#111 - Darren Brown, Head of Marketing at OOFOS, takes us on a journey from the track to the heart of home, revealing how family and fatherhood have shaped his world. Listen as he candidly discusses his transition from a competitive runner to a coach. Darren reflects on the camaraderie that transformed his life, from his collegiate days as an All-American athlete to coaching his wife.
Darren also introduces us to OOFOS groundbreaking foam technology, a leap in innovation for both athletic performance and everyday wellness. Join us for an episode that celebrates the intersections of innovation, community, and determination, proving that every stride counts towards a larger, shared goal.
Topics Covered:
Today’s Guest
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Head of Marketing at OOFOS, the global leader in Active Recovery footwear. Darren is responsible for leading the holistic global brand and marketing strategy – from grassroots experiential events to executing larger reach media campaigns - in order to build awareness and drive demand for the high growth disruptor brand.
Follow OOFOS:
Resources:
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#111 - Darren Brown, Head of Marketing at OOFOS, takes us on a journey from the track to the heart of home, revealing how family and fatherhood have shaped his world. Listen as he candidly discusses his transition from a competitive runner to a coach. Darren reflects on the camaraderie that transformed his life, from his collegiate days as an All-American athlete to coaching his wife.
Darren also introduces us to OOFOS groundbreaking foam technology, a leap in innovation for both athletic performance and everyday wellness. Join us for an episode that celebrates the intersections of innovation, community, and determination, proving that every stride counts towards a larger, shared goal.
Topics Covered:
Today’s Guest
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Head of Marketing at OOFOS, the global leader in Active Recovery footwear. Darren is responsible for leading the holistic global brand and marketing strategy – from grassroots experiential events to executing larger reach media campaigns - in order to build awareness and drive demand for the high growth disruptor brand.
Follow OOFOS:
Resources:
Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts
“Inspire to Run Podcast is truly inspiring!” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move toward the healthy life that they desire. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
Join the Inspire to Run community:
Help us continue making great content for listeners everywhere by clicking here to support the show!
Hey, my friend, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Darren Brown, who is the head of marketing at Ufos, the global leader in active recovery footwear. You'll not only hear his amazing journey from runner to coach, but you'll hear his life lessons along the way, including friendship, family and fatherhood. Hope you enjoy.
Intro/Outro:Welcome to Inspire to Run Podcast. Here you will find inspiration, whether you are looking to take control of your health and fitness or you are a seasoned runner looking for community and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. Now here's your host, richard Connor.
Richard Conner:Hi, my friend, welcome to Inspire to Run Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of sitting down with Darren Brown. Darren is the head of marketing at OOFOS, the global leader in active recovery footwear. Darren is responsible for leading the holistic global brand and marketing strategy. Darren joined Ufos in 2016 and has 15 years of experience in the run, outdoor and fitness industries. Darren earned both an MBA in Masters in Sports Management from the University of Tennessee, as well as a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Texas, where he was in three time all-American on the cross-country track and field team. In his free time, darren enjoys spending time with his wife and three daughters, as well as volunteering at his church and community. Welcome to the show, darren.
Darren Brown:Thanks for having me, richard, appreciate it.
Richard Conner:Yeah, it's exciting to have you here. I've had the pleasure of bringing brands on the show to talk about their journeys, as well as the products and services that they offer to help our running community. It really is a privilege and honor for me to have you here and hear not only about Ufos, but also your own personal journey, which is incredible. Super excited to hear about that as well as talk about Ufos. Yeah, no.
Darren Brown:I'm excited to be here and to share some of that. I think the first thing I can share with you is, as you're reading my bio, I'm happy to announce there's a little update to it. Not only the father of three daughters, but my wife and I are expecting our first boy here in 2024. So 2024 will be full of all sorts of new adventures for me, and we couldn't be more thrilled but excited to be sharing that news. We just broke it to our family and friends over the holidays and still kind of surreal to say, but we're incredibly excited.
Richard Conner:Well, that's very wonderful Congratulations and just what a wonderful way to start the year. So that's really awesome.
Darren Brown:Yeah, we don't know what we don't know. So we're embracing what we're in store for, with not only the cluttered chaos of four, but just adding a boy to the mix, and we're thrilled We've got such. I'm so lucky and blessed by my family and my wife, and so we're excited to step into this new adventure and journey for us.
Richard Conner:That's incredible. Well, congratulations again, and I can't. I could say that I've heard personally that after three it's kind of all the same, but I don't know, maybe four will bring new adventures for you. So congrats.
Darren Brown:Thank you, Thank you.
Darren Brown:Yeah, we, you know, I think, leading into a lot of the way I've approached training and coaching and competition in the past, you know there's a level of embracing.
Darren Brown:The process that we're accepting at this point is that we'll find our way through it. I mean honestly, look, I remember when I had my first and they hand you your daughter and say, okay, you're ready to go home. And you go wait, this is my, I get to take this now, but there's no more training and you figure it out together and that's that's part of teamwork. It's part of a teamwork, a unique teamwork that my wife and I have actually had for quite a while, as we were both, you know, high performing athletes my wife incredibly successful in her own career in the sport of track and field and cross country and college. But then that shifted into dynamics as I went from being an athlete myself to actually coaching the back end of her career, and so we've been in these unique situations where we've got to work through them together and I think that's led to just us having such an incredible marriage. That is the foundation of our life here in Boston.
Richard Conner:That's really wonderful. I love that, and you know, now that you're bringing up kind of a little bit about your running journey as well as being a coach, let's, you know, dive in and hear a little bit more about that. Tell us a little bit about your running journey and and then that transition that you just talked about.
Darren Brown:Yeah, sure, you know my, my running journey. I grew up an athlete, but I wouldn't necessarily say I grew up a runner, I grew up an athlete. I actually I joke that I was living in California younger, when I was about 10, 11 years old, and it was when I was first getting exposed to youth track and field like a summer track program. And I joined the summer track program and you know, I came from from a lineage of runners. My father was a very talented, successful runner and so he was the marathon, the marathon masters, world record holder for about 25 years, ran 214 as a 41 year old. So just part of the Florida track club in the early days, with guys like Jack Bachelor and Marty LaCore, just a part of the legacy in history of running in this country.
Darren Brown:So as I got into the sport at an early age, you know I think a lot of people were expecting that I'd move into the middle distances and distances and I'd start running 1500s and all this sort of stuff. And the reality was I wanted to do the long jump and run the 400s and you know. So that's what I was doing and the coaches were letting me do it, but there was always this emphasis and push of like hey, why don't you like, why don't we just try something longer, why don't we try something longer? And so, sure enough, one weekend came about and they moved me into the 1500. And I think I broke like an age group state record or something like that. I think I ran like 510 at 10 years old and everybody's oh, he's going to run the 1500. This is going to be great. I'm going to try something longer. I'm a long jumper and a 400 meter runner. Mind you, I was finishing last in every long jump I was participating in, but I just wanted to do it Like I liked playing in the sand, like that's where I was in life, right? And so you know, after some back and forth, I ended up actually deciding this sport isn't for me at all, because I'm not good at what I want to do, and what I don't want to do is what I'm really good at and that's what everybody else wants me to do.
Darren Brown:So I went back to soccer and basketball and baseball and all the other team sports that I was participating in. I actually walked away from the sport for quite a while with my parents' full support, everybody else's full support around me it just for me. It wasn't the time and I played soccer for the majority of my life. I expected was speaking to colleges and thought I would go to the next level to play soccer, not to run track. I wasn't actually even running track and I got back into the sport in high school because I got injured playing soccer and it was part of my rehab program. My rehab program was to get back into a state of fitness, a level of fitness and a strengthening, and so I joined cross country in.
Darren Brown:The fall went okay. I wouldn't say I was a standout athlete right off the bat, but there was progress, some pretty rapid progress, and in my first year of full track and field, going into my junior year of high school, I went from not breaking five minutes in the mile to running 417. And there was quite a bit of progress and so it was started. I started to think about it and started to identify with it. You know that wasn't actually as bad as it was when I was 10. Like, I don't dislike it quite as much as when I was 10. And I think this is actually where I started to fall in love with the process of it, like I could see the improvement daily. I didn't necessarily need just the ultimate goal of the race, like I was really enjoying the process of just working on getting better and better and better, and I was lucky to have some really good teammates, some really talented individuals at my high school who were running times way faster than I was, so I always had people to chase, I had people to work towards and I really started to regain kind of an interest I wouldn't call it a love, but an interest for track and field. And going into my senior year I made a conscious decision that, hey, if I wanted to do a sport, and any sport at the next level, this was actually starting to look like the most advantageous path, and so I put my heart and soul into focusing on getting better throughout the summer, went into the next cross country season, ended up finishing as one of the top cross country runners in the state of the state of Texas at the time we had moved to Texas for my high school years One of the top runners in the state in cross country and then went on to run 411 outdoors that year for the mile and 151 for the 800 and had a very nationally competitive time. That got me some interest and offers to go compete at the college level.
Darren Brown:So I went originally to a small school in Rhode Island called Providence College, small liberal arts school with a very rich history of successful running. There's a coach there, ray Tracy. They call him the guru. He's coached about as many Olympians in the middle distances and distances as any coach in the NCAA. It was also my dad's alma mater and there was a kind of a built-in sense of support that I could get there and I thought it'd be a great place for me. I can tell you as a boy from Texas at that point an 18 year old from Texas that gets transplanted to Rhode Island when winter hits there's this white stuff that starts falling from the sky that I was not used to, and after a period of time it wasn't just the snow, but I think there was a broader cultural thing at Providence. That wasn't what I was looking for. It's a very small team. It's all centered around kind of the middle distances and distances, and they're incredibly successful in that space. I was missing the broader team picture, though myself.
Darren Brown:Again, I think this is where, going back to, part of what I really enjoyed was the process and working together and the success of winning together, and I had so much of that at a large high school in Texas, and so I transferred back to the University of Texas going into my third year, and they had recruited me out of high school. So I knew the coach. A bunch of guys I raced against in high school had gone there. At this point they were building a really strong program and then that year I decided to transfer back. A young athlete that I had raced in high school named Leo Menzano, ended up going to the University of Texas. He was a myler who would go on in 2012 to win the Olympic silver medal and ended up being a fantastic person for me to hitch my wagon to all through college, to just help sharpen me, help get me better.
Darren Brown:That's what I was looking for the challenge. Not only the challenge personally, but we as a team. I don't think we finished lower than probably third in the NCAA any time I was there, because we had incredible sprinters, jumpers, throwers. My roommate in college was a guy named Trey Hardy who's a two-time world champion in the DeCathlon, olympic silver medalist in the DeCathlon. I mean, I was living. We were the odd couple. I was 130 pounds, soaking wet. He was six-five, 230 pounds of pure power, but just had this awesome dynamic that I really think I thrived in going to school at Texas, and so we had a lot of success, was able to earn a few All-American honors there in some relays as well as individually in the 1500.
Darren Brown:And coming out of school I really had an opportunity to continue to compete internationally and on the global stage, and so I wanted to take that chance I mean, you don't get those very often and so I spent a few years traveling, competing, won a few races that I'm proud of but more so, really made some strong connections with people who are still very, very close friends, people whose weddings I've been in, who I've never lived within like 300 miles of, because they trained and raced from other states. But they're bonds that we made traveling the world together and going to these races, and we may have been competitors standing on the line next to each other, but we created a bond in between those moments as friends and brothers and sisters, and so it was just a really cool period of time that I'm hopeful that as my kids grow up whether it's in the sport or in the arts or whatever it is they want to do. They get a similar experience to that, because I truly think it's unique and, I think, was formative. So the most formative moment, probably being meeting my wife during that period, which is, you know, we met traveling and racing. She is a, she was the high school national record holder in the vile for a decade plus was recently broken by some of these incredibly fast kids these days that are running so such fast times that it makes me feel incredibly slow. It puts all things in perspective.
Darren Brown:But we met and we Grew a friendship that turned into a relationship that eventually turned into a marriage.
Darren Brown:But she was an NCAA champion as well at the University of Tennessee, in the mile indoors in her senior season, and so at some point in time I made the the choice that I wanted to continue my education, moved to Knoxville, went back into the MBA program at the University of Tennessee.
Darren Brown:She was there training full-time after having graduated. We got married and you know we were both kind of seeking our own paths In this profession and and one of the things we realized is we were both investing energy into ourselves going in opposite direction A lot of the time. I had just come back from a pretty serious injury where I had broken my ankle and kind of a freak fall, and that was taking a lot of extra time, a lot of extra rehab and PT and well, while I was enjoying the process, there was this new element to my life with, with my wife and my relationship that you know we had some long talks about and and what it eventually led to was me leaving the sport and, in time, actually coming to coach her career and it was a really kind of Nerve-wracking moment to step into that when you're in a young marriage and a relationship and adding that level of Dynamic.
Darren Brown:But I became not only her coach but her day-to-day training partner and you know Her confidant and her husband at home and and so we had to isolate some of those moments as best we could. But I can also tell you I don't know that I've ever had as much fun in the sport. I've never been as nervous in the sport you know, watching her line up versus myself getting on the line, but also being able to celebrate wins together. It was like it was like a mini team. I didn't have the college team capacity anymore, but I had. We had this mini team and it was. It was such a great experience and and it was a continuation for me of Really being able to dive in and focus on the process, except for the first time, the process wasn't about me, it was about her, and so just really helping her achieve her goals and her dreams Was inspiring to me. You know making world teams, you know being on world record relays and breaking world records with. With some of the other new balance girls, she ran for New Balance for 10 years. They were such a great, great company to her and, and she got to compete on on some relays with Jenny and Emma and some of the other kind of absolutely world-class elite, global medalists, women that they had in their stable, and it was just an awesome opportunity that I got the privilege to be a part of that, even though I wasn't the one stepping on the track, and so that was a really cool experience. That Really lit a flame, I think, in both of us, where I knew that, while I didn't know that coaching was going to be necessarily my career Division, it was something that I always wanted to have as a part of my life, and so, whether we were in Knoxville or Uh, southern California, or by the time we moved up to Boston, like we, we have always invested in, whether it's small run groups or run clubs, and at one point I put myself through college at Tennessee Starting my own run programs in Knoxville to coach adults to run whether it's their first 5k, they're their fastest marathon, anything in between and that's how I put myself through school.
Darren Brown:Uh, and we just we thoroughly loved walking people through that process and helping them understand not that you know the stress of thinking about on day one, whether you can achieve the goal, that's, you know, 90 days out, isn't worth it.
Darren Brown:Like, enjoy the, the moment of that day, enjoy the workout of that day, enjoy the fact that you can do that workout and go enjoy that process along the way, because the rest of it will take care of itself.
Darren Brown:Um, and even if it doesn't, even if you get sick in the week leading up the the race, weather is, you know, terrible on race day and you don't hit the, the goal time you wanted to. You know, I guess what, in the grand scheme of life, it actually doesn't matter all that much and it definitely doesn't matter more than everything you learned in the 89 days prior. Like, everything you learned in those 89 days prior will will do way more for you than that one day of racing, because you can do another day of racing, but you won't get that 89 days back to learn what you could have learned, to improve the way you could have improved, to enjoy the way you could have enjoyed. And so we really brought that as part of not only my, my coaching mantra with her, but our coaching mantra with with some of the other people we met in the community.
Richard Conner:I love that. I love that. Just an incredible story, an incredible journey. And I love you know how you keep going back to enjoying the process and how you described it, because you know we sometimes hear hear that, right, enjoy the process. It's not just about the destination and but the way you talked about it makes a lot of sense and I think it's going to be really valuable for our listeners.
Richard Conner:Because you know Days, you there's some days you don't want to show up for your workout, or you show up and you're like, oh, I'm not really feeling this, or you know there's so much you're you're probably in your head a lot, or at least I am right when it comes to, you know, your workouts, nutrition, your recovery, so, but but for you, like, that's the exciting part, right, this is you, all of those things and learn and grow. So I love the way you said that and congratulations, not only in the success, you know, in running, but also in your personal life, of your relationship and kind of building that life where you're able to Support your wife and and her goals, but also your own goals in terms of coaching. So just Congratulations all around. Really wonderful story there.
Darren Brown:Thank you, thank you, yeah, I mean I, honestly, I, every day, I truly believe we, you have a chance to set your table and, and that starts a lot with the mindset of whether you have to do things or whether you get to do things. And and I, I like To look at life as I have opportunities. I don't have, I have responsibilities, but you know, I've got opportunities to be invited into those responsibilities, and what a blessing it is to have those. And so, even when it's not what you hoped or expected it would be, I mean, this morning was a great example. I, you know, I still this, this process, is part of my lifestyle, and so I still like to get up, I still like to work out, I still like to do. You know it's not always running these days. I mean, I I dabbled in triathlons for a couple of years before the pandemic, just because I was looking for something, a new stimulus. But you know, some days I'll still get up and go. Man, I'm really sore because I'm a little bit older now and that workout was pretty tough and I just feel like getting in the pool and and flushing it out and swimming a bit, you know.
Darren Brown:So this morning I got up and I was hoping I could get in you know, eight to ten before work this morning and and my youngest daughter, pj, just had a rough night of sleeping. We had some change of weather. You're seeing a little snotty, just didn't seem herself last night and woke up Just in a grumpy moon and it was pretty clear I wasn't going to get the workout. I had hoped her plan To get in, but it but it was worth it for me to spend the morning With PJ making sure she she was doing all right and she got off on the right foot. Because I get to do that, because I've been blessed to have her as my daughter. My wife was able to go out and get a run in because she'll be with the kids all day While I'm here.
Darren Brown:And you know what I got. I got into the office and I had about 30 minutes before my first meeting. Did you know what? I'm just going to head into the gym that's here at our office? I'm going to get three miles and I'm going to be really happy with those three miles because I'm going to feel like as a complete person for the morning.
Darren Brown:You know what I got to check as many boxes as I hope to check. I got to be a good dad, I got to be a good husband, I got to get my workout in and I'm here being responsible at work and and so you know, instead of looking at it like, oh man, I didn't get those five extra miles in, I'm looking at it from the standpoint of what I got this morning and and I think, if we approach our day-to-day and we approach our lives with that, that manner, it not only helps our training and helps us have a healthier balance of our training and our life and our mental illness, but it can help us not in everyday life, just to to to deal with the things that disrupt the expectation and that's a lot of what life is is dealing with the disruptions.
Richard Conner:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And and I love what you said you know Kind of looking at the bright side of things right here, the things I was able to do, and having a holistic view of that, because it's not Just your running plan or or only work or only the other aspects, it's all of it together that makes up who you are, and being able to have a balanced approach to all of it is is really important. So I appreciate you sharing that and I love the story about your daughter and and you, you know, spending that time with her.
Darren Brown:Yeah it's. You know there's no greater responsibility I've had in life than raising my kids. And so, uh, clearly we're testing our limits with number four on the line, but Clearly we're embracing it as much as we can. And yeah it is. It's about looking at the things that you do get the chance. I will have Another day that I can run eight to ten miles and over the way. I probably would have taken a pretty easy day this weekend, one of the days anyways. So, okay, I got it on Friday. It's flexibility, it's fluidity. I will not get another chance to be there for my daughter, and so you know there's a balance in that and life is completely unbalanced at times. So the more you can, mentally, you know craft the balance for yourself, I think the better off will be.
Richard Conner:Absolutely, absolutely so, darren. You know, I know you. You have such rich experience and you've learned a lot through this, through this process, through your running journey. What would you say was your biggest obstacle in your running journey and how to overcome it?
Darren Brown:Yeah, I think you know I had different obstacles at different stages. Um, as I kind of talked through my history with the sport, it was not like an all-in ready to go from the beginning type of thing. I mean, I think there was a, there was a learned love. Um, that had to come. And you know I I would argue and say that I probably wasn't as good of an athlete as as even maybe my talent would have allowed me to be, or as even my wife was In part, because it wasn't all about the result to me. I do think that there is an element, when you're competing at the very top of the sport, that the result has to matter and it can't be all consuming, but it does have to matter. And it probably has to matter a little bit more than it did to me, don't get me wrong. I I liked winning. You know I didn't necessarily like losing, but I could be very, very content if I knew I gave it my all and I knew that my preparation, meeting up, was responsible and reflected, you know, a level of intentionality, that you know what was near perfect. You know there's always flaws in it, it's never perfect, but I think you know for me as I overcame kind of finding out what I wanted from the sport. That took a couple of swings right early on. It took a swing of saying like, can I embrace something in this sport that you know I'm naturally built for and have the talent for and kind of a God-given gene for, or do I want to long jump and finish last Every weekend and play in the sand right to, to a state of like well, I'm not just in this for myself, that's not actually what's giving me happiness in this. I personally enjoy the process, but I also want to be a surrounded by other people who are going through the process, and I had to learn that. I mean I you know I say this all the time I'm I'm not gonna change the, the way the collegiate system and Not just athletically but academically is set up, but as an 17, 18 year old, I was in no way shape or form ready to make an informed decision about where I wanted to go to school, where I wanted to compete, what I want to do like. Honestly, when I look at some some countries that have gap years and and even here in the Northeast, a lot Of kids take gap years and do prep years at prep schools. I'm like I honestly think that's a really smart idea. I learned more about kind of when I wanted to go in life and how I wanted to surround myself, the more I experience things and and as a 17 year old, quite honestly, you just haven't experienced that much. And so you know I had to work through that, going to Providence College and then realizing there's that wasn't the setting for me coming back to Texas and then you know, as I left Texas, one of the things that Was really really lost to me was that team infrastructure as I moved beyond my collegiate years.
Darren Brown:Track and field. You know, the professional world of track and field is not glitzing glamour, it is. It is grind him pound, it's just. You know it's. It's a lot of solitude, it's a lot of you know you make your own time and it's never been an issue for me to get up and get the work in. But I just don't enjoy isolation. I'm very social, socially minded. I enjoy being with other people, I enjoy going through the process with other people.
Darren Brown:And so when I got out of school at Texas, in the few years before I met my wife, sarah and before I moved to Knoxville to go back to grad school, I I had actually built a business plan that I brought to a local running shop To two individuals, ruth England and Steve Sisson. They ran a shop called Rogue running. Rogue running wasn't originally a running store, it was a. It was a community training program that they had started and and I had gotten to know Steven Ruth and I said hey, I said you know, I think there's a really good opportunity for us to leverage some of the talent and the wealth of knowledge and the running space coming out of UT and coming out of some of these other programs in and around the conference in the region and Centralize them here in Austin. It'd be really cool to start a post-collegional and big development group and and oh, by the way, like I'm happy to put my education to use, going and looking for grants, going and writing you know, the nonprofit bids and really going out and seeking the funding and doing the fundraising and everything else. And that was honestly my first taste of like the business side of things, which I also really developed a palette for, which is how I ended up here to post eventually, but it was, it was a joy of mine because it gave me something to go along with my own personal pursuit and so within those first two years after I graduated, I had recruited 10 plus athletes, male and female, down to the Austin area.
Darren Brown:We had a fully funded, supported group training to a variety of disciplines, from the half mile, from 800 All the way up to the marathon, and we put people on national teams. One of our team members was actually Welsh and holds the Welsh mile record, you know, and and we just had a lot of successes a group and to me that was way more Was to be part of that process, to be part of that team where we were doing great things together. We were challenging each other daily, so much so that one of my teammates there, who was a rival in college for Arkansas, he was a rival in high school at a rival high school he moved to Austin. He was a marathoner, I was a myler, but we worked out together a lot. He became one of my closest friends. He now works here at Ufos with me. When he retired from the sport, after finishing top 10 at Boston his last year running professionally, gave me a call and said you know, hey, ufos have any openings. And I said actually we do, and it's where you live and he's been an awesome Not only employee but teammate here and friend to have, and so it's been really, really cool to see how some of those things have Paid off far beyond the athletic realm.
Darren Brown:But I'd say that was, that was one of those biggest moments for me to overcome and then, and then to leave that again when I moved to Knoxville because I had met my now wife and we knew we were walking towards marriage together and and that was something that was going to be required she was in grad school and so to leave that again.
Darren Brown:I mean those, those were two really pivotal moments, I'd say. The first one allowed me to maintain a love and a passion for the sport beyond college that I think translated into success, not only personally but but hopefully helped and supported some others in their success. And then to knowingly leave that Because I had found a deep connection with my now wife and to say, okay, this is going to be. You know this is a risk for me when it comes to the sport, but really that was a pivotal moment that started my transition out of the sport but it led me into something so much cooler, in my opinion, where I got to move into a coaching realm and a support realm in a Completely new way, where I wasn't out of the sport. I hadn't been removed, I had just my facility within the sport had changed, and that was. That was another really cool moment.
Richard Conner:Love it, love it, so really love your story. And you mentioned UFOs like few times here.
Darren Brown:So you know, let's hear a little bit about you know the company, kind of what it stands for, and, and you're transitioning to as you mentioned the beginning, the, the global leader in recovery footwear, and, and you know a lot of people Will say what's recovery footwear? Is that like after you have surgery? Is that like? What is that? And? And the reality is it's based on the premise of a Unique foam technology that we have. So our, our founders here at UFOs are kind of industry veterans and legends in the performance footwear space. They worked for the, the big brands out there the Nike, adidas and Reeboks of the world for decades in the areas of design and development, and so, as part of the development process, they had all retired, by and large, from the industry. We're doing a little bit of consulting on the side and Via some relationships that they've had for a really long time.
Darren Brown:In Asia, there was a chemical engineer who came to them with a foam technology and said, hey, we've got this foam technology and, quite honestly, it's incredibly unique. We've spent the past 30, 40 years trying to make people run faster, jump higher, you know, throw further, and this is not the technology that will do that, but there's some really cool unique features of this that I think it could have application for helping do the opposite. It helps absorb impact and reduce load, dampen Force, and so, as opposed to rebounding fast and propelling you and pushing you, it actually catches you, and it catches you in an advanced Desecleration way. So, almost, like you know, slowly pressing on the brake versus slamming on the brake Right one gives you whiplash, the other one allows you to stop at the red light without hitting the person in front of you. And so you know, they took this, this technology, and they kind of, they worked with it, and the first thing they tried is the chemist mom had severe neuropathy in her feet and so they made this just very rudimentary sandal type that she could wear around the house and they gave it to her, and she had worn all the other kind of soft and cushioned foams that are out there on the marketplace and nothing had worked, nothing was making her feel better, and and and they put this on her feet and she immediately started to feel better, I she immediately started to get release from the pain and from the stiffness that she was feeling, and she said it felt as if I was walking on barefoot on a natural soft surface, so on grass, on hard, compact sand.
Darren Brown:And so, as they continued to study the foam, they studied the properties. One of the things they realized was that it was a lot like walking on a natural surface. If you think about natural surfaces, their impact absorbing right, you drop a golf ball on the concrete, it bounces right back up into your hand. You drop it into grass, it sits and hits and sits right. It just kind of sits there. It doesn't bounce back to you because that impact has been absorbed, the force has been dissipated and it was a soft landing, right, you don't get a loud ping, you get a little thud right. And so they said wow, this is incredible, because there's this whole concept of stress and rest that takes place in athletics and, having come from the performance footwear side, they knew all too well that one of the first things runners like to do when they finish a run is take off their shoes.
Darren Brown:One of them ran competitively in college and a little bit beyond, and he's like we love to get out of our shoes. We love to either be barefoot and go, you know, walk on the grass and let our toes splay and get mobility back in our feet. He goes. We can provide a product that allows people to do that, but take it with them, right, they don't have to be. They don't have to finish the run at a field in 75 degree temperatures so they can take their shoes off and walk barefoot on the grass to help their feet spread out, to reduce the load and the stress on the body, to help the muscles continue to work in a much more gentle manner that stimulates blood flow but doesn't actually exacerbate some of the damage that gets done during running. That then leads to improvement. So it was stimulating that recovery process to begin, but then also allowing you to carry it with you into the rest of your day, because the reality is we work out at extreme, maybe an hour and a half, two hours a day if you're training for a marathon, right, but most people work out 30 to 45 minutes a day and then you've got another 23 hours that you have the opportunity to improve and take care of your body, and so, while we call it recovery footwear, it's, by and large, a daily wellness tool, right. It's something that'll just help put your body in a better state.
Darren Brown:So, as they started to bring this technology to life through iterations of design that would actually optimize the foam properties right, if you think about walking through sand, it can be sluggish. Right, it can bog you down. And so one of the things they didn't want to do is they didn't want this to be an energy drain. They wanted it to be an energy giver. It's something that helped reenergize you, helped you recharge and recover, and so a lot of intentional design went into the shape, the look as well as the feel. Right, the feel comes back to the foam and so just kind of a fun side story A lot of people are like what does it? Who folks mean? How did you get to who folks? And really it came from the audible response in the early days of people feeling and testing the product for the first time. They would stick their foot into it and stand up and they go ooh, ooh. And so we started actually creating like an invitation and the call to action began with hey, feel the ooh. And so people would test it by feeling the ooh, and that ooh was ooh foam, because the foam was eliciting this ooh, audible response. It was a very emotive kind of naming convention that came into the brand and so we became ooh folks as a business and a brand, because really what we're inviting and calling people into is an opportunity to feel the ooh, this very unique, differentiated foam that will help them not only recover but live out.
Darren Brown:The brand's mission, which our mission, is simply to make people feel better. It's not to be the preeminent recovery footwear brand in the world on millions and millions of people. No, it's to make people feel better through our product, services and experiences, and so that's what our company lives towards each day, and I say lives towards, because we walk the walk, we talk the talk. You know, we want to help people live better lives, whether that's because of recovery footwear, because of an interaction they had, because of an experience we provided and in general. And so we're really, I'm really, pleased. We actually, this past year, we won one of the best places to work in Boston. That is an employee voted and surveyed award for the business, and so to us, as kind of the leadership team here, we really we celebrated that for a moment, because it means that we're not only living our mission externally, but we're living our mission internally by making each other feel better, making it a place that people want to show up to work and want to collaborate together and have a lot of fun.
Darren Brown:So, yeah, so that's that's us, and, honestly, we started in the running industry, primarily because, look, runners get impact Like we pound. We talk about pounding the pavement. We talk about, you know, lacing them up and pounding the pavement like we get impact and, as an impact, absorbing foam. It was the most natural place for us to start. The great thing about our product is it's so ubiquitous and active recovery has so many use cases. As we talked about, it's more of a daily wellness enhancer than it is just a recovery tool, and so some of our core customers are nurses, teachers, chefs, people who are on their feet all day long and hard on natural surfaces, where this is a welcomed invitation to get the sensation of being barefoot on a beach, even when you're up in front of a classroom of third graders right, helping you feel fresher longer throughout the day.
Darren Brown:And you know a lot of those people are doing early morning runs, runs after work, and so how do we help them keep their bodies fresh for whenever it is they're going to take on, you know, that task that they're looking forward to.
Richard Conner:I love that. I love that. Well, congratulations on your award and as a fellow marketer, I really love where the name came from, Kind of the impetus for that. So that's pretty incredible. And as a runner as well, I certainly appreciate the technology and the design, the thought that you put into this product and how you're helping not only runners but other folks. So just, I'm just really excited about you, know your company, your brand, your products and how you're helping the running community and others.
Darren Brown:Thank you, yeah, and I mean that's, that's our challenge, right?
Darren Brown:Our challenge going forward is not only to find ways to continue to fulfill and live out that mission of making people feel better, but to make, to make the access point more inclusive of anybody who may need. I can remember where we started with kind of sandals and slides, because sports slides is what people would get into when they came out of their athletic shoes. But the reality is, when you, when you talk about like a teacher or a nurse or a chef, they can't wear sandals or slides into their occupation, and so that really stimulated our move into close to footwear. You know we're based in Boston and I feel blessed to be based in Boston because we probably wouldn't have taken the step into more seasonal product and even boots and, and you know, water resistance materials, et cetera. It really allows you to bring this into any point in your life that you may need. You know, a little bit of stress relief, a little bit of reloading, a little bit of deep compression, and we can be a suitable option and tool in that moment.
Richard Conner:Awesome, awesome. Darren, thank you so much for sharing this and thank you for sharing the background of the company and what you offer and how you're helping runners and others. Tell me a little bit about what's next for you in your running journey. You mentioned that you're not running as much, but what's next for you and what's next for UFOS?
Darren Brown:Yeah, for me personally, we got a pregnancy number four that I will be supporting my life through and as she stays active in all of her pregnancies, and so it's an opportunity for us to enjoy that together, as it looks a little bit different. But I also registered yesterday for an event I do every year it's actually an extension of our cause here at UFOS which is the Panmass Challenge. The Panmass Challenge is a 200-mile bike ride across Massachusetts across two days. It doesn't technically go all the way across Massachusetts. So for some wild and crazy reason, at the end of last year's ride myself, a bunch of my teammates here at UFOS decided we were going to do what's called Day Zero, which means we're actually going to start unsupported on the border of New York and Massachusetts and we're going to do a day ride before the start of the race, which starts in central mass, from complete Western mass on the border to central mass, just as a group unsupported ride, and then we'll join up with the ride from there. The ride is a fundraiser that raises money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who we are an official partner of. Over the course of the past handful of years, ufos has donated almost $4 million to Dana-Farber for patient care and cancer research. That is a big focus for us. We donate a percentage of every sale that's made on UFOScom to Dana-Farber because we don't believe that it's a month that needs to be focused on. We believe it's a full year thing that people need to be supported through. We came to that conclusion because the cause really shows us.
Darren Brown:Our first employee and former head of brand, duncan Finnegan, went through a very significant battle with metastatic breast cancer from 2015 to 2019. I worked very closely with Duncan over a long period of time and just got to watch her passion and fight and drive as she went through that journey. In that time, a bunch of us started riding the pan mass challenge. In time as Duncan passed and way to honor her, we not only kept up with Project Pink, which is our donation cause to Dana-Farber, but we officially partnered with the pan mass challenge as the official recovery footwear of the ride. We've continued to add more and more teammates to the ride each year. Team Duncan, which is made up of doctors, family, friends and colleagues here at UFOS, is now 90 plus strong.
Darren Brown:I'm proud to report that last year was the first year as a team. The 90 of us raised over a million dollars during that ride, which we were really, really proud of. We also were able to have one of our brand partners and brand investors, former NFL quarterback Alex Smith, come out and ride with us and it was such an awesome, awesome opportunity to have him really dive in and experience like why we do this and what this company is about, and, as somebody who had recently invested in the brand, after years of being a partner and purchasing product, it was a really cool moment that, I think, drew him closer to who we are. So, while I'm not training for anything super hyper competitive, I am training for something that is very impactful, very near and dear to not only my heart but a lot of our hearts here, and I'm really excited. I'm actually on the computer screen behind me.
Darren Brown:I've got a picture from the finish line last year with the team, the project pink team, and it's just. It's such a great, great bonding weekend. Our CEO has ridden it every year. Lou Panachone started it with Duncan back in 2015 as first ride. He's riding his 10th year this year. Just. He's somebody who leads by example and he's the reason that more and more of us have gotten involved and really taken it upon ourselves to spearhead this effort into something bigger and bigger each year.
Richard Conner:That's incredible. That's incredible. Thank you for sharing that, and I will include information in the show notes. If our listeners can support that cause, I'll include information in the show notes about that as well. So, just kind of as we wind down here, what's next for Ufos?
Darren Brown:We will continue to surprise and delight. You know, innovation never stops. I think the one thing that's great about our product line is we have probably the most complex, simple product line in existence, because our technology is our technology. It's so unique and differentiated. Every single product that Ufos makes starts OOFOAM technology technology and our patented footbed design that optimizes that foam technology.
Darren Brown:So whether you're in a sandal, a slide, a shoe, a boot, you know you're going to get the same fit, feeling, function out of all of them. That's both a blessing and a curse, because our design team it's hard. It's hard to continue to iterate and update, but I can tell you they've got some really cool things on the horizon that they're working on, they're really excited about, and it's all about widening that access point and just making active recovery more inclusive, not only as a concept but as a product offering. And so we think the more we can do that, the more we can help people lead better lives, you know, live a life that feels better, that allows them to do more, stay more mobile, whether it's, you know, the athlete who's recovering quicker between their workouts, or you know it's the aging athlete who's, you know, starting to feel the aches and pains, but wants to stay as mobile as possible as late in the life, and so you know we're there for them and we want to continue to be there for them, so we'll continue to seek new endeavors.
Darren Brown:We do have a fun collaboration that will be coming out in January. We're working with a performance brand in the golf space called FootJoy. So we have a collaborative product coming out with FootJoy as their official recovery partner, and when you come off that, that 19th hole, and you're ready to slide into something that feels really good and allow you to potentially come back and play around to the next day, you know we'll have an offering, and so we'll continue to work with like-minded people in the space, always looking to collaborate and partner. But I'm excited about the work our team is doing internally to continue to push not only the category but our offering within the category forward.
Richard Conner:Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much, Darren. I appreciate you coming on the show sharing your journey, but also sharing the journey and background of UFOS, and I'll put the information in the show notes again to make it easy for our listeners to define to you and in UFOS online. So just with that, I just want to thank you again for coming on the show and best of luck with the upcoming race, as well with the new addition to your family.
Darren Brown:Thank you, rich. Hey, thanks for making the space for us to talk about this. Really appreciate you having me on, and best of luck to you in the new year. Happy new year. I hope 2024 is a fantastic one for you, and thanks so much for also supporting the cause and putting that in the show notes. We appreciate it greatly.
Richard Conner:All right, thank you and have a great day.
Intro/Outro:That's it for this episode of Inspire to Run Podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community and also please rate and review. Thanks for listening.