10. 46, welcome back. One
company has decided to use the
popularity of basketball.
>> And more specifically
basketball shoes as a way to
support legislation to improve
public like the sound of that
basketball shoe brand common
enemy donates 5% of sales to
establish better health
outcomes.
>> Through Congress. So joining
us to explain what this all
means, founder of Common Enemy
Ryan. Gordon, Good Morning,
Ryan.
Good morning. What are we
talking about here? What it
what are you donating to?
What it? What are the outcomes?
We’re trying to get.
>> We’re trying to improve
public health through
legislation in Congress we’ve
started with 5 nonprofit
advocacy groups that we donate
a total of 5% of sales to and
these advocacy directly
support, educate, mobilize
around specific pieces of
legislation. That have been
sponsored and the Senate and
the House representatives piece
of legislation like the raise,
the Wage will gradually
increase the minimum wage, the
federal minimum wage to $17
an hour in this country
supported by Houston’s very
Representative Al Green and
Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvia
Garcia.
another very important piece of
that
we support dictated by 2 of
our nonprofits and health care
now and the physicians for a
national health care program is
the Medicare for All supported
by sponsored initially by
representative giant Paul in
the House of Representatives
and Bernie Sanders in the in
the also supported
Representative Al Green and
Sheila
Jackson Lee. And we feel
there’s a real need for an
approach to stick. Systemic
focus, systemic improvements in
this country and we feel what
better place to do that than
basketball.
>> Yeah, yeah. It sounds like
there’s a lot here and it
sounds as if you have a lot
of hands on deck, which is
really great. Ryan, I you know,
we do here often there are so
many brands, you know,
constantly giving back. But
your model is clearly
different. I just elaborate
on that in what you want people
to know on how this is different from other efforts.
Absolutely.
>> So most brands focus on
working with individuals and
communities that have sort of
fallen into social support gaps
right here, kind of traditional
philanthropic model of giving
back we believe this needs to
coexist alongside brands like
Common Enemy, which is focused really on influencing Congress
to protect health, to protect
health outcomes that become law
of the land. Right. So we’ve
got sort of that long-term
approach, if you will, to
solving these kind entrenched
problems in this country.
>> 5% is a lot for you guys
able to afford that.
>> So we feel like if you
maintain tighter product
assortments, right? We by by
the mantra, less is more.
If we you know, 24 7 on quality
and customer service. If we
continue to maintain a better
corporate pay ratio by reducing
that typically inflated
executive compensation
packages. We feel like all this
will more than
offset that aggressive 5, 5%.
The nation amount.
>> Are you guys in stores like
where can people find
your shoes?
>> Right now We sell directly
through our website, Common
enemy dot com and we’re we’re
brand we just launched last
year. We are gaining momentum.
we’ve got we’ve extremely
lucky. We’ve had a chance to
get the get the product
professional basketball players
in the NBA, in the in the FIBA
Circuit and the European And
it’s become, you know, a little
bit of
an obsession with with some
of these We really got it.
It’s it’s it’s easy in concept
to build issue from scratch
to an enormous amount of people
from all of of all different
walks of life and shapes and
styles of play to adopt the
shoes could quickly as we have.
There’s been a real blessing.
>> Pretty universal. So what’s
next for common enemy?
>> We’re if any, if if you or
anyone in the Houston area
wants to introduce us
to Tilman Fertitta. Haha, I
love
>> Well, this is a start,
right? Yeah. Maybe he’s
watching right now. Hopefully
he’s watching all right.
Ryan Gordon, thank you so much