Vince Lebon - Design Thinker & Founder, CEO & Designer at Rollie Nation
Vince is one of the top shoe designers in Australia and is the founder, CEO, and designer at Rollie. Vince won the Pensole Scholarship at D'wayne Edwards' design academy and took out the Pensole x Footlocker x Asics ‘Future of Footwear’ Competition.
Vince has worked with Adidas to help set their design direction and vision, and his company Rollie has been named in Power Retail's top 150 online retailers and labeled as a brand to watch.
Rollies are sold in leading shoe stores around the world, including Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France, and the US.
Vince on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vince_lebon
Rollie Nation: https://www.rollienation.com
Verbatim from the transcripts — each quote links to the moment.
“You get what you focus on, right? So if you focus on building a business, it's very, very easy to build a business and not be profitable.”
“When you have no money, you make good decisions.”
“You don't need to go to the States to blow up. You just need to create awesome shit here that people come to you like.”
“No one buys something that they don't need.”
“It's not about selling yourself, right? Just create great work and they'll come to you.”
“I don't want a photo with you. I want to design with you. I want to work with you.”
“We live in an over-consume sort of world, right? Like, we overproduce. We don't need the amount of products that we do.”
How should someone start a shoe or fashion brand with limited money?
Treat limited funds as a forcing function for disciplined decisions, build the business model before the product, hire only people who directly cover their own cost and add revenue, and avoid overextending just because capital is available.
Is it necessary to move overseas (e.g. to the US) to build a global brand?
No — you can run and scale an international brand from Australia by adjusting working hours to match global time zones and scheduling regular international trips rather than relocating permanently.
Should you sell yourself or let your work speak for you when pitching a business idea?
Focus on producing visible work rather than pitching yourself; let finished projects and output serve as the 'elevator pitch' instead of claiming skills or ideas you haven't demonstrated yet.
How should someone break into the footwear/sneaker design industry with no network?
Avoid jumping straight into manufacturing via Alibaba; instead work for an established company first, add genuine value, build technical experience and industry relationships, then launch your own brand.
Vince explains that Rolly is named after a private nickname for his wife, not based on the flight-attendant story the hosts assumed; the nickname was used so often it became all her passwords, which she has since had to change.
Vince recounts selling 500 pairs in under 5 weeks at South Melbourne Market, quickly landing the world's largest shoe store in Dubai as his first wholesale account, and expanding into Netherlands and Nordstrom within two years, while realising the business wasn't yet profitable until he focused equally on brand and profitability.
Vince describes applying for a Pensole sneaker masterclass, getting shortlisted then rejected, reaching out to mentor Dwayne Edmonds for feedback, reapplying with a shift in mindset focused on improving as a designer rather than winning a spot, eventually getting in, and winning a global Foot Locker shoe release with his group despite being short a team member.
Vince details the intense production of Lace Up, including a week of pre-show isolation, confiscated phones, producers changing the prize from $100,000 cash to a year of swag and an Adidas internship, and his business partner nearly resigning mid-filming.
Shortly after moving to the US, Vince attended ComplexCon and met Jerry Lorenzo, Ronnie Fieg, and Virgil Abloh, realising he didn't yet have the body of work to leverage those relationships, which reshaped his view that creating great work matters more than proximity to industry figures.
Drawn from the episode transcripts.
He spent 6 months developing the business model before the product, designed one shoe with a fixed last/outsole/lace/shoebox so only the upper material needed to change, and deliberately looked at inventory-light ways to scale without bringing on partners initially.
From episode 495→Vince applied for a Pensole sneaker design masterclass, got rejected twice before being accepted, won a Foot Locker competition through it, and was then invited onto the YouTube Red reality show, where contestants worked non-stop for 9 weeks with phones confiscated; producers later changed the $100,000 prize to a year of swag and an Adidas internship.
From episode 495→According to Vince, no — he argues this is a misconception; after living in Brooklyn he found most of his collaboration was still over calls with LA, San Francisco and Seattle, so a business can be run and scaled internationally from Australia by adjusting working hours and scheduling regular international trips.
From episode 495→Every episode featuring Vince Lebon on The Daily Talk Show.
