.

David Segal (43:32):
In your mind, there's still more to do.

Harley Finkelstein (43:36):
More to prove maybe

Aldo Bensadoun (43:37):
No, more to... Would they be enough to be able to continue the standard of living that you have on a daily basis?

David Segal (43:50):
You still think about that?

Aldo Bensadoun (43:51):
Oh, yeah.

David Segal (43:52):
Wow.

Aldo Bensadoun (43:52):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (43:53):
That's amazing.

David Segal (43:53):
I thought that was just us.

Aldo Bensadoun (43:54):
No.

Harley Finkelstein (43:55):
We still have a little bit of time. So I will ask you this though, after all this, after this incredible life and life obviously continues for a long time, but did you ever meet or run into that original employer you had many years back who didn't give you the equity? Did you ever have an opportunity to look that person in the eye and say, "This could have been us together," right?

Aldo Bensadoun (44:16):
No.

Harley Finkelstein (44:16):
Never?

Aldo Bensadoun (44:19):
No, I did not. No, he passed away unfortunately. But I have to say, honestly, he was a very, very nice man.

Harley Finkelstein (44:26):
Sure.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:26):
I guess-

Harley Finkelstein (44:28):
He just made a mistake.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:28):
Yes, I think so.

Harley Finkelstein (44:28):
I think so too.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:28):
Yeah.

Harley Finkelstein (44:28):
It's clear he made-

David Segal (44:28):
I think it's pretty obvious he made a big mistake.

Harley Finkelstein (44:35):
Because you could have built this empire with him.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:37):
Definitely.

Harley Finkelstein (44:37):
As opposed to competing with him.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:39):
Or maybe the reason I bet is because I was alone? I don't know.

Harley Finkelstein (44:45):
It's an incredible story. It's an incredible story not just in business and entrepreneurship but family and values integrity.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:52):
But Harley, I have a question for you.

Harley Finkelstein (44:54):
Sure.

Aldo Bensadoun (44:56):
I made an investment in a nice little company in the States and it's operating mostly on... It's direct to consumer and it's on the internet and I realized they work with Spotify-

Harley Finkelstein (45:16):
Shopify.

Aldo Bensadoun (45:19):
Oh, Shopify. So maybe, I should talk to you and find out what kind of fees you're charging.

Harley Finkelstein (45:24):
Sure. Always looking for a deal. This is perfect.

Aldo Bensadoun (45:27):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (45:30):
So wait a second. This whole setup, by the way, is just to get a discount on Shopify fees?

Aldo Bensadoun (45:34):
Exactly.

Harley Finkelstein (45:37):
That's great. That's amazing. Well, we can talk about that. That's good. Yeah. Aldo, thank you so, so much. It's such an honor.

Aldo Bensadoun (45:45):
Thank you. That was an honor. Thank you very much.