Culture Kings founders Simon and Tahnee Beard made millions off streetwear and sneakers
Australian retail phenomenon Culture Kings is about to launch its biggest play, with its 30-something founders taking on the US market.
Should Simon Beard ever tire of the streetwear schtick, he could have an equally stellar rise on the motivational speaker circuit. Although, given his enthusiasm for Culture Kings, which he and wife Tahnee founded in 2008, that’s a way off yet.
“I was always that hustler kid at school,” says Beard. He understood even then the need for focus to achieve his goals. For years, that goal was his password: 10millionby30.
“I always tell people, if you have a 10-year goal to make it your password,” the 37-year-old tells The List.
So, did the constant reinforcement mean he met that milestone? “I did. Actually, I blew past it.”
Ask the parents of any teenager about Culture Kings and they can likely tell you how much time and money their offspring spend at the stores, which boasts seven flagships across the country, and another in Auckland, New Zealand.
They’re not just a place to buy the latest Nike Air Jordans or Supreme hoodie, but somewhere to go and get a haircut with the instore barber, shoot some hoops on the basketball court or win a prize from the claw machine.
The ambience reflects the product, which crosses between streetwear, sport and music and includes items from more 100 brands including Stussy, Dr Martens and Tommy Hilfiger. The heady combination attracts visiting celebrities from those worlds, including Justin Bieber, Snoop Dogg, Kelly Rowland, Cristiano Ronaldo and A$AP Rocky – all of whom add to its street cred when those pics show up on Instagram.
The in-house DJ and subdued lighting says nightclub more than flagship store, and Beard concedes that he was inspired in large part by Las Vegas nightclubs and the Tao Group in particular, which created a buzz around major DJ events and happenings “and all the different ways they could monetise and create more experiences”.
‘My next door neighbour was this guy Big Kev, who used to be on TV selling. So I was really inspired by him and wanted to be a salesman’
For Culture Kings, it’s not enough to just open the doors, says Beard, but “how do we make every Saturday like a show?”
Beard’s rise from schoolyard hustler to multimillionaire is the stuff of local legend. His entrepreneurial streak kicked in early, with his first venture selling the answers to the Learner’s permit tests at school. He graduated to selling digital cameras and clothing sent over by a friend in the US at the weekend markets near his home in Carrara on the Gold Coast, constantly refining his sales technique.
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“My next door neighbour was this guy Big Kev, who used to be on TV selling. So I was really inspired by him and wanted to be a salesman. I got his stand at the markets selling cameras in the same demo spiel.”
While he completed a business degree majoring in banking and finance at the Queensland University of Technology, he has always undertaken courses and private tuition to improve his skillset. In the early days, that included one-on-ones with Jordan Belfort – the Wolf of Wall St himself – and attending more than 15 seminars with US motivational speaker Tony Robbins.
By his own reckoning, he has spent around $2m on his own personal development and training.
“I’m a junkie for it. I just keep doing every course, because I love it so much.
“But I did really see that setting those goals and really connecting emotion to it (was the key), and it’s not what you have but who you become in doing them. It really does juice me in energy.”
Since he was 15, he has “religiously” stuck to his Sunday night planning session, reviewing the previous week, scoring himself “on everything”, and planning for the next with a view to the future, asking himself “what’s the most important thing this week that’s going to move that needle?”
For Beard, meeting Tahnee, 33, was what really shifted the dial, in every sense. After a few random meetings, in 2008 Beard invited her on a date to Starbucks, where rather than ask what movies she likes, “My first question was like, ‘What are your goals?’” Tahnee had been working in aftermarket sales for a car dealership when they met; it became clear very quickly that the couple complemented each other’s skill sets and personalities.
Another of Beard’s early hustles was “schoolies’ slippers” – hotel slippers embroidered with Skoolies (misspelt to avoid trademark issues) for school leavers on the Gold Coast.
Its first – pre-Tahnee – iteration “was a joke”; when they came together the following year, “it clicked” and the product sold out.
“I was very much all the creative and the ideas and moving fast, but I didn’t really have that process or operational part behind me, and she brought that. It was just that art and science really coming together. We really cover each other’s weaknesses.”
“And one of our other core values is 1+1=11,” says Beard. “I always tell the story of Tahnee and I coming together. I was just a salesman, but once we came together the sum was so much greater than the parts. And we were lucky because we were based off love, the strongest force of all. When that comes together the magic really happens.”
Another of the company’s core values is around innovation, “but we say it as ‘f**k shit up’. And it’s with this energy that we come to it and really try and go against the grain and disrupt.”
The pair opened their first Culture Kings store on the Gold Coast in 2008. Beard had previously bought product from a store in Miami by the same name; when it went under, he bought the name and the logo for what seemed an astronomical sum of $30,000.
Until recently, the company was completely self-funded, and grew between 20 and 60 per cent year on year for the past 10 years.
Even a warehouse fire in 2017, which destroyed everything inside, wasn’t enough to stop the company growing 30 per cent the same year. “The muscle that we grew through that time was like the ultimate rep in the gym, like someone pushing going, ‘You can do it’,” says Beard.
The company’s strong online presence, which accounted for about half of all sales pre-pandemic, paid off when it hit in 2020; ecommerce now makes up 80 per cent of sales, although the data shows that it’s the in-store experience that still hooks the majority of customers in the first instance.
‘The America opportunity is so big in itself and it’s going to need all that focus and effort’
It’s that strong online presence that attracted a.k.a. Brands to buy a majority stake in the business in March 2021, with a view to international expansion. The purchase has seen the company valued at over $600m, the largest-ever private sale in Australian retail history.
The American company specialises in scaling direct-to-consumer brands and has already bought into fellow Australian labels Petal & Pup and Princess Polly.
The Beards had “always had this vision of having these iconic stores around the world in these iconic locations”; with a.k.a. they see a partner that will help them fulfil that dream, starting with the US.
“I’d seen the magic they’d done with Princess Polly and the enormous success it’s had in America,” says Beard.
While Australia is currently the biggest market for its e-commerce sales, the US is its fastest-growing; the aim is to follow the data and open flagships in key locations in the US, with Las Vegas the first location. In future, that may extend to other global locations.
“The America opportunity is so big in itself and it’s going to need all that focus and effort and once we carve that … I believe if you can make it there you can make it anywhere.”
The Beards – who have three young children, Ethan, Avery, and latest addition Paisley – plan to stay in Australia and continue leading the company from here.
Given his drive and ambition, it’s anybody’s guess what Beard’s new password might be – but whatever it is, you can be sure that he will continue to learn from every experience, with an eye on the future.
“One day, when I really feel I’ve nailed it, I’d love to share those stories with my kids and everyone and see other people grow. It still feels awesome. I get up at four in the morning and I’m so friggin’ excited to go to work. I love it. I’d do it for free.”