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All right, let's go.
Joining me this week is Dave Wienerk, founder and CEO of Priority Bicycles.
Dave, it's great to have you back on the show.
It's an honor to be speaking with you, Guy.
You were first on the show back in 2023.
And of course, we're going to put a link to that in the show notes.
So check it out.
It's an awesome story.
It's about how Dave left a really stressful job at a tech startup to start, of all things, a bicycle company, but not just any bike.
This is a bike that requires almost no maintenance because it doesn't have a metal chain.
It has a belt drive.
These are made out of rubber and carbon fiber.
It doesn't need any oil.
And of course, the idea was to make those bikes more affordable.
You crowdfunded it on Kickstarter and it took you many years of struggle before you were able to turn Priority into a really big bike brand.
I see them all over the place here in the Bay Area.
I see them at hotels all over the country.
It's such a cool story and I loved telling it on the show.
It was so fun.
It's been great to be part of the show, Guy.
If you remember, I was originally on the How You Built That.
Right.
Yes, How You Built That.
It's something we used to do back in the day.
We'd have like a two-minute segment at the end where a caller would call in and talk about the thing they're building.
And yeah, you were...
You were on it like years ago, like in like 2017 or something, 2016.
Yeah, that was great.
And we've had so much fun building this business.
And it's great that you're seeing the bikes on the road every day when I'm out riding.
I see people riding our bikes and it really puts a smile to my face knowing that our products are helping make people's lives hopefully, a little bit better.
Dave, when you were on the show, you were still recovering from a pretty bad accident that you had.
And I mean, you ended up in the ICU and it was a pretty bad bike accident.
I know when we spoke already by that point, you were well on your way to full recovery.
How have you been doing?
Because it was pretty bad.
It was a pretty bad accident.
Yeah, I'm one of the lucky ones, Guy.
You could say I made a full recovery.
There's still some lingering aspects and I'm scared to do things that I didn't used to be and that's probably not.
Not a bad thing in life.
No, not at all.
But I'm able to take my kids to school every day.
I'm able to travel.
I'm able to go to work every day.
And I just feel like I'm really, really fortunate how this has played out and that I'm here today talking to you and still leading a growing company.
Yeah, it's awesome.
I mean, just as a 50-year-old, I am so careful when I cycle.
I just did a trip in Italy with my kids, and I was mountain biking with one of my kids.
And He'll just go down these single track, you know, mountain bike roads, just like at top speed.
And I'm like riding the brakes.
I'm like so cautious.
I do not.
I don't even want to like fall gently anymore.
You know what i mean.
I do know what you mean.
I ride a lot slower than i used to.
I also wear a full face helmet no matter where i ride with a chin oh nice yeah, it's not a great look.
I look fast, i look like i'm riding a motorcycle.
Oh, that's a good idea, And I'm certainly not.
But if we don't have our health, what do we have?
You know, I like that idea.
I think I'm going to do that.
You know, one of the things that I know from just talking to folks in the industry is that there has been a slowdown in bikes overall.
Tell me a little bit about kind of the landscape for bike sales in the US, not just e-bikes but overall bike sales.
Cycling is actually up a little in the U.S.
More people are cycling.
More people are riding bikes, and that's a wonderful thing.
However, less people are buying bicycles.
And I think consumer behavior and how people spend money is changing.
And with that, a lot of people are fortunately riding the bikes that they have, which is wonderful.
It is hurting bicycle sales.
And you put that together with the fact that a lot of bicycle companies not priority still have too much inventory from the COVID days.
Then you combine that with tariffs and the cost of goods going up and it's it's become a lot harder to sell bikes than it used to be.
Yeah, it's really, really interesting.
You know uh, You know this because I ride – I've got regular bikes and also e-bikes, and I love e-bikes.
I mean it's a utility, but I also use them for exercise.
Like I was – when I was mountain biking on this trip with my kids overseas, like –
We went up, you know, we climbed incredible elevation.
You know, we just I could not have done that on a regular bike.
Do you think that most bikes will be e-bikes in 20 years from now?
Or do you think that it's still going to be, you know?
I don't know, maybe a smaller percentage of overall bikes, bike sales.
E-bikes are quickly becoming 50% of the sales in the bicycle industry.
I think that's going to continue to grow.
When you go door to door to your neighbor's guy, everybody has a bike, but not everybody has an e-bike.
The people that do swear by them certainly my family.
We ride much further and we use bikes instead of cars because we have e-bikes and we can get where we're going without breaking a sweat and we get there fast and we get there by taking in the world around us.
I think that e-bikes continue to rapidly grow because they're better for the person riding it than certainly driving a car.
And in comparison to a regular bike, you can just go further.
You can use more energy if you want to.
You could use less.
At the same time, e-bikes are evolving.
The technology is growing so fast that the people that bought an e-bike five years ago love it.
But then they get on a new e-bike and they're like, wow.
The innovation is tremendous.
And I think e-bikes are going to be a big part of the sales in the bicycle industry.
It's unbelievable.
Dave, we are – and I hear this all over the country when I speak, and I talk to both small and medium-sized and even larger business owners about – perceptions of economic headwinds, whether they're real or not.
Obviously, there are challenges.
There's tariffs.
There's uncertainty about whether people are going to be spending money next year and so on.
In this environment, right, how do you think about positioning your business?
You mentioned that you're not keeping too much stock, too much inventory, which is critical, right especially in a retail business.
But also... you've got to make other choices and decisions.
So what are some things that Priority is doing, not just to secure its business for the future, but also to prepare for potential headwinds?
We've been trying to fill white space.
Our sales have been really steady, but that's because we continue to innovate and put out new products.
We're constantly looking at the white space in the bicycle industry and say where can we bring a low-maintenance bicycle that'll be a best-in-class value that consumers will look at and say, if I need a bike, that one is special and I wanna buy that one.
So we continue to innovate.
We have several new models already this year and several of our best yet to come this year.
Because innovation is the only way that we can gain market share in a market that is declining right now.
Yeah.
All right Dave, I'm sure we've got a lot, or hopefully we'll have some advice to give to our callers.
Why don't we take our first caller and see what we can do.
You ready?
I look forward to it.
All right.
Welcome, caller.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please.
Sure.
Hello, Guy, and hello, Dave.
My name is Dave Lanning.
I'm calling from Narragansett, Rhode Island, and I own Dave's Coffee.
We're a small craft coffee roaster and also we make an amazing delicious, versatile product called Coffee Milk Syrup.
That's really an incredible thing.
All right.
Welcome to the show, Dave.
I know what coffee syrup is because man, this is now like 30 years ago when I plus years ago when I started college, there was a guy down my hall from Rhode Island.
And I still remember he would say, smack your lips to eclipse.
Is that right?
Yes, yes.
They were the original.
It looked like chocolate syrup, but it was this bottle of coffee syrup.
I'd never seen it.
And this is a Rhode Island thing.
People pour this coffee syrup into milk, and it's like the state drink, right?
It is.
It's the official state drink of Rhode Island.
Wow.
And it's actually delicious.
I've had it before, but it's so weird that it has not really kind of penetrated, maybe like bits of Connecticut, bits of like— you know, Fall River, Massachusetts but it hasn't really gone beyond there, right.
That's right.
It's really stayed local, and it's an incredibly... has an incredibly loyal following.
Like, people are...
Love it.
It's kind of like a rite of passage in Rhode Island.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you have, you say, two coffee shops in Rhode Island?
Two cafes, yes.
And you've got to make espresso drinks.
It's a normal coffee shop that you go to, right?
Yeah.
Right.
But you're also making and selling coffee syrup that you have made.
That, I guess I'm assuming is a sort of a more premium version of what of the master of the mass produced one.
Right.
I was born in Rhode Island and grew up here all my life.
And I wanted to serve coffee milk, but I didn't like what was currently available because it was filled with high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors and preservatives.
So I formulated our own version.
And it's also different because we are a coffee roaster.
So I started with a really good coffee, and it's just our cold brewed coffee and cane sugar, two ingredients.
Wow.
And so it's like maple syrup, but it's coffee.
It's basically concentrated coffee and sugar.
Exactly.
Okay.
Awesome.
Tell me a little bit about.
I mean, how did you come to this idea of wanting to to make this and try and have a go at taking on the big guys?
Yeah.
So the primary reason was that nobody was making a coffee syrup from a roaster's perspective.
So I wanted to source the coffee.
I got an amazing Brazilian coffee that we roast at a special level has a nice nuttiness to it.
A nice sweetness lends itself to the syrup.
So I say that we are first and foremost coffee roasters, but we make this amazing, delicious coffee milk syrup.
It's awesome.
I'm on your website now, and I'm looking at it, and I've got a lot of thoughts.
But before we get there, tell me what your pain point is.
What's your question for us?
My challenge is I want to bring this product to a national market.
But just like you had mentioned, it's often misunderstood.
It's confused with either a coffee concentrate or like a vanilla or hazelnut kind of syrup.
And there are so many different uses for it beyond coffee, milk that are really culinary uses that I feel like it has a long way to go.
But how do I get this out there without...
Confusing people.
Yeah.
How do you educate people about coffee syrup?
All right, Dave Wiener, a lot to think about here, especially because you had to kind of educate people about belt drive bicycles.
And still do sometimes.
There's still a bias sometimes.
You're like, oh, no, you need a chain.
And you've had to spend years educating people that like, actually, this is a lot easier.
You don't need oil.
It's maintenance free.
But we can get into that.
Dave, please say hello to David.
And do you have any questions for him?
David, it's a pleasure to meet you.
I'm looking at your website and, you know, I'm so close to Rhode Island.
I'm in New York City.
And yet I'm not familiar with coffee milk.
So there is an opportunity here.
I've never heard of such a thing before.
And it sounds delicious.
I can't wait to try it.
My first question, and I know you're talking about the culinary side.
Of course, I'm thinking about the coffee side because I'm a daily coffee drinker.
Barring a lactose intolerant person, how's coffee milk compared to coffee for gut health?
Does it have less acidity?
It does have less acidity because the way we make it is with a cold brew.
So it doesn't extract a lot of the acidity that hot brewing does.
And then also when we simmer it down with the cane sugar, it almost takes on a caramely coffee flavor.
Well, that sounds delicious.
And I do think that you know I'm not seeing that on the website and I'm wondering if If there's other benefits to coffee milk besides that.
As far as benefits, I think it's just a cleaner, healthier version.
I mean, as healthy as coffee syrup can be.
But...
It's just, it's a fun product.
And we've had some organic mentions, like Andrew Zimmern, the celebrity chef.
He called it the workhorse of the pantry. because he can put it on top of ice cream.
He can mix it in with his oatmeal.
He can put it in smoothies.
Like there are so many different uses for it.
And that's kind of where I get hung up.
Like, do I focus in on a certain area?
David, let me ask you a question.
How – right now, where are they sold besides the website?
Is it sold anywhere else?
Yeah.
So we have about – just under 130 wholesale accounts and primarily upscale gourmet shops.
Because of the price point, that are mainly Rhode Island, a little bit into Connecticut, a little bit into Massachusetts.
But that's primarily our market.
Got it.
And so the challenge, of course, is trying to educate people outside of that area that this is what it is and why it's interesting.
The first thing that comes to mind, because it just so happens that last night I was in San Francisco for dinner with my wife.
And we were going to see a concert and I fall asleep really early, like at like 930.
Like I'm an early, I just get tired.
And I was like, I got to stay awake because, you know, I'm going to see this concert.
And I wanted a drink and I ordered an espresso martini.
To keep me awake with the espresso.
And I'm thinking like to me, this is a classic, like one of the classic ways to get this into people's, you know to try it is to get it behind bars for bartenders to use it.
Yeah, 100%.
We actually work with a couple of restaurants in the area and they do make amazing espresso martinis and also kind of a version of a white Russian, because it lends itself to that flavor as well.
Yeah.
I mean, have you tried to?
I mean because it sounds like you're trying to find out.
How do we get this to consumers.
But I wonder whether there's a way to work with bartenders or bars in and sort of start that way.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Oh, I was going to say, Dave, I listened to your episode several times.
And I know that one of the key points in your story was when you hired the PR agency.
And I'm just thinking, do you feel like that was, you said something like, let them tell your story.
Yeah, and that's certainly where I want to go.
And I think David, the fact that I live a couple hours from Rhode Island and I don't know about coffee milk is amazing, because not only can you grow Dave's coffee, but you could create a segment educating people around the country and around the world of what coffee milk is and, of course, why dave's the best, is an amazing opportunity for you.
That was the biggest expense.
That was questionable.
We started priority bicycles.
It kept me up at night how much we were spending on pr, but i learned that If we didn't educate people on why our product was different, that they wouldn't know to come to our site and buy it or support our Kickstarter.
And that was money well spent and it still is.
You know, 11 years later, we're still investing heavily in PR.
Most people.
If you go knock on your neighbor's door and said I'm looking for a new bike, they wouldn't necessarily say look at a belt drive bike.
Now, if they do say, look at a belt drive bike, they'll know to look at priority, because we are the leader in belt drive bicycles.
But we have to open the category up first for people to know that we're the leader.
And I think that Dave's Coffee could do the same.
I think that there's a lot you can educate people about coffee syrup and about coffee milk so that they want to think to buy it and, of course, want to think of Dave's Coffee.
And I think that the expense there would be well worth the investment.
I mean, I agree.
I think that part of having a good relationship with the PR firm is also having a vision helping them right.
They can come and like look at what you're doing and give you some feedback on branding, but your branding is very good.
You know, and I'm looking at your website, clearly you're selling a canned iced coffee.
I mean, you've got a lot of things going on.
And so it seems like Really, where a good PR firm could come into play is getting you coverage, helping you build buzz, because I think what you want to try and do are I mean I hate to use the word stunts, but like pop-ups, like a coffee milk pop-up.
You literally have a sign saying Like in the Peanuts Gang, where it said like 10 cents for – what was it?
Psychiatrist, 10 cents.
You have a sign that says, what's coffee milk with a big question mark?
And you just have a booth in like outside of festivals.
But you go to very strategic cities.
Portland, Coffee City, Brooklyn, Coffee Capital, right?
Austin, Texas, parts of San Francisco, obviously Seattle.
You go to these coffee centers where there's a critical mass of people.
And you just do things like that.
And I think having the right kind of PR agency to help could be very helpful.
The other thing I think that you may want to think about is you know, It seems like part of the challenge is, when people see the bottle, they think that it's either a sweetener for coffee, right.
Coffee syrup.
They think, oh, it's like a simple syrup, right?
They don't understand what it is.
Right.
Or they might think it's like coffee concentrate, which you can buy at Trader Joe's or whatever.
Right.
And I wonder whether there's a way to – maybe not even on the bottle, but a way to kind of –
Explain it to people like the vanilla extract of coffee.
I'm just riffing here.
I don't know.
But the other thing to me on the label that I think you could really – you would benefit from is if it said something like – like crafted in Rhode Island.
You know, crafted in Rhode Island, the birthplace of coffee milk, or something like that.
Yes, yes.
Because then it's like, oh, wait, what?
What is that?
Like Crafted in Rhode Island, the birthplace of coffee milk, like on the label.
Something like that could be interesting.
But I think with the right partner you don't have to spend that much money, especially if you have a sense of what you want to do.
Right, right.
I love the idea of the pop-ups and the Snoopy analogy there, because I think that could be a lot of fun.
Yeah, you give people shots of coffee milk.
Yes.
And you have oat milk.
You've got almond milk.
Have like seven different kinds.
Have hemp milk and macadamia nut milk and dairy milk.
You know, have them all there.
Right, I love it.
What about bagel stores?
In New York, the lines Saturday and Sunday morning for the bagel stores are so long.
And if you dare to order a coffee, The wait is even longer.
I would like to think that a coffee milk would go amazing with a bagel.
And also the bagel store could make it a lot quicker with your concentrate.
Right, 100%.
They could.
Great.
Yeah, I think there's an opportunity here.
Who are some famous Rhode Islanders?
I'm trying to search for Rhode Island celebrities and I'm sorry if I'm forgetting somebody famous, but I just can't think of any right now.
But it's awesome.
I mean, I think look, I think that a lot of this is going to be on your shoulders.
Right to start to educate people.
I would really emphasize that they can drink it with any kind of milk, right?
Yeah.
And do you feel like the direct to consumer is the... good path to go.
I know Dave, for you.
You said that you originally told direct-to-consumer because you couldn't financially partner with bike shops, but that's changed now, obviously.
But How did that play into the growth?
You're right.
When we started, we couldn't work with bike shops.
Now we sell about 70% of our bikes consumer direct.
Bike shops are important to get the word out about our brand and what makes our brand different.
I think that your product price point is different than ours and I think that If you can find a way to get into major retailers, your margins are not going to be great, but it is going to help spread the word.
And that is going to be important together with the PR side of this.
Yeah, I think of like Bachan's, it's a Japanese barbecue sauce all over Costco and Whole Foods now.
I mean, they that was they had to educate people about what that was.
So I think that it's worthwhile looking into doing wholesale and just seeing if you can get on the shelves of nationally in Whole Foods, for example.
But obviously, you have to figure out where they're going to put you.
Are they going to put you in the coffee section?
Are they going to put you in the –
The syrup section where the beverages.
So but I think that that could be worth looking to.
But, by the way, I did find the perfect Rhode Island celebrity for you who has been on the show years ago, Nick DiGiovanni, who's a social media chef, and a really great one.
Nick DiGiovanni, you should get in touch with him.
He's a Rhode Islander.
Okay, great.
He'll know coffee syrup.
So there you go.
Perfect.
Tell them Guy sent you.
Yeah, tell them I sent you.
Yes, yes.
David Lanning of Dave's Coffee Syrup and Dave's Coffee Brand.
Thanks for calling in, man.
Good luck.
Thank you so much.
I love the show, Guy, and I've listened to almost every episode and learned a lot.
Amazing.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for calling in.
Yeah, see, you did not know coffee syrup, Dave.
Never heard of it.
And I did, and I have not had it in a long time, but it is delicious.
I mean, imagine a cool, cold glass of, you know, some kind of milk.
You know, I do dairy, but... And just like a nice, sweet coffee flavor.
It's like...
It's delicious.
Can I have one now?
Yeah.
The problem is where do I get it?
The problem.
Where do I get it?
I know.
It's a problem you can't get in New York City, so here you go.
It sounds delicious.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Raz and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab.
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Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Priority Bicycles founder and CEO Dave Wiener.
Dave, you ready for the next caller?
Let's do it.
All right.
Let's bring our next caller.
Welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Dave Wiener from Priority Bicycles.
Welcome to the show.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hi, my name is Alex Plant.
I'm calling from Buffalo, New York.
I own Kinloch Farmstead, which is an organic lavender farm barn, wedding venue and small batch winery.
Awesome.
Thanks for calling in.
So, Alex, first of all, where is Cambria, New York?
So we are way upstate New York.
We're north of Buffalo.
So right on the Canadian border.
Wow.
And you grow lavender there.
Yes, we do.
Which is obviously growing right now.
We're talking in the middle of the summer.
Yeah, it's the season, harvest season right now.
It's the season, yeah.
So tell me a little bit about the business.
You grow lavender, and what else do you do there on the farm?
So we have a 30-acre farm.
We grow lavender on part of it.
We just started growing grapes and making wine as well.
Nice.
And most of the business is focused on hosting weddings.
So we have a beautiful barn on the property where we host weddings and private events.
And how long have you been running this business?
We bought the farm land in 2017, and we opened to the public in 2019.
So seven years.
And what were you doing before?
So I came up with this business idea when I was living in Brooklyn.
I was on maternity leave for my first child.
I was working in advertising sales and I just couldn't foresee my life raising kids in Brooklyn, working long hours, commuting.
So on maternity leave I made this business plan to have a farm, which at that point wasn't feasible at all.
I guess I just manifested it.
And it's kind of a marriage of... I grew up in the restaurant industry.
My grandfather owned Scottish restaurants.
So I grew up around weddings and catering.
But also as a hobby, I would make a lot of like... I had an Etsy shop.
I made candles and lotions and stuff like that.
So...
It's kind of a marriage of the two things.
And then cut to we ended up moving to Buffalo.
My husband was transferred for work and I was like, I'm buying a farm.
I'm doing it.
Wow.
And here I am.
And here you are.
OK, so you've got the farm and, and I'm assuming most of the revenue comes from events and weddings and things like that.
Correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And tell me a little bit about how the business operates, because there's a lot of snow in the winter.
So is it is it year round or what?
Yeah, we are seasonal.
So we're only open from May to October.
And that was kind of a big part of the reason I wanted to do this business was to be around my kids more.
So I thought at the time, oh, I'll have the winters off.
I'll be with my family more.
I'll make my own hours.
It'll be flexible.
So it was sort of a way to run my own business, but also be with my family more.
And did that happen?
Has that happened?
At first, it did.
But now, as I've grown and luckily become more successful and we're fully booked and making wine and selling out of products, I'm working all the time.
And that's my big issue.
Year round.
Yeah, because I'm so busy in the summer that I don't have time to get to some of the back end stuff like paperwork, employee stuff.
There's so much back end that I have to do in the winter.
And give me a sense of where you guys are.
I mean, are you doing over half a million a year, for example?
Yeah, we're about half a million a year.
And what is the biggest sort of time suck for you?
Because I mean, the answer often is well, bring a couple more people on to help you out, and things like that.
Yeah.
So I have nine employees and I keep delegating things out, but somehow I'm still sucked in.
You know, we provide the bar.
And unfortunately in my situation, I really enjoy the farming aspect, which was shocking for even me.
So I would rather be out in the fields, but I'm really sucked into the wedding piece the most.
And so, even though you've got nine people, it sounds like a lot of your time is spent managing those people and or products.
Exactly.
Having nine employees is its own job.
Right.
So it's a lot.
Okay.
So before we dive in, what's your question for us?
My question is, as a small business owner when do you decide to stay small versus going the next step and really going bigger?
Because right now there's so many opportunities for me to grow.
Like our lavender products sell out all the time.
We're fully booked with weddings.
It's so easy for me to scale, but I'm at a burnout point at this point and I never see my kids, you know.
So how do you kind of decide, as a small business owner, to just stay small or to go the next step and, you know, go all in?
All right.
Lots to think about here.
Dave Wiener, I want to bring you in.
Great idea.
Let's leave Brooklyn.
Let's leave the high stress of Brooklyn.
And then we'll have a more manageable, sustainable life.
But actually, it sounds like Alex has recreated that same stress on the farm.
Exactly.
I'm looking at the website and what a beautiful property you have.
And I love how multifaceted your business is.
You've got so many aspects to it.
So no wonder you're stressed.
There's a lot going on.
Yeah.
You could certainly.
If you wanted to and I don't think you want to you could just focus on the events, and that would be fine.
But it sounds like, you know, that you want to do more.
And that's exciting.
And I think that there's no escaping the fact that when you operate a small business, it's hard and it's stressful.
You need a big tolerance for stress, but you also need the vision of a pathway to grow, to lessen the stress that you're currently experiencing.
It sounds like most of your business today is in the event space.
Is that correct?
Yes.
And you have nine people, which is something.
That's a lot.
Is there a way to remove yourself from the event space so that you can focus on the products and start to grow that the way that you've grown events?
Yeah, that's, I mean, I've considering hiring a manager to manage all the events.
My hesitation with that is I have hired nine people and I'm at least trying to delegate to them and I still feel like I'm sucked in a lot.
So I'm eager to grow and I'm excited about growth and expanding and scaling and selling our products online and stuff like that.
But I feel worried that I'm just continuing to add more to my plate, you know?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, management is one of the hardest things about running a strong business.
Very, very hard, right?
And part of the challenge for founders is...
When you are a perfectionist and you listen, you got weddings.
This is the most important day of someone's life.
And I imagine you take on a lot of stress around those weddings.
You want it to be perfect because that those families are expecting it to be perfect.
Exactly.
And so there's a lot of pressure.
I would do a couple of exercises and you've probably done versions of this.
And what I would do is I would just run a test, right?
Like list all of your revenue streams just on paper.
Lavender, wedding wine soap, whatever you have right.
And then for each one of those things, What is the percentage of the total revenue?
And then the percentage of time or energy it takes you, the gross margin, and then how much joy each one of those things brings you.
And it's not a perfect science, right?
Because...
You know time, energy and revenue can figure out gross margins, but the joy and stress is important, right.
If something is bringing you a lot of stress but it's only bringing in, you know, 5 of revenue, maybe it's not worth doing.
It sounds like you know I'm mainly hearing.
I kind of don't really want this to continue to take over my life.
Right.
That's correct.
I really like that idea of an exercise, because that's something I definitely struggle with is I created this business to be happy and be with my kids more.
And I find I'm spending so much time with the weddings when I really enjoy making the products, and I enjoy making the wine and the lavender.
But That's where I get to spend the least amount of my time.
So I like that exercise of kind of figuring out.
And you're also right about being a perfectionist.
So part of the reason I bottleneck every single wedding decision is because I'm a perfectionist and I'm too afraid to let go.
So I guess I just have to kind of just swallow that pill.
Yeah.
And I mean, not every business should be scaled.
And in fact many, many businesses – that I know of are far more successful than massively scaled businesses.
They're profitable, they're sustainable and they enable the founders, the owners, to have a sustainable lifestyle right.
I mean is Is turning this into a million-dollar-a-year business or a 2 million-a-year business going to qualitatively improve your life?
Probably not.
I mean, I don't know.
Only you can answer that question.
Is it – if you're doing –
$300,000 a year, but you have 30% of your time back, is that more worth it?
And I think a lot of people might say yes, in that case, if you can afford that.
Right.
I mean that that, to me, lifestyle is is definitely an important consideration when you're thinking about what to do with your business.
Right.
I mean, Dave you, I think you have figured out how to manage that in a way that enables you to also be a parent and a dad and be present.
Yeah, that's a great point, Guy.
When we started Priority, I was working every night, every weekend.
And to Alex, to what you're doing, making sure everything was perfect.
It took until we got to a larger size that I could start to really hire the People that could take things off my plate and that I could say I'm not going to micromanage this.
I'm going to let them run with this.
I hired the right people.
They know what to do.
And I'm going to monitor the data the way that the guy is saying.
You need to set up the data and make sure it works and then monitor the data and hire the right people to do it.
It sounds like you have a really successful event planning business.
If you want to grow the other side of the product business, you've got to find a way financially to hire the right person or people or promote the right person or people to do that work so that you can focus on the next step version of the business and at the same time, finding the important time to be a parent.
Yeah, and also I would add to that Dave, that deciding to sort of pull back a little bit and slow things down doesn't mean you can't ramp it up again in the future, right?
You can still set out a goal to grow the business in a smart way.
You know, with different kinds of help with better pricing, with a, you know, certain plan for hiring and outsourcing.
But you may not want to do that for two or three.
How old are your kids now?
Nine and seven.
Yeah.
So you may not want to do that for a couple of years.
You know, look, I'm soon I'm going to have kids at a house.
Right.
My teenagers are going to be gone.
I'm going to have a lot more time on my hands.
So, you know, your priorities change and your time horizons change.
And so it doesn't mean that you can't scale this up again.
You can ramp it up.
I'm sure there aren't.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah, I appreciate that and I think, Just thinking about I've just got excited over the last seven years and like it's growing and it's growing and I've just kept going with it.
And yeah, now here I am working seven days a week.
So growth doesn't always necessarily mean more profit or more happiness.
So I can just think about my priorities.
Yeah.
But focus, I would focus on what is sort of bringing in the revenue and how much time it takes the margins on that and then how much stress it brings you, you know.
Yeah.
And if you're looking at that and you're saying okay, this just doesn't make, it's going to be clear what doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
All right.
I appreciate it.
Cool.
The business is called Kinloch Farmstead.
Alex Plant, thanks for calling in.
Thank you.
Good luck.
This is such a hard question.
As parents, our most meaningful investment is raising kind and capable children.
And at the same time, as an entrepreneur, all you want to do is grow your business.
And there's so much enjoyment in that.
And it's a hard struggle.
It's a hard struggle.
And look, I think when you're running a business that doesn't depend entirely on earning a certain amount, if you have the luxury and the ability to scale it back – to have more time with your family.
To me, it's a no-brainer.
Agreed.
All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller.
Stay with us.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Priority Bicycles founder and CEO Dave Wiener.
Dave, let's get back to it and take another call.
Put them on.
All right, let's bring in our final caller.
Welcome to The Advice Line.
You're on with Dave Wiener.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
Hi Guy.
Hi Dave.
I'm Sabrina Garcia, the founder of Idaho Barkery and calling from Boise, Idaho.
We make plant-based hypoallergenic dog treats inspired by my own dog, Rocky, who has food allergies.
Alongside our wholesale and online business, we also offer a customizable branding opportunity by stamping any logo or design onto a clean ingredient dog treat.
Okay, welcome to the show.
Thank you for calling in, Sabrina.
What kind of dog do you have?
I have a lab mix.
I adopted him in 2019, and he's over 100 pounds.
100 pounds?
Yes.
That's a big dog, man.
My dog's 55 pounds.
One of my dogs.
My other one's 10 pounds.
Kiki's little, but our big dog is 55.
Wow, and she's a powerful dog.
So, okay, so these are dog treats. that you make in Boise, Idaho.
And tell me a little bit about that.
You stamp them into shapes of a logo or you stamp the logo onto, just like a round bone shape of the treat.
Yeah, exactly.
So we use an in-house 3D printer to make custom dog stamps.
Like you would imagine, a cookie cutter, but it has a stamp on it as well, which allows us to make literally anything you can dream of.
So any logo, any design.
And what's the shape of the dog trees?
Like, is it round?
Is it square?
It can be anything.
Yeah.
Oh, I see.
You can stamp out...
I'm thinking like sugar cookies.
You can just create a stamp.
Exactly.
Custom-made.
So it could say like Tesla or Coca-Cola.
You could just have dog treats in the shape of those logos.
So that's cool.
And tell me how you started.
Tell me how this business started.
So I started this business in 2020 as a side hustle again, really for my own dog who has significant food allergies.
I found a recipe that really worked for him very minimal ingredient, very clean, didn't have any meat product in it.
And my friends started to love it so much that I started to offer it at farmer's markets and kind of grew from there, now offering it in wholesale businesses in Idaho.
And what was your main hustle at the time?
I'm a pharmacist.
Nice.
Okay.
What what tell me what I'm looking at the website.
So you've got peanut butter flavor.
You've got pumpkin flavor.
Is that right?
Those two flavors?
Yep, just those two flavors.
So we really try to capitalize on the customizable ability of making dog treats and keep our recipes really simple.
Yeah.
These are vegan dog treats.
Yes.
Wow.
I've heard that pumpkin is good for dogs.
It is.
I didn't know about peanut butter.
Yeah, it's a great protein source as well, the peanut butter.
I see.
Okay.
So tell me, before we dive in further, tell me what your question is for us.
Yeah.
So we've actually seen a big demand locally from some dog friendly hotels and resorts for custom dog treats.
And we'd really love to lean into this side of the business, because it seems to be what our customers are asking for.
So my question is what strategies do you recommend to help us identify and connect with larger corporate brands or hospitality groups that might want custom branded dog treats?
Got it.
And just to be clear, you're selling this only direct to consumer to your website right now?
So we actually sell wholesale.
So through we have about 65 stores in Idaho that we sell through.
We also sell online, and then we have a bunch of partners who are like local resorts that are dog friendly.
In Sun Valley that want just something that's unique for their dogs that visit the hotels.
Nice.
Okay, cool.
Dave Wiener, I want to bring you in here.
You're in New York City.
You don't have any dogs.
It's hard to have dogs in New York City unless they're tiny.
Yeah, I wish we did.
But no yard means no dog for us.
Sabrina, I'm looking at the website.
What a great product in terms of the health of the dog and the customizable aspect.
I mean, I love what you're doing.
You know, the first thing that comes to my mind when I'm looking at this is you know the journey we went on when we started selling to consumers and then hotels became very interested.
Now between hotels and corporate campuses, we have over a thousand locations using our bikes.
Which is amazing.
It's an amazing revenue stream.
And in addition to an amazing way for consumers to learn about our product in these hotels or corporate campuses.
The first step for us it took us a while to figure this out was we had a website sort of like yours, where we sold to consumers and we sold to corporate campuses and hotels.
And at some point we realized that our website was very consumer focused and that a hotel buyer, for example, or a corporate campus buyer was going to Google or whatever search engine And they were looking for different keywords.
They were looking for fleet bicycles, not low-maintenance commuter bicycles.
Ah.
And so where our website was doing very well in the giant algorithms of SEO out there for consumer bikes, we were not doing really well for fleet bicycles.
And so the answer that really helped our fleet business was to create a whole new website.
We have, it's priorityfleetbicycles.com.
It's amazing.
And that website talks to fleet buyers, whereas our core website talks to consumers.
There's a little link in there that says, hey, interested in fleet, click here.
But they're two totally different landing places.
And the expense to do that is not significant.
And now you start to get into the algorithm so much differently and you can speak to the different buyers.
I think that's such an issue.
So basically she's got Idaho Barkery for consumers who want to buy the product.
And I have some feedback for you on her website.
But then she has a separate one.
That's really for corporate clients who want to do like custom branded dog treats for their employees or their clients or something like that.
That's it.
That's amazing.
I love that feedback.
Yeah, it's such a good point Dave, because you have.
I mean, one of the secrets of your success has been putting priority bikes everywhere.
I mean, I go to hotels and I it's just like amazing how they're you know when bikes have, when hotels have bikes to lend out to their customers, guests.
It's almost i'm almost always seeing priority bikes and that's just an amazing sort of promotional opportunity.
That's it.
It's uh, it's great for the brand and it is great for sales.
So you just got to figure out how to talk to those two different buyers differently.
Sabrina, one thing, a couple thoughts for you.
I'm looking at your website here and then, if you click and again I agree with Dave, if you can separate those two things, It would make a lot of sense, you know, just a completely different way.
Big, maybe call it Idaho Barkery custom treats.
I don't know, some something, or maybe even on this website, have a big button that says are you a company that wants, is looking for, you know, a cool, cool opportunity, some logo.
I don't know, something like that.
Obviously you want to go.
If you're looking to work with bigger brands, you want to think of aligned brands like are there pet friendly hotel chains?
I think there are.
There must be out there.
Are there pet friendly co-working spaces out there?
What are some brands that are – big brands that are notable for being pet-friendly?
Like are there any airlines known for being more pet-friendly?
Maybe they're interested in working with you.
Subscription box companies like Bark.
Wouldn't Bark love to sell – bark branded or maybe give away bark branded dog treats to customers as a gift?
I would target 10 to 15 brands that you really want to be in business with right that are really just are going to have some kind of alignment with dogs right.
And you find out who is the buyer, who or who's the brand manager or who is the partnerships manager.
Not hard to find by doing some searches on LinkedIn.
And you make a custom box for them.
You make Raising Cane's logos and you punch them out and you send them a box saying With pre made.
I mean, I'm not saying I want you to do this, but I people will send me stuff with how I built this.
Logos on their things.
And it always catches my attention.
Right.
And and so you mail it to them with a note.
And you follow up a week or two later.
I mean, that is going to catch someone's eye.
And if it's not going to cost you that much to 3D print one of these logos, I would just go for it.
I would just try it and see you know.
Start with 10 companies you want to target and see what happens.
I love that idea.
And I can think of so many brands right now that are dog friendly that we could send custom treats to.
So thank you for that advice.
And Sabrina, you can even start with an email.
For us.
We often start with an email that is a mock-up, a photo realistic of what their custom bike would look like, with their colors and their logo.
And that's effective.
Now, if you can send a heavy mailer, that's always the best, but the cost of producing the mold and producing the product can get there.
If you can start with the bag what the bag would look like and what the treat would look like and just email that out.
I think it would catch a lot of eyes, especially these hotels that are dog friendly and say this would be.
You know the treat in your, in each room.
Yeah.
Right.
Giving them a visual.
That makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting idea.
I don't think anyone's doing something like this.
It seems like a really interesting opportunity.
So I would start there and let us know how it goes.
I appreciate the advice.
Sabrina Garcia of Idaho Barkery, thanks for calling in.
Thank you.
Dave I –, by the way, do you guys have?
– like are some of the hotels you work with, like Nomad or some of these hotels?
Do they ever kind of want their logos or their branding on the bikes as well?
Or like certain colors?
Every single hotel wants – at minimum, their logos.
But we also do custom paint almost every day.
And we can do blends of paint and multiple colors and switch out tires and grips.
And we really try to customize the bike into whatever the hotel's identity is.
Yeah. make their guests feel special.
And then of course be a low maintenance bicycle ride.
So the bike is very reliable while the guest is on their experience.
Yeah, it's cool.
I know your guys are like the Meridian Hotels.
I've seen that one.
I stayed with that one in Santa Monica a couple years ago.
You're there and I think you're in a bunch of hotels in Santa Monica.
Understandably, because people can ride right to the beach.
And it just makes sense right, that they're going to have They're kind of branding on your bikes, and it makes sense for both parties.
It's just a great collaboration.
Total win, both sides.
Yeah.
Dave, before I let you go, quick question for you that I ask every guest who comes on, which is now that you have all this experience under your belt— just with bicycles, but your previous experience as a CEO of a small tech company and you know all the challenges there.
If you go back when you were starting priority, right, when you're about to start a Kickstarter, it was just stressful.
And you could.
You could give yourself some insight or some advice or some wisdom.
What would have been helpful for you to know?
That you now know.
Guy, I think that earlier in my career, I felt a strong need to be right.
Yeah.
To have the best ideas, the sharpest insights, get the final word, especially with coming out with an underdog company.
You know, I believe that being right was the way you showed your value.
Over time I learned in business and being an entrepreneur that being right isn't always the best and isn't it's sometimes the most knowledgeable and the most confident leaders are the first to admit that they don't know the right answer or that they're even wrong.
I think effective leaders know when to slow down, when to listen deeply and understand all the perspectives before acting.
And I think that shift for me from needing to be right to instead striving to get it right has made me a better teammate, a better leader and a better entrepreneur.
Yeah, it's awesome.
It's really, really good advice.
That's Priority Bicycles founder and CEO Dave Wiener.
Dave, thanks so much.
It's a pleasure to be on with you, Guy.
It's great having you.
And, by the way, if you haven't heard Dave's original How I Built This episode, please go back and check it out.
It's a really great story.
Starts with Kickstarter.
I mean, a Kickstarter brand.
It's awesome.
You can find a link to it in the podcast description.
And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
Now you're a full year into the business, right?
August of 2015.
Yeah.
And you had that really successful initial Kickstarter, but a year later...
Not much.
Not much action.
Yeah.
The classic bike was still doing well.
So I knew that we had a win that could carry the company, though it couldn't carry me.
Yeah.
And now I'm pretty deep.
I have one successful product.
I have one unsuccessful product.
I know that the way I can grow this business is simple in theory and hard in reality.
I need to have a bike that changes everything.
We'll see you next time.
One minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them.
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