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Hello, and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Rauz. This is the place where we help to try and solve your business challenges and pain points.
And each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will attempt with me to help you.
And this week we have a bit of a special episode.
It's kind of a mash up, three callers and three different former guests, but all tackling some version of the same question which is what's the next move to scale my business?
And by the way, if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call.
You might just be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1 -800 -433 -1298.
Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, and the issues or questions that you would like some help with.
You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id .wondery .com, and make sure to tell us how to reach you, and also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.
It is full of insights and ideas about running a business and hopefully even some inspiring messages.
You can sign up for free at guyras .com, and we will put all of this info in the podcast description.
All right, let's get to it.
My first guest today is Travis Boresma, he's the co -founder of Dutch Bros Coffee.
Travis was first on How I Built This back in 2023 to tell the story of taking Dutch Bros from a single pushcart in a small town in Oregon, actually in a parking lot of a supermarket to a national chain now valued at over $9 billion.
It is such an amazing story, and you can find it in the link here in the show notes.
and as you'll hear, Travis was the perfect person to help our callers think about how to scale a business.
Hi guy, hi Travis. My name is Andy Atkins from Nashville, Tennessee and I am the co -owner and operator of the Bad Luck Burger Club.
We're a fast casual smash burgers concept operating out of two food trucks and I'm stoked to be on the show.
Thanks for having me on.
Awesome, welcome to the show.
All right, so you're doing Bad Luck Burger Club in Nashville, two trucks, so congrats.
when did you start the business?
We started in the pandemic, May of 2021 was our first go -round.
And me and my partner, Cody, we started up, yeah, it was a tent and a couple of griddles and no business plan.
Just a couple of dudes kind of throwing parties in parking lots around town with really just trying to get through.
We were all wearing masks, sitting in our houses, You couldn't be out and about.
And then like, once the CDC was like, oh, you can hang with like 10 or less people in parking lots and social distance.
Like the whole vibe was just, yo, let's go through some parties.
Let's have a good time.
Let's sell a cheeseburger, try to make the money back that we spent on food at Kroger or whatever.
And it really was not a plan to start a business, But it was just a perfect storm of people needing a place to be and needing a community and we happened to make a pretty good cheeseburger and so there were just large lines coming and we were selling out every time.
And that eventually turned into a food truck that then eventually turned into a second food truck and now it's our full -time thing.
And were you guys coming from Food, you and Cody?
Is that what you guys are doing?
No, not at all. Cody and I met back in the day when we used to both travel in bands.
I played as a professional musician for about a decade, same for Cody.
So we were just in bands, touring around the world.
We'd see each other at different festivals, just making friends.
And then he moved to Nashville where I lived, and you just start growing a friendship, seeing each other around town.
Neither one of us have any hospitality or service industry experience before this thing.
Did you tour with any bands that we might know?
Yes and no. So, I started my career out as an actual musician playing in a metal band in the underground metal and punk rock hardcore scenes.
I wouldn't think that you would know anything about that, that's a really specific niche.
You might be surprised, okay, keep going.
Yeah, possible. but then after that, I went into a 10 year career of touring and the production side of touring in arenas.
So I've worked with like Panic at the Disco, Pentatonix and Zach Brown Band and a bunch of stuff like that.
And you're just setting up stages in arenas all over the country.
Wow, all right. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Andy, what's your question for us?
Yes, so we've grown organically over the past three years.
The tent and the griddles paid for the first food truck.
The first food truck paid for the second food truck.
We've been cashflow positive since day one.
And we just always operated that way.
We're living in a world right now where our decision has to be going into brick and mortar and securing finance for that?
Or do we keep trying to replicate the current model of food trucks in various locations?
But Travis, as you would know, it takes a lot of operations to run a food truck at the level of success that we're doing.
So it's like, you know.
The big goal is brick and mortar now talk to financial people about givin' us some money, or keep bootstrapping through mobile unit, mobile unit until it makes sense.
So bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap, and then bill through Cashflow or raise money and go right into brick and mortar.
Doesn't seem like those are the only two options here, but Travis, love to hear your thoughts on that.
I mean, there's somethin' super fun and cool and sexy about a food truck.
You know, it's trendy, you have some flexibility with where you go and what you do and your hours and where you're gonna invest time and money.
When you look at brick and mortar, are you completely aware of all the costs that you're gonna incur that you don't today with overhead?
And I mean like from rent to maintenance on the buildings to investment in the kitchen with the equipment and the cleanliness that has to occur with bathrooms and people that may have kids that make a mess at everything in the kitchen, and now you gotta know, there's a lot of dynamics that are much different than your food truck.
So if that's your overall objective, and if it is, then you gotta figure out, well, if I'm gonna incur costs, how am I gonna offset that?
I would think you gotta do a lot more volume, and volume is probably the name of the game for you guys if you go into more brick and mortar sites with overhead?
For sure. Yeah, I mean, we're pretty aware of it will be quite a bit more expensive to run monthly compared to what our overhead is now.
We have a pretty decent amount of revenue.
Our margins are pretty good.
Um, and with, uh, being able to open up a brick and mortar and add alcohol to our program of having a bar, that's going to be able to open up a revenue stream that we don't even have access to being in a food truck, you know, um, cause right now, like we have one standalone food truck that stays outside of a bar that's seven days a week open every single day.
And you know, like, we have a great relationship with them, love working with But also understand that like based off the numbers that we look at between our two companies, we would have twice the revenue in a day just out of how much alcohol is being served in their building that we don't have access to sell in a food truck.
Right. So you're saying that part of the brick and mortar, the big part is that you have the access to sell alcohol for sure.
For sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Got it. And you know what?
I think, I mean, honestly that's something that I think you've got to consciously think about is how do you offset those costs.
Volume, yes, but if you're able to bring in product line or revenue stream that you don't capture today and you've got a model of somebody who already does.
It's pretty easy to look at that and try to figure out how you could replicate it or take it to another level.
Yeah, for sure. What's the vision like you're looking five, 10 years down the road Andy I mean, do you want to be the, you know, the Smashburger joint in Nashville, or do you have visions of like, beyond that area?
I think we have a model that could be replicated in other locations, at least throughout the Southeast. Yeah, I mean, I think we've already got a good footprint in Nashville we are like, we're voted best burger in town the best food truck in town, we got some pretty good eyes and, uh, you know, acclimations going on around town or whatever.
I think being able to have a brick and mortar would for sure solidify us as a brand that's, you know, here to stay.
How long do you think it would take you to save enough cash from the food trucks to finance it yourself, a brick and mortar shop?
Oh gosh, I'd have to say probably another two years.
I mean, it's something to consider, right?
Because the minute you bring in an outside investor, especially with, can you give us a ballpark of what your revenue is, your annual revenue?
For sure. We'll just get over $8 ,000K this year, by the end of the year.
$8 ,000 total in sales.
$800 ,000, sorry. 800 ,000.
800 ,000, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's pretty good. But you're gonna bring an investor and they're gonna say, look, you're gonna need a million dollars to do this and I want 55 % of your business.
And so the question is, and maybe you can talk them down to 30 or 40.
But you know, then at that point, you've got an investor has access to your books and which is fine, but you know, they're a shareholder.
So you now have a boss and you're your own boss.
And so it's a big question as to whether, you know, if you want to kind of speed this up, there are advantages to it.
If you could find the right partner, but it's a risk, right?
If you're willing to try and make a go of it on your own for another year, year and a half to see if you can fund it yourself, you retain the control.
It's as simple as that.
And are you married?
What? Yeah, I'm married.
Yeah. Yeah. You got compromised and then relationship sometimes, For sure.
That's uh, I feel like my strongest suit with both of my life partner and my business partners.
is I'm the one that compromises, dude.
I'm down to just say, okay, I'm not gonna die in this hill.
Well, you know what?
You probably, I mean, you bring a partner in and that's a whole nother dynamic and you can count on a lot more compromise.
I think what you're doing is amazing and man, what Guy just said, I think is spot on.
If you can just keep that snowball building, maybe take a little bit less to live on, keep that money rolling into the business and let it do its thing, and have some fun with it, but I could see a bad luck burger and brew's real easy.
Oh yeah. For sure. I could see that, yup.
Heck yeah, guys. And I mean, that's pretty good, I mean, 800 grand for two food trucks is pretty great.
I mean, I would imagine, Phenomenal.
You guys are doing a nice, nice profit there.
And to be voted the best burger in Nashville?
Yeah, best burger, best food truck, We're about 30 % profitable and that's with one of those food trucks.
Uh, so the, the second truck that we have outside that bar, that started in January of this year.
And so we pretty much shifted all of our focus onto getting that running seven days a week, like nonstop.
So like the other truck kind of sat around for a while for us to be able to get that operational.
So there's, there's a whole nother revenue stream in that truck that didn't really get utilized that well this year.
Yeah. I feel like you guys are doing something right here.
Yeah. I mean, the model sounds perfect.
You maybe want to make minor tweaks to make a major impact, the brick and mortar scene and bringing on alcohol and the liability and everything that goes with it, I'd just be mindful of everything that comes with that that's new and different than what you do now.
For sure. Yeah. It's definitely a big learning curve for, like I said, we're learning something new every single day, Making it up as we go.
But we know a lot more now than we knew May 2021.
Yeah. Burgers look awesome, they look delicious.
Congrats, man. Heck yeah.
Thanks guys. I really appreciate you all.
Andy Atkins of the Bad Luck Burger Club.
Thanks for calling in.
Good luck, Andy. Thanks guys.
Yeah, well, looks like a good burger, man.
I have recently, very sadly, Travis, given up, mostly I'm not gonna say entirely but I would say 99 % of time given up burgers just cuz I'm on like a low, low carb diet so I you know take my kids in and out and I just sit there wistfully watching them eat.
Well I I have not done that.
Yes, how did you go?
You're a lucky man, you're a bad luck burger club.
I'm ready to go, man.
I know, they look delicious.
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back another caller with another question for another former guest stay with us You're listening to a special mashup episode of the advice line right here on how I built this lab When I travel I almost always stay at an Airbnb why because I can feel at home Instantly wherever I am around the world find out how much your place is worth at How I built this is sponsored by Claude, the go -to AI assistant for millions of people and businesses around the world.
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Welcome back to the Advice Line on how I built this lab, I'm Guy Raz, and our next return guest Michael Praisman started the online clothing retailer Everlane.
And Michael shared that story on the show back in 2023.
We'll put a link to it in the show notes below.
Michael cost quite a stir in the fashion world when he publicized his company's production costs at every step along the chain.
Over time, Michael ended up building a multi million dollar business with a focus on sustainability and social responsibility.
And when Michael join me on the advice line.
He offered some really great advice about growing a fashion brand through retail partnerships.
Hi, guys. I'm Tiffany Narbonne.
And first I have to say, Guy and Michael, I'm so excited.
I feel very grateful for this opportunity.
Guy, I've been listening to you for so long especially when I'd be on the road heading to appointments of my brand.
And it was always just a fuel to me.
So I can't believe I even had this chance.
So thank you. Amazing.
It's so easy. Okay, tell us a little bit about your brand.
So our brand, it's an inspirational jewelry brand and it's all about spreading positivity, being able to wear your story through timeless jewelry.
We use all precious gemstones, sterling silver, lifetime guarantee, and all handmade right here on Cape Cod by women, and you know, our brand, it's just really, I say, to wear your story.
Yeah, Tiffany, I may have missed it.
What's the name of the brand?
T Giselle, I get all excited and I don't even say the name.
A little name. Okay, T Giselle.
What is T Giselle? My first name is Tiffany and my middle name is Giselle.
Coming up with the name of my brand, I started creating jewelry and something came over me I never felt.
I never had a vision of being a jewelry designer.
Just something brought so much joy to my heart when I made a bracelet.
Everything's always had a meaning.
It and my middle name is with my mom also shares it with me.
And so she's such an inspiration to me she's such my rock and Yeah, so it's just another piece of me and and tell me a little bit about the products I mean it mainly bracelets, right and they're they're like Made from like they're they're spherical they're made from like a stone and they've got a charm on them.
Okay. Yeah Yep, so they're all we use all precious gemstones So all different semi -precious stones from Amethyst's to Rose Quartz, Blue Aqua Marine, and with that, I really created a dual message.
So not only do stones hold meanings and energies, which I've always been into, but charms all have a meaning.
You never know what something could symbolize to someone.
So with the bracelets, I really kind of combine both those messages and we have an array of styles.
So for instance, maybe your mom loves Rose Quartz, and you want to get her our family tree, but you could get your sister, you know, maybe she's a blue girl, something for serenity, you can get her that option with the heart.
So I say like, you create the story, you know, and there's lots of options.
So it's definitely turned into a stackable, um, our returning customer.
They want to create, you know, their stack, you know, And you make, and you basically make it on Cape Cod.
Yeah. Yep. I have a whole team of women, which is amazing.
I love my current going to do without them.
And they put so much love into every piece.
And I believe that's a piece of it that comes out when you're wearing it.
And you have a shop too, right?
We do. Yes, we have a store right on the Cape.
It was when we first opened, we thought it could be like a showroom for our retailers we work with to come check out the brand, but then we were like, you know what, we're right on Cape Cod, we're in a popular location, destination for the summer and it's been great.
And so we have just one location on the Cape and then we work with retailers across the country that carry our brand.
I love Cape Cod. it's so fun.
I haven't been there a couple of years.
It's the best. So a couple of questions first of all this is self -funded, right?
This business? Yes.
And are you guys have you guys broken half a million dollars in sales yet?
Yeah we actually have hit over five millions.
Wow. Yeah. Congratulations.
How many years have you been around?
Thank you. I founded it in 2012.
So I literally was a baby.
Yeah. So it's been a minute, it's been a little bit and so now I'm mom.
So I say I'm a mompreneur.
And during COVID our brand, literally we were so blessed it took off.
I built the brand through doing trade shows and wholesale, but it was so special because I started going live on Facebook and our website.
And then I ended up getting reached out to from QVC.
So it's been just, word of mouth has really built our brand.
All right, so you're doing about $5 million in revenue.
That's great. Congratulations.
Thank you. And your question… What was your question for us?
So, my question is, you know, really, I want to be able to share more of our room with bigger retailers.
Like, we have a few big independents that we work with in QVC, but kind of how to get in the face of some of these bigger retailers or partnerships.
just out of curiosity before we get to your question um what do you guys I mean roughly what are you spending on marketing every year on marketing we're spending about like I think like 10 % okay great ok great so very reasonable very reasonable yeah very reasonable ok so Michael she's got a great brand and you know got some momentum got a store on cape Cod clearly there's resonating been on QVC so a lot going for but you know she wants to take it to the next level from 5 million to 25 million or beyond we're I mean at this point this isn't now a mature business small business so now so now what so what I'm
thinking about is in my head as I see this it's like you've done such an amazing job telling your story and even when I go onto the site a little video pops up of you and starts I get to hear your story and then what you said is you know when the pandemic happened I went live and started telling the story.
QVC, you're telling your story and it's live.
What is it about that story that's resonating with people when you tell the story that gets them to go, I want to buy TJ's out because it's so personal right?
It's your name so clearly there's something there that's happening.
I think it's just you know I'm a very believer and you know being kind what goes around comes around we all have a story and when I started my business it's so crazy my dad passed about a year in and I wanted to quit I wanted to stop and it was like a piece of then Megan Trainor ended up tweeting my bracelets and this was when one of her big hits came out and it was such a pivotal moment.
Meghan Trainor from Nantucket.
I've interviewed her before, she's a lovely lovely person.
oh my god I've never met her, but it literally was, I felt like it was a sign from my dad and very in his mind where he was like, you're not quitting.
And so I then threw myself into my business.
I began doing a lot of events, pop ups, just cold calling, whatever it took.
And it ended up becoming an outlet for me and now it's more than jewelry.
And I think that's really where we strive, you know, and I do it because I loved it and I feel grateful for my consumers and you know just being able to connect to the story if that makes sense.
No it does and I guess what I'm trying to figure out is how do you take the story you're telling and start to make it into words that make it very clear for people because you can't show up everywhere you know QBC is one place where you can show up but eventually you have to turn this into words on the packaging and everything so that when it's sold in other Retailers you stand out because it is about that spirit and capturing that spirit When you've gone to big retailers is how is how I mean QVC obviously has been successful But like what's your dream?
And how is it gone?
So basically with our retailers, you know my my biggest independent is about a hundred and twenty retailers They have and we've been a great brand with them.
I do training So they're one like, you know, kind of like you're saying like I try to be able to Share my brand to get them to really understand it.
What separates me from the other brands Like why do they want to share my jewelry with their customers?
So, you know, I am getting back into doing trade shows I took some time off from be being a mom and just trying to figure out like, you know Where to put that time or how to get into those faces or connect like connect with that the one the thing I would say is as you start to scale again I go back to the amazing storytelling that you have and you're gonna have to find away as my guests to simplify okay and it's finding what is the customer care about when they buy from you you know one of the things you said early on that really resonated with me but I'm not your customer yet was that it's made
in Cape Cod that it's made by these amazing women, that's such a simple story for retailers to tell, you know, made in Cape Cod for women by women, it doesn't have to be for women, but made in Cape Cod by women.
Yeah, there's the story about, you know, your father, there's the story about every, every bracelet tells a story, and here's, you know, merchandising by stories that makes it special.
So I think it's I just think that's sitting down with your team and your customers and Guy knows this about me now is what do you love the brand for?
And it has to be, your personality is so compelling.
I'm already compelled.
I'm like, I want to go buy these right now.
Thank you. But you can't show up everywhere.
So exercise of taking you and bottling it into packaging so that when they have that display at retail, they can say in less than five seconds, what makes TJ Zell so special.
You know, I was thinking, looking at your website, I noticed that you it's organized basically based on the collection.
So like Black Agate, is it Agate is that how it's pronounced?
And then you sort of go over each one and it tells you what the charms name is.
Like for example Kladog is that how it's pronounced?
Kladda. Kladda, sorry, forgive me.
And everyone knows, it's like that heart you see a lot of Irish folks wearing it, right?
It's the heart with the crown.
But what, but, but the thing is, is that that symbolizes love, loyalty and friendship, right?
A compass rose symbolizes, you know, kind of knowing who you are and listening to your own inner voice.
And I think instead of focusing on the charm, I would focus on what it's about, with the story that it tells.
It's kind of doubling down on what Michael is saying and then backing into the the actually the charm Right and maybe even a way to kind of organize the collections around you know around a spirit of feeling a mood a personality attribute or trait, you know, like but the kindness bracelet or you know The the the fear fearlessness bracelet, I mean so you get that bracelet, and you know that the person knows you because they got to the bracelet that defines and reflects who you are.
Right. And with that I even, I even see you building on, you know, again, I'll just go back to the maid in Cape Cod by, you know, handmade in Cape Cod by women, to inspire a more, you know, joyful or more powerful or a more connected world, you know?
and something that simplifies it and then starts to go down to each of those, not the skull charm, but the strength, for those who have strength, here's this charm.
For those who have this, here's this charm.
So exactly what Guy's saying.
And in a few days of just going through this, and what you'll do is you'll start to write it down and then you'll show retailers and customers and say, does this resonate?
Do you like this? Yes or no, what do you like about it?
And it's bottling all of the goodness of Tiffany into a box that is so simple that people can just repeat and get excited about.
I love it! Yes! Yeah.
I think, because it makes it so then it's a clear, meaningful connection, right?
That's been the part tying that all together.
Like you're saying, bottling that all into the story.
And when somebody gives you something like this, like a bracelet or a necklace, that isn't just a random thing, or even just, but actually there's a symbolic meaning around it that was for you.
It's like, they're not just gifting you this thing, they're showing you that they really put time into thinking about getting something specifically for you.
Yeah, and what they see in you.
Exactly what they see in you, yeah.
Oh my God, thank you guys.
I love it, I feel so good.
Awesome, all right, well the brand is called T.
Gisele Tiffany. Good luck, thank you so much. Congrats on building this business so far.
It's really cool. Thank you.
That's a feel good story.
It is. You know how I buy my wife jewelry?
She sends me links on the internet and says, buy me this.
That's how you do it.
And I'm about the opposite.
I go vintage shopping on auctions and bid for jewelry for my wife.
So it's like, we could not be more opposite.
I cannot do that. Because then I'm like, is this right?
Did I pick the right thing?
Did I get what you were looking for?
I love it. Yeah. We're going to take another quick break.
We'll be right back.
Stay with us. You're listening to a special mashup episode of the Advice Line, right here on how I built this lab.
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Hey, welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
I'm Guy Raz. So my next return guest, Chris Ruder, turned the game Spike Ball into a massive brand with a global following.
Chris was first on the show back in 2023, and he told a story of taking a game that he and his friends played as kids and marketing it as a competitive sport.
And he traction with some unexpected tribes of people that became evangelists for the brand, including Christian youth groups and PE teachers.
And if you want to hear that story, we'll put a link to it in the podcast episode description.
When Chris joined me on the advice line, he offered some great guidance on how to grow another U .S. sports brand internationally.
Hi there. Hi, guy. Hi Chris.
My My name is Peter Houck.
I'm from beautiful Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
I'm calling today to talk to you guys about RinkRabbit, direct -to -consumer e -commerce figure scanning company.
We currently have two products.
A RinkTote that we launched the company with and a figure skating backpack that we rolled out about a year ago.
We've seen a lot of growth in the last 12 months.
Wow, okay well congrats.
Thanks for calling in, Peter.
Okay, so RinkRabbit, you make accessories for ice skating.
You don't make ice skates.
Yep, exactly. That's a big point of confusion.
Yeah, we we make bags.
Okay, so bags and what else for for ice skate ice skaters Yeah, so we make a backpack that physically holds your figure skates then we have a tote And the tote sits on the boards that go around the edge of the ice rink and it holds all the things that skater needs While they're on the ice So they don't have to hop off the ice to go grab a drink of water or blow their nose ice time is expensive So we try and make that as yeah efficient as possible.
All right, I live in Northern, California I don't, I'm not aware of many ice skating rinks directly in my area, but you know Sioux Falls, South Dakota, gets pretty cold in the winter, and I think, you know, there's more of a skating culture there.
How big is the opportunity?
Yes, it's difficult to determine.
I've done a ton of research to try and figure out how many figure skaters there are, especially in the U .S. There's a bunch of people, there's probably over a million people that are figure skaters.
You know, it's an Olympic sport.
So it's very widely, widely accepted.
Give me a sense of how you're doing.
Like, what, right now?
What's your what's your revenue roughly?
Yeah, so over the past few years, we've we've grown pretty substantially each year.
Our first year, you know, our first couple months, we launched in October.
And from October to December, we did like $1 ,000 in sales.
And then it's October of 2023 2021, that we launched Yeah, okay.
And then we did 13 ,000 in 2022, and then 23 ,000 in 2023, and we've done a little over $100 ,000 year to date in 2024.
That's amazing. Yeah, so we're building the brand.
One of the benefits of our product is that when skaters see it, they know they want it.
So obviously, when we started and nobody knew who we were, what our product was, it took a little while for us to gain some speed, but that's why I'm excited to be talking to you today, Chris, because it seems like that's kinda how spike ball grew, was by having people see you playing spikeball on the beach. And spikeball even more niche than figure skating.
Peter, what's your question for us today?
Figure skating is obviously an international sport and we see great potential for our brand to become an international brand.
We've seen a lot of growth organically in the United States as people have become more and more aware of our product and we have people right now that are spending quite a bit of money to ship our product to them internationally.
We've sold products in 16 different countries and those people are paying about the equivalent of the value of the product in the first place to ship it to them in Australia, or Canada, or the UK, or wherever.
And so we think that there's this big opportunity if we were to tackle the international market, but we don't know if that's the right thing for us to be doing right now or not.
Should we focus on rolling out more products or should we focus on trying to address It's this international market where a significant number of figure skaters exist. Got it.
Let me bring you in, Chris Ruder.
What do you think - I mean, before we answer Peter's question, any thoughts or questions that you might have for Peter?
Number one, I love it.
This story, although our products are wildly different, the stories - this is really bringing me back to our early days.
Not only is it a niche audience, but also when you first mentioned international, I got a little uncomfortable because I know a lot of entrepreneurs in the early days like, oh, international, the opportunity could be massive.
In my experience, the only time, actually I don't know about the only time, but the time where it makes the most sense to really consider it is if you have that existing demand.
If you don't, then, man, it feels like a really heavy lift. But I love that you've got the demand.
I love that people are spending just, you know, it's funny, Australians in the early days, they would spend just as much on shipping as they would for a spike ball set, and we're like, oh wait, that is the marketplace talking to us.
Peter, let me ask you a question about the main product now, right?
Which is the bag. And did the bag very specifically design for ice skaters.
How protected is your product?
I mean, SpikeBall is patented, you cannot make SpikeBall, people try to do fakes, but they get shut down, when you guys can shut them down, Chris.
is this something that could be replicated in China and sold on Amazon?
Yeah, we have our name trademarked first of all, so Rinkrabbit is trademarked, and we also have patents on the design of both of our products.
And we just filed our patent for our backpack relatively recently.
And with that one, we did it in other markets as well.
I'm not sure exactly all the ones that we ended up including, but we filed a patent across a wide array of European countries, especially.
And the thing about Amazon is when you have that patent protection and that trademark protection, you can strike down other Amazon listings that are confusingly similar.
So that's a big part of the reason why we opted to spend that money early on as a brand is to kind of protect ourselves from the get -go.
I'm curious, Chris, from your perspective, when you started spike ball, it was really, I mean, you had to explain to people, you still do, to some extent, but really you had to explain to people what this was, and it was weird, and you were on the shores of Michigan, and you're like, what is this weird thing?
Figure skating, ice skating is not weird. People have been doing this for a long, long time.
This is a sport that I imagine probably skews more female than male in the United States.
Is that fair to say, Peter?
Yeah, that's that's really accurate and actually one of the issues with other brands and the figure skating space Is that they treat skaters more like little girls rather than the serious competitive athletes My wife was a national champion figure skater when she was in high school.
Wow. Yeah god Yeah, so she had five locations that she got cushions.
Yeah, how I'm sure she was a very serious athlete And going to the rink six to six to seven days a week for four hours at a time And the products that were out there weren't built for someone to treat them like an athlete.
They were pink and sparkly and fuzzy and not really designed to be super useful.
So, our whole brand ethos is to design products that are really well made, really, you know, aesthetically pleasing and highly functional.
You just said something that kind of blew my mind that I did not know.
Your wife was the US National Figure Skating Champion.
That should be screening that from the front of your webpage.
I mean that it's like you are giving me a reason now if I'm a figure skater, an ice skater to buy your product, cause it's like, hey, I'm Ali.
I mean, no shade to you, your wife, Ali, I would have her face on there saying I was a national champion and I wish I had something like this.
So I didn't, so we designed it.
Like I feel like that's gotta be right at the center of your brain.
I know this wasn't your question, but I don't know Chris, what do you think?
Yes, it sounds like you may have the Michael Jordan of figure skating on board, and the world doesn't know it.
Oh, we don't even know it.
She was on a synchronized skating team that won the U .S. Nationals in 2013.
That's fine. That's okay.
You know how many former journalists I know say they're Pulitzer Prize winners but ten people won the award. She's a national champion!
Yeah, I think she's incredible, so I appreciate that.
I feel like that needs to be a bigger part of the story here.
In terms of international, what's the challenge of selling these internationally?
What is the issue for you?
Why are you kind of hesitating about this?
Yeah, so when you ship a product internationally, A, it's much more expensive.
So we ship our products.
We're based out of South Dakota, which is in the center of the country, which is really convenient for an e -commerce perspective.
But most of the time, our product costs $10 or $12 or at the most $15 to ship to our end user.
But when you ship internationally, it's double that.
It's $20 or $30 and it takes five weeks to get there.
And then on top of that, when it shows up at their door, they also have to sign and pay another $30, $40, $50, depending on their country to make up for that.
And so you know, for $129, or a $70 product, that those those expenses become pretty prohibitive, but we still have people buying them from us anyway.
And so I'm wondering, is it worth it for us to try and go set up international distribution centers or something like that?
Do we try and partner with wholesalers who are in other countries and ship product directly to them from our manufacturer?
How do we How do we go about tackling that demand that we see out there?
But what percentage of the of the of the purchases are coming from abroad?
I mean, is it more than five percent?
Is it more than ten percent?
It's about three and a half percent last time I ran the numbers of our sales are international And US growth is strong.
That's 97 % of your growth Yeah, ninety seven percent of our ninety.
Yes, six and a half percent of our sales are our US And we've grown in the last year by about eight hundred percent you're over amazing yeah given that perspective I may change my answer a bit on my excitement about International it sounds sexy to tell people you're shipping to 16 countries or however many countries I think the one thing most business owners struggle with and I do is focus if you've got a rocket ship that would you say 800 % 600 % or something like that?
Yeah, you're over here this year, yeah.
Wow, that is where your attention needs to be.
Sure. As long as you've got your trademarks elsewhere you're still in control even if you're not selling a single set there.
So yeah, I'd encourage you to make sure the U .S. machine can continue that.
And when it is time for international, don't go buy your own warehouse of course or do whatever.
There's plenty of companies all over the world that you can ship 50 units to them, they'll leave it in a corner, and they'll tie to you, are you on a Shopify site, or something like that.
Yeah, we run on Shopify.
Yeah, so you can tie that into a lotta backend suppliers where order comes through, you forward it, and it's done.
Yeah. But man, if your US is growing that fast, I think that's where your attention needs to be.
I have to agree with that, Chris.
I think that for the odd Australian or someone from the UK that's writing in, I mean, there are ways around that.
Like if you're getting a bunch of orders from people in London or Sydney, like it might be worthwhile partnering with a skating shop in London and just flying there twice a year with a suitcase packed with these and just leave them there and have them sell it in the meantime.
But to me it seems like the most fertile ground, The most fertile territory for you is right in your in your backyard, I mean The United States and Canada, which is where I think your primary Customers are gonna be living.
Yeah. Yeah, and I think you know, I do think that there's a lot of room for us You know, we our ultimate goal is to be one brand that sells figure skaters everything they need to practice the sport of figure skating.
Hockey as a sport has Bauer as a brand that will sell you everything and golf has Titleist. But in figure skating, it's really a bunch of mom and pop shops that all sell one or two or three products at most. And so we see a big opportunity for us to come in and roll out nine, 10, 11, 12, whatever, however many products it is that are all aimed specifically at our target market of figure skaters and to be the name brand for figure skating equipment in the country.
Peter, you gotta put your wife's picture right at the front and center of this brand, national champion figure skater.
I mean, she might be reluctant but it's like how much better can you be in terms of offering expertise?
Yeah. Peter Hawk, the brand is called Rink Rabbit.
Thanks so much for calling in, good luck.
Thanks for taking the time, I appreciate it.
Alright man. Thanks.
Thank you Peter. Nice.
I mean ice skate. There's no lifestyle brand around ice skating.
This seems like a big opportunity here, right?
Absolutely. That's Chris Ruder, founder of SpikeBall.
Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mash -up edition of the Advice Line this week.
And a special thanks to Travis Boersma of Dutch Bros, Michael Praisman of Everlane, and Chris Ruder of SpikeBall for joining me on the show.
And if you haven't heard their original episodes or their full episodes of Advice line.
You'll definitely want to check them out.
We will put links in the show notes.
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See this episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music composed by Ramtin -Ereblui.
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