All right, everybody welcome back to the podcast super excited to have david heil. You might know the name david august right or august mcgregor, another one of his brands. That's true um david. We have so much stuff to talk about, but i just want to say man.

Thanks for coming in and doing the podcast tommy thanks for having me it's my pleasure, it's uh awesome to be here, yeah man, so for the people that that don't know you uh or maybe don't know your work. I was thinking about this morning, like the people that i have seen close just being in your shop, which is just you know, a little a little ways away from us right: conor mcgregor, tony robbins uh andrew pacelli. I saw something in there and it was a joe rogan jacket, recently dana white, pretty much every famous mma to actors, actresses musicians, politicians i think there was a bill clinton photo inside there of a suit you made for bush bill clinton, brad pitt. You know robert downey jr, anything marvel, entertainment, yeah and you know, but really my some of my favorite of my all the business guys i deal with yeah they're more like you can kind of relate to them a little bit more for sure for sure.

So so you know we want to talk about fashion. We want to talk about covid, we want to talk about business right, i mean you know covent in the sense of let's just let's just actually before i go there. I want to say this for the people that don't know you who is david heil like you've, been this for a long time, give us a little background. Well, i've been doing this for a long time longer than i'd like to say, but you know everyone always says how long have you been doing this if um we're talking around the office and people go? Oh my god david's been doing this for 35 years.

I say: don't say that say: 20 years more than 20 years. Yes, you know once you get past that you know everybody wants to be doing things for a long time when they first started anything and then you get to five years and then 10 years and 15, then 20 you're like wow. This is amazing and then once you get past that you're kind of like wow, i'm getting old, but we're not old, no we're just getting better and we're going to talk about this. Like you, you know you have such an amazing ability to stay fresh and relevant on the pulse, we're going to get into that, but so you've been doing this for a long time a long time.

How did you get started? You know it was uh. It's you know what happened was when i went to school. First of all, i've always been a worker, be my entire life. My dad was in the construction, business and development, business and real estate and finance, and we own some hotels and restaurants, and you know all that type of thing and we always worked in the family businesses.

My brother and i and my sisters also but um went to school and when i graduated high school i went to college and i went to um. I got out of arizona state. I came back from school, moved back home and my dad says so. Where do you want to work? Do you want to work in a finance business? You want to work in real estate.

You want to work in hotels, you want to work in restaurants. What do you want to do, and i said you know dad? I think i want to open a clothing store and he looked at me and he said that is the dumbest thing i've ever had in my entire life. You need to talk to my tailor so yeah yeah, that's what happened. I went to uh went to lunch with his tailor that used to make his suits for him yeah.

This guy named gary and he'd, made me a suit before, and i was all you know excited about it and i was always a dresser ever since i was a young kid, my mom would iron my shirts for me and i would re-iron them for him before. I went to school, i just was a dresser anyway, really loved. It had a good time with it, and i got to a point where my friends were always calling me for my opinion on things, and so it just was kind of a natural but um went and met with my dad's tailor for lunch at one of his Hotels actually in anaheim california, and i came out of that meeting working for his tailor and i said dad i'm going to work with gary and he was like. Oh my god.

I can't believe it he's like. I built this entire empire yeah and you're going and you're going versus right. A big left, a hard left yeah anyway, so um, i went to work with gary and he trained me on how to measure people and about quality uh tailoring, and i ended up taking many many trips to europe and learning about you know, time making and como Italy and i went to torino italy and to bella italy for fabrics and huddersfield england and made many many trips there and started you know really working with some of the fabric mills and getting into the behind the scenes behind the scenes about the actual cloth. Yeah.

Really loved it, and so i started uh, you know getting a clientele base around southern california, just introducing myself to people and saying hey. Let me make you a couple shirts. Let me make you a suit. Let me make you and i was like working out of my car - actually right and going door to door, and was this pre david ricky, that was before david rickey.

It was called the custom clothier okay and then i worked for them for about three years and then i ended up going off on my own and started david ricky and company, with two of the guys that were independent contractors for uh david ricky at the time. Yeah and so uh it was rick, it was david, david and rick, and that created david ricky and company yeah, and we kind of started off where actually all three worked out of my car and we'd go to an appointment and we'd go get out and go Sell something and one of us go out and sell something: we'd come back to the car. We'd go the next appointment and then we'd go back to one of um to rick's house actually and pick up our ups boxes unpackaged. What we had from like suits that had come in and we'd steam them out and we'd go to next appointments next few days and deliver that and turned out.

We ended up taking a showroom over by the performing arts center in orange, county and uh. It just exploded from there. It was amazing we became we started working. Our very first big name was um.

It was rick, d's, remember, rick, d's, of course, in the morning yeah coach, charlie wright, yes well. Those two were a team and rick was making clothing for rick d's. My partner rick was making clothing for rick d's and we started a program with them. That was the athlete of the week program, and so they said we're going to talk about this all week and we're going to pick an athlete at the end of the week and we're going to have our in-house clothiers david ricking company coming to make them a Suit so we did and the first uh our first athlete they picked was pat riley yeah great one.

That was a good movie. That was a good one right, so we measured showtime lakers, that's right right, exactly yeah, so it was pat riley. First measured him. He loved it, and then we had bo jackson and wayne gretzky and chris mccarron, which was a jockey hall of fame jockey.

Yes anyway, and we eventually it just took off and we became the official clothiers for the nfl coaches club. And then we worked with the nba and we got to use their logos on our stationary, and that was a big thing when there was paper sure anyway and uh it just took off and - and we ended up having - we grew to having about 65 employees right Here in southern california, in about 25 outside clothiers um - and it was great and then we expanded what happens with everybody expand too quickly, and then we kind of actually. You know we stayed in business together for almost 20 years. Yes and then we all kind of wanted to do something a little bit different and i uh kept the name, the david ricky name, and they went and did each of the guys.

One moved to new york and rick moved to miami or florida somewhere in florida, and so after a while, i said you know why am i still marketing the david ricky name, i'm going to change it to my own name, david august august is a family name. Yes, my father's name is del august. My grandfather's name was august david, and so anyway, david august and my middle name and so david august tile, and so i said, i'm going to name it david august, and so we went with that about i'd, say 16 years ago now. So when someone hears that it's going to be hard for them not say okay, this was just way too easy right, like you know, yeah, he went against iran in his family business yeah right, i can relate to that.

You know what it is. Success is always really so easy right tom yeah right. So so i mean were there any moments when you were like this is stupid. It's not going to work or is fashion just so uh yeah, like every day in you that you know what i mean that you just kept going yeah.

You know what um i was brought up to be. You know a worker bee. Like i said earlier and my dad. You know we were working on the job sites that we were 12 years old, picking up, nails and stuff like that and we'd always like get out of bed and work around the house on the weekends like i was the pool boy.

I wasn't, we didn't, have a pool guy yeah and i you know, cleaned out our horse, stables and washed. We had we had a nice home, but i did all the work around the house with my brother and my dad yeah. So we were conditioned from an early age to get up and get out of bed and get to work. Do you think that uh the way you were raised, i mean first of all, the the work ethic side.

Right, i told you, you know you know my dad yeah, so you know i i cut for that 16 hours a day and then what do you do? The second half right um? But there was something to you know. You were in an environment where luxury wealth opportunity, business was more natural for you right right. So so was it was it more natural for you, then, to go start a business? Well, i never. I never wanted to um uh take out the quality factor of anything.

I ever did, and so that's how my dad raised us, as you know: hey always: quality first quality, first yeah, don't skimp yeah, and so that was um kind of in my mind, from an early age also, so i never wanted to discount the quality issues and So i said i'd rather have a much nicer quality garment than having one of those than having five of something else, and so that was my path from the very beginning, and so that was that was my go-to and i'd still preach that today you know, i Don't think people need 25 suits in their closet. Well, don't say that anyway, no anyway, but you don't honestly need a blue. You need a black, you need a grenade you're. Basically i tell people now you need four or five four or five great.

You know. Go-To suits that are great quality. You need something black tie, black tie optional. You need something navy, something gray, maybe a blue gray, which is a little fashionable now and then a change of pace suit, like a silver gray or a heather tan.

And then, if you buy those right - and you pick the you select the right fabrics in that in those categories, you can actually wear the jackets in a pinch as a sport coat with a pair of jeans, you know everyone's dressing so casually nowadays and even more Now, since, what's going on with covet um people, i think people want a dress, but there's just no opportunity to dress yeah. Where do you go yeah where'd? He go, i mean you can do dress up at home date night at home, but really i mean we kind of laugh about that. But it's it's a reality and we're like okay. I can't wait to you know get past this, like everyone else says.

So you were you're going into something that i wanted to talk about, which is just i i always think of you as like the first one. I met you a million years ago, you're making a suit for my dad right. That's right exactly and i didn't know the phrase zeitgeist then or you know, but but i understand it today, like you, have this incredible ability to stay on the cutting edge ahead of everybody, which is why we all come back to you and say: okay, what do I need now: that's you still get the phone calls. You got them as a kid.

You get them now. That's right, david! I'm going to speak at the summit this year, it's virtual! What do i wear right? Like happens all the time? How did you create that? Or what do you do that generally, because everyone listening wants to be that for their clients? Well, what i think happens is honestly um, my business is it's a lifestyle, business and so i've always treated as a lifestyle business, and so my friends are my clients and my clients are my friends and so i've always been under the rule of thought that you Have to always have like 100 plates spinning, yes and never be too greedy, never act like you're, too hungry, and it's going to come around. So you have to have patience, but you always strive for the top and you surround yourself and you put yourself in situations that are the epitome of the best of the best of the best, and so i always like to travel to the nicest locations nicest resorts. I love you know i love being on a uh, a beautiful island somewhere, i'm a warm weather guy.

I live at the beach here in southern california. I love it. I live, i think, in the nicest neighborhood in southern california and but to get that you really have to um. You have to put yourself in that in your mind.

First, before you actually achieve it yeah, and so i always do that, and i'm always i'm always preaching - go to the nicest places eat at the nicest restaurants. Don't worry about the money money, you can always make more money yeah, and i think that you know you don't want to get yourself in too much debt, obviously, but at the same time you do want to plan and i've always been a planner in that respect. Yeah, so so, being in all those spots around the world and and listen i mean, i think, everybody uh - everybody aspires, or at least i hope that everybody aspires like to whatever the best is for them, yeah. That could be a camping trip in big sur or it could be staying at the post ranch champion right, yeah right.

So it's everybody's perspective, but but back to like the whole fashion thing like. How do you stay on the cutting edge? Is it okay going to all these places and seeing what's going on and then bringing it back a little bit of everything i uh immerse myself in it all the time and that's what i was kind of getting to. I was alluding to when i'm i'm traveling. I try to stay in the mix in the circles.

That is, you know, fresh everything's fresh everything is like what is good right now. What is you know and then in those circles i want to go to the nicest whatever it might be, and i'm always i love to shop. I hate to shop and i love to shop that makes sense. Yeah yeah, if you make it a chore, it's a chore, but if you make it fun, it can be really fun.

And - and when i mean shop i don't mean going out and buying. Necessarily i like to explore. Yeah and i ex and i explore when i go to a nice resort, you know what are people wearing at the resort. I keep my eyes wide open all the time and i think you need to keep your eyes open what happens with a lot of people.

They get passive and complacent complacent uh routine and that's the enemy yeah of fashion routine. Is the enemy now there's some basics that you want to have in your wardrobe sure, but you can always update your basics and you want to be people want to be fresh. They want to like they want to wear something that they feel good and that makes themselves feel good and get up, and you put something fresh on. I don't care if it's a if it's a pair of uh, you know sweats and a t-shirt and a pair of tennis shoes if that is a fresh cool, well-fitting pair of um sweats and t-shirt and tennis shoes, you're, gon na feel much better right and so I've always always reached for that, and so i think i that's how it keeps me on the edge.

So so, let's talk about uh, i'm going to totally go a different direction: um conor mcgregor! How did that i mean you now so by the way for the people that are watching here, i was brought a gift by david today. Got ta, have everything right: some some world famous conor mcgregor fu underwear yeah. My son, actually tried on the original. Tell tell the story: how did you meet connor? How did this come about and then how did you guys start this business and what's happened? Okay, so um again we take care of so many people in so many industries and the cream of the crop of everybody.

The most successful people in any industry we kind of get re and our business is it's a word of mouth business. Yes, at this level, everybody and the other thing what happens when we do get referred to these people um. They never really want to meet us. Really yeah because they are they're already they have a closet full of clothing.

Yes, yes already, i don't need anything else. I have too many suits you're. The last thing i want to me some guy is going to come in here and make me a bunch of new clothing. I got a whole closet for things that i don't even wear right now, i'm actually not trying to.

I don't want to ever wear a suit again, my entire life, i'm just about to sell my company or i just sold my company, so we probably work with over 80 billionaires around the world, which is a to me. It's not the billionaire status that is so exciting to me. It's wow! It's these guys have all succeeded in such a high level in their own industries, and that's what's interesting to me. So anyway i was referred to.

I was making clothing for um dana white yeah, who was referred to me from mickey rourke who was referred to dana white. Is the president of the ufc? That's right. He runs the ufc and he's um uh. So he was referred to me through mickey rourke of all people and he's not he's a crazy actor, crazy actor.

Who's referred to me through marvel entertainment. He was on iron man, and so i make clothing for every iron. Every marvel, entertainment movie, that's out there for the most part or the directors, the producers, the actors, everybody yeah so anyway, by the way we're going to talk about. How do you deal with super high-end? Super powerful, super crazy people because he's the king of it? That's going to be helpful for everybody, listening, okay, good! So we end up uh mickey rourke calls me and says: hey! Listen! I want you to make a suit for dana white yeah.

I said great. Let's do it so and when i get referred it's not. I don't like to hound people. I just feel uncomfortable calling people if they get referred, that's great and if they call me i would love to see them.

I love new business. I love that, but i'm not the type of guy. That's going to. You know hound people by any means, like i don't really call many of my clients, it's just a natural.

We see each other out for dinner and hey david. I need a couple new things and it's just kind of a it's very, it's very easy. It's i call it the kind of the colombo approach you know anyway, so i i end up meeting dana white. They called me and say: listen.

He wants to meet you at his house, actually at the hotel in um the montage in laguna beach. So i got to the i shouldn't really tell the story, but i'm going to tell it anyway: okay, what the heck. So i end up meeting dana at the hotel and i pull into the hotel lobby into the valley parking area and i got out and i walk in and dana i've never met the guy before. But i kind of know what he looks like from the pictures.

So i see him in the lobby he's walking towards me and he says and i'm wearing this. You know classic navy suit, white shirt classic tie and he says david and i said yeah dana and he goes. Oh thank god. I thought you're going to come in here, looking like mickey rourke, just like his mickey's, crazy right, yeah right and association yeah yeah.

So i said no, no! No, i said, actually i'm pretty conservative guy for the most part and the the people that we deal with are pretty much conservative, yeah classic. You know yeah. I deal with rockefeller politics you're talking about just you know, yeah their style they're a little bit more. You know anyway, so he says.

Look, i told you that i wanted to meet you here um, but i actually, i have a house down the street here and so when we come back now that i know you will meet at my house, so it was kind of that. You know he wanted a little stand. He wanted to check me out first, so made him an outfit. He loved it made him a couple, more things loved it, and then i was at the ufc office in um las vegas, and he said you got to meet my partner and so um and and what happened when i uh met dana when mickey referred dana to Me um dana says: well, you know i use tom ford, yeah tom ford, great suits beautiful, phenomenal, yeah, great style.

You know amazing done an amazing job um but um mickey said tom ford yeah. You need to see my guy and so, which is how everybody refer right, not in those exact language but yeah. We are like no, you got to you got to get a suit by david yeah right, like everybody says the same. So that's what happened so i met dana.

He loved it yeah i'm in his office. He said you have to be my buddy, my partner, lorenzo okay, fine, so he pulls him out of a meeting. Lorenzo sticks, his head out the door and he says hey. This is the guy that i was telling you making my clothing david august.

He was uh referred me to uh from uh to me from mickey rourke and um, and he says you know. I told him to wear tom ford and he said tom ford and lorenzo said yeah tom ford, just you know having fun with it. He says i want to get some measurements, and so we did yeah lorenzo's a great guy and and uh very a good client of david august and good friend, and so he says, listen. I got this new boxer fighter.

That's coming over that. I want you to to come over and fit. He thinks he's a dresser yeah um, but i want to show him what i really really looks like right, and so can you meet me at my office this week when he comes into town from dublin? I said yeah sure, of course, so connor was there, his agent was there dana was there lorenzo? Was there and i come walking in and connor says, connor comes walking, connor did, but i walked in and he's like. Oh, this is the guy.

I was telling you about: oh, this is the tailor yeah and i said, yeah, i'm the tailor, yeah yeah sure, whatever i can sew on a button, but anyway um yeah sure. So i take his measurements and he says pick out some things and so so showing him some fabrics and he's picking out a few things and he gets to you know four or five suits and he looks over at lorenzo and low runs and goes keep going. Yeah picked out a few more things, a few more sport cuts and then lorenzo added, a tuxedo and a car coat at the end and so we're off to the races. We need to have this stuff made in a few weeks because he's going through his press tour and he wants to look great for the upcoming fight, so we rushed everything through and when he got the clothing on his body conor, he went bananas crazy yeah.

Oh, my god, this is amazing and i said well, we should do a collaboration together. Let's do it so we talked about that for like three years. Honestly, yes - and this is like what his crew is ascending first time, yeah in the ufc he'd been fighting yeah previously, but uh first time in the ufc. So we've been at that point and now it's been like seven years, i believe ago, and so we talked about it for about three or three three and a half years and we finally sat down and said: let's do this: let's give something back to his fan Base and he's got to make you know a huge fan base.

He has 37 million people following him on right, social media. I know that's like instagram, he has tweeting and he has all the other different facebook, but okay, fine. So we wanted to kind of give something back to his fan base. That was a get the look, not the expense david august.

Our clothing is higher end, yes, um, it's not as affordable for everyone, but um people want a piece of that, and so we designed the line that we sell. It's all e-commerce driven, and so we do about a drop every six weeks and we put in the drop, maybe a suit. A sport coat a couple pairs of pants matching, coordinating pants, a couple, dress, shirts, and then we do uh polos and t-shirts and hoodies and track suits, yeah and beanies, and baseball caps and underwear and underwear. And it's been a huge success that room okay.

So so i think a lot of people out there will appreciate this. Maybe some will have to google it, but that's like supreme right, like when supreme doesn't drop. That's right. So my my older son would say you know smu, as your daughter did exactly and he was buying and selling supreme gear.

Oh he's making a living killing it getting in on the on the thursday drop. That's right! We knew the sizes to buy, knew where to put and was killing it. This is sold through twice as soon as we drop sold through twice. This is my private stash that you got ta.

So here you go. Thank you man, so so, what's it like uh building a partnership like that, we we talk a lot with our clients about partnership. Marketing, like you know, i zillow bank of america. These are you know, they've been my partners right in terms of marketing.

You've done it masterfully with this right and you know: you're you're crazy, i'm crazy, connor's crazy. How do you make that work? How do you make that partnership work? Well, it takes a lot of uh patience, first of all, a lot of patients. Yes, when you think it's just going to go, it's going to be automatic, you know. I don't think that any anything really really great is automatic.

I agree, you know it's just people think oh you're, so lucky you're in the right place at the right time. I'm like yeah, i've been in the right place for 30 years, plus yeah and so daily, and so and i don't look at it as as work. I look at it as a you know, a fun experience to. Let's start this and let's get it going, but it does take patience.

It takes um, more communication from your partner. Then you may think you're going to have to do on an ongoing basis because, like conor connor is conor, he's conor mcgregor! Yes, he's wild right! Yes, you know and that's what makes him great honestly, that's why the brand is exciting. It's frustrating at times, and it's amazing at times: yes, mostly amazing, and that there's times where you know there's been times where you know we're ready to do a drop, we're ready to meet with. We did a deal with h, m and um big deal, and you know he knows showed what are you gon na do? Yeah it's not because he doesn't want to be there.

It's just he's busy or he gets sidetracked and he's got he's, got people pulling at him from every direction and so he's got the whiskey. Now he's i mean there's he's got a lot of property. Great he's done amazing with that business, and so did you see his tweet the other day, i'm in oh yeah, of course right, okay, so the response from dana - and that is exactly he's, not yeah, but we'll see i mean you know what all i can say Is that leaves him open to box right? If he's not in fighting through the rest of the year, then okay - and we all found out that you know he said i'm gon na box mayweather and people thought that was hilarious. And it's not gon na happen and we actually talked about that for like three years yeah and what happened it happened.

You were not that you were at that fight. Oh yeah, i i was. I made his boxing gear, all those shorts, everything yeah yeah yeah. So you said something i just wan na i wan na just hit for the people that are listening or watching right now: um you're, more you're, the operator essentially you're the partnership.

Even though you got the creative eye, you're you're taking a brand connor and you're building something around it, you got to be patient with that and, if you're the operator, you got to just deal with the fact like i think about it. All the time like i have to be the one, that's patient, organized making sure the numbers work, get it all right and that's how i can celebrate my partner, that's right and by the way, your partner. If look, i look at as i'm the design partner, the operator he's a celebrity partner right, okay and so there's all these collaborations going on and you can liken it to any business really out there. You can, you know, put collaborations together, but in this situation we do.

We have a lot of celebrities we deal with, so we have all this opportunity to come our way like on a daily basis. We have people, you know we have brooks kepca he's a golfer he's an amazing guy and love to do a collaboration with him. We have actors and entertainers and we have uh djs and everybody wants someone for post malone right now and you know the baby and all these guys. I don't know who they are, but um yeah.

They are great opportunities to do collaborations, with and and by the way they love clothing. They really do they love nice clothing, even more yes, and so so how do you so, let's talk tactically, so how do you you got 100 opportunities coming in? How do you decide which one gets your attention which one which one you're going to go all in on, because you don't do anything how fast you go all in so that's been. That has been a little bit of a of a hurdle and i'd say that the reason, one of the reasons why it's a hurdle for me, is that i care so much about my david august clients that i don't give what might be a bigger opportunity. Revenue-Wise.

The opportunity or the the time that it really needs, because i'm so into my david august client, basically because i they're really they're my friends and i want to take care of them yeah, and so i think that it does take a lot of time. It takes a lot of focus and so the opportunities that come my way. I have to be very selective and i don't want to. I don't want to have it watered down either by like taking every opportunity and just okay.

Let's do it again: let's do it again. It looks cookie cutter yeah. I don't want to do that. So there are probably always a good 10 top 10 opportunities that i'm you know, thinking about and playing with and there's, and they may not even be a celebrity collaboration.

It might be. You know a sports shirt collaboration with somebody or another, a collaboration with another clothing company that um. That is a that you don't want to go too mainstream a lot of times, but sometimes, if you do a dabble in it, it can be fun for both parties and so like. We did something with h m, and that was great yes and we're looking at something with zara we're looking something well before covert happened, we're looking with many companies because we're actually on the map now because of the celebrity of conor mcgregor and the clothing.

When i made him a suit for his mayweather, irish, yes went viral and i never really knew what viral really. What i didn't understand. I heard viral and oh yeah. It's that's crazy.

Well, that's awesome, but i never really understood viral until it happened to to me. Yes, and so what was that like? It was? It still is to this day yeah, just incredible: it's um we were doing, he was uh doing his press conferences. Conor was doing his press conference for mayweather. We had four press states, we had la, we had toronto.

We had new york and london, and so, as everybody knows, connor's become this iconic dresser. You know he dresses high and tight. He loves crazy patterns and when you own it, you can wear anything, that's right, but you have to own it. You have to be okay with it.

If you start, you know. Second, guessing yourself, don't put it on yeah. Just don't do it. It kills your swag.

Yes, totally kills the swag. So i i'm at the hotel in la right before the press conference, the very first press conference um for mayweather and i brought connor four brand new suits for the press tour and i'm gon na send one of my guys on the on the tour with him. I couldn't make all the dates, but um we like to have somebody there that dresses and ties his tie, puts a pocket square, make sure he looks perfect before he goes out on stage, and so i showed him these four suits. He was excited about every suit.

There were plaids and crazy patterns, and then i brought in this other suit that i had made for him and it was a pinstripe suit that i made one for myself and one for him actually, and it just said you you you in the pinstripes so for The people i know like some people - oh the language, but listen to me, like we're talking about conor mcgregor, we're talking about an iconic, crazy personality right from dublin who's, an amazing fighter that suit yeah, that suit went vi. People people knew like they're, like oh, that guy he's the fu suit guy yeah. Well, he does a little bit more than that. You can ask almost anyone from uh.

Let me back up a little bit of this, and so what happened when i put the suit? I pulled the suit out of the bag and he's like. Oh that's, crazy. He's like a pinstripe, i said, look a little closer and so he looked and he's like. Oh my god give me that suit.

We put it on him. He said. When should i wear this and we decided you need to wear it like right now, yeah, so we got him dressed right then like right. In the moment he put it on, we tied his tie, put the pocket square in, we got in the rollers and we drove across from the ritz carlton to the staples center.

He went down and he got on stage he's walking back and forth on stage. Dana white gets on stage mayweather's on stage with his crew and they introduced dana white to introduce conor, mcgregor and dana is a man of very few words. As everyone knows he gets up and he says i want to do. Conor mcgregor.

That's all he says right. Yes and connor gets up to the podium. The crowd goes crazy and by the way, whenever conor's in any crowd or any crowd around conor, like 80 of the crowd, is mcgregor fans. It just is they travel? They they support him yeah unbelievably.

So it's like a european football club. It's the same exactly they just go nuts yeah. So anyway, he um he's on stage and he's at the podium and he's. Thank you so much for being here, you guys can go online and look at it right now.

You can, you know, type that in you'll see the whole press conference pretty cool, but he says um to cut to the chaser he says. So. How do i look? I think i look pretty effing good and he says if you look very closely at my pinstripes it'll say how i feel about mayweather and everybody kind of laughed a little bit. Do you remember that and then they zoomed in on the pinstripe and on the jumbotron? Yes, it comes up and i'm like oh crap.

Here we go and the place, that's where he goes made by david ogden like and we've been talking about our august mcgregor collection at the time. You know we're just kind of getting that going and but we hadn't announced it yet, and i said don't whatever you do, don't say: august mcgregor, yet yeah yeah, okay, no problem, so that went crazy and then, after that press conference, there's always a second third press Conference underneath the stadium, it's for the reporters - and you know the news, crews and stuff, so they line everybody up and when you go down the line behind the rope and everybody gets asked the guy one question and the questions are normally so how'd you prepare for The fight, when are you gon na knock them out? What round what'd you do different? What are you eating all these different things right and that's the questions all the time when you talk to these fighters, and so what ends up happening is every third question was tell me about the suit. Tell me about the suit and i'm like, oh my god, so i'm going like this in the background. Just oh, it's my tailor made me the suit and then all suddenly says my tailor and i have a new company august mcgregor.

This is august mcgregor's suit, and i'm like, oh god here we go so anyway. The the suit went viral. So how many? How many people called emailed, went to your website about pick you up on dm and said? I need one of those suits man. Well, first of all, when i had the fabric made, i i was in one of my fabric suppliers, offices back in new york, and i saw this pinstripe years ago 25 years ago.

We would make these suits that had the your name in a pinstripe yeah, expensive yeah, it was, you know, the fabric was, you know, five grand for the fabric and then you make the suit. It was like a ten thousand dollar suit 25 years ago yeah. But what happened was it was a novelty thing, but nobody really wants to put their name in the suit. Necessarily yes at the time.

So it wasn't a big seller, but we sold a few anyway, and i saw this card on this on the back of the desk and i said: hey, do you guys still make those pinstripes, you know, put names in the in the in the suit and she Said yeah: we do, we don't do a lot of them, but yeah it's still available, and i said: okay good. Can you put anything in there yeah anything? I'm like okay get the card out. I want to order a few of these and so gets the card out and i'm looking at them. I pick out a navy with a gray and i pick out a gray with a light gray and she says okay, what do you want to put in this? In the pinstripe - and i said well, i want to say you you you and she laughs.

You know, that's funny, you know really what yeah? What do you really want? Yeah? What do you really want? I said no, i want that and she's like. Oh, are you kidding, i said? No, so i said i'll lay it out for and i'll send it to you. So i did, i laid it out and my graphics guys laid out and we sent her the images and she submitted it and about two and a half months go by this is way before the fight and about eight weeks before the fight. I called - and i said: hey, listen, where's, that fabric yeah and she said: oh, my god, i've been dreading.

This phone call and i said, what's up, she said the mill will not weave that it's too vulgar and they won't weave it. I'm like you're kidding me you're, like thanks for the call two and a half months later hello, and so she said no, i said, ask him one more time, just how much for a friend i'm a big client of yours. Let's do it i'm trying to talk her into it. She came back two days later and said: no, you can't do it.

So i'm thinking! Oh no, now i'm on a mission, so i call all my fabric suppliers. You know i go through. We deal with laura piana and gourmet and skiball, and all these amazing amazing uh fabric suppliers around the world and they all came back like a couple days later and said: no, no, no mill won't weave it. So now i'm thinking they've got to be going to the same mill for sure, and so i called another fabric supplier herbert gladsen, i'm going to give the name they're one of our great fabric suppliers - and i said, hey guy - did i deal with over there.

I needed to do me a big favor before you say: no. I've been turned down like seven times and i need to make this happen. Here's what i need to have happen, and i explained exactly what i wanted i've done. He laughed and he said.

Okay. Let me see what i can do and i said no, i needed to get it done. It's like you're, my last yeah, so he came back and he said, listen who's this for, and i said it's just for myself. He said okay, so you need one suit length, make it two yeah and he's like all right.

I said just for me and a friend and so okay, fine, i'm gon na, go and have it done. You can pick one color do it. So i picked the navy with the gray and he and i said the other thing i need in like three weeks. I need it fast and it usually takes like 12 weeks to make this fabric they have to set up the the uh machine.

It's woven. Yes, it's not printed on the fabric, it's actually woven into the fabric. So anyway, he calls me like three weeks later and says: you're not gon na, believe it. I have your fabric, oh my god great.

He goes. It looks amazing. I don't know where you're going to wear this suit, but it looks amazing fine. Send it to me sends me the fabric i get it.

I have a suit made for myself. First, even my shop is like. Are you you really want to make this suit? Like really yeah, why and i said just make it make it we did and then fast forward. Connor wears it goes viral the next that hap.

When that happened. I called my fabric supplier and i said, hey listen tomorrow morning when you get up. I just want to know i have a, i have an exclusive on the fabric right and he says yeah, of course we're not going to make that fabric for anyone, no one's going to order that suit. I said okay just want to make sure no problem.

Next morning he calls me david, what's the deal, you didn't tell me that you're making it for conor mcgregor and i said well, that's my friend yeah and he goes oh. He goes. I said i have an exclusive right and he says i can't give you an exclusive everyone's calling for this fabric. You're kidding me - and i said here - here's the deal, i'm not going to tell you how to run your business.

This is a good. This is back to business, but i think i'm a pretty good client of yours and i said i'm going to have a hard time doing business with you in the future because not because i don't want to do business with you, but it's a trust issue now. Yeah, you promised me something now you go back on your word, you know so i said because you think you're gon na make a quick buck yeah. I said so.

Look. Let me know yeah. He says i'll call you back in 10 minutes. He calls me back and says you have an exclusive, i said great, so move forward.

Now i don't have any fabric because i only made 10 yards of it and i used it one for me, one for connor and so now we're getting inundated. So we had to answer your first question. We have we've had over 6 billion with a b impressions on the internet, it's probably more like 8 billion now, but at the time about 6 billion impressions, meaning that's not 6 billion people look at it, but 6 million billion times it's been opened, and i saw It yep right and people say: hey check out the suit check this out, and then we had about oh over 200 articles written on us through gq magazine and vogue magazine and usa today and new york times and boston globe and l.a time all over the world. Everyone's writing articles on this suit.

So i said: okay, here's! What we're going to do. I ordered another piece of that which is 60 meters which makes about you know 15 16 suits. So i said, let's just order and see what happens. I said put it on: we've never sold anything on the website custom because you know we have to fit people and there's you know 30 measurements we take and we do multiple fittings and it's it's a process.

And so i said, let's try and see what happens. So we took a picture of me in the suit put some pictures on the website and we put the suit on there. 6, 500 for the suit another 800 bucks for the shirt and the tie, the pocket square, the shoes everything it came out to eleven thousand nine hundred ninety five dollars and i'm thinking. Okay, we're not gon na sell anything.

These things, you know how we're gon na do this. Next morning i come in, i said how'd we do and they said we sold out last night like that, like that - and i like crazy - oh my god, you're kidding me so we started looking at all the orders and it's from like dubai, korea, australia, new zealand, Italy all over america and i'm thinking uh. Oh, i don't have the staff to go measure all these people. What am i going to do, and so i'm thinking, okay, here's what we're going to do.

I wrote everybody a letter, an email and said you know, congratulations on the purchase of your new david august, limited edition, fu suit. What we're going to do is we're going to send you a tape, measure and i'd like you to get a significant other, a buddy too and resourceful that's right. When you get the tape measure, call us we'll schedule an appointment like we normally do 10 o'clock on thursday morning whatever, and you have your person on that side. With your tape measure we'll have myself and two other helpers with me, someone holding the camera my model and then i'm taking the measurements, and i said: hey julie, hey bob! What's going on yeah julie, you have your tape measure.

I've got it. Okay, great you're, my assistant today, here's what i want you to do follow my lead. I want you to take these measurements. First of all, how tall are you how much you weigh? What are your? What's your shoe size now put the tape measure right around here.

For his overarm chest measurement wasting we go through all the measurements, it ends up being like really fun for the people and they're interested part of the experience. That's right. We also told them um. If you can, please have your go-to um suit jacket or sport coat with you, so we can try that on for body proportions, and then we have them step back against uh the solid wall.

We say: okay, front, picture side picture like a mug shot back pitcher facing the wall. Another side picture put the coat on those four same shots again and then um we make the garment it's amazing, and then we ship it to them and they have a local tailor. We could facetime with them fitted on them. If there's any minor adjustments, we take care of it, but it totally worked, and so now that opened up our business for all sorts of international business everywhere and you didn't have to get on a jet.

It was a great flight to go, see them or chat, or anybody it's great. I can do it in my backyard yeah, my patio but anyway, and it really does work and we use it all the time now and so now we're now we can um take care of people all over the world, especially that we have the august mcgregor collection And it's so international, so people every day we get people we'll email or dm us and say: hey, listen! Um! I wan na i'm getting married i'd love to have a david august suit. How does this? How does this work and we just handle it? So is i mean so again here we are we're talking about. We started this by saying it's just so easy for you right i mean, but but how many, how many pivots, how many adjustments to figure that? How are we going to do this? We're not going to sell you the suits you got to.

You got to be on your toes all the time and not and and the other thing that i think that we do and we've always done is we always say? Yes, we always say yes, okay. That leads me to to something i want to get into, which is dealing with clients. You know funny. I was listening to um.

Tony robbins was doing a podcast with someone, and he talked about when the del mar castle burned. That was with conor mcgregor yeah with connor right. He says and i lost 300 thousand dollars with the david hogg explosion anyway, but connor said something you can't beat the hustle anyway. I had actually introduced you so good tony called me one day and said: hey, listen! I really want to have connor down at my house.

We have our platinum partners, platinum, plus, whatever they have a smaller group of platinum partners that come down and anyway i said. Okay, let me see we can do so. I introduced connor to tony and tony i mean conor didn't really want to go, but he says if you are you're going to be there too, and i said well i'll fly in for it and we'll do it so i flew into miami connor was actually training There um tony lives in florida now so brought him to tony's house he's got his weekend thing going on there. He brings him up on stage, they start talking it.

It was pretty electric yeah, it was pretty funny. You could that's it's. Actually. That was a very, very funny story and, and what happened with tony is that one night he did call me in the middle of night and said his assistant called said: you're, not gon na believe it tony's house burnt down.

He has no clothing, only the suit that he has on his back. Can you be here first thing in the morning, i'm like yeah sure i'm thinking? Okay. Here we go another emergency right, but this is client emergency, which is fine yeah, but this is the yes like yeah. So i think so we're talking a lot right now about it's, the on-demand economy, that's right and whether that is push a button.

Magic happens. Uber eats, you know, think about uh netflix uber eats uber when we used to when we used to get you know driving around going to restaurants and such uh amazon. Everything is right now and what a lot of people that are listening to this podcast struggle with this, the consumer expects right now the consumer expects a yes that's right. So now you mentioned earlier, you have 80 billionaires yeah, and i know you have lots of non-billionaires worth gazillions of dollars in men and women at that level.

Ten have a tendency to uh, not care about anyone else's schedule, except for their own. That's right! How do you manage that? You got ta, make them feel like they're the most important person at the time, and they are when i'm on the phone with them. They are the most important person in my life. But what happens if uh, i'm just business, you know like yeah yeah right: let's do a hypothetical like you know, stallone and will smith call at this and they both need you right now.

How do you? How do you do that divide and conquer hey you guys kind of live in the same area, i'm going to see so-and-so first and so-and-so right after which one can i see first, and we just figure it out, and we literally people will call us when you're Talking about custom clothing, people just kind of think the same as furniture. Okay, i got to pick out my furniture. Then i have to order the fabric. What are they takes? Whatever yeah yeah, if you're making furniture it's 8 to 12 weeks, it's always 12..

Sometimes more! Oh, a fabric was out same type of principle, but what we've really mastered i'd say over the years is uh making it happen in you know: 24 hours 48 hours. If we have to, we don't like to do that and it's it really does screw up the shop. If you do that, but we have the ability to do it and we do it if we have to, and so we have to we're constantly making um decisions on okay, what's more important right now, how can we make this happen? Um? It's it's a constant juggling! Yes, act and so but i but i will say that we don't say no very often unless something just i need it today at at five o'clock and it's you know: 3, 30 and okay, let's you know. Obviously, i'd love to say yes, but i can't you and i ran into each other uh.

We were both flying to or from somewhere and you're wearing the fu best and you go. You should get one of these and i'm like. I don't think i could wear that on stage i go, but how about level 10 and you go okay, yeah, okay and i was like right, tristan and you're, actually, the first one that did that right, yeah and i'm like all right.