Baby Got Backstory

BGBS 036: David Baker | ReCourses | The Business of Expertise David Baker stumbled into the role of the “expert’s expert,” but he ran with it and hasn’t looked back. Not only has David written 5 books, but he’s also a keynote speaker on the global stage, as well as a podcast host! He joins [...]Read More...

David Baker stumbled into the role of the “expert’s expert,” but he ran with it and hasn’t looked back. Not only has David written 5 books, but he’s also a keynote speaker on the global stage, as well as a podcast host! He joins us to share positioning and marketing gold. His work has been talked about by major titles such as NY Times, Fortune, Inc., Today, Business Week, and the Wall Street Journal. His early days living in a Mayan Indian village with his medical missionary family taught him fundamental lessons that he has carried with him, and relied on, throughout his successful career. We’re even talking about valuable tips entrepreneurs can use during the pandemic to keep their businesses not just surviving, but thriving, long term. You won’t want to miss this episode!

What we’re talking about

Becoming the “Expert’s Expert”

Tips for Long Term Success, Even During a Pandemic

Growing Up In a Mayan Village

David grew up in a close-knit medical missionary family that lived in a Mayan Indian village in Central America. There was no electricity, no running water, no formal roads, and no stores. They literally grew everything they needed or bartered with others to get it. This way of living taught him to be self-sufficient and grateful for the simpler things at a very young age. It also ignited a passion for building, reading, and learning. This simpler way of life also began a life-long gratitude practice that he is deeply committed to, and influences the way he runs his business.

Becoming the “Expert’s Expert”

When David was near the end of his double Master’s, he realized that what he had wanted to do for a career, collegiate level teaching, wasn’t what he thought it was. But he decided that he needed to finish the program, and look for opportunities to take his newly obtained education and put it to work in a new way. Even though he didn’t go to formal school until he was a sophomore in high school, he was managing an academic bookseller doing editorial work while he completed his graduate work. When he decided not to go into teaching, he opened an agency because examples of communications were really poor. He didn't know anything about it, never worked at any of the firms, and didn’t know anyone that worked at one of those firms. He ran his agency for 6 years, and then went from running his agency to helping others run their agencies over a six month period. From there he went on to help experts run their firm. Boom! The “expert’s expert” was coined.

Tips for Long Term Success, Even During a Pandemic

The idea of the world changing slowly is out the window. David shares that he believes one of the biggest mistakes businesses make is by not positioning themselves correctly, and with intention. They’re extremely broad in their position, instead of focusing in, and niche-ing down to be able to obtain true expertise in an area. Entrepreneurs can’t be afraid of losing a small amount of success to achieve even more success. He advises that, in times like these, we need to adapt by making sure we have as few single points of failure as possible. Be nimble & flexible. Run the business well so it can be as financially efficient as possible to be able to pivot quickly. Sell something that doesn’t require dependence on supplier relationships.

How are you positioning your business to be able to adapt in uncertain times? 

LINKS MENTIONED

The 2Bobs Podcast

The Business of Expertise

David C. Baker’s Website

SPONSOR

Wildstory

TIMESTAMPS

11:41 - 11:56 (15 sec DB) The key for me is, when my life...and deserve those sorts of things.

13:23 - 14:23 (60 sec DB) On the one hand you have...never going to have the upside of those mistakes that you’re going to make as well.

15:03 - 15:56 (53 sec DB) Probably the biggest, most widely...we’ll figure out how to do that for you, and make money in the process.

19:43 - 20:43 (60 sec DB) One of the characteristics of the best...continually reinventing yourself.

21:00 - 21:28 (28 sec DB) We live in a place where the opportunity...that’s one of the core messages I hope people will take.

28:50 - 29:31 (41 sec DB) How many people come up to you...hopeful person that you are as an entrepreneur.

50:37 - 51:27 (50 sec DB) All of a sudden the idea of the world...there’s so many great lessons.

QUOTES

One of the things that keeps me excited about every day is that I get to learn. - DB

Because of the terror businesses have that there’s a run of opportunity, they don’t experience the deepness, the richness, that comes from expertise. - DB 

We live in the land of opportunity. - DB

When it comes to making money, and charging people for things, you need to be an expert. - DB

Successful people are one, maybe two, significant mistakes from being homeless again. - DB

There’s no disadvantage in loving your work. In fact, it’s fantastic if you love your work, but that’s not the only criteria. - DB

There’s a difference between turning your passion into a business and loving the work that you do. - DB

How many people admire your life as an entrepreneur, but have no idea what it really takes to be successful? - DB 

Experts are really good at beating themselves up. That’s why they keep learning because they’re so afraid of losing their edge. - DB

You don’t typically work hard at relevance unless irrelevance is terrifying to you. - DB

The biggest driver for relevance is knowing what irrelevance feels like. - DB

The core of developing expertise comes from noticing patterns. - DB

The deeper you dig, the more there is to see and talk about. - DB

Podcast Transcript

David Baker 0:02

The first call I got was from this firm in Chicago. So I went out to buy some new clothes, I drove my really nasty car, parked it quite a ways away so they wouldn't see it. And for some reason, they were drawn to what they thought they could learn from me. And they said, Well, if we decide to work together, and we think we'd like to well, how would you package your service? And I made up the service on site. And they said, How much will it cost? and I made up a price. top my head is if I'd been doing this for years, and as I drove home, that was the first time I felt like, Oh, I could be an expert.

Marc Gutman 0:44

podcasting, Boulder, Colorado. This is the baby got backstory podcast. we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman and on today's episode of Baby got backstory. We are talking to David C. Baker, the expert on expertise. Kind of meta, isn't it? All right. All right now if you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over iTunes. iTunes uses these as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on the apple charts. And ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to produce this show. Today's episode we are talking to David C. Baker. David is an author, speaker and advisor to entrepreneurial creatives worldwide. He has written five books, advise 900 plus firms in keynoted conferences in 30 plus countries.

His work has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times Fast Company, Forbes, USA Today Businessweek and Inc. magazine, in his work has also been featured in The New York Times, where he was referred to as the experts expert. David helps entrepreneurial creatives make better business decisions about their positioning and marketing, and how they structure their roles in the firm, and how to benchmark their financial performance. And we're gonna get into that in today's show.

His most recent book is called the business of expertise for entrepreneurial experts convert insight to impact and wealth. And he also co hosts a very entertaining podcast, which is the most listened to podcasts in the Creative Services field, the two Bob's podcast with his partner Blair enns. As you'll hear in today's episode, an expert has narrow focus. And for creative firms like mine, and yours, David C. Baker is an expert. I've long followed his thought leadership and teachings and it's a real treat to have him here on the show. And during our conversation I learned so much much from him. This episode is chock full of insight and well, expertise. I hope you like it.

So I'm here with David C. Baker, who is known as the expert on expertise. David, what is an expert on expertise?

David Baker 3:22

Hmm, that's me. That's a smartass answer, right. It's somebody who helps experts step outside of themselves to help them frame the right positioning for their expertise to find clients to help surface and then monetize their IP. So really an advisor to experts. That's that's how I think of myself. I didn't come up with that title. It was something that a writer in the New York Times used and I thought, darn, I'm going to use that that sounds pretty good.

Marc Gutman 3:51

Yeah, like it. It sums it up, and it's really concise. And so, you know, when David was was an eight-year-old kid, were you know, an expert to experts at that Time or did you think you want to be an expert to experts at that time what was going on for you?

David Baker 4:03

Negative to all of those questions. When I was an eight-year-old kid, when I was a five-year-old kid, I was getting dropped into a Spanish. And of course, Spanish was not my primary language dropped into a Spanish kindergarten in San Jose, Costa Rica and just kind of learned on the fly. I see parents teaching their kids how to swim by dropping them in the pool.

And I've, I've always wanted to do that with somebody else's kid not my own. And just to see, see what happens, right, and that's kind of what happened for me. My parents were medical missionaries. And so they needed they were US citizens, they needed to learn Spanish. So they took me to Costa Rica with them for the year while they learned it, and I got in a Spanish kindergarten and then number six, we went to live with this tribe of Mayan Indians way up in the mountains of Guatemala. Very, very primitive. And here I am with my parents and my one brother. The other brother hadn't been born yet. And I'm just trying to figure out the world. I didn't know the US existed. I was about as far from being an expert as you could be, I think.

Marc Gutman 5:11

Yeah. So take us back there a little bit. I mean, what was life like there? I mean, did you have you know, modern amenities? Were you kind of in the proverbial Fach hut and dirt floor? Like what was your living conditions?

David Baker 5:24

Well, we lived in a, it was a wooden frame house on top of an Adobe. So that first floor was an Adobe home. And then the second floor was a wooden framed home. And this was with this tribe of there were 20,000 Mayan Indians of this particular Conjobal tribe, they were called. And we lived in this village and there was no running water. There was no electricity there.

The roads were sort of dirt paths, and there were no stores to speak of. So it was very, I mean, it didn't. It just felt normal at the time. until I moved to the US, I didn't really realize that it was very, very primitive. We grew all our own stuff and made everything from scratch. And it was where I learned really to be a little bit more self-sufficient and to be grateful with simpler things. I've been completely spoiled at the other end of the spectrum now, but at the time, it was fantastic It was one of those days where you could envision sending your kid off to camp right? But this is the way we lived all the time. And it was so formative for me I'm still discovering ways in which those early days have shaped to be for sure.

Marc Gutman 6:39

Yeah. And so what were some of those ways? I mean, what really influenced you I mean, you know, I think it's common as we get older to really trace back our our influences our roots. I mean, I know I have a ton my my version of your story was you know Thrasher magazine and skateboards, you know, that's right. That's, that's what shaped me. And then I eventually took me out to California but for you what was going on in Costa Rica with a completely different culture mean, what were you picking up on?

David Baker 7:06

So I think some of those early forces that shaped who I am, I'm an introvert. I don't know if that was picked up environmentally or not. But there weren't many kids like me. So I spent a lot of time myself. I certainly loved enjoying, I loved reading. I love to build things. I understood, at a very deep level, how important it was to think about the future and to be prepared. Because you didn't know really what was coming, there might be a hurricane that would hit and close off the paths to the bigger city. The bigger city was a five and a half hour drive away 60 miles. And then so you basically have to figure out how to eat without getting to any of those stores. Figure out how to refrigerate things. If you decided to kill a cow, like how are you going to keep this meat for a while.

So just some basic, self-sufficient See without some of the assumptions that come along with it. I think also just the role of education, formal education in our lives. I didn't go to formal school, except for a couple years until I was in 10th. Grade came to the US. So in 78, I guess that was. And I don't really feel like I missed much. I mean, I missed a little bit of the socialization that comes but I think there's something about the modern educational experience is a mix of taking care of kids and babysitting them and educating them. And we're certainly realizing that and COVID-19, right, where parents, they're not just missing the fact that their kids may not be learning as well, but they're missing the fact that somebody else is taking care of their kids too.

So all of those things really influenced me all the way up to things like I hear phrases bounced around in our modern economy, things like just follow your heart and success. We'll come. And I'm thinking, Wait, that's just bullshit like that only works in a developed economy. It doesn't work across the world, you have all these other people, they can't they know what's on their heart. But they can't afford just to follow that they've got to go out in the field and work hard just so they can eat. And if they have extra time and money or things to trade, then they can do other things. But we have to we, we've developed a unique way of looking at things that build so many assumptions into it. And you can see how that comes crashing down. During a pandemic, when our natural world order is just turned upside down. It's crazy.

Marc Gutman 9:43

That's so like, so insightful. I mean, I'm kind of like my head's racing right now with this idea that you know, you're right. We hear that all the time. Follow your heart, follow your passions, and how it's just so specific and narrow to a very small group of people. And I even sometimes wonder, I mean, In some of the developed nations, I mean, I think, you know, I was get the feeling that people really enjoy the work the actual physicality of it. Now, I'm sure there's some instances where they don't and it's, it's the conditions aren't great.

But they, you know, and maybe I'm wrong. And I'd love to get your take on this. I've always had this perception that they're not sitting around saying, like, what's my passion and being so indulgent, and dare I say, sometimes a little arrogant, right? We're like, you know, how dare we, you know, sit around thinking about what our passions are when there's other things to be to be done in terms of work and survival and sustenance.

David Baker 10:33

And passion is important, right? But it's not everything and maybe, maybe you just need a job where they treat you fairly. And there's an even exchange for the amount of labor you put in. And that's enough, right? It doesn't have to be more than that. I there's so many things to untangle there. It's wrong to mistreat people. It's wrong to not give them equal opportunities, but it's not the job of an employer to keep everything Employee amused all the time. And what we're going through right now brings it has this leveling force about it.

So we're understanding for instance, how difficult it is, if you don't have basic internet access, we understand how difficult it is if you don't have a spot in your room to work from home, we understand what we're going to miss about working together is just surfacing all of these opportunities to learn what's really important, what's really critical. And I'm grateful for having grown up in an era where I learned I was forced to learn some of those things. And the key for me is when my life gets a lot softer and easier, which it is now is to still be really deeply grateful for everything I have and not take it so much for granted or assume that I deserve those sorts of things.

Marc Gutman 11:57

I love that too. I mean, do you have any insight on how you how you keep that that edge about you how you how you avoid you or even like your children right I think my me and my kids I mean, for lack of a better word we've gotten soft, you know, be right, we were indulgent. And you have any thoughts on on how to maintain that edge or maintain that, you know, self awareness, maybe you know, Im not sure?

David Baker 12:12

Self-awareness for sure. I've worn out three therapists trying to be more self-aware of myself. There seems to be a big chunk of our lives and how we spend our money is meant to chase familiarity and comfort and the expected result. And we haven't somehow figured out how to be flexible and nimble and accepting of things and I definitely think that carries over to child-rearing for sure I'm we have two grown kids. I'm not saying we were the best parents at all, but I do know that We worked hard at helping them adapt to different circumstances and not rescue them from some of that. So, so understanding also I see it when it carries over to help people run their businesses, which is kind of in the business line is helping people think through how to run their businesses differently. It's, you see it real distinct difference here?

Yeah. On the one hand, you have firms that achieve a certain level of success. And they work very hard to maintain it, and they're disciplined at it and so on. And then you have other firms who don't let their intermediate success keep them from continuing to experiment.

They're not afraid of losing some of what they have accomplished in order to press the envelope and gain additional things. Another way to say that is that one of the biggest hindrances to additional growth for me is the level of success I've already achieved. Because I don't want to do innately I don't want to do things that will cause me to lose that or take a step backwards. Instead of realizing that there's this, there's this cycle you, you're going to make significant mistakes. But if you never take risks, then you're never going to have the upside of those mistakes that you're going to make as well. And I, one of the things that keeps me learning every day, or keeps me excited about being in every day is the fact that I get to learn and experience and think and articulate and that's what keeps me alive, at least to the extent that I am alive.

Marc Gutman 14:38

Yeah, and, you know, it just makes me think that this idea of continually pushing continually experimenting and pushing ourselves I mean, when you apply that to the businesses you work with, which are primarily creative firms, like how does that look like what what are ways that you've seen it both work well And also not work well.

David Baker 15:02

Yeah, the probably the biggest, most widely seen mistake that firms that I work with make is their positioning. So they craft a positioning that's as broad as possible so that in their minds, they can consistently turn those opportunities into, into work into money. And they're against this notion of narrowing their opportunity and digging deeper in there because they're afraid that throughout the history of their business, and then also when they look back on their business, their biggest fear is I didn't have enough opportunity. And so they craft their positioning and their service offerings, such that it's wide open, we're, we're open for business, we're a full-service firm, whatever you need, you just tell us we'll figure out how to do that for you and make money in the process.

And because of This terror, they have the run of opportunity. They don't experience the deepness, the richness that comes from expertise. And that's where my work with experts comes into play. And it is sad because you look, just pretend for a second with yourself or myself, let's say I'm looking, let's say it's me, and I'm older. I'm on the salmon the last third of my life. And I decide to get reflected for a moment and I look back over my life and say, You know what, David, you really didn't meet your potential. Why is that? And I'll be faced with a couple of options. One of those is, well, David, is it because you didn't have enough opportunities? And that is just never the case. Not in the world that you and I live in or your listeners live in.

Their opportunity is everywhere. We live in the land of freakin opportunity. It's like it never runs out. No, that is not why I will not have been as successful as I could have been. It will be because I wasn't choosy enough. I didn't say No enough to many of those opportunities and then buckle down and master something. And so you have to buckle down and master something, but you bring a broader context to it, so that you're not just a weirdo. And that broader context is all of the interests that are in your life that you're constantly exploring. But when it comes to making money and charging people for things, you need to be an expert. Right. And and that's the the one area that it seems like experts tend to really struggle with

Marc Gutman 17:31

Yeah and what do you think that is?

David Baker 17:32

I think it's their fear of opportunity. They think they're going to run out of opportunity, whereas people I look at my life, I've been successful enough at what I do. There's still stuff left on the table for sure. And I've been more successful than a bunch so I would just say it's successful enough, right? But, but this what I do for a living doesn't define me I there are 15 other things I could have done and I could have been successful enough. Any of those things, so this isn't.

So if and if you feel that way about your career, then you're not as worried about wasting it, you're not as worried about making a mistake and like, oh, shoot, I shouldn't have done that. Because you feel like what's the worst that can happen? you kind of lose your career and you start another one. It's, we're all wrapped up in this sense of who we need to be and how we have to protect what we have. And I've always felt like, successful people are one or maybe two really significant mistakes away from being homeless again. And so if you picture yourself at that point, what would happen to your psyche? If you were homeless, would you be okay? I'd be okay. I would climb back from it. So I'm not going to work at protecting everything I have. I'm going to work at continuing to learn and experiment and take risks.

Marc Gutman 18:56

You know, thank you for that. There's just so much to unpack at least As far as I'm concerned, you know, I'm, I'm admittedly one of those people that has bought into the narrative that you know, you need to find your life's work, you need to find your calling. And thereby, when you do that, it wraps all this emotion into your work. And to your point, it becomes your identity and who you are. And when you have a misstep at work, that becomes a misstep that you were personally it creates baggage around your story. And so this idea of enjoying appreciating, dare I say, even loving your work that that's okay. But there has to be a limit to it. And you know, any thoughts or ideas on how to distance yourself from it? Or is it simply just mindset?

David Baker 19:42

I think one of the characteristics of some of the best thinkers and doers are, they don't have this one, two or three people or firms that they want to emulate. They know what those quote unquote best firms do. And there are certain elements of it that they think about and might want to emulate and so on. But they, they charge forward and they blaze a new trail, often borrowing from the best practices of sisters sort of industries, and say, I'm going to be different in a lot of a lot of ways.

And that's going to make it easier for people to distinguish between me and my competitors. It will make it easier for me to develop unique insight, maybe make it easier for me to develop my own IP. So there's something about looking ahead and continuing continually reinventing yourself as opposed to looking next to you to see what other people are doing and worrying about whether you're losing ground to them. As if it's some big comparison game. We most of your listeners, I would imagine are in North America, maybe some in Australia or Europe, and But we live in a place where the opportunity is just staggering and, and the freedom we have to invent ourselves and get other people to give us money. So that we can keep doing the things we're really good at wondering the era in history for that to happen, right. And, and it's a shame to waste that and not to continually build innovation into the way you approach your work. That's, that's one of the core messages I hope people will take.

Marc Gutman 21:28

Yeah, and it's crazy to think just to your point that we can just invent different things and kind of come up with new businesses and, and offer different different points of advice. So, you know, I do want to go back a little bit to where you were in Costa Rica, and you said it was 10th grade and you came back to the States. And where did you land like, what was that? Like? Did you just kind of reintegrate into society in a way you went? Or like What was that all about?

David Baker 21:58

I reintegrated not very well. Well, I'd say if it's pretty awkward. I went to a school called Ben Lippen high school. It was in Asheville, North Carolina, it was this private boarding school of about 200 kids across four grades. Most of them were, their parents were ex pats, they were ambassadors, or they were MKS, that kind of thing. So all of these people came from different backgrounds. And it wasn't all that odd there, because there wasn't any norm. But when I got out into society, it was Yeah, it was pretty strange. It was weird. I didn't want to head down the medical missionary path that my parents were I wanted to teach in an academic setting.

So I, you know, finished high school, went to college, did five years of full time graduate work studying mainly ancient languages. And that's where I was going to hit. I was going to teach Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin and so on and, and about halfway through my graduate work. looked around at the academic environment and realized that for the first time, there wasn't the sort of academic freedom that I had dreamed about. It was, yeah, it was academic freedom to do anything you want, as long as you end up here at this place, and that world has gotten even more polarized and, and progressive leaning than before, and I just felt like okay, this just isn't gonna work. There isn't going to be this sort of academic freedom that I really craved.

So, but I was far enough into the program that I decided I really needed to finish that. But then I'm sitting here wondering, okay, what am I going to do when I finish and I looked around to find my way through school, I was managing an academic bookseller doing editorial work there, decided to start an agency just because the examples of communications that I saw were really poor and I just didn't think it would be that difficult to improve that world. didn't know anything about It never worked at any of those firms didn't know anybody. It worked at one of those firms. So it was trial by fire and learning. So this was a firm that we started ran for six years about 16 people and never got really big. And it was a great learning experience. My so I ran the firm started, the firm ran the firm, and I did most of the copywriting, which is kind of a natural progression from my love of words, and, and the research side, and that's how I got into this field. And then from there, it was a really strange set of circumstances I I was invited to help it to to advise some of my peers.

And I didn't really have all that much to add. It wasn't that I was running an amazing firm. But I did learn really quickly what was working in their lives, and I was able to share that with additional people as well. So over a six month period, I switched from running an agency to helping other people run an agency and and then the next iteration was really working across Professional Services and helping experts think about how to run their firm. So it's been a long, I never could have charted this path. And I see that I see the stepping stones looking back. But I certainly that many of those steps were not intentional. I just simply was in the right place and saw how this next iteration of my life could use something that I've enjoyed doing in the past and think Steve Jobs said, you can't really connect the dots moving forward, but you can connect the dots looking back. And that's definitely true for my experience.

Marc Gutman 25:31

And so to some degree, it sounds like you were following your passion in a way or you're following your heart. Certainly with there being an economic outcome to it. And not just being willy nilly. I mean, would that be accurate to say at that time you were to seeing where things took you?

David Baker 25:46

Yes, for sure. You know, but along the way, there are things that I would probably love doing more than I'm doing now, but there is not an economic value to them. So it's Mix, there's no disadvantage and loving your work. In fact, it's fantastic if you love your work and I really love most of my work. But that's not the only criteria.

So you think about somebody who loves riding bikes all the time. And they love it so much they decided to quit their job and and open a bike shop. Well running a bike shop, it requires completely different skills and running a bike than riding a bike and enjoying that. So it's just you know, it's there's a difference between turning your passion into a business and loving the work that you do.

Marc Gutman 26:33

Yeah, a little known fact all the listeners out there. My father didn't quit his job, but he did love riding bikes, and he did start a bike shop and it went terribly bad wasn't it? He didn't know he didn't really know about running businesses and he didn't know about running a bike shop. So there you go is a good example very poignant. I appreciate that. Yeah. And so what were some of those things are or are some of those things that you kind of alluded to that you love? But are economically viable for you?

David Baker 27:03

Well, I love flying I fly airplanes and helicopters, I and I was a corporate pilot for one brief stint of a year and a half. But you don't kind of you don't have the impact that you would like you don't make the money that you'd like. I love woodworking. I love photography. I've done that professionally, but it's only the top 1% of photographers, you know, make a million dollars a year. So those are this.

So you just kind of relegate those two hobbies right and say this I've learned a lot from this. This is I'm so glad I have this experience, but I'm not going to turn it into a business. I'm going to have a business that thousands of people would recognize has a value and they consistently want to pay me good money for me to speak to their situation. And that's that's a great business idea. Now I'm not talking about a b2c business. I'm talking about a b2b professional services business the area I speak to. But that's, that's how my thinking unfolds on that.

Marc Gutman 28:04

Yeah. And I just kind of want to let that hang out there a little bit. Because I do just think that is such an important insight for people to understand that, you know, at the end of the day, like, you know, most of our businesses are not .orgs. And we do need to make money and we do have, you know, we need to bring in income and things like that. And so it can't all just be this kind of fantasy that the narrative I think there's a narrative out there that you know, much the way you started this, do what you love, and everything will follow and it's gonna be this amazing sort of Nirvana lifestyle. And it just, it just isn't that way. And I think you sharing your experience really highlights that and some of the choices that we need to make as creatives and business owners.

David Baker 28:46

Yeah, and as a business owner, you know, life is not, my goodness, how many people come up to you and admire your life as an entrepreneur, but at the same time, have no idea what it really takes to be successful. You like the risks you take when you sign a long lease or you take out a line of credit, the difficult challenging conversations you've got to have with some of your team members, the pressure you feel at night if you're about ready to lose a client relationship that's important to your business.

It's not all roses, right? But all of those things together, make you the sort of intelligent, resilient, hopeful person that you are as an entrepreneur and what a life you can have. If you approach it from the perspective of being grateful for being disciplined and being flexible about what this business is going to bring to you. It's, I'm really grateful to be a part of this world.

Marc Gutman 29:48

Yeah, and I think you might have alluded to it, but do you have like a regular gratitude practice that you partake in?

David Baker 29:53

I don't, I probably should. And I've, I've learned about some ways that I could do That but gratitude is something that's a part of my life regularly. And I, I probably stop and think about it's not programmed into my day, but I probably think about it anywhere from two to half a dozen times a day, I would think. And it just helps me relax and stopped the craving and, and recognize that while this is here while I can enjoy this while I'm on this vacation or while I'm enjoying this particular new thing I bought or whatever it is, I'm going to really appreciate it but it could all go away too and I'll be fine.

Marc Gutman 30:37

Yeah, and I'll reflect back I think you do have a gratitude practice. It just comes easy to you

David Baker 30:41

already right. Maybe

Marc Gutman 30:42

in your innate personality and so, you know, I think you do

This episode brought to you by Wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is and without the generous support of Wildstory This show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo or a tagline, or even your product. A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose-driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met. This results in crazy, happy, loyal customers that purchase again and again. And this is great for business. If that sounds like something you and your team might want to learn more about, reach out @ www.wildstory.com and we'd be happy to tell you more. Now back to our show.

You know, I keep thinking back to those that early part of your career where you're describing, you know, starting your own firm then being asked to help you know, advise other firms At what point did you first feel like an expert or know that you were an expert?

David Baker 32:05

Yeah. So I was I subscribed to a publication called creative business, it was run by Cam foot out of Boston. And part of the deal was that your subscription included the ability to call him and ask any question. I think it was his way of staying in touch with the marketplace. So I would do that from time to time. And one day I said, Hey, cam, why don't you Why don't you provide advisory services to your subscribers? I think they would be really open to getting deeper, personalized advice from you. He wasn't interested at that point. But he said, Why don't you do it? And I, I that had never occurred to me at all. And before I could even respond to him, he said, let's put an atom by publication. I will I'll do it for free, but you just give me 10% of everything you make. I didn't think much would come of it.

But oddly enough, people started calling and The first call I got was this I was living in northern Indiana at the time. And the first call I got was from this firm in Chicago. So I went out to buy some new clothes, I drove my really nasty car, parked it quite a ways away, so they wouldn't see it. And for some reason, they were drawn to what they thought they could learn from me. And they said, Well, if we decide to work together, and we think we'd like to, well, how would you package your service? And I made up the service on site And they said, How much will it cost? and I made up a price top my head is if I'd been doing this for years, and as I drove home, that was the first time I felt like, Oh, I could be an expert.

I have been paying attention to running my own firm. I've learned from my mistakes, and I've learned from what other people have done well, and they want an outside perspective on how to do it better. I can help them and they are willing to pay me money for that. Wow, that feels really strange. So that was the very beginning of it for me. And since then it's been a long, winding road through expertise with highs and lows, you know, mixed with standing in front of 5000 people live on TV and feeling like I'm completely nailing it to other times been embarrassed because I don't have the answer to a question at the end of the presentation. And letting all of those different experiences shape who I am and drive me forward.

Marc Gutman 34:29

Yeah, and you know, and you've written a book called The business of expertise. I love it. I've read it twice now. It's dense, you know, there's a lot of grip. It's easy to read. And I don't want to make it sound like it's not but there's just, it's like every page is packed with information. And one of the things that I really took from it and loved about it was that you describe it with one instance you describe that for you being an expert, or the definition of being an expert is being able to stand up in you know, give a give a keynote, give a webinar, and then stand up and take questions and feel feel like you're in the pocket so to speak, you know that you can take whatever comes your way.

But it was really interesting to hear you even just mentioned in that last, that last little segment that like sometimes you don't always have the answer, but I think it's an please. You know, let me know if I've got this right. I think it's the confidence to stand there anyways, and get involved in that conversation that really helps to define what an expert or who an expert is.

David Baker 35:26

Yeah, right. Exactly. And that it's a good way to say it, because let's say that there were two questions that the crowd asked that you kind of mumbled your way through and didn't have a clear, articulate answer right off the top your head. Well, instead of being discouraged about, I mean, you have to acknowledge that you kind of blew it right there.

Probably not as many people noticed it as you think they did. But use that to drive you forward. And so now the next task at hand is figure out what your point of view is on those two things where you mumbled the answer and, and that's where the continuous learning takes place and where. And then if you begin to publish that all of a sudden you stand out from the other experts who are just burdened in their day to day solving of client questions, and are not carefully articulating their point of view on things and in making that public.

Marc Gutman 36:18

Yeah. And so what's hard about being an expert? What don't we know that we haven't talked about so far?

David Baker 36:24

It's hard to be an expert because the kind of advice that you're giving, it's hard to separate it from who you are as a person. So if somebody doesn't respond well to your admonitions, your advice, then it's pretty easy to take it personally. The other thing is that the inner critic is frequently beating, you know, tapping you on the shoulder and saying you're really not worth that much money per day or that person paid you this much and you solve their issue in in two phone calls. over an hour and 45 minutes, you really think that you should have charged him that kind of money or am I still as relevant as I was 10 years ago?

You know, I think experts are really good at constantly beating themselves up that's why they keep learning because they're so paranoid about losing their edge or maybe I'm just maybe this is just a whole string of confessions for me and other people don't feel that way but but that's certainly how I feel.

Marc Gutman 37:29

Yeah, no, I feel that too and I was so hoping actually here on my little notes, I was gonna get into the this idea of relevance and so I'm so glad that you brought it up because I do think about relevance in so many ways, you know, everything from you know, just the basic Am I still relevant is what I'm talking about. Still still timely, you know, are people learning it in a different way everything to as I grow older, I worry about relevance. And so how do you continue to just just tackle this idea of relevance and stay relevant and I love I love and in your book Yeah, I think I'll paraphrase but it says something that effect is that is to ask about relevance, it assumes that you were relevant at one point anyways. First, yeah, so we'll assume that.

David Baker 38:15

Yeah, well, you don't typically work hard at relevance unless irrelevance is terrifying to you. So if you aren't putting yourself if you aren't standing naked in front of people frequently, then you don't have enough incentive to be relevant because you can just take the same lame average clients that come to you who aren't pressing the envelope and asking really tough questions and critiquing how you deal with them and so on. So, you know, I, I guess another I don't mean this to be cute, but the the biggest driver for relevance to me is knowing what irrelevance feels like it's constantly being at the edge edge of irrelevance and being willing to reinvent myself all the time. Which means I'm going to throw away some things where I have gotten very comfortable in leading client relationships, because they're slipping in relevance. And that's a lot of hard work. It's not the easiest, the easiest thing is just to keep mailing it in and doing the same things without adapting along with the world.

Look at how Google Google's presence has changed how we work and how we think about expertise, and how that carries over to our lives. You think about expertise now it's, it's basically free. It's immediate, and it's very specific, those three things. So in a world where that is what defines expertise, how in the world am I going to carve out a place where I can charge X amount per day, right? So it's, I love those innate tensions that come with it. And after I figured this tension out, there'll be other ones that will just be slipping in from all angles trying to cut my feet out from under me. That's the kind of you have to be willing to be in that fight regularly or, or you're just gonna slowly die.

Marc Gutman 40:10

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And you and you mentioned this idea of like, you know, you have to stand up and be, you know, willing to be critiqued and to be questioned by clients. Like, how do you handle that when that happens? I mean, I always find that to be like one of the hardest things, you know, like, you don't want to be argumentative and defensive. You want to hear them and you want to take it because a lot of times that can make you better, but then I sometimes feel vulnerable. And then I'm like, Hey, I got to like, prove that I'm the expert here. So how do you recommend or how do you personally handle that?

David Baker 40:40

I don't handle it very well, in the sense that I have to work really hard to soften my natural reactions to it. I get my feelings hurt pretty easily. My podcast partner, Blair Enns taught me something that helps me a lot. And he said, All right, David, are you afraid of The truth of course, it's stupid to say you're afraid of the truth. So no, I'm not afraid of the truth. I want the truth. So part B of that is okay, if you want the truth. If you're not afraid of the truth, then Wouldn't it be better to know the truth as soon as possible, so that you can make adjustments? And, yeah, I'd have to say, I agree with that, right. And even when somebody's critique is not wrapped Well, it's, it's full of either a personal attack or them not looking at themselves, or whatever that is, I still think as an expert, you owe it to your own development to find the nugget of what's true. and embrace it without defending yourself. And then don't over apologize for it.

But do acknowledge it is a defenseless way as possible, which means you're probably going to if you're writing an email responding to somebody like that, you're probably going to have to to rewrite it four times, and then you send it and you reread it later, and it's like, Ah, that was good that I acknowledged the truth of that. And I wanted to learn, but I'm still holding fast to some of the things that I believe that maybe maybe the real issue is that they just don't want to accept those statements that I'm making. And instead, they're falling back on how those were delivered. We having said all that, as experts, I think you need to worry a little bit less than is normal about how those things are delivered.

The deeper your expertise, the less important how you deliver those things are always think of that TV show Dr. House who had the worst bedside manner of of all, but he still had a thriving practice because he was so good at what he did people overlook that. So there's a mix here. You don't have to be sweet order takers all the time. You can afford to be a little bit bristly, but you don't Want to do anything that unnaturally distracts from the good that you could be accomplishing with your clients?

Marc Gutman 43:08

Yeah, I like that. The bigger expert you are, you can you can, you don't have to be as nice. I totally, totally agree. And, you know, before I ran into a lot of the work you were doing around positioning and content, and you and your podcast partner Blair, you know, I used to, like, I just kind of believed in this narrative that like, expertise just sort of happens, you know, and that people just either fall into it, or like, it was just like kind of this this thing that organically happened and you have these experts, but what I've really got from your teachings and a lot of your content, your books and things like that is that expertise in becoming an expert is really an intentional act like you have to like really think about it and work towards it. presuming that is accurate, you know, how would would you advise that people really take those first steps And start their way to becoming an expert as far as the way you define it.

David Baker 44:06

Yeah, the core of that developing expertise comes from noticing patterns. And probably the biggest mistake that would be experts make is that they don't narrow their positioning enough. So that pattern matching is possible. So I only work with certain kinds of expert firms, which means that I can easily compare them and learn from that experience and see those patterns and write about them and so on. So that would be the first thing is to make sure that your positioning is narrow enough. So that pattern matching is possible. And then the second really critical component I just can't see developing expertise without this thing as well. And that's to begin articulating what you think it doesn't the order isn't figured out and then articulate it that's not how it happens. It's the clarification the clarity comes in.

The articulation so you just have to commit to doing that. So there are 40,400, I looked it up this morning 40,400 people have signed up to get my weekly email. And the way my workflow is I've got to come up with a consistent stream of ideas to write about at least one, sometimes two a week. And there are at different stages at the moment about 370 different topic ideas. And you would think that after doing this for 25 years, you'd begin to run out of things to talk about, but it's the opposite. I, I've never had more things that I could talk about. And that will continue. I'll I'll be very sad when I stop this because I won't have an outlet for these ideas. So the deeper you dig, the more there is to see and the more there is to think and talk about and if you aren't committed to if there's back to this education thing was young kids. If there was a One thing I would try to encourage my kids to do, and that would be to write to keep a journal to have a blog as a nine-year-old, whatever it is, I just want them to continue. I wanted to think out loud because it just doesn't happen well unless there are other people listening.

Marc Gutman 46:15

And then, so from what I heard, they're starting the path to effectively thinking out loud developing expertise in your specific area and then putting it out on some sort of platform, whether that be writing you mentioned your list, I know you have a podcast and you're very active with your thought leadership, you know, there's probably no way people can't learn about you or what you're talking about, depending on the way they consume content.

David Baker 46:44

Right. Yeah. And, and the fear of irrelevance. The fear of looking stupid, the fear of not having enough business, those three fears should be enough to drive you to keep doing better and to keep going deep. In deeper, and if you love the process of learning, then this development is not a chore. It's the core of what you do. And the fact that clients are willing to pay you money to get inside your head and see what you're learning is just a complete bonus. That's why I just feel so grateful for being a knowledge worker, so to speak.

Marc Gutman 47:24

Yeah. And can you expand a little bit on that business development comment? I know a lot of people it is a chore and a lot of people dread it, and it is. It's hard work. I talked to people as I was talking to someone this morning about that, and they're reflecting that to me. So can you expand on that just a little bit more about how to not make it so?

David Baker 47:42

Yeah, well, for me, the fact that I have 40 some thousand people listening so to speak, is it's just this privilege. It's this responsibility I have, but really, they're just along for the ride as I keep learning more and more. So when I have to, that's how you would normally think about it when I have to write another insight piece and send it out to all these people. It's not a chore, it's, I can't wait to quit doing something for these clients, because now I'm going to get a chance to go back to school again, and learn something new.

And this will be one more tool in my toolbox that I'll be able to use with clients who pay me money. So for me, it's an opportunity to learn it's not a chore, it's an opportunity to learn. And if your lead generation plan isn't designed like that, then you need to redesign it. If instead, you think lead generation is calling eight people cold call calling eight people today, then you've got the wrong plan because you're not excited about it. If you're not excited about your lead generation plan, it's not going to get done right.

Marc Gutman 48:57

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's it's it's hard work. If it's if it's a chore, right and, and it's and it's the work of it's the easy work is the stuff that we gravitate towards. And I can speak to myself, like, I wake up in the mornings, and I can easily write 1000 2000 words, or I can come and show up to this podcast, and I could do it all day long. But to your point, cold calling is just no fun.

Right? And so to be shy away from that kind of stuff, perfect. And so, David, you know, as we get into a new, I don't even know, like a new era of business. I mean, things are changing. And I think that, you know, everyone realizes that that the way we do business is having a significant shift. What does that mean for the business of expertise? Where do you see this going? And what significant changes do you think you're going to see coming up here in the next, let's call it six to 18 months?

David Baker 49:53

Well, the pandemic has certainly changed things in the sense that not my in-person events are happening. And then 90% of my engagements when we're in person as well. So I've used this with a little bit of terror for a couple of weeks. And then, and then for me, it was like, Ah, this is great. This is forcing me to reinvent how I deliver this stuff. So let's build a, a professionally switched TVs studio with a fiber optic line. And that way, the production value will support the sort of fees that I need to get for to continue working with my clients. That's part of it. And the other is just how the world all of a sudden the idea of the world changing slowly is out the window, right. And so we need to be resilient businesses that have as few single point of failures as possible. We need to have them run well so that we have enough money to pivot.

We need flexible arrangements with our people. We need to be selling something That doesn't require a dependence on supplier relationships that's in our heads. That's insight that can continue to be given. We we can't ignore positioning and lead generation because when you try to spin that flywheel up, it takes six 9, 12 months to spin it up. So it needs to always be running. So that when you call on it at a moment's notice, it's already there. There's so many great lessons.

Marc Gutman 51:27

Yeah. And as we go into the pandemic, it's hard to think where this will go and I really resonate with this idea that I think everyone felt this moment feels probably still this moment of despair that my world's been turned upside down. But I also really resonate with your you know, kind of realization like hey, here's an opportunity to do things differently. And, and I really implore those listening to think about how can you do what you do and deliver it differently and if you can't, you might have to start making some hearts. decisions about your business and I will say, David that I was on your webinar I think last Friday and there was a quick moment where the it was like a kind of behind the scenes peek as we're getting ready and I was very envious of your studio it looked very awesome and it was very very click it looks good.

So you know as we come to a close here, David You know, when you think about where you've come and becoming an expert and where you're going if you were to look back and if you were to run into an eight-year-old David back in Costa Rica, what do you think he'd say if he saw you now?

David Baker 52:41

I think he'd be proud of the fact that somebody who was unaware of so many cultural taboos and normal ways of working kind of learned to adapt, and I think he'd be proud you know, I feel like I basically have accomplished some good things, but there are so many things left to do so. I don't know, I don't think his expectations were all that high at the moment back then. So I think he'd be pleased.

Marc Gutman 53:09

Thank you. And where can people in our listeners learn more about you potentially sign up for that list. We'll certainly link to that in the show notes. But if you want to go ahead and let people know where they can learn more about David C. Baker, please go ahead.

David Baker 53:22

So the book, The fifth book called The business of expertise, that you can find that expertise.is, expertise.is website. And then if you want to know more about my advisory business, it's DavidCBaker.com And that'd be the easiest place to sign up for those free emails.

Marc Gutman 53:46

And that is David C. Baker. I love what he said about staying relevant and continuing to experiment. challenge ourselves and keep pushing the envelope. If you're feeling too comfortable, perhaps you need to start Thinking deeper, and writing more. I also agree with his assessment that the greatest skill anyone can have in today's and the future business economy is thinking, how to think and how to articulate it. If any of this resonated with you, I highly recommend his book The business of expertise, which we will link to in the show notes for easy reference.

Thank you again to David C. Baker. Remember becoming an expert is an intentional act, and not something that just happens. Go out and be the expert I know you can be. Well, that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. I like Big stories and I cannot lie to you other storytellers can't deny

BGBS 035: Sarah Kauss | S’well | What Would You Do If You Could Not Fail? Founder and Chairwoman of S’well, Sarah Kauss created a new product category when she fused fashion and water bottles. Her business was birthed from a passion to find a way to combat single-use plastics and has now sold over [...]Read More...

Founder and Chairwoman of S’well, Sarah Kauss created a new product category when she fused fashion and water bottles. Her business was birthed from a passion to find a way to combat single-use plastics and has now sold over 20 million products since launching. S’well is a brand that my family and I use and as I interviewed Sarah, I had my sleek white S’well on my desk. Sarah has been recognized as a Fortune 40 under 40 honoree and EY Entrepreneurial Winning Woman, while S’well has been named the #1 fastest growing women-led company by Women Presidents Organization. S’well has also received the brand design award from INC magazine and is sold at places such as MOMA and Bloomingdales in New York City. Find out how Sarah has built a global lifestyle brand that is giving back. 

Is your water bottle making the world a better place to live?

What we’re talking about

Hearing “No” As A Challenge & Pivoting Along The Way

A Product That Is Literally Changing The World

Creating A Business Based On Passion & Purpose

Sarah had dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur one day, as both of her parents were, but she didn’t feel she had the idea or confidence to do so early on. The aha moment came to her on a mountainside and asked herself what she could create that would tie all of her passions together...fashion, women’s empowerment, and sustainability. The answer was a reusable water bottle. She hadn’t thought the idea of a water bottle was big enough, but combining it with her passion for climate change and understanding mankind’s impact on the planet and how that impact was affecting the climate and other people. 

Armed with an idea and a paperweight from her dad which said, “What would you do if you could not fail?,” Sarah decided she would create accidental activities. Sarah created a product for herself and started a marketing plan that was aimed for consumers like her. She was able to rely on her corporate experience as a CPA for Ernst & Young as a resource in finances and utilized her worldview based on her skills and experiences prior to becoming an entrepreneur. 

Sarah wanted the design of the S’well bottle to be old fashioned and without bells and whistles. Although her focus was on fashion, she wanted it to be something everyone could use. It took some trial and error to get it right, but after being a consumer for a long time and being observant of other companies, she became a student of the world and understood what the bottle should look like. 

Before S’well got its name, it was called Can’t Live Without It. The marketing team laughed at that and together, came up with Swell. Attorneys rejected that and a friend suggested adding the apostrophe in order to have it registered. And the history of S’well began. 

Hearing “No” As A Challenge & Pivoting Along The Way 

S’well isn’t a water bottle, it’s a hydration fashion accessory. The first website Sarah created was mission focused. Her hope was that people would feel as passionate about making an impact as she did, but it had the opposite effect. People would visit the website and feel bad about themselves and leave. Sarah knew she had to pivot and turn it into a fashion website that was beautiful, change the copy, and have people want to spend time on the site and ultimately buy the product that would in turn do something good for the planet. 

A Product That Is Literally Changing The World

S’well products have saved over 4 billion single use water bottles in the last ten years and isn’t stopping anytime soon. With consumers looking to brands to bring a more thoughtful approach, this small step leads to a much bigger impact. Sarah loves the feeling she gets when looking at the S’well bottle and knowing the love and care that has gone into the creation of the product, brand, and company. Knowing the assets, steps, photography that goes into creating this product, makes Sarah appreciate it even more. 

What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

LINKS MENTIONED

S’well’s LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/company/s'well-bottle/

S’well’s Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/SwellBottle/ 

S’well’s Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/swellbottle/ 

SPONSOR

Wildstory

TIMESTAMPS

9:30 - 10:04 (34 sec SK) -  I was living in New York City for awhile…more impact overall.

QUOTES

When you force it, it just doesn’t come. SK

Any situation you’re in, there’s something to be learned. SK

Even if it’s a bad experience, there’s something you can learn that you’ll do different in your venture. SK

I needed that fire in my belly to sell, sell, sell in the early days. SK

In order to further your mission you have to backup forward facing from it. MG

If there’s a way for me to turn this upside down and make a product that’s beautiful and by the way, works better than anything….it could lead to more action and impact overall. SK

You have to start somewhere. All little steps have the opportunity to grow if you just put your mind to it. SK

Tiny steps grow from support of customers, collaborations and others. SK

Each one of our products is like one of my favorite children. SK

I still get really excited about our company and our product even this many years and products in. SK

I wanted to create accidental activists. SK

We aren’t a water bottle, we’re a hydration fashion accessory. SK

Podcast Transcript

Sarah Kauss 0:02

I hired an accountant to come like set up my QuickBooks file, which was like the backbone of my whole system, you know, for the first number of years and sat down and he's like, okay, bring me all the bank statements, and I'll set up the file and get you started. And he goes, No, I told you all the bank statements, and I said, No, this, this is all the statements. And he just looked at me and he's like, how much is the rent of this apartment because you actually have less money in the bank.

And then you have to pay rent on the space that we're sitting right now. And of course, I showed him underneath the table. I had all this inventory that was sort of underneath the kitchen table. And I said, Well, that's fine. I've already pre purchased all the inventory for the next six months. I just have to be motivated to get out and sell it. And he's he's looked at me and he's like, but you could get a real job like you don't have to keep doing this.

Marc Gutman 0:55

This is the Baby Got Back story podcast, we dive into the story. Behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs, I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby Got Back story. How a kid from Florida created a completely new category by fusing fashion and water bottles is a way to battle single use plastics and sold millions of units in the process. All right, all right. Now if you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at iTunes.

iTunes uses these as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on the apple charts and ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to produce the show. Better yet, why don't you go ahead and share the show with a friend who you think might enjoy listening. Today's episode we are talking to Sarah Kauss, founder and Chairwoman Well bottle swirl is best known for has now become their iconic fashionable water bottle.

They're getting into other related products, complimentary bottles and tumblers cutlery, snack containers and other travel related vessels. And so on was one of those brands that I personally use, and I had no prior connection to other than being a happy customer. Prior to this interview, the sleek white swell sits on my office desk every day, and our family each has our own color specific swell from when we're at home.

Sarah is you're about to hear built the company from the ground up is a bootstrap venture. This July 2020. They will celebrate their 10 year anniversary herculean achievement for any business, let alone startup. Sarah has been recognized as a fortune 40 under 40 honoree and he why entrepreneurial winning woman While swell has been named the number one fastest growing woman led company by the woman presidents organization, and honored with the brand Design Award by ink magazine.

The bottle has become such a recognizable design that their products are sold at the MoMA museum store in New York City. As an entrepreneur and advocate, Sara is building a global lifestyle brand that gives back. She currently sits on the UNICEF USA New York Regional board and is a member of the 2018 class of Henry Crowne fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. And this is her story.

So Sarah, preparing for this interview. It really got me thinking about the first time a water bottle meant something to me. And so when I was a young kid, my grandfather had given me these National Geographic books and the one book that I would stay up late night reading was about His family that went backpacking and I just loved that I thought everything was so cool my family didn't backpack so it was such this like different kind of experience and it was never really talked about it but the one piece of gear that was always like omnipresent every photograph was this like Nalgene water bottle and it was like the milk carton white plastic but the blue lid had always a coveted that water bottle you know I I didn't even get what I don't think until I was in college.

But it made me feel like an adventure. It made me feel like a backpacker. Like I was some sort of mountain near Do you remember the first time a water bottle meant something to you?

Sarah Kauss 4:37

That's an interesting question. The first time a water bottle meant something to me you know I think for me, the first time a water bottle meant something to me it was when I saw so many people using the single use plastic bottles you know i i went to school in Boulder and always carried a reusable bottle but I don't think that the bottle I carried had any type of meeting, Just the fact that it was reusable and I think that when you asked me that question, the first thing that really comes to mind, are these crystallizing moments where I'd see people you know, clutching on to their, their single use plastic bottle and and just really having not such a positive reaction to it.

Marc Gutman 5:16

Yeah. And so what was it about and when did you first become aware that that single use plastic was something bad? I mean, I remember for the longest time, I just didn't know.

You know, I would use a single use plastic bottle. I thought that's how you bought water or whatever. And I didn't know it wasn't like, intuitive. I had to be taught. Do you remember the first time that that really hit home for you?

Sarah Kauss 5:38

I think the first time it really hit home for me was I was on a family vacation in Peru and we were on fairy world boat ride about an hour and a half from civilization, in a canoe with a motor going to sort of an eco preserve and it was absolutely gorgeous and beautiful and The fish and the being a dolphin.

And you it is as gorgeous as you can imagine. And then when you really focused in on the banks of the river, you could see floating water bottles, you know, floating pieces of plastic. And, you know, this is as remote as the place that I had been at that point in my career. And I was taking pictures and next thing I knew, I found myself taking pictures of floating trash instead of the beauty of the landscape because I was so Godsmack by it.

Marc Gutman 6:29

How old were you at that time?

Sarah Kauss 6:31

Oh, I was probably in my early 30s

Marc Gutman 6:36

Yeah. And so you're seeing all this plastic and is that when you resolve to do something about it, or it was well already in existence?

Sarah Kauss 6:46

You know, I think swell was in existence in my mind for a while, you know, I was a bit of a restless soul. I wanted to start a company. I didn't think I had a big enough idea. I was reading a lot about the global water. crisis and about, you know how almost a billion people at the time on the planet didn't have access to clean water.

I was very passionate about climate change and trying to understand how how, you know, mankind's impact on the planet was, you know, having an impact on on climate change and how that is affecting populations. So sort of thinking and reading and thinking about trends.

You know, at the same time that in my career, I was unsettled and thinking like, what can I do about it? And you know, is there a product or company that could solve some of this? So I think I was thinking about swell for a long time until it really crystallized and became a company and a product and a mission for me. But I think for me, personally, I kind of had to percolate on it for a number of years until it kind of came out in the manifest manifestation of the company that that became.

Marc Gutman 7:46

Yeah, and it's such an interesting thought to me, because those are some big challenges you just listed those are big problems. And so, you know, there's a story that when I was doing research for this interview about your dad, who gave you a paperweight And on that paper where I thought that was so cool. He said, I'm looking for a note here.

Sarah Kauss 8:07

What would you do if you could not fail?

Marc Gutman 8:09

Right? And so that is such a big idea. Such a big challenge, hey, I want to take on the environment. Like how did you think that you could do that by starting a water bottle company?

Sarah Kauss 8:21

You know, I kind of thought that if I could create accidental activists, so if you know, I, I was an activist, but I wasn't necessarily a dark green tree hugger. You know, I was buying fashionable, you know, handbags and shoes and dresses. And if I could create a product that was an itch thing that people would want and covet, because other people were buying it or because it was in fashion magazines, and sort of turned the conservation piece upside down, and actually create a product that looked better work partner did something for you, or your You know, your your feeling of self then I could could potentially get more people to adopt and use the product and then become activists you know for the planet and for the mission because you know I realized that there were already so many reusable bottles on the planet you mentioned the Mowgli bottle which is a great product right ubiquitous and I went to school in Boulder and everybody was you know walking around carrying one of those the carabiner to your backpack, but then you pull out and you you know, I was I was living in New York City for a while and you see fashionable people pulling out you know, a single use plastic bottle out of their their fancy handbag or briefcase or you know, backpack and so I thought if there's a way for me to turn this upside down and make a product that's beautiful and by the way, works better than anything else with you know, insulating properties, keeps it hot and cold, whatever, by the way more people will adopt it and happenstance do better for the planet. So I think that was sort of the insight that I thought would sort of lead to more adoption and then more impact overall.

Marc Gutman 10:04

I just got caught up. I think I've been pronouncing Nat going wrong, apparently the whole time the whole life. So that's a good, that's a good lesson right there. I like that. Thank you for graciously informing me without correcting me on my own show. But I'll admit that I was. I'm being corrected here. I like that. And so what I really heard in that was that you were looking around and you just felt underrepresented. You didn't feel like there was anything like you out there, addressing this need that I get that right.

Sarah Kauss 10:34

That's right. I think I was under estimating the size of the market when I started swell, but I really created a product for myself, assuming that if there was a spot in the market that would that could fulfill the need that I had for a product. There were many other people like me, or you know, a pivot to the right or left of me, but I don't think I was really thinking, you know, how hard Just the ocean when you stand and look at it from the shore, you know, I don't think I realized when I was starting the company how big of a mission and a vision we we couldn't should have. I was really just starting small thinking, why don't I see if I can make something for myself and market to people like me?

Marc Gutman 11:16

Yeah. And I think like, I don't know about you. But you know, I think if I think of those big things upfront, I might not even do them. You know, it might be so big. That it's overwhelming. Yeah,

Sarah Kauss 11:26

it's overwhelming and then you don't get started. Exactly.

Marc Gutman 11:29

So it sounds like that you have led a life of activism of environmentalism. Were you always this way? I mean, was eight year old Sarah, you know, growing up in Florida, were you were you an environmentalist at a young age?

Sarah Kauss 11:44

You know, I was I was, you know, what my parents raised me in such a way that, you know, I was I was a girl scout and you take the oath of, you know, making the world a better place wherever you go. And, you know, when we would take a boat ride, we would, you know, pick up plastic, you know, From the ocean that we would see bobbing along or, you know, we would go for a walk at the beach and instead of picking up shells, we would, you know, pick up things.

You know, we were the first people to recycle on our block before they had curbside pickup. And, you know, one of my girl scout projects was making our local camp more accessible to two handicap girls. So they also could be experienced, you know, the outdoors. So, you know, I really thank my parents for sort of instilling in me at a very young age, you know, just sort of the community spirit and you know, how to how to view the world. I grew up in a small town, so there, there weren't a heck of a lot of you know, distractions anyway.

So you know, going for a hike or going for a walk seemed like the biggest adventure you could be having, but I felt my parents really took the time to use that backdrop of our town or our experience to really teach my brother and myself a lot of lessons along the way. So I'm pretty fortunate in that aspect. And we're the

Marc Gutman 12:59

entrepreneur. I mean, I love that story about your dad that paperweight like that's just like, you know, yeah, I don't have paperweight for my dad, by the way, like, I wish I did like, not not that story. Love you, dad. But But I mean, I mean, that seems like a great teaching lesson, a very strong presence in your life. Was it was your father or your mother entrepreneurial? I mean, were there they role models for you?

Sarah Kauss 13:23

Yes. So my parents actually were both entrepreneurs growing up so my mom had her own business and it was an ice cream store. And not only did she you know, own and manage and run the ice cream store, but she drove the ice cream truck and, you know, for Easter, she would actually dress up late as the Easter Bunny and bring you a bunny cake to make sure that you know, she had all of our sales numbers, you know, for that month.

She used to joke around that she thought she'd be she'd be buried with rocky road on her arms from making cakes. And then my dad was an entrepreneur as well super hard worker and, and owned and managed a carwash Gas Station sort of a mini Plaza and in Florida for for nearly 40 years I just recently sold it so my parents were both small business owners and and really instilled in myself you know growing up just sort of the spirit of you know, hard work and can do ism, you know, and you know, being around them both was was definitely part of you know, who I was when I grew up and you know, became a business woman.

Marc Gutman 14:27

Yeah. And I have to imagine that having both those strong role models in your life that the idea of owning your own business at least you know, was planted as a seed all throughout your, your early and formative years. Did you try going into a normal career as they would say, or were you right from the get go you focused when you went to CU Boulder? Were you like, I'm going to be an entrepreneur?

Sarah Kauss 14:51

Well, I always thought I would be an entrepreneur, entrepreneur, but i don't know that i i don't know that i had the idea or I don't know that I necessarily had the competence. You know, I love With these stories of these, these young people that you know, their first job, you know, either they drop out of school or their first job out of school is starting a business. I don't think that I was I was ready for that straight out of school.

So I took a real job, I took a day job, I took a bit of a windy path to, to starting swell, but you know, my, my first, you know, job or career out of Boulder was, I became a CPA and I worked at Ernst and Young and I did audit and I did tax and I learned a lot that people were nice, but it was terrible. It was just an absolutely, it wasn't where I was meant to be. It wasn't creative.

And, you know, there wasn't, you know, what I what I'm doing today, but when I really look back on it, it was absolutely essential for me to have an understanding of accounting and finance, you know, know my way around the numbers, really understanding so many different industries like my clients were everything from media, financial services, consumer products, your hospitals. Something like manufacturing, so I got to get in and out of a lot of businesses, you know, in my early 20s you know, instead of just sort of taking a typical day job and getting to see one industry, I got to see all kinds of things is as much as you know, becoming an accountant wasn't really fitting for myself. And, you know, my, my overall skill set of, you know, what I wanted to do with my career.

Marc Gutman 16:23

Yeah, and I love you know, a bit of your path and we can talk about this but you know, you grew up in Florida, you you decide to go see some of the world and you you know, even if you lived anywhere in between there, but you go to Boulder to university, you go to Ernst and Young, and it says here that, you know, you've you've lived in, you know, Denver and Los Angeles, and then you take that that work experience and you decide to go to Harvard and to go get your MBA and again at this point, are you like, I'm going to start a business or is it more like hey, I just know I want to be in business and to further my career. I need to you know, go get my MBA.

Sarah Kauss 16:59

You know, when I was working at at our sweet young at Ely, which has been renamed in Los Angeles, before I went to business school, most of my clients were entrepreneurs. And so you know, I would do the hard work and get their financial packages together and bring them their audit work. And then I would sit down and say to them, like, how did you get to where you are, you know, what's your background? How can I become you instead of, you know, basically doing your accounting?

And one of the common themes that they seem to have was, you know, a business background and further business education. And so, as much as I didn't know how to just sort of one day wake up and become, you know, a great business person, I thought, two years of Business School, which certainly allow me to be exposed to, to more people to more ideas, and give me the gift of time to really try to think about, you know, myself and my skill set and also the world and in what I might contribute and what type of a company I might start. So, really, Business School is more of a filibuster to try to figure it out.

Kind of a place to hang out for a few years to try to find that aha moment that that, you know, launched my career. You know, unfortunately, when I was in business school, you know, the economy had a bit of a downturn, September 11 happened when I was there, there weren't a lot of jobs. It was a bit of a scary time to graduate with a lot of debts. And so I wound up sort of just taking a job after school for a few years until I could, you know, come up with some idea, you know, to start swell.

Marc Gutman 18:29

What was that job?

Sarah Kauss 18:30

Oh, gosh, I first were a year worked for the school. I work for Harvard for a year, they had a bit of a, a wonderful program for wayward souls that couldn't find a job. So I stayed at the school for a year. And I actually worked for the now Dean in the Leadership Initiative, sort of reading and writing leadership paces and doing some like internal consulting for the school and then from there, I wound up getting into commercial real estate development of all things and I work for a publicly traded REIT that builds science buildings and laboratories. And I stuck there for about five or six years, doing these large public private partnerships between sort of cities and, and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.

It was very entrepreneurial in that every project had its own stakeholders, its own, you know, p&l, its own set of employees or consultants. So even though the underlying theme was, you know, real estate or, you know, science building, the neat thing was my company had a fair amount of confidence in me and sort of let me go, sort of one run some projects on my own in a very entrepreneurial way, which I think finally gave me that dose of confidence and that little bit of a kick in the pants that that you know, I probably had probably had what I needed to go start my company Finally, I didn't need to keep taking jobs, you know, for promotion, working for others.

Marc Gutman 19:53

Yeah, not so cool. And I think you know, I meet a lot of entrepreneurs and mentor entrepreneurs myself, and you know, I think there is this misconception You have to do it right out of school or go to an entrepreneur, ship track at university and then get right into it. And I think that there's something really powerful about your story in your experience of going out and forming your own worldview and kind of figuring out what it is you care about and learning all these different skills and you know, on somebody else's dime while you're making a salary also with someone else's momentum, because as you know, as an entrepreneur, it's like really hard to get momentum.

And so, I mean, I think that there's something just really really powerful in that and a lesson to be learned for listeners and that you know, you don't have to you know, start some fabled business the second you get out of school or the second you even decide you have an idea. You know, there are different ways of getting there.

Sarah Kauss 20:47

That's great advice. I oftentimes give other entrepreneurs that same advice as well. And I would say add to that is just be patient with yourself because I you know, I was not very patient with myself when I was so frustrated when I wasn't coming with the idea of I was, you know, but I think that, you know, when you try to force it, sometimes it just doesn't come.

But you know, I also like to say, you know, just, as you mentioned, learn on someone else's dime, but but also, just in any, any situation you're in, there's something to be learned. I mean, there's some if it's either from a functional perspective or leadership perspective, even if you're in a position that there isn't good leadership or either isn't good, you know, even if it's a bad experience, there's something so positive that you can learn when you start your own venture, you're just going to do it completely differently. Right. So I think that's great advice.

Marc Gutman 21:32

Yeah. And so you're you're getting experience you're working in some cool businesses. Where did the idea first well first come about?

Sarah Kauss 21:40

It was that little literal, you know, aha moment on a mountainside. So I was working pretty much non stop when a by character flaws is you know, when I put my mind to something I, I can't I can't do it in moderation. And so even though I was working for someone else's business, I was working all the time, and my My my mom said listen I'm having a mini intervention I'm taking you away for a vacation weekend a three day weekend and we're going to go hiking and we're going to have spa day and you know we're just going to kind of get out in the world and talk and literally hiking with my mom on a hot day in Arizona.

And I took a sip of water out of a stainless steel single walls kind of a cheap bottle that they gave us there at the at the hotel. And it just came to me I literally had to get out of my day to day life and and be on the side of a mountain and drink warm water and I thought all of the things I'm passionate about right now are the from the environment to you know women movement empowerment and you know, thinking about you know, access to clean water and you know, sustainability and you know and fashion and all that was just literally just popped into my head I thought what if I created a better water bottle, and then from that moment on, you know, for the last 10 years as well Bolton turn 10 that summer I that's the that's the sole mission and focus I've had in my life.

Marc Gutman 23:05

And it's interesting to think about and if you could take us back and think about what was the environment in terms of water bottles like back then like What did it look like because now like there's probably no better time to be a water bottle consumer you know? There's so many choices like you can get a fashionable swell water bottle now but you couldn't then what like what did that what did the market look like when you're when you started doing your research?

Sarah Kauss 23:30

So there were a lot of bottles on the market, great, great companies that made you know, fine products, but it was more of a camping accessory. When you think about what the bottles look like or where you would purchase them or how they were designed. The products on the market were more functional, they were more you're going to the gym and this is your bottle with a sports top you are going camping overnight and here's your you know your bottle with a carabiner that you wasn't necessarily a product that would be sold in a fashion store or you would buy to express your personality.

It was more of just sort of a widget that that solved a need. And so, you know, as I, as I mentioned previously, like I was really thinking about creating a new product, but really creating a new category for that product and not even bother with the current competition, because I wasn't looking to compete. I was looking to actually create something entirely new and change customers, actual experience and behaviors by creating something that looked differently and work differently.

So no, I wrote a two page, you know, embarrassing business plan. But I basically said, you know, we're going to be the partner of fashion week we're going to be the partner of the TED conference. We are going to be sold in Bloomingdale's and, and Saks Fifth Avenue, and we're going to be this coveted it thing. And that wasn't that wasn't the current market for any of the water bottles. They were just, you know, carry Water for your hike in the mountains. And what was

Marc Gutman 25:03

your relationship with fashion at that time? I mean, you've mentioned that a bunch that seems to be a pivotal component of the perspective of swell like what what was your relationship to fashion

Sarah Kauss 25:13

you know, I like to think I'm a fashionable person but I'm really not I'm really not I'm generally wearing a dress and pearls and I'm pretty conservative I'm but I love to follow fashion and, and I really thought that the way that I could launch a product without a consumer products background and without a marketing background, and quite honestly, without any budget, was to hook a product into the fashion cycle or the sight guys of people's wants and needs.

And so I thought, you know, try to get earned media to try to get you know, women's fashion magazines or partners, you know, with with fashionable, you know, people and brands that that would be a way to hook my product into kind of a bigger stream that would allow it to sort of click Catch on instead of just making something putting on the shelf and then trying to market it.

So when I say fashion, what I'm really trying to express is, is sort of, like how did I sort of hitch myself to something that was was bigger than my product? And how did I kind of take something and put it into sort of a different stream? So people would think about it differently.

Marc Gutman 26:23

Wow. Yeah. And that like strategy that that approach is just this like really beautiful combination of the magical and the logical, you know, you really thought it through you know, the magical being your product and the hangman to create a category but the logical like how you're going to go out and distribute it really interesting and really intentional, which, which I just don't hear a lot from either first time entrepreneurs or, you know, bootstrapped startups like yourself,

Sarah Kauss 26:48

but I think part of it just came with age and experience. And so I didn't start swell until, you know, in my role I was in my early 30s. And so I think it just took me Being a consumer for a long time and being really observant of other companies and other brands and just you know, being a student of the world I think that's, you know, as much as I was frustrated that I didn't come up with the idea, you know, decades ago and you know, I'm not long retired and still working really hard.

I don't know that we would have been so successful if I if I didn't have some, you know, you know, twists and turns in my career and some, you know, some gray hairs when I started the company.

Marc Gutman 27:33

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So you had this great idea. You wrote a two-page business plan, which is very impressive. And, you know, you had this theory and that you were gonna hook up with, you know, Fashion Week and other you know, use that as a way to pull you through. Is that the way it works? Like how did you actually start so you have this idea like, how'd you get you know, start how'd you get your first bottle

Sarah Kauss 29:00

It was messy, you know, it was it was things did not just jump off the page and into the stores, you know, it was trying to talk to people in my network, you know, trying to figure out, you know, how do you make a website? How do you come up with a brand name? How do you make a product? How do you find a factory?

So there were there were a lot of sort of twists and turns. I think the one thing that I did though, was just take a lot of people out for lunch, a lot of people out for coffee, you know, try to just explain the best I could, you know, what I was trying to do and just ask for help for the things that I didn't know. And you know, of course now, I understand how to make and launch a product but there are a lot of a lot of things that took 10 times longer in those early days because it was also new to me

Marc Gutman 29:48

was the like, was the design of the bottle was that that we see today the classic swell bottle was that in your mind when you envision it in Arizona, or how did that come about?

Sarah Kauss 29:58

You know that actually came about is that I wanted to make something really old fashioned. I wanted something that didn't have any bells and whistles, I wanted it to be sort of, you know, not just for that fashion girl, but I wanted it to be for everyone. And so you know, one of the things that I kept coming back to for a very short period in my life growing up, we actually had milkman delivery, and didn't work out it was a startup, but my parents wanted to support another small business in our town.

And, you know, for a period of time in my life, we actually had someone that came in, you know, delivered, you know, milk and cheese into a cooler on on our front porch. But when the company went out of business, they just left us with those milk bottles. And so one of the things that I thought about was like, how do you create something as iconic as the original, you know, milkman, but how do you do it in a way that's like a very beautifully designed product that would be, you know, fitting to sit on the shelves, you know, at the MoMA store where we're sold in New York.

And so I worked with them with a freelancer and a design team in New York to really take idea and put it on paper and then from paper to, you know, to CAD to, you know, 3d prints and then to a product. But there was a lot of pantomiming along the way, like, could it be taller? Could it be shorter? You know, do I have a friend that has a baby that could try to put it in their stroller to make sure it fits? Do I have them? Do I have a friend that has, you know, a different type of car that we could try it out in so that we there wasn't a lot of like real, you know, in home consumer user testing and things like that, you know, in those or early days and things that we do now. But it was more just sort of kind of using my gut of what I thought the product should look like.

Marc Gutman 31:36

Do you remember the very first prototype you ever received? I mean, it didn't look like the bottle that looks now or was it a heartbreaking story?

Sarah Kauss 31:45

Well, it was. It was a heartbreaking story. It was it was pretty bad. But I still remember it coming and I asked friends to be around me when I opened it and we all kind of looked at it and no one wanted to say that my baby was ugly, but we all kind of Looks at each other like, Oh, no.

It wasn't perfect in the beginning. I'll tell you that.

Marc Gutman 32:07

Yeah, and what it How were you as an early leader were you like, like, I know me like I, if I if I opened up that bottle and it was just misshapen or just wasn't living up, I would be crushed, you know, and probably take me days to rebound and and some people are obviously much more resilient. I we were you like thinking of quitting?

Were you just the type of person that was like, Hey, I can make this better? Like, how did you react to that?

Sarah Kauss 32:31

You know, I would say, Oh, I mean, there were certainly moments in the early days where it's like, well, maybe this isn't working out and I used to go do something else. And then you know, I'd go for a walk or call a friend and calm down about it and then say, No, no, actually, I think that there's a way around this. I think that you know, let's just give it one more. One more try.

And could we just do this? And so I think it was a little bit of both. Like there was certainly some discouraging moments and thinking gosh, how am i did i think i could do this? And then really thinking it through thinking Ah, maybe maybe that was an knucklehead thing to do, but if I just tried it, you know, one more time, maybe it'll work out better.

Marc Gutman 33:04

I mean, did anybody ever tell you hey Sarah, this this probably isn't gonna work out anyone that you respected and oh, yeah, really made you like double

Sarah Kauss 33:12

double think? Yeah, I mean friends family members, I hired an accountant, which is funny that I hired an accountant to come and like set up my QuickBooks file, which was like the backbone of my whole system, you know, for the first number of years and really nice guy and he came over to my apartment was awesome my office at the time and sat down and he's like, okay, bring me all the bank statements, and I'll set up the file and get you started. And he goes, No, I told you all the bank statements and I said, No, this this is all the statements and he just looked at me and he's like, how much is the rent of this apartment because you actually have less money in the bank, then then you have to pay rent on the space that we're sitting right now.

And of course, I showed them underneath the table. I had all this inventory that was sort of underneath the kitchen table, and I thought, well, that's fine. I've already pre purchased all the inventory. For the next six months, I just have to be motivated to get out and sell it. And he's he just looked at me and he's like, but you could get a real job like you don't have to pay doing this. You know, and we still laugh about that moment. But yeah, I mean, it literally was like, you know, they're not really any decimal points behind the balance of that first file we set up but you know, it worked out and I think I almost needed that fire in my belly to get out and you know, sell sell sell in those early days. But you know, I had all kinds of people thought this was a real crazy idea.

Marc Gutman 34:32

So what did that like early sales activity look like? Because I'm guessing if I've got my timing right, you probably just didn't go to Facebook and start putting up ads and sit back and watch all the traffic coming in. I mean, were you going door to door and were you just, you know, pounding the pavement so to speak.

Sarah Kauss 34:48

I was Yeah, I was going door to door, walking into stores asking to talk to the buyer. introducing myself. I made a little folder with a little press kit and wrote the copy and paste The pictures and dropped it off. I wrote postcards, old fashioned postcards and put them in the mountains. And I'm Sarah, I'm going to be coming to your store on Tuesday afternoon, keep an eye out for me. Just Just try to have a human connection.

You know, in some cases, people will be very skeptical of the price point. I said, Well, why don't I just leave them here on the shelf. And if they don't sell, I'll come pick them up next Tuesday. And when I pop in the next Tuesday said, actually, you know, we sold half of them you dropped off, maybe we'll put it in order. So it was great. I mean, I I still keep in touch today with you know, some of those very first stores that that took us in, and I'm still so appreciative of the fact they gave me a chance.

And they taught me a lot. You know, I asked them like, you know, how do you find all these products, all the entrepreneurs couldn't walk in the door themselves and they said, Oh, we go to trade shows or we have sales reps or you know, so I be just being on the front lines of my own business really allowed me to kind of see what I needed to do to grow and scale. So even though It was not very sexy. And with a lot of hard work it kind of it. It gave me a great education.

Marc Gutman 36:06

And what about those stores that said, No, what was that, like?

Sarah Kauss 36:09

Oh, so frustrating, so frustrating. And what was so frustrating is sometimes stores would say no forever. And then they would call me out of the blue and say, Oh, I was just reading a magazine, I discovered your product. And I'd like to sell it now. And I'm thinking, you discover the product because you have five samples sitting in your back room because I've been trying to get in there.

But everybody wanted to kind of, you know, be part of our success, you know, as we were starting to take off so I just let people say, oh, okay, thank you for discovering us. But you know, in some cases, you know, those noes were really just a fun challenge for me like like Bloomingdale's. Bloomingdale said no for two years and they said we don't carry water bottles, and I kept saying, but we are not a water bottle. We are a hydration fashion accessory.

And we belong on yourself, shelves, just as much as you know, a scarf, a handbag, a pair of shoes, because we're Fashion statements and the cool thing about that is when they finally said yes and came around they have been such an incredible partner like we've actually had entire window displays in their 59th Street store in Manhattan on Fifth Avenue. We've had holiday Windows you know they've done custom products with us they'd buy today right like little brown bottle you know like their little brown bag on our bottle.

So you know that perseverance we can laugh about it now as much as I'm like, you know come on guys. This was this was really hard for you to see the light you know, they've been they've been a great partner and they're really fun to work with now.

Marc Gutman 37:37

Yeah. And how close to the brand we see today was that original brand was it called swell that did you have the website you know, swell calm like that? Did it look and feel very similar to to what it is today?

Sarah Kauss 37:53

No. So we just recently launched swell calm, we were swell bottle in the early days, even before That we were even a worse name, which was can't live without it.com. Because I thought that was a great name for a water bottle company. But you know, within the first couple of months we became became swell and bought swell bottle. But the first website was very mission focused, you know, I had, you know, this is a mission driven company and has been from the beginning and I had a bit of a platform where I wanted to tell people about how much plastic was in the ocean.

You know, I wanted, I wanted people to understand, you know, the impact you could have about, you know, using a single use bottle, you know, I basically had statistics on there, like, you know, by 2021, it's expected that 583 billion single use drinking plastic bottles will be sold and less than two thirds of those would be recycled. You know, I had stats about the water crisis, and you know, people that don't have access to clean water and the fact that we partner with you know, UNICEF to bring clean drinking water to people in need, and people will come to the website and they would spend about 10 seconds, and then they would feel bad about themselves. And then they would leave the website.

And, and I realized that what I needed to do is sort of turn that upside down and leave with product, I had to have beautiful pictures of the product. You know, I had to be a fashion company, you know, when you looked at the imagery, they couldn't be pictures, I took myself, you know, I had to get a photographer to take some pictures. You know, I needed to kind of pump up the copy.

And you know, and really have people want to spend time on the site, and I had to have people want to buy the product. And then by the way, they're doing something good for the planet. And it's people because they're doing that. So like if you look in that Wayback Machine, where you can visit websites from a long time ago, like will be a case study of, you know what not to do. But I didn't know any differently. When I was starting. I just thought all of our consumers would be passionate about all the same things that I was.

Marc Gutman 39:53

Yeah, that's such an interesting insight into so like, My head's kind of blowing up a little bit because I think, you know, we We, you know, in our company, we work with purpose driven brands, a lot of people have missions, and it's core to what they do. But it's almost in order to achieve your goal and your mission, you can't lead with your mission.

And that's a, you know, sometimes it's just too much to take, like you said, it makes people feel bad about themselves, or, hey, like, I want to help out, but I don't want to be all in on this, you know, activism, like I want to do my part type thing. And it's just a really interesting insight hearing you speak and have that realization that sometimes you have to, in order to further your mission, you have to back away from it forward facing a little bit.

Sarah Kauss 40:35

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You know, one of the things that I'm feeling really positive right now is, we can embrace the sustainability piece a lot more now. I'd like to take a little credit for it. But I think we can be a little bit more forthcoming on sort of those statistics and the impact, then I could be in the beginning not to say that you know, that fashion and design still isn't central to what we do. But because sustainability and in sort of just the mindset around sustainability is taking a center stage, we can start to kind of come back to some of that original messaging, still not as green, but you know, kind of.

So I think it's interesting for brands to kind of think about, like, what are those levers and how you turn them up and turn them down? Depending upon you know, what, what society you know, can handle and and, you know, how do you get your mission in people's hands, you know, are you focusing on the product? are you focusing on the story?

Marc Gutman 41:32

Yeah, that's, that's, that's so great. And like I said, my head spinning and so thank you for sharing that. Where did the name swell come from? It's such like a beautifully compact, it's like one of those names. It's kind of like a you're like no, like a like, of course, like what a great name but I'm sure I don't know if you felt that like when it was first presented. Like where where did that name come from?

Sarah Kauss 41:54

You know, I really wanted something old fashioned and I wanted something that was very positive like something that was happy. be something that makes you feel good. So I work with the design team on building the first website. And they were not asked to come up with a name. I thought I had a great name can't live without it can't live without a calm, I purchased it, you know, you can't live without water, bringing water to people in need, you know, it all made sense. And they asked me, they said, Hey, what are you going to call this company? And I said, well, can't live without it. And they all just cracked up laughing. And they said, Listen, you're not a marketer. Why don't we come up with some names?

Why don't we come up with the name exploration and, you know, in addition to helping you build out the website, we'll just name this thing for you because we really want this to be successful? I said, Okay, fine. You know, my ego being a little bit hurt that you know, my name wasn't good enough, then you know, I started running it by friends and they totally agreed that was a terrible idea.

So they came out with you know, a handful of names and swell was the first one I was really gravitated to. And unfortunately, the attorney said that we couldn't have it And long story short, a friend of Mind said that he put an apostrophe in the word swell, you know, between the s and the W, it becomes sort of a logo and not a name. And we were able to register it as you know, as a name. So it was a bit of a back and forth between sort of the marketing branding side and the legal side of what you're allowed to do, and to call it but, but what I love about swell as a name is, you know, it's not only old fashioned and positive, but there's so many meetings, you know, there's like, the whole groundswell of support. And you know, the whole the fact that people say, I need to go find my swell, and it actually becomes an object and object of desire. And it just sort of is it's part of the personality of the brand.

So I'm glad we stuck to it. I'm glad we were able to make that work, because I think we would be a different company if we were called anything else.

Marc Gutman 43:47

Yeah, I love it. And thanks, man, answering the my burning question about the apostrophe and all sorts of like conspiracy theories, but you answered it and it was perfect.

Sarah Kauss 43:57

It's hard not to put an apostrophe and everything. We have We launched food containers last year, I called them snack. And you know, we've got a whole bunch of other, you know, new products that are coming out and I keep putting us apostrophes in front of everything now, I think it's part of our magic and my I think my team is kind of looking at me like, Okay, here we go again.

So not all of our products have an apostrophe in them, but some of my favorite ones do.

Marc Gutman 44:18

Yeah, I love it. It's recognizable. It's become your brand, which is, which is really all you can ask for. Right?

Sarah Kauss 44:23

Yeah. Thanks.

Marc Gutman 44:25

That's cool. So what does swell look like today? So you started 10 years ago. So when is the anniversary Did you have it already? Or is that coming up?

Sarah Kauss 44:34

Well, officially, it's small. We kind of made up when it's going to be but we've kind of passed it but we're doing it in July. So we are having our big 10 year anniversary in July.

So coming soon and really just honoring our customers, you know, our customers that have been by our side and have you know joined us on this mission and helped us make such an impact. You know, we've together saved over 4 billion single use plastic bottles. In the last 10 years, and that's a conservative estimate. And we just know that we can do so much more together. So we're just going to take the whole month of July and it's honor our customers and say thank you.

Marc Gutman 45:09

Yeah, like how many water bottles have you put out there in the world? Maybe the last we counted with last year, and it was over 20 million. How does that make you feel?

Sarah Kauss 45:20

You know, it makes me feel really proud. You know, I think as an entrepreneur, you're always you're always looking at your to do lists, and you're always, you know, thinking that there's so much more you couldn't should be doing. But it makes me incredibly proud. You know, it's, it's hard to not run into my products everywhere, you know, on, you know, Netflix movies and TV shows, and, you know, the the war room for putting SpaceX up.

You know, there's one of those smart engineers sitting there as well, like, it's hard not to turn on the TV and zero in and see my product in the background. You know, or, you know, really great people that have supported us and You know, put pictures on Instagram and, you know, it's, it's, it's so cool to just kind of see the way that our product has been embraced by our customers and is really out there and in different lives.

So as much as I like to think about, you know, how much more we could and should be doing and, you know, have plans for the future, it just makes me incredibly proud, you know, to think there's so many of these things walking around, and they're such a big part of people's lives.

Marc Gutman 46:25

Totally. And so what, you know, you just mentioned it, what does the future look like for swell?

Sarah Kauss 46:30

You know, what I'm excited about is that right now, there's such a trend about consumers looking for brands to deliver on a more thoughtful approach to production and commerce. And that, you know, it's it's really thinking about how everyone is connected and how all these small steps can contribute to a bigger impact. And so, you know, what we're finding is that, you know, we've just recently announced that we're a B Corp, and it's a Really good time because we're finding that consumers really want to work with a purpose driven brands, you know, they're willing to try new products from from brands that they know and love, and spend more with those brands, which means that we can actually have a bigger impact on the planet.

One of the things I'm super passionate about right now is just working with some of the biggest companies in the world, as they're rethinking their supply chains. Because a lot of these big companies, they've put out these huge, amazing sustainability goals, but they don't necessarily know how to how to meet them or reach them. And we're really the best known reusable container company. And it doesn't matter what type of you know, food, beverage, you know, you might be making, you need to think about what kind of a reusable container will customers use, adopt, covet, you know, clean and reuse.

And oftentimes, swell is sort of that first call that these these companies or these sustainability teams have these calls companies are making. So I'm finding sort of a real sense of excitement. Me personally, and you know, even within swell of really thinking beyond the products we make right now. But thinking about how we use partnerships to do even more, all around sort of our mission of, you know, getting single use plastics and just less waste in the world.

Marc Gutman 48:24

It's crazy to think I mean, this all goes back to those moments where you were either hiking in Arizona, or you're in Peru and looking at, you know, a bunch of dirty bottles in the water.

And you know, and it was just, to me, something that's so powerful is that was just an idea by Sarah that didn't exist. It was this like figment of your imagination. And you've turned it into reality, which is actually making a difference and impacting the world in a way that you dreamed of. So you turned your dream into your story and Clearly the ending is not written yet. It's still evolving. But that when you look back that has to make you feel pretty good.

Sarah Kauss 49:08

Yeah, it's me when you put it that way, it's it is pretty crazy, but it does, it does make me pretty, pretty proud. It makes me feel pretty good. You know, I think it just shows I mean, you just have to you have to start somewhere, you know, all these, all these little steps have, you know, the opportunity of growing if you just sort of put your, your mind to it, you know, a lot of you know, hard work and tears over over the years, right.

But you know, all these little steps, you know, kind of grow with, you know, support, you know, support from customers, collaborations people with a shared vision. It's, it's pretty amazing what can happen if you put your mind to it?

Marc Gutman 49:42

Absolutely. So when you're holding a swell bottle today, and you're looking at it, like what's special about it? Why is that important to you?

Sarah Kauss 49:52

Yep. So what's special when I see as well as I know how much love and care went into this? Well, so I'm sitting I'm sitting here with one of our travelers right now which is sort of a wide mouth swell. It's great for for coffee or smoothie I have ice cubes in it but I'm sitting with a design that it's called Oasis officially but internally we joke around and call it the sound of music bottle because there's these beautiful mountains and clouds and you know even though I'll be indoors, most of today on calls, I feel like I'm in a beautiful mountain mountain scape when I'm sitting here with this bottle and I see it and I know the meanings and the conversations and the photography and the assets and the coffee and you know, the 10,000 steps that went into making this product.

I know and I appreciate I know our customers don't always sort of see see that level of you know, of love and magic with each one. But you know, when I'm when I'm using our product for me, it's like each one of them is like one of my favorite children. You know, I have a hard time not getting excited when I wake up in the morning and they're still From the night before, and I think, gosh, if I didn't know this company, I'd want to write to them because it really works.

You know, so it's, I still get really excited about, you know about our company and our products, you know, even even this many, you know, years and this many products in.

Marc Gutman 51:15

Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that. If you could see me right now I have a big grin ear to ear. I just loved hearing that I could really feel it. So it wasn't just that it wasn't just your words, but yeah, but I could feel it. So thank you. So Sara, as we come to a close here and thank you very much for for sharing your story. If the 20 year old you that that young woman probably at CU Boulder ran into you today. What do you think she'd say?

Sarah Kauss 51:40

You know, I think she'd be proud. I think she would probably tell me that, you know, go to the gym. Try to take myself a little bit less seriously. Try to have a little bit more fun. But I think 20 year old Sarah would be proud that she finally figured it out. You know, you know, I think if I could go and tell her something, I would say kind of Give yourself some time. Be gentle with yourself. You're going to get there, you'll figure it out. You know, there's probably going to be some dead ends along the way, but it'll all be fine. But yeah, I think I think 20 year old Sarah would would be pretty, pretty glad it all worked out.

Marc Gutman 52:19

And that is Sarah Kauss from swell bottle. What would you do? If you could not fail? Would you take on one of the world's biggest challenges like single use plastics? Sarah story is a great example of what a single person can do when they put their mind to a big, audacious goal. Will it be easy? No. Will the path be linear? Most likely not. Where the reward is worth the struggle. Most definitely.

If you haven't seen swell bottles, you can check them [email protected] that's swell.com. Thank you again to Sarah in the Team at swell keeps saving the world one bottle at a time. Well, that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS, so you'll never miss an episode. I like big backstories stories and I cannot lie, you other storytellers can't deny.

BGBS 034 | Steve “Stix” Nilsen  Joining us today is Steve “Stix” Nilsen, the vice president of lifestyle marketing at Liquid Death Mountain Water. He has some bold strategies that have proven effects on branding, brand loyalty, marketing, and generating profits for Fortune 500 companies. When asked how he does it, he said “I do [...]Read More...

Joining us today is Steve “Stix” Nilsen, the vice president of lifestyle marketing at Liquid Death Mountain Water. He has some bold strategies that have proven effects on branding, brand loyalty, marketing, and generating profits for Fortune 500 companies. When asked how he does it, he said “I do cool shit, with cool people, that makes people buy things.” You won’t want to miss this fun and lively interview with a down to Earth guy that has some serious moxie!

What we’re talking about

Tenacity and Forging His Own Path

Trying New Things, But Knowing Your Boundaries

 Epiphany on a Beach

Steve grew up just outside Minneapolis, MN, but visited family in Hawaii over the summers. It was his summer fun that sparked his love for surfing. Even though he went to a private prep school and played traditional sports, he was also passionate about skateboarding and music. It was his love of discovering who he was that led him to try jobs in many different industries, from being a golf cart boy to construction to working in a bank. All the way to working for Northwest Airlines to indulge his love of travel! It was during one of his adventurous trips around the world, Stix had an epiphany. He was sitting on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia when he had a revelation. His career needed to be in action sports!

Tenacity and Forging His Own Path 

To obtain a career in action sports, Stix went about it his own way, by grabbing every action sports magazine and studying the brands he liked the most. He cold called companies. He took their existing ads, and redid their marketing with his own comic flair. Sending them back to the companies for review. His boldest move and big break came when he talked to the director of marketing at Airwalk. Her home had just burned to the ground and she had to be on a plane to Europe a few hours later. She was too busy to take his call, so he mailed a smoke detector to her home! It worked and he was hired.

Trying New Things, But Knowing Your Boundaries

Steve had worked hard to get his foot in the door, and he started working in merchandising. It was when he realized that they were doing it all wrong, and his advice fell on deaf ears, that he decided to learn everything up and down the ladder so he could make the decisions to best position the product. 

Will you take your passion and make a career out of it?

LINKS MENTIONED

Steve Nilsen’s LinkedIn

Stix’s Instagram

Liquid Death Instagram

Liquid Death Website

SPONSOR

Wildstory

TIMESTAMPS

15:05 - 15:18 (13 sec SN) Let’s not paint this picture that I’m...they all wore the same outfits. Costumes as I like to say.

27:40 - 27:58 (18 sec MG) Brands don’t really own the brands...everyone is having their own conversations. 

28:21 - 28:43 (22 sec) How did you start the process of...this is pre-internet.

52:58 - 53:22 (24 sec SN) When the light bulb went off...that is brand equity.

57:58 - 58:20 (22 sec SN) That’s pretty tell tale when you have...you’re gonna be the first guy who’s gonna hit me up for swag.

QUOTES

To exist as a brand, you can’t just go off your bros. You’ve got to bring in people that know what they’re doing. - SN

You don’t just do “enough”. Don’t check boxes. - SN

I’m a great believer in luck. I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. - Unknown

We’re not a product. We’re a brand. - SN

Podcast Transcript

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 0:02

All I remember is that they were they moved from Carlsbad, California to Pennsylvania. And I was just barraging her with letters and left and I call call cold call. And then I picked up the phone one day. And I said, hey, it's Steve Nilsen. Oh, it's cute kid. Because again, because Listen, kid, I don't have time to talk to you.

My house just burned down. I gotta leave for Europe. And I was like, Alright, I gotta go. So I mailed her a smoke detector in the mail. And she called me like laughing. But two weeks, three weeks later says, Oh my god, you have balls kicked. Yeah, she flew me out and fast forward, I end up getting the job.

Marc Gutman 0:41

Podcasting from Boulder, Colorado. This is the baby got backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs. I like big back stories and I cannot lie. I am your host Marc Gutman. I'm Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory, how a kid from Minnesota infatuated with skating and music was able to combine those two loves, and build a marketing career in the action sports industry with some of the world's biggest brands. Hey, now if you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at iTunes. iTunes uses these as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on the apple charts. And ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to produce this show. I today's episode we're talking to Steve Nielsen.

Man, that sounds weird because I know Steve as Styx STI x, and I'm not going to ruin the story of how he got that nickname for you. It's coming up early in the episode and he'll tell you all about it himself. Styx has built a career in the action sports Industry helping to build brands and marketing companies like air walk Red Bull paps. Yep, the Blue Ribbon beer. And now he is helping to build the brand of liquid death, which sounds like some weird cannabis brand, or a punk rock band. But it's canned water. Stix is one of those people who knows everyone and everyone knows him. He's a savvy marketer. And he found a way to marry the things he loved skate culture, in music, with marketing. stix.

His story is one of vision, persistence and principles. Listen to the discipline he displays when talking about branding. He's always looking at the long game versus the quick game for the business. I could listen to stix of stories for hours and I loved his honest take on branding and what it takes to build a brand and this is his story.

Alright, I am here with Steve Nilson of liquid death. And Steve, I think this might be the last time I call you Steve, because everybody calls you stix. How did you get that nickname?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 3:12

No, I honestly I was given it was 1998 around there. At the time I was building snowboard boots for airwatch and I was over in Asia and long story short is you know, when you're over there in these factories is roasting right and I would wear shorts to the factories because obviously it's super hot in Thailand or Taiwan or or Shanghai, China.

And when I wear boots, you know if you guys have skinny legs, it looks like Jiminy Cricket with the boots on and one day my boss at the time who's still very close with me got super irritated about something he was not really me personally but what was going on in production. And we all got really loud. How do you balance them sticks because he's he's from frickin Boston.

So stix stuck like that and coworkers are laughing by time I got like some in states camp so he felt that way to SPX and Stop, but it literally is because I've seen the lights. That's not very, you know, glamorous story. But literally, I did look like Jiminy Cricket. I just came across some photos I dug up the other day and I'm wearing snowboard boots and 100 degree factory. So

Marc Gutman 4:14

well thanks for that context. Now we're gonna know why we're referring to stix going forward. And stix. You probably have the coolest bio of anyone that has ever been on the show so far. And I'm going to read it because it's very, very short and to the point, I do cool shit with cool people that makes people buy things. What's that mean? Yeah, what's that mean to you? Like how'd you how'd you come to that bio?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 4:40

You know, I think it's because I, you could cut and paste your resume or you could do liquid gas. I'm sorry. resume or you could go to LinkedIn rather, and just cut and paste things and there's not a whole lot of soul to that, I don't think and if you really want me to dumb it down, that's the best way because I'm always run, moving her miles now. And they always say there's quote unquote elevator speech. That was the best way to explain it to you, as he was about to drop it into skate park. If someone asked me what I did, that's what I'm telling you.

I mean, it's quick to the point and then maybe pique their curiosity like it is you and it's really just, I'd like to think that my career like, I've had so much fun. And I think that I did all my life, I can look at it that way. I just, I'm not going to do something. If I'm not reading, my heart's not into it. Let's just put it that way. And so you sniff out in your life, brands, people situations, you want to be a part of and make it so you know, and that's really, again, it's probably being a little cryptic, but I hope that answers your question.

Marc Gutman 5:36

Yeah, it's a great, it's a great, it's a great answer, stix. And you know, one thing that I know about you and you've touched on it, you dropped a bunch of clues right there talking about dropping into the skate park doing cool things, the cool brands, you know, why don't you tell me a little bit about what your young stix was like? I mean, where did you grow up? What were your interests? And how did that set the foundation for where you are today?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 5:58

Make a very long story short I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Specifically, it's called the Dinah, Minnesota, which we are known as cake eaters. It's a hockey reference to long strip, anyone can look it up enough cake eaters if you can Google it. Anyway, I have relatives in Hawaii, and I became absolutely infatuated with surf skate culture. I just thought it was the coolest cook back then. There was no packs on. There's no zoomies. There was no, you couldn't find the really cool clothes. Except if you go to the skate shops or shopper. Well, we obviously have a lot of that in Minnesota.

So when I visited my relatives, I come back with Quicksilver and the different surf brands, billabong, Town and Country. And people are like, where'd you get the word you get the clothes? Where'd you get that? And it's it had made to mainland United States. Yeah, to me, I guess on the coast, but not on Minnesota. And I fast forward. You know, I really got into skateboarding.

And snowboarding hadn't existed yet. And I love that but we could only do it a certain amount of time during the year and that wasn't particularly good. But I got Have some kids from this called Southwest High School, which kind of borders along with the suburb that I grew up in. And they were like the kids, I was just, I was fascinated with the fact that they were so into punk rock that they're the ones to tell me about First Avenue and Seventh Street entry, which is anyone has anyone played those venues as a kid like we're talking to a black flag, Jeff a circle jerks, like all these bands, you could go see him for like five bucks because they'd have a matinee show in the morning or midday and then they'd have the Id show at night they call them or whatever. 21 Plus, and that was really what I did.

It's funny because I played traditional sports the whole time. But I just was something about that the music, the way people dress, all that really, like captivated me at a young age. And I think it has to do with the fact which is why I believe travel is so important for like the growth of kids if you possibly can do it, to see other cultures see other things. It helps you figure out who you are and for me by me going to experience what it was like in Honolulu and in Maui, and seeing these guys these cool you know, Massimo was actually a surfer and originally people don't know that. That brand And things like that I was just infatuated with it. So that so hope that kind of gives you a little snapshot that I kind of did both. It's like I played the traditional sports, but I love the punk rock skate side. It just was such a curiosity, but I just love how passionate people were.

And you could kind of express yourself, you could just be you didn't have to follow on and I went to private school. So everyone kind of the same costume and not that we had to wear uniforms. But I was fascinated that, again, the music, the the activities of skateboarding, and then eventually snowboarding. It allowed you to be you like whatever that meant, and no one's gonna judge you in those circles. Yeah, it's

Marc Gutman 8:38

so interesting. I mean, you and I have a very similar background in that, you know, I grew up in Midwest as well. I was super fascinated with skateboard culture. So much so that I used to just look at Thrasher magazine and dream about that lifestyle until the second I could go to California. I did move to Venice Beach and quickly realized that it wasn't quite like it wasn't the magazine at that time. But But like, you know, Really can relate to that. And so what was like, I mean, what was just so special for you and the one thing that was a little different was like, you know, I always thought like, some of the music that like all the skaters were listening to and I can thrash and all that was a little like, a little hard for me.

You know, I was more of like a Detroit Detroit Rock City like heavy, you know, metal hairband, kind of kid, you know, what was it about that? That combination of skate and in music that really spoke to you and you talked a little bit it allowed you to, to self expression to like, why was that important?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 9:31

I think it is because I went to, you know, a very well renowned private school in Minneapolis. But the cool thing with this school, I will say from freshman year on in high school, they really had them really that the kids they're really like music, and I'm not saying about playing on a saxophone or a quarter or even though they were known for the choir. But you got to remember I grew up in the thick of the replacements, Cusco do early soul asylum and people would go to the shows and I would have a senior driving freshman to go see the violent felons, let's say.

And I just started going to any show I could get my hands on, like you get a ride to but here the school I went to would be a preppy I guess is the term you'd use. But it was fun because we didn't have like any high school you're gonna have the guys little known fact, one of the founders of ice magazine was a year older than me. And we used to see each other punk shows all the time, you know?

Think suroosh Alvi. And he's still there. And we would see each other all the time it was funny because then I yes, did I have clothes I guess you can probably but then I would maybe do a twist on it and go buy a pair of camel pants at the army surplus store. And then my mom would would hand them in or make them a little narrower. You don't need to be so baggy, and just like a fun little twist on stuff but we have very little to choose from back then. Not in a destitute way but in a way that we're pretty much had a few department stores to choose from. So the fact you could go do that so like I had a friend of my late friend morning almost. I bring him up because my one of my closest friends died in 911 100 fourth for the South Tower. He's actually the first person on the victims list.

If you look at His last name is Ahmed. And he's one of my son's is named after him. But he was funny with Mr. Like, preppy guy, but be the first guy that one might make his own t shirt or want to go to a punk show. And then he wouldn't alter what he could still wear like, it was like a damn shirt to a punk show because he just no one really messed with the meter. It's kind of bigger guy, but he and I are totally online on music. You know, we'd love everything from the cure to again, replacements to Cusco do and then digging really really deep. Like I said the gfa is the world which word for it and we're even pit pihl public engineer limited, which is an offshoot, obviously the Sex Pistols, but we used to take a bus to downtown Minneapolis, the six plus and we would go to northern lights which was the record store and dig through crates for vinyl.

And then there was this was owned by this Asian couple called sons su ns and they're the ones who have all the concert tees and you go on their wall and you look at these five screens printed in black, but you couldn't any of the bands you couldn't see you ever see like the Smiths I go into the Smith's work by seeing a T shirt. I bought the T shirt I have no idea meat is murder. What the Smith It was different. You walk down the street, you were like, what is meat is murder. You know, that's the name of the album. But that was kind of how it happened in Minneapolis. Fortunately again, though, it considered a cold destitute place. Otherwise, it had a really good art scene.

My mother works for me, Apple sister of arts for decades, you know, had a really really good thriving theater slash music scene that you wouldn't find major metros, you know, and you needed to try it. But I'd argued right up there was Chicago, you know, they've got venues too, but just a smaller version. No, yeah. And I think

Marc Gutman 12:31

it was really cool, like in those kind of smaller, mid major towns because Minneapolis isn't like a small town, but it's not Chicago. But when you get the bands that come into town, you get them to yourselves. And so in a way, it's almost better than when you're like trying to fight through a Chicago crowd or an LA crowd or New York crowd for both tickets, just proximity and that type of stuff. You'd be out on the town and you'd run into your favorite band or something like that, which was always so cool.

And, and you touched on something and I don't want to get too existential here, but like There really is this awesome idea that, you know, when we align with brands and we, we display those brands, it really says a lot about who we are and you were able to really go out and perhaps and I don't know this to be true.

I mean, was this sort of your first touch in realization of the power of brands and aligning with brands and also, not just that you aligned with one brand when what I really heard from you is that, you know, young stix who wasn't stix at the time was really this combination of many brands in order to kind of be the person that you wanted to be.

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 13:38

Hundred percent you know, I can honestly this is, again, gonna sound cliche, Fast Times return Hi, I will completely 100% that movie. I went checker dance. But the funny thing is, you can find him in Minnesota. My sister was going to school in Arizona, I get a graduate degree, and they actually she was able to get a pair for me there. And I remember I wore those and they ain't Another thing is I didn't want to wear socks or anything but Korean socks.

They were like a science experiment. I mean it was just was so those things were so right. My mom would meet people outside. But those were like a badge of honor walk around those vans because we didn't have them in Minnesota. Now they're solely to get their name bands and always been kind of mail order. Back then it wasn't FedEx, you know, maybe there was but like, I, you weren't gonna get your shoes overnight, right? You find the backup when you said Thrasher or Transworld or skateboarder and that was around, and you'd fill out it was 1799 for tear shoes, whatever it was back then.

But those to me that and like camel pants and just a white t shirt. It's pretty cool kit, you know, 1984 you know, whatever it was, you know? I mean it was and so you're right and but you gotta remember that he we didn't have Abercrombie and Fitch, we didn't have, again, Pac son. He didn't have these places. You just like Okay, I'm gonna go to the department store. And then we think of fun ways to maybe monkey around with the clothes.

I might not mean to designer I can't so to save my life. But maybe it alters a jacket completely. Obviously you're cut the sleeves off. If you want to. mean like you're just wrong. And by no means again, I wasn't. Let's not paint this picture and walk around like a guy. That's cool enough, but I always try as best I could with what little I had to work with, to tweak it a little bit. You know, I didn't want to be the same shirt, same things, everybody else because they all we all wear the same outfits with costumes, as I like to say, at the time.

Marc Gutman 15:18

Yeah. What do you think that interests like in fashion and pop culture came? Because it certainly shows up later in your career. And we'll talk about that. But you know, where do you think that really came from? Where was one of your parents kind of into that stuff? Was it more your association with your friends?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 15:32

No friends, so I came from the most conservative household ever, you know, very Christian, amazing upbringing. I don't have a complaint in the world. It's just very, very conservative. You know, I mean, now the house is pretty much like I think those rooms I still never been in or have been their house, you know, but and that's no disrespect. But definitely I was there was one of my family was near punk rock. I don't know.

I have three siblings. My oldest is my brother. And she did introduced me to a lot of bands that I got into late and like I'm talking about the last five years were way before I ever thought I would like it, you know, Fleetwood Mac, he would play jurnee. He would play Pablo Cruz, he would play. What's the one like Michael McDonald, Doobie Brothers, all these things, which at the time I didn't care for, as I've gotten older, like, I kind of dig it back.

You know, I mean, it's some of the stuff which I never would have never. That's way too slow for me at the time. But now I've come to appreciate like journey. Like I just got journey's Greatest Hits for President. Are you kidding me? Like, if I know I played in my living room.

Marc Gutman 16:33

So we went here that's exclusively with Mack and journey. All right, everybody. So like stix is a Fleetwood Mac journey efficient.

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 16:40

I mean, I can't listen all the time. I wouldn't be able to sit still long enough. But the funny thing is, though, my brother did go to concerts a lot. So I kind of got caught. He told me some hilarious stories when this first arena shows me you know, I must have been five years old, and he's going to these and tell me when the house lights went off. The first time it's film that stadiums with North Stars played. He literally thought there was a power outage.

You know, they do that. before they get on stage, and I forget who was going to see I think was, oh, Linda Skinner, something like that. And, you know, they cut the house lights, obviously for anyone and he just said how he almost urinated soiled himself because he thought the power was out, you know, but just explain what it's like to go to his first show. But he took me to see kiss. He was in college, and I was in middle school, whatever it was, and I got to see kids when they were in their heyday. This is 1979 or 80 or something like that. got like, that's first time ever smell weeks.

I had no idea what the smoke was everywhere. And it just smelled funny, you know? But again, I taken my brother ticularly first kiss show again. That was the full original lineup. So I got to see that was pretty cool.

Marc Gutman 17:36

Pretty great claim to fame. So here you are, you know, you're just finding out who you are. You're dabbling and skate culture and music and figuring things out. You know, like, what was your first real job and what was it in marketing or was it

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 17:51

God? No. I my first look from a neighbor was he literally had a Chris craft boat where those goodies whether they're called you know the ones for eautiful Have to store that. But in the meet the same time, my brother at this point my brother has was in law school, whatever, but he'd worked for a local golf course.

And I ended up because they liked my brother so much. They literally like, I got a job there. And it was awesome because I was in charge of the golf carts. So I go around, but I got to interact with everybody. You know, I mean, anytime you just wanted a cart, I'm going to bring it up in in the golf carts and really actually a really good golf course. So public course. But that was one where I was just, you got to, you know, really interact. A lot of people see different people for different walks of life, because again, it's a public course. Right? And that's where I was introduced to the Beastie Boys, because one of the guys that I worked with him cards, pull out this license, the L tape, and I was like, What is this and I was like, I think I melted the tape.

We listen to it so much. And I just was so fascinated because I didn't know anything about hip hop or rap or anything like that. But I loved the Beastie Boys style those guys to me, if anyone has moved the needle culturally, with anywhere, this the Beastie Boys, I'm serious. Like I was So in fact, I'm thinking how could these dudes leave their from Brooklyn and you know, the fighter, right, all that stuff, but if you really outside of that hit that they had. So the subs, like amazing like Paul's boutique, I think is one of most underrated albums.

Like, I put in the top 10 most underrated album, I mean, what those guys did. And it's ironic now there's this spike Jones documentary on it, but those guys just look at what they went through. I mean, I remember reading an article they were they bought ups, outfits to wear on on stage, but yet they had a big catalog out of like, retro champion where they were going to do who was doing that at the time, you know, I mean, just retro old school athletic wear, and they were making it cool, you know, and then I saw him play live and I was like, Okay, this is this is a whole nother thing, you know, but that was I roundabout way of saying how I was like, I got exposed to something else.

You know, being at this public golf course. It's like, wow, Beastie Boys. What the hell is this? You know, I knew all about punk rock, but I didn't know and then that there became a crossover. Those guys originally. Were coming in, you know, not many people. I don't think That lookup I think it's probably walk stools are first of all up and look it up. Yeah. And

Marc Gutman 20:04

so you know musics of throughput through your life where'd you go after the golf course,

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 20:08

golf course my senior year and then I worked construction, which, again, great life lessons there. I learned to this day enough to be dangerous. It's Brian wall wiring plumbing. But it also made me realize I didn't want to do manual labor. It was a great experience. I got through with friends we a lot of laughs But I knew it was something that I didn't want to do.

Second summer, I worked at a bank. And that was another huge learning experience because I'd have to go every morning I put on a tie go down downtown Minneapolis, and I remember calling my parents saying I'm going to be in college for 15 years.

This is what the real world is like, because I can't it was just like, droids marching every day. The same thing was just a miserable experience on under artificial light in a cube. You were wearing a tie. I was wearing a tie. Yep. And I the funny part is I'd have to drive myself First Avenue to get to the where I worked. And I thought someone's gonna just pull me out of my jeep and just wild me for wearing a tie so close to sacred spot like that, right? Who would have thunk it years earlier, I'm waiting in line with all the other kids trying to get a ticket. And I drive by and wearing a tie. Right? And then I thought that the most the least painful thing to do would be to be a copywriter because I was originally an English major, and I didn't know what to do with that. I loved it. I got to work on the Harley Davidson account. I got to work on this thing called Skeeter Boats. I'm not kidding you. But it was like it was a cool environment.

My boss was really cool. I got college credit for it, which is awesome. From there, I went to work for Northwest Airlines. And the reason I'm telling you that is the fact that I studied abroad in Australia for a bit and by that when I got this internship with united with Northwest Airlines, which became Delta, they just opened up the Australian market. So they actually ran everything by me to see if it was going to be authentic or not. And it was just something about travel once again. I'm like wow, this place I live in this earth. I got credit for it. And my payments was they gave me four tickets to go anywhere in the world. I wanted to go back paying cash. And then my last internship for credit was I work for a public relations for Minnesota North Stars, the hockey team. And I obviously did a great job for Dallas the next year.

No, it really I just didn't realize I didn't want to work. It's not what it's cracked up to be to work for protein. But it's not okay. When you're in the bowels of the stadium, not not only the fun part was those I part of my job is to take players to go talk to schools. And that was, I will argue that not just because I play hockey, but professional hockey players are probably the coolest pro athletes will ever meet your life. They're so humble and self mocking and appreciative and because most of them did come from small towns in Canada or Europe or wherever, or or they went right into juniors and never really got finished high school. So for them, they're just happy go lucky and it was a great experience. So that's a long winded way of explaining kind of experiences I had.

Marc Gutman 22:57

Yeah, where'd you go on those four free trips.

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 23:00

Let's see I blew my knee out. So I went to see a friend in Maui who's a dive instructor. I'm a certified no Patty diving, whatever. And I would just because I couldn't move my leg, I think I could every day, which is diving groups. And I just tagged on behind the group. So I got to scuba dive every day for free for 10 days, where my leg was just dragged behind me in the water, and I did that. So I think I went to San Francisco but then I went back to Australia, because after I graduated college I got and that's where I had my epiphany for my career.

That's where I was like, that's when the light bulb went off. I know the exact spot on Bondi Beach rather sitting having a beard like seeing that when there's a skate they used to have skate ramps, now their actual cement bowls, and I remember I want to be an actual sports. I was watching these guys surf and like I want to be this is this is like I would go into the surf shops and every corner I would always want to surf shops.

There's this brand SNP that wasn't really a player for a while it actually sports business and that was bought by Riot snowboards and then it's just kind of like it's licensed out now. But that's a hot brand on Australia. The time is just fascinating. Everything about everything. Every little magazine I get my hands on. I was absolutely infatuated and funny thing is my job down there had nothing to do with music art or action sports. It looked I was writing copy for a nonprofit that I care because it gave me a tax ID to live there for a year and live on a beach. So that's really where I was like, This is what I do.

Marc Gutman 24:19

Yeah, like, what was the will kind of take a little moment here, but like, what was the scene like that? I mean, was there really like an action sports industry at that time? Or is it more like these sort of like little brands, little skate shops, like what does it look like at that time?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 24:34

It's, you know, the one thing that was starting to take off at that point was snowboarding. Okay, this is 95 year of 95. And I lived in Australia, and I made my way over to New Zealand to ride it's called the remarkable mountains over there. I mean, I still have my first snowboard jacket that literally is a glorified flannel with like a Teflon pad on the bottom and it's funny, it's like dropped, which frankly is back in style, though. I should pass it on next year.

But never it was just everything about it to me though black flies was like the hot sunglass brand and they made goggles my first goggles were black box okay, but it wasn't it were the really the final part. The final catalyst for me saying this is what I have to do is I got back to the states turned down some job offers were literally charity from like my buddy's parents You know, it just it was nothing I would have accelerated or really enjoyed. It doesn't matter what it was. I

t just was not to me it's more corporate stuff right. And I went to my first work tour. And at that point was the second year of the tour. I missed the first year living in Australia but I saw it in a magazine and they had a couple bands so I just still to this day love orange nine millimeter quicksand l seven, some wine was a part of the first one. And I drove to Milwaukee Wisconsin with my girlfriend at the time. And that's where I saw a Warped Tour and I still have some photos of like me in the pit shooting with a 35 millimeter inside, penny wise and then the outside me shooting guy skating the skateboard and remember going this is what I want to be this What I've got to do like this is so me just just people having fun was punk rock.

We're skaters. And then the brands that were part of that, you know, at the time it was billabong, and I think even though there's a thing called split, it was it was a clothing brand. They were part of it. But they had a little booth there. And, you know, I was a little kid in the candy store free stickers. I mean all that like I get it. You know, that was my first taste. But yeah, this is like marketing 101 or grassroots marketing, just get the brand in people's hands and let them decide for themselves where to put the stickers what to do what brands, you know what I mean? And that was that was my aha, like, Okay, I'm onto something here. Because there's no way there'd be a tour like this if this wasn't what yet.

But you got to remember, this is before magic zoomies existed at that point. But before these was in the stores started, really, really being a little more prominent in cities more and more popping up and skateboards is something it had been in California, obviously in some pockets around the US. But I was sitting there going, Hey, how can I get in this business? And that was literally like that. I mean, I was like laser focus. Like how many The minute I got home, I started my long slog and try to get my foot in the door.

Marc Gutman 27:05

Yeah. And so it's so interesting to me. I mean, you know, from a very young age when you describe those internships, you were very astute to align your interests with some sort of business need, right? So you know, you love to travel so you went to work for the airline, you loved hockey, so you went to the North Stars realized it wasn't for you, but that's okay. And then you go to Australia and you have this like, you know, this this epiphany and what I was imagining when you were talking just about that environment were with grassroots marketing and people handing out stickers.

It was so interesting to me. It's kind of like where we are now today with social media, right? Where we're like brands don't really own the brand. There's all this conversation and all this interaction going on outside the brand, by the customers by their by by the fan base and very much like that was happening for you, right, like everyone's handing out stickers and authenticating the brand and having their own conversation. Somebody was just like, really interested. To me, but you come back and you're like, I want to be in this business. I mean, what's that plan?

I mean, so, Hey, man, I've been struck a few times in my life to where I'm like, I know exactly what I want to do. And I have this amazing fantasy. And then I go like, Oh, crap. Now I got to like, actually make it a reality. And sometimes that doesn't always add up. Like how did you like, start that process of getting into action sports and actually making a career out of it?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 28:26

Honestly, I grabbed every magazine I could get my hands on. And I just got to the players were and not not in a backdoor I'm in it was like I just I knew brands that I really liked. brands who maybe didn't resonate with me as much and I had no choice. This is pre internet. Like I'm cold call, right? Well, then I find out there's this thing called si a show. And I literally was 300 bucks for like three nights and airfare to Treasure Island at Vegas. And I went into the show with resume And the funny part is I've never really told him the story. I was thinking to myself because I was surrounded by like, how am I gonna? Help me stand apart?

Like, these guys probably gonna have pluses I didn't know what the trim bro man that everyone's just kind of gets backdoor bro jobs. And in Minnesota like I grew up in a walk, right so I've flown ski I wakeboarder which is how I destroyed my leg. But I also compare for so I literally was handing out these resumes with us a picture staples of me barefoot, right because I thought that was kind of badass. Like, you know, I didn't know what I know now about how what like a charity of sorts and he's actually sports Branson, so I'm sure in high tech Okay, cool. You know, you don't hindsight 2020 but I thought how can I turn some heads or get some attention with my resume?

So I attached picture of me barefooting you know, cuz I still do those tumble turns and go down. You can spin around and get back on your feet again. I thought you know, someone find that interesting, but they got it in hindsight. I mean, I might as well Wearing a tutu? No, they probably thought, who's this clown. So I literally when I went started doing was collecting business cards. Everywhere I went and I took some, some people were nice enough to give me like a honcho card. And other people would give me like a customer service persons card, it didn't matter. And then I thought, Okay, I'm going to take what I learned at the agency, and I took their ads from the different brands and I made them funny.

I just stopped funding them making stuff and get a kick out. So I was mailing back at this again, pre internet, so I was really going to everyone under the sun

Marc Gutman 30:33

Yeah, how are you making ads talk about that. I mean, were you like making collages with paper

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 30:37

I would take their ads out of the magazine Exacto and change their headline, or take a Polaroid or something and kind of superimposed on at the time and it was kind of a cool come to write, but I didn't, I didn't I didn't register,

Marc Gutman 30:50

but you're not using like a computer or like Photoshop or anything.

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 30:53

I didn't have any of that. I didn't have computer for years. And I thought I would mail them back and of course then I will The phone call and you gotta remember man, like, I'm trying to get my career all my buddies are in Wall Street. You know, that was where I grew up. I wrote that set with those guys role. And that's nothing wrong with that just wasn't my scene, but you know, and then my parents dining room table, you know no buddies are all partying in New York, right?

But I just knew I couldn't do it but I kept calling, calling calling some people I got through to some people I didn't. But I just knew that I knew I was so mobile. I was like, someone want to be moved to California because I was moved to Chula Vista for that brand SMP. I would, I probably never would have left Southern California and I moved to California, and it just didn't pan out. But again, it just you just lesson learned. You got to try and try and try again because you are gonna have the door slammed in your face, especially that industry being as young as it was at the time.

I mean, it was like the ultimate like old boys network, you know, and, boy, good luck breaking into that. And I just knew I was going to be an asset to a brand but I also still knew I need to learn a lot from pinion that only makes a mistake once and never having a mistake again and I'll own up to it. You know, so that's really where I was at the time.

Marc Gutman 32:03

But I'm sorry, I missed that. Did you? Did someone bite on that?

And did you get a job?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 32:08

Yeah, I what had happened is I was getting so down in the dumps. And the one brand that I focused in on because they weren't every single magazine snow surface skate magazine was arawak. And at the time, they had the who's who, every sport. They even had a few surfers, and I was taking their ads and doing stuff in cut.

I don't remember her last meeting, but the director of marketing, same thing was Nina. All I remember is that they were they moved from Carlsbad, California to Pennsylvania, and I was just thrashing around with letters, and I call call call cold call. And then I picked up the phone one day and said, hey, it's Steve Nilson, you know, and she was Oh, it's cute kid again, because Listen, kid, I don't have time to talk to you. My house just burned down. I gotta leave for Europe and fires like, Alright, I gotta go.

So I mailed her a smoke detector in the mail. And she called me like last But two weeks, three weeks later, she's Oh my god, you have balls kids like, Yeah, she flew me out. And that's what I end up getting a job. That's what I needed. That's why I was always confident, like, one on one with someone, but I just needed a chance. I just needed someone open the door for me, you know, and apparently I did well, my interview, you know, but I just I guess maybe I was so pumped up from trying to get in the industry that I probably overwhelmed with all those feeling. It was just longing for an opportunity to just like, show I know what I was talking about. And I guess the one thing that you know, I was fortunate enough to go to some really good schools Is that you? I was I learned how to kind of cut mentalize and articulate what I not only looked at the industry and just being a sponge, which showed me how when I'm interested in something, I am like that idiot savant.

Like I can just absorb everything. Remember every little detail and I think I would probably overwhelmed with them when I was interviewed at arawak. But again, all I needed was that chance and they gave it to me and the rest of you know what that is. So that was my first stepping stone but I had this Fight and claw to get that, because there was still an old boys network even at erawan at the time, they're like, why would you hire a guy from Minnesota? No. And my parents were so blessed because they taught me early on things when only manners but being a good listener.

And, you know, by that you can you can learn from people and comment on it versus some people just want to be heard all the time. And so I've been blessed the way I was raised, because I think that I was able to do both of them. I was a student of the game, but then some that I was going to go out this kind of a calculating way and not just fly by night for stuff against the wall. Hope it sticks.

Marc Gutman 34:34

You know? Do you remember that first day at arawak?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 34:37

I do. And you know, I'm gonna be honest with you. I feel again, I haven't really ever told anyone this but I just remember one of the first big meetings I was at. And there was a few people and again, it doesn't matter who it is whatever else but I just sit there going in my brain. Were positions that I wanted and going, Oh my gosh, I know I could run circles around this person. Like no comparison and I I was amazed. It's my first taste.

And it happens to this day of people you could put in positions either, you know, right or wrong happens. But I'm thinking, I would absolutely crush that position. And that was the only thing where I was like, Okay, I'm the one getting chided, because I'm from Minnesota, and I'm looking at these people, like, I'm sorry, but there was just I started questioning these people could even put a sentence together, you know what I mean? Like, you'd be cool all day long, like, Hey, man, there's got to be a business acumen to this too. You know, that's all it was just again, no disrespect to anyone in particular. It was just more of I sat there going, wait a second. So I'm getting chided by these guys.

And I'm sitting there going, you got to be kidding me. Like, what? You know, um, so that was a big eye opener whether it was an old boys network was just like, selling to someone and that kind of thing. And I don't know, this is a brand you can't just off your Bros. Like you gotta have people who bring in people that know what they're doing, you know, but I think then again, I wasn't a physician because I had no experience at the time to do that. I know like the stand up. So became my goal. to basically get these What do you want to say? feathers, my capper arrows in my quiver to learn, learn, learn, learn and learn. So every part of the business, the sales part, the marketing part, the production part. And that's what I set out to do.

Marc Gutman 36:13

And so what was your role when you started and what was your role when you left

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 36:17

So funny that when I started, I'm not kidding you. My first thing because I wanted to get my foot in the door, was I was a merchandiser. I'm not kidding. So my skin my role was to run around big to stores and make sure our stuff look good. But the funny thing is, it became very, very obvious to me that we were doing it wrong. And I was so low on the totem pole. No one would listen to me but like, the Tony Hawk shoe should not been to Carnival should not have been on the wall at journeys, because that was the lifeblood of the skate shops.

And I started telling him that but the person who reported you didn't want any part of it was the type of person that just never wanted to rock the boat and just kind of did on the roof. And I was just didn't sit with me. I'm like, No, no You can't just do enough. All right, don't check box. It's like this isn't right. We're headed for disaster here. Because back to skate shops like I felt comfortable in skate shops. And to this day, I could go have a conversation with a kid about skaters or surfers snowboarders. You don't I mean, it's a different it's, it's almost like a little clubhouse of sorts.

But that was a real eye opener. So what did I do? I just tried to like I went to Nordstrom for Pete's sake, we had our shoes in Nordstrom. Okay. And I'm sitting there going, Okay, like, there's no product differentiation here. Like we can't be having the skate stuff in a Nordstrom. You just can't do that to these little shops because, you know, they were, you know, less than what you'd get it. You know, I mean, Nordstrom just undercutting and price wise, I guess maybe not torture, but you know, some of the other places the bigger big box stores mean arawak ended up paying for the sins of all the brands that are in malls now. Because it was so it was just antichrist to have your shoes, or any action sports apparel in a mall, you know?

So that was where I started and then at these meetings, I would say this is what I'm seeing out in the field, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And to make a long story short, basically they said, okay, tough guy. If you see an issue with a pricing, one, you want to get development. And that's when I got into the snowboard boot development, and spent three weeks a month in Asia building summer boots, and it's actually dabbled in shoes as well in the skate stuff. And again, total eye opener, got to travel the world like, you know, see, Bangkok see Hong Kong numerous times, Taiwan, Thai Chung, you know, and the funny thing is at the time that he was getting all the crap for sweatshops, but they're getting picked on because of the big one and having success but we all share the law at all. But we all share the same factories.

They were the ones who just the big target, but I thought was so funny that they were getting all this heat, the sweatshop thing and we're all in it. And frankly, factory jobs like the best job in town, a lot of those places they were getting, you know, people lived on campus. They three square meals a day, their schools for the kids, it was actually like Good deal for the local locals. So I just I learned a ton from that time being a product developer. And then fast for the last role I held was was basically snow marketing measure.

You know, working with Mike arts and Joe Babcock and the abs. It's funny, it shifted from being a rapper to going into development. And that was the last role I had was was when they moved the company to Colorado, and I was working the snow division.

Marc Gutman 39:32

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Yeah, and so in at that point, you know, you were doing snowboard boot development, you're in the snow division. Did you start doing some of those unique collabs at AIR walk or was that a little bit later in your career?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 40:48

That was that came later. But I think that why those came to me was because of my understanding of product timelines, raw materials, how that works, how the how they come to production. caliber work. So if you want to work with a brand like, Hey, we want to do a shoe or a jacket rubber for it, let's do it for, you know, 2021 season Well, this day and age, I don't care how good the technology, you still can't get anything done that fast.

And you're gonna like, probably wouldn't be able to unless you put a patch on something that's an existing silhouette, you know, but again, we did, I will be honest with you. I mean, I do have a few pieces that I have made for myself over there that are one off, and it's just kind of fun to have something that no one else in the world has, you know, because I knew that just custom shoes for friends and family, things like that. It's not a big deal. All I do is have a little extra different material to make the tongue a little different color or whatever. That was super fun for me.

And again, I can't draw to save my life. But I think one of the things that I was able to do because my time is merchandiser when we would do a design review and put all the silhouettes on the wall. I'd like to think I picked out probably the one was going to sell the best off the shelf. Like I don't know what it is. I just Look at it took me two seconds, I look at that one. And I'm not saying it always was the case. But I think that again, I want my learnings of being at retail, and going to numerous countless, because I covered the whole Midwest accounts, everything from shields, in the Dakotas to these little skate shops, like I was like, okay, that's okay, what the company is doing that they're not going to do.

Now given. Once I went into the office environment. I was more traveling to like trade shows and events and things like that I wasn't on the boots on the ground as much. But again, unfortunately, that culminated in so many poor decisions made by the teams, the leadership that by the time, my counterparts and I got a position to do anything that brand was pretty much done, unfortunately. So that was my MBA. I'm not the only one. Were my office, my family and I have a master's degree and that was my extra degree. And how not to do business was what I learned. arawak Yeah, when I started getting that would arawak argue is one of the top action sports brands of any time. We just made the number boots on word. I thought they were eating burdens lunch wise. And they haven't done head to toe yet.

But just if you look at the old rosters of the teams, I mean, there was no comparison. You know, it was that hot and to the way that that that poor decisions that were made, in hindsight and again, it was just it bringing the sales guys from the big shoe companies, you know, phila, Reebok wherever, didn't sell these guys were taking orders, it dumped the shoes on the table and furniture, knees, that's looking stuffs, the skate stuff that ended up in journeys. And then we just choke out the little guys that they've relied on Jeff rally shoe. There were a lot in 2002.

There were a lot of Jason Lee, there are a lot you know, Mike Frazier, and we kill them. We literally like it. Because again, Vance wasn't a player that they are now. And it was asked us at these events on the wall, the skate shops, and the majority Was there one shoot and it's just to see that happen and not really have any control and I'm never gonna get in that position again. That was brutal.

Marc Gutman 43:56

Yeah, and you're I mean, you really did you. I mean, you hit it like it's heyday like where it was like at its best. And then due to private equity and demands on shareholder returns really kind of just went went downhill and didn't go the right way. But, you know, like you said, you did get basically an MBA there, you learn so much. I mean, we don't have to get into it now. But I know that you have so many close friends from those from those days as well and that have gone on to do other things. But from that point, you sort of start like a new chapter of your career, which really is turned into canned beverages in a weird way. And so if I forgot this, right, you went to red balls that right?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 44:38

Yeah,

Marc Gutman 44:39

yeah. And so you got there and oh, my gosh, talk about sort of the poster child for action sports marketing. I mean, really, is there anything you know, at the time better?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 44:53

No, you know, I have to be honest with you like, the stars aligned for me at that point. It was without trying me. It took me a year. To get hired, and that's how they were so new, no one who had an energy drink was, when I think about it, we was it was so crazy, I guess would be the best way. And I'm not I'm not kidding you. It's like I won the lottery. Because all sudden, overnight, you know, again, they didn't have the brand equity yet they were they were gonna build that.

But overnight, I basically had a, you know, on my expense report, I had a line item for a long time, like I could expense I mean, who does that? Right? And it took me a while to really, I was one of the first force marketing managers and I remember I've always believed in rolling my sleeves and training my team. I've never asked anyone to do something I would do myself. And I was putting on an event somewhere and I'm in Brighton all over the venue, right? And my boss stopped me. He's still a dear friend. He's like, Dude, what are you doing? And I'm like, dude, I gotta help you. Because that's why you have a budget to hire the event crew to worry about. Okay, I need you to make sure everything's straight.

Like, again, you want to help, that's fine. You're going to help us big time by making sure your branding looks right and whenever it's just chill, like let the worker bees work. Your phone And so it's not saying I ever got comfortable with that. But but then it got to the point where we literally live by the mantra like, pay the fine. Like we asked for forgiveness, not permission. And it was unbelievable because right then we ended up having to remember the channel crossing. You know, we are Felix Baumgartner goes across the English Channel on a jet when he does that, right. And that became a benchmark where it was like, Alright, what's our next channel crossing? Because I've made international news, you know, and so that was where the heat was turned up on us as sports, right matches, what's the next athlete project you're going to do? What's the next event? What is the next channel crossing, you know? And so it was overwhelming to me. I mean, they treated us so well at Red Bull.

I mean, just it's, the company is very, very skewed like they, they get it does have that euro vibe. They're very, very like driven and results driven. But the difference, this is one thing I've learned, which is my soft spot, is that I was never ever held to a scalable number. All right stix you do that we better sell X amount of cases. Never, ever once in my tenure, there was I ever held my hand held to the candle saying, if you're doing this, you better said we better sell more cancel. They just knew it. And I think that that is a key to a really, really successful team is when you all have a common goal, but you trust each other. And no one's ever packing anyone else. No one's ever like, well, he did this. She did that or whatever.

No, it was like the part that became the biggest pressure cookers when we'd meet a couple times a year and we'd literally have each, each of us or five of us would get called out to the carpet. Okay, what's the next big idea? That's pretty when you got the Austrians over here, and they're like, what, what's next? What do we do? What's the next idea? And that you could never have the exclusive This is the crazy thing. Think about this. Money was never an excuse. Like I mean, I didn't know that was $960,000. Okay, money was never so that was not new, you could hide behind. But the funny part is, you can have a very, very impactful event with just a case of product in a bottle of vodka.

You know, I mean, it's just dependent on you don't I mean? How to do that. Not everything was a home run. Not every single thing resonated. But this is before you know, certainly before any social media, you know, so the only output we had for a lot of this content was it was originally a G shock rush hour I think it was called some like that which became fuel TV. Well fuel TV. It was that like after a while, like okay, rebel, you're doing amazing stuff. But this is also becoming the rebel channel. We can't use all your content, which is why Red Bull and they started getting into this when I parted ways in the rebel media house where they become their own production and all that and, you know, it's funny, ESPN even sniffed out as well.

It is brilliant on rebels. Yeah, they were painted by this crazy airtime and New Years and just put their own branded events on there. And you'll get basically if you consider what the cost of media buys, it was nothing was a drop in the bucket for Redbull to reach millions and millions, millions of people something super unique. You know, like Robbie Maddison doing the lawn rolls large jump over a football field. Or you know, All righty, Madison stuff. You've seen it years. And that's typical red bull, like we're going to come in. We're coming hot. We're going to do it right now. It's gonna be people can't touch us probably, you know, cost wise, you know?

Marc Gutman 49:05

So why'd you leave red bull, if it was so great?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 49:07

You know what? Honestly there's like any company there was um, shifts and how they were going to do originally the sports marketing crew reported to Santa Monica and had a dotted line to Austria and and that got watered down and there was they decentralized that and you know it's like anything you get Growing Pains is a big company and you know when I started a sports marketing manager, you handle everything from a soapbox race or a photog which maybe you've seen where you know, flying the means when people make their own little crafts or jump off a deck, you know, they've done it everywhere all over the country of Portland, Santa Monica New York City.

All sudden they broke it out to right now you're gonna have an event manager you're gonna have an athlete manager. It's just got her water down. I'm not saying from a control freak perspective that I needed my hand and everything. But then they want to they were talking about shifting people move different places, but surely wasn't really Colorado and Pascual Riven came out of nowhere and different stuff to think about how to hem and haw about us the passing of the money was pretty much a dormant brand. But I could sense there was this brand equity that was building because the athletes I care I could give whatever they wanted whatever bottles surface especially the skates know guys like I want Pepsi. Pepsi ribbon. I had had that in college and that was literally because it was whatever's on sale. Right.

And it's just had this cachet to it as an escape guys special they're just like password and password like what is going on? And it's funny how that segue happened. Because I went in there going Oh, yeah, I can do some fun with this brand in the back of my head going holy crap. How you gonna pull this off with nobody? You know, I mean, talking I said over and over again talking about going penthouse to the poorhouse. That's exactly what happened. The budget was big time. Yeah, but then

Marc Gutman 50:47

so and what was that? Like? What was the marketing plan at paps? I mean, like you said you have a lot, you know, not very much budget. So how did you deal with that?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 50:58

Well, the one thing that It became very clear to me was I had something that 99% of events need. And that's alcohol. And I knew if I could figure out the distribution system, you can't ship alcohol in certain legal but we had hired FM's field marketing managers, our market agents we had a calling in different cities. And we thought you know, we're going to do this as grassroots as in as in person as possible in you know, in marketing to amplify the brand. But we if the stars align the way a couple things got one, we were in a recession, okay, to perhaps in having marketing behind.

So if nothing was being shoved down consumer throats, this is the you know, PB army SAP, none of that, but it was just it just chugged along. And we're cheap. I mean, the bottom line is with that, and I often like to refer to Goodwill hunting. Remember that that wealthy girl starts dating Matt Damon, and it's almost like she's kind of slinging it. He says to her, it's almost like you know, paps had this like kind of dirty connotation to it. You know, like you're a little dirty. I have in the past. The big aha moment for me, I think it was 2010, something like that.

We did a, I'm sorry, I was approached friend or friend type thing, which is where a lot of my opportunities came from, like once I was able to pass on some of these doors started opening for me in music, art and action sports because of my relationships and past jobs. And I got hit up by I don't remember what brand it was. It was Alexander when tech ran, but it was one of the brands was doing an event during fashion week in New York City and they said, We want taps there. And I'm sitting there scratching my head like, Okay, I have zero money to give you. This is something Heineken would pay 10 grand just to be in the door. I don't get it. So I said I will sponsor this but I need to be able to come check it out. And sure enough, I went there. I didn't have a black turtleneck like everybody else but whatever. That's right.

And I walked backstage and it's passed in these bins and you know, they do that where they put the cloth drape in there and then they put water in the bins. It was us some shishi water and don't carry on. I'm not kidding you. But when the light bulb went off when I was sitting Around whenever he was milling about after the show was a runway show, and I sat there and watched it and whatever, didn't get half of what these people were wearing, but whatever I'm supposed to, but I saw these little wavy models carrying pops in their head. And I knew, right, well, they wanted nothing to do with the liquid inside. It had everything to do with it, they had that camera in their hand. And that to me was like that is brand equity. And literally, I always kind of looked at apps that way, I looked at it as it's not, we're not a beer company.

We're a brand. And I think it drove the other beer companies nuts because they just couldn't figure out how to crack our code. But they weren't set up to. They couldn't be nimble. They couldn't do what we did. And we never asked permission, just like Redbull we just did it and we'd literally get asked for forgiveness. And I can say now knock on wood. I didn't have one thing but you the button, and there's a lot of illegal things that happen just because of the restrictions and laws with alcohol that we pulled off afterwards things but I can stand I can really say that The broadcasts that the only time I wrote a check in almost a decade at tops were in front event was to reimburse people in Salt Lake City.

They were doing events like around Sundance or doing some spice, the sneaker shop, things like that. I just did. They can't by law, they couldn't go pick up products so I literally reimburse them that was it. But I never wrote checks robots ever once. Just for my it's not anything so grassroots.

Marc Gutman 54:23

Yeah. And I think you got really creative as well with a lot of the, you know, collabs that you did in the sense that you were able to take and find a brands that you love, but also brands that could elevate pops, but also in turn, perhaps could elevate that brand. And finding really good fits. Can you give us an example of a couple, maybe one or two of like your favorite car labs and how that went down?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 54:48

Well, I one of the first ones I did just kind of funny, makes it come full circle was a shoe. And it was with Ked's, Ked's, right. And I remember At the time, there was a skate brand called Supra. And still around somewhere, but at the time, you know, it was really a kind of skate brand. And the reason I went to Cannes is that they're American made. It's a long story. I didn't win. But because I understood, again, timelines, raw material production, no one really paid any mind to it. I just kind of ran with the project, and how to make an X amount of pairs. And then I got him out to the field. And then everyone started losing. What are you talking about? I still have a couple pairs myself, what are these come from, like, whatever. And that that was, again, purposeful, I didn't make very many pairs, but then keds came back because they posted it. And they're saying, Oh, my God, Urban Outfitters just said that they would literally put in, like a seven figure order in the shoes.

And I was like, Great, good for them. Nope. And they're like, what? And the salesmen are just like begging and he's a good dude, but I was just like, dude, you don't get it like that's not like I'm not getting a lot of random poured out again, I refuse, I will quit before I would let you get this in urban outfitters and that's what they've obviously got their own niche, but no way that would, I would absolutely go against ever thing that I can burn up in the past. So that was one of the first ones and then the one that I think really lit the fire, I'd like to think was the finding the snowboard binding I did with union because that one, George over there was still a really good friend of mine and I completely saw I'd I'd heard you because they'd have a very, very clean distribution. They're very well respected. The product is amazing.

And I really really had so much fun because it reminded me when I was making boots because it's snowboarding which is like my favorite activity in the world. And we had the idea of you know, we're not going to sell these we're gonna do X amount and I believe I want to say we did I mean it was like, they took their top 20 shops, each shop got five pairs, and they didn't tell them are coming and all sudden they just showed up and it's like do you want if you want to sell them that's fine with some of the shops do that's cool. It's gonna help a local shop or give them your Stoke up an employee, do a raffle. And that was one that I'm most proud of because it caused the most commotion. That's what I knew. We were onto Something.

I mean, people were like, I've never been more blown in my life than when those dropped by people like every, and we're talking like high up at Nike, like a burden. All these places like hitting me up, like saying, How do I get my hands on those, and that's where I was just the most as humbled and I was just really proud. Proud of the fact to the past, let me do that, you know, it was kind of an S forgiveness, not permission. But just like with Red Bull, there's a trust there that it was gonna be done. Right. And so that opened the floodgates, all of a sudden, every you know, so many brands were hitting us up to clap, but they were doing it for the wrong reason. You know, there's some brands that honestly they were they were trying to hitch their wagon to the, to the momentum we had as a brand and I just wasn't gonna let that happen. I don't know.

And you just start to figure out when you do this long enough, who is who has, you know, their best interests in mind and who are just in it. I hate to say after like a quick buck, you know, I have sunglass companies that I'd never heard of hit me up, unlike absolutely not, you know, so it's nice. I guess that's pretty telltale when you have a lot of rejection. To use when you have other established brands asking you to work with them, you know, you can have haters too.

And I kind of really got a kick out of the haters because, you know, they'd love to bash the beer. And I just water off a duck's back to me, Ambassador, but yet you're the first guy, he's gonna hit me up for swag, you know. And so yeah, it was. It was a great run. Let's put that way.

Marc Gutman 58:25

Yeah, and you know, and it takes incredible discipline to have that outlook, especially in marketing or marketing and sales, right. And there's so much pressure and to have this discipline to say look like, we're going to give these cola products to the people that really represent the brand at the barbacks the lift these the people at the skate shop, like you have this real intuition that by doing that by staying disciplined, it was going to have the maximum reach but like how did you stay disciplined? I mean, it's it's not easy to say no, especially when You have colleagues, when you have people at the company saying, look, we can make a lot more money, we can hit our goals, we can do bigger and better things like how do you maintain that discipline for the good of the brand?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 59:10

You know? Because, again, you guys hired me at past and I were the perfect. It's like the odd couple, because he was very analytical. We actually just spoke the other day, great guy. And he understood the process. I didn't know anything about the bigger business. But I also think that helped me because I didn't come in there with your goggles on the pun intended, you know what I mean? Like I came in, you know, and then like any industry, there is no voice. And I learned that real quick in beer, that it's definitely you know, boys are especially with the distributors. But when there was something that had him reach out to me and said, Hey, I need to talk to you.

And we were connected only because a kid who used to work at rebel was was working at paps and said, Hey, you should talk to this guy is because we're growing here and we were afforded a board of directors at the time. And I could tell some of them were just you know, arms crossed. Cuz this kid from Red Bull, you know, and maybe some saying we better do what you hear we did Red Bull kind of thing. So yeah, there was maybe maybe there were self and self induced pressures, I don't know. But my boss though we didn't know each other that well he managed me like, I guess, successful manager we have and that's like give me enough rope to hang myself and don't put them in a position that they're gonna have to answer. And I never did that to any of my bosses, right did something super dumb and a bunch of money or did something that could have gotten something out of harm's way. I never did that.

So there was just that level of trust there. And it worked. It's just, again, the stars align for the past Man, I wish you know, I'm gonna make this very clear. Like we had a really amazing brand team. So I can't take all that you know, any since I last spoke in the wheel, whatever word analogy we use, but we all trust each other. And as we grew, you know, the cool part is they were taking people out of the field and putting them in positions to run division. So one guy has to be the market manager for Colorado now runs these Still here, all things PBR art. We another guy who came from the east coast, who was East Coast man and director of field marketing, became director of music, he all music initiatives, and I would kind of cross pollinate with those guys an opportunity to have there be a little art show or a little record, release party, whatever, it just work. And again, in the heyday of paths, it was, you know, recession, we were cheap. And again, there was no marketing message out there didn't shut down anyone's throat.

The idea was, let everyone decide for themselves what pass needs to them. We're not going to sit there and shut anything down their throat, we're not going to roll into a bar with arms full of swag, you know, out of the gate, because it just cheapens your brand. It's like No, your point, who is really passionate about it, and take care of the little people. It's not hard. It's not I mean, people that you know, you just said our backs, no patrol, lift these rumors. You know, we're talking serious. You know, I mean, anyone that people are cleaning up an event space, take care of them. You know, I always believed in The event production crew you know, I mean I'm one year over took the whole backstage which Coachella had, you know, it's sponsored huge sponsorship dollars by a prominent beer brand and literally flooded the whole back area for the workers with things they needed functional right meaning sweatbands, visors, trucker hats, bandanas and then of course, it was a nondescript bus we had passed available to the crew, which this fear company lost it, they couldn't figure out how this is happening.

But all it was doing was was fulfilling a need. And we were tipping our hat to all these hard workers that are laying cable scaffolding, you know, have thankless jobs making everyone else can dress like a gypsy of the field and take selfies there. The reason why and that's what we did. It's just again, we went there was no elitist VIP parties. There's like no, no, we you know, we're now that the only thing we did Honest to God, I mean, yeah, we were in some house parties in around Coachella, but we literally there's a Rouse that's like across the street from the venue and we just help the local sales. People are kept stocking, restocking stocking stocking the Ralph's and then giving out swag to the concert goers.

So Oh, you need you need, you need a lip balm? Here's a little, you know, some some of this tchotchke stuff I never would do otherwise. But this is a case where we talked about it. And we said, you know, what can we do around this, this is something that people will need, they're going to need to have, and boy did that stuff get gobbled up, you know. And so that was it. But that's how we had to do was we were gonna sit there and write a giant check the K rock, you know, or something like that. So we just had to be scrappy.

And that was fun, because then you're meeting your consumer space and these people had a name and a face to pass. You know? I mean, let's put it this way. There wasn't a golf shirt or pleaded slack anywhere near any of the stuff we were doing in the field.

Marc Gutman 1:03:44

Yeah, and super creative and super authentic. And if working for a small, underground, not underground, just a smaller beer brand that had no budget wasn't hard enough. You decided to continue on your career trying to brand the old ultimate challenge something that we all get for free water where are you now

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:04:05

that's yeah I'm with liquid death and water and and I was connected to well there's there's two founders actually mean founder Meister sorry last year and I don't remember how long the conversation was but it's just it's what most people we all we all run into in our life for wealth so you just click and I think we talked for at least an hour, if not more and he was explaining to me what what his vision was for the brand and I so much of it was in my wheelhouse because of his background like he's played in punk bands. He loves football, he loves skateboarding, and frankly, he admired what paps have done. And I don't remember but we we start having a lot of people we knew in common, but only that a lot of the views on how to cultivate a brand. But my my hat goes off to Mike because he is really the visionary of what's going on.

I am Trying to add what I can with my guess because a lot of it is done just getting using my network and helping amplify the brand getting cancer enhance to the overuse term every day nowadays marketing or, or businesses couldn't. And, you know, I'm such a people person and I'm used to being at events, having meetings with brands being in different cities, that's all been grounded now. So, like Pax, what is great is that I've been shipping out water left and right to people. And this isn't just, it's not a celebrity thing. It's not whatever, it's just friends.

You know, I want my buddy's Mom, you know, wives and mothers to have it I want you know, I can give this product to newborns, I can give it to elderly. But with this pandemic, you know, I'm flattered how many people have been posting about it. And I'm sorry, but there isn't. You can't get more authentic content and people just doing it on their own. You know, I've been asked anyone to do it, but you're right.

It is something everyone needs. got too much or too little water and dye, but this whole desk the plastic can and Mike it stated that in an interview is in like the CPG business like it's been so conservative and I'm gonna use this term now he didn't say it, but he just puts it when people just kind of like afraid to like ruffle feathers and right you know, and I understand that there's a game you have to play to get into grocery, there's a game you have to play to get into convenience that there's no doubt, that's not my specialty.

My specialty is, you know, working with cool people doing cool shit, which people in turn want to buy. And that's where we get back to what you'd asked me earlier and I just I literally won't know when your assistant asked me to put that in a bio. But that's essentially it, you know, and, you know, it's like, it reminds me a lot with passed in the way that, you know, we're this upstart brand, but we're going to be in the being the bonnet and and we're not a water company.

We're brand, right. And that's the part that I have experiences, you know, and I'm able to draw off what I learned at Red Bull and I'm able to draw what I learned this past Friday.

Marc Gutman 1:07:00

Yeah, I love that I love that we're not a water company. We're a brand and you know, even through the pandemic, you had a great promotion called murder your house? And do you want to tell our listeners a little bit about that? Because I thought that was just so, you know, people are really scrambling and thinking like how do we stay engaged, and it was such an interesting way to promote your own brand, stay super on brand, and have fun during this pandemic.

We're a lot of people are really sensitive about having fun, people are scared to have fun. People are scared to talk about their brand in a fun way other than the tagline of in these difficult times, you know, this and that. And so I thought that was really ingenious. And you want to tell the listeners a little bit about, you know, just how that came about. And in the results of that?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:07:48

Well, you know, I must say we're very fortunate because we partnered with the Berrics. And for those who don't know, it's a it's a facility, backed by the likes of Eric koston and Steve Berra who ironically, was an airlock skater, and haven't have involved a lot, not only just for the visibility of it, but the authenticity of it. And yeah, people are what I just said earlier posting content about liquid death, which I'm flattered by but and that was not the point was like what authentic we there's some parts of the country. I was just talking to a guy today.

He's like, dude, LA, I can't put my tap, like your water save us. This is awesome. So understand that. It's just okay. I have something. And I'd like to think and pandemics people do share. I mean, yeah. Did I want to get the cancer hands? Absolutely. But But I had something that people could use in certain parts of the country, you know, parts of New York, for instance, that don't have good water. You know, again, Mike has the background and escape, and knowing that people are gonna be bored out of their schools, but you also got to remember people love that forum. There are a lot of people want to be heard that they want that soapbox, you know, and the thought that they could do this, and have fun doing it. And not only that, people love to see content. We know that right? We want powerful visuals.

And so that again it it was so amazing some of the submissions but I actually felt bad for the dude like trying even when I saw Him and who the runners up and there was so much stuff that was popping up and not even like on our feet like just randomly someone would tag us and post something other than they probably should submitted it you know? So it was just fun that it that it just so happened to be that we're split stay at home orders and then murder your house you know, but I talked to Mike and Mike really work closely with Steve Berra on that. And here we are.

I don't know if you saw the winner but it's insane the turn brothers took a half an adult and during those guys in Florida I mean it's pretty next level like I'd like to see anyone that's heard senior pros comment on like, I don't know how I would ever even do that. You know?

Marc Gutman 1:09:43

Yeah, I saw and to clarify for anyone listening, the murder your house promo was show us how you murder your house. And a lot of people submitted like you know, skating and all sorts of things and in their homes in the winter, which I believe you can see on Instagram. I can't remember I follow you on all my channel. So I think it was Instagram. Yep. Don't turn up Florida in this brothers. Yeah.

Marc Gutman 1:10:04

Double Decker, from top to bottom through the house. I mean, it's just crazy. And so

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:10:09

yeah, and they just it was next level, we saw some really creative stuff and you know, these guys like, it's not a finger speech like their house was a skate park. Like I just, I mean, it's insane, you know, so they deserve all the accolades that come in their way.

Marc Gutman 1:10:22

Yeah. And so, so stix. What are you most excited about with liquid death as you look to the future?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:10:28

I think the part that I'm so excited about is that I get to help, you know, I guess, grow this brand, knowing it's something that every single person on this earth needs. Okay, not everybody needs chocolate, every likes to taste alkane everybody likes beer. Energy drinks, unfortunately, have gotten kind of a bad connotation, but to have something that that and the other part is seeing people hold that key again, and instantly as an icebreaker for people who maybe are a little socially awkward. It's a conversation starter. You know, we've got people who are sober. And there's that psychology of man, I got a kid in my hand and looks, you know, are exploding water sparkling looks like a gift Miss Can someone say and say that that still looks like a devil can that psychology of you know what I don't drink and that's okay.

There's nothing wrong with that better for you. But like, you know what, this is something that this and we are in a infinitely recyclable container, you know. And I just it excites me that I can take what I've learned in the past music, garden action sports when I'm passionate about because, but it's bigger than that. I mean, we could put our water in daycares. We could put our water in elderly homes, you know, not that that little liquid death everywhere on a nursing home. But you know what I mean? Like I can, it's bigger than just that.

I'm not, you know, there's certain things where we, you know, even if Redbull like certain, you know, they're so picky about what athletes represent them and what we're going to be and how that's why they own all their events. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that they've kept the clients And they've kept their brand. There's reason why it's a multi billion dollar brand. But I'm just excited knowing that this is something that, like, the governor's off, that makes sense. Like I can run with this. And there isn't really any thing on this earth that I can't get us involved in, you only mean with, within reason, right? And I can baptize a kid with our product. You know, that's pretty cool. You know. So that's the part that excites me the most is that the possibilities

Marc Gutman 1:12:26

super cool. But as a brand, or as you know, sometimes when we have too many possibilities, it creates problems. So it'll be exciting to see, you know, where you do decide to take the brand in the future. It's a super exciting story.

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:12:38

Yeah, we were definitely keeping it tight to the best. Don't get me wrong. But you know, it's at the same token, again, like when I said earlier about past, like most events on this earth need water. And, you know, it's like, we're gonna make water you know, you could say make water cool. No, we're afraid we're not waterproof, but I'm gonna really make sure because it's back to the air walk reference. So we don't we can't be everything to everyone.

You know, like, you don't want to try to your point bite off more than we can chew and to do stuff have kind of half baked, you know, we want to make sure that we're doing it right. But again, it's you don't need to explain water. You know, it's water. You know, that's it. Some people, of course, ask, is it flavored? Does it alcohol? That's fine. It's conversation starter. But it's it's funny to be like, wow, it's a different take on something that's been around eternity. Water, you know, and, but again, it's fun what we can do with this brand. So I'm really excited.

Marc Gutman 1:13:31

Absolutely stix as we come down to the end of our time here. If you ran into your 20 year old self, what do you think he'd say, if he saw you today?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:13:40

I think he'd be like, how did you get here from Minnesota? Where you are like how? Because this is what the prospects weren't there back then. But my answer to him would be I worked my tail off to get here. This isn't handed to me, nothing in my career has been handed to me. And that's the thing I'm most proud of. But it's like it like that. To me my Exhibit A when I'm trying to teach my identical twin boys. It's amazing. What's the saying?

I'm amazed how much luck I have the harder I work, you know, and that's I firmly back that Yeah, you can say there's certain things like I said when the stars align whatever but I am proud that I sit here today and I'm fortunate enough to be on your podcast. Literally hard work and relationships really is but it's a two way street not just taken from someone but they're people. You meet a certain group of people that you support each other and you have a common goal.

God it's amazing what you can accomplish. And I've been really fortunate that I've had some really amazing coworkers you know evergrande like worked at and many of which are still dear friends of mine.

Marc Gutman 1:14:40

Six where can our listeners find out about more about you and liquid death?

Steve "Stix" Nilsen 1:14:46

Well, I liquiddeath.com or @liquid death is the social handle my social handle being @stixaround but one word stix around. But that was that was what I would do is play around whenever we're adding content and fun things. All the time on our social and our website. And we're really excited right now, the big news is we're in Whole Foods. And that partnership has been amazing. We've been doing really well. They're very easy to deal with.

They're our grocer right now. And it's, you know, I know there's a lot of brands who would love to be in Whole Foods, and I'm starting to get pictures daily. of them, literally, some of the displays, they're building and whatnot. And it's starting to catch on and people are obviously asking what the heck is this, but it's amazing to work with someone who understands how to cater to their customers, and make the shopping experience very positive specially under these conditions nowadays, and to work with to understand merchandising, understand brands, understand the field, their stores, and whatnot, and to work with them.

It's just been amazing. So every day, we're gaining momentum. And that's really exciting.

Marc Gutman 1:15:57

And that is Stix, aka Steve Nilson with liquid death. Is there a better name than exploding water for liquid death seltzer?

I think not.

In his creativity with different brands, regardless of budget goes to show that when you have money, like when he did it Red Bull, you still can't buy a great idea. And we don't have money. Like when he was at Paps, you can come up with incredibly effective marketing that doesn't cost a lot. Thank you again to stix and liquid death. Well, that's the show.

Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. I like Big backstories and I cannot lie, you other storytellers can't deny.

BGBS: 033 | Erik Boles | What’s Your Favorite TV Show? Erik Boles, founder of Gearmunk, is a serial entrepreneur that has built five companies, exited three, and is now gearing up to host the biggest outdoor industry virtual trade show in the world. As a successful entrepreneur, Erik always has his finger on the [...]Read More...

Erik Boles, founder of Gearmunk, is a serial entrepreneur that has built five companies, exited three, and is now gearing up to host the biggest outdoor industry virtual trade show in the world. As a successful entrepreneur, Erik always has his finger on the pulse of how to build a brand but also realizes that while the fundamentals are the same, the game is always changing. He is taking risks, following his heart, solving problems, and looking for opportunities. 

Prepare yourself to learn from one of the most successful entrepreneurs! 

What we’re talking about

Consumers Are Forcing Changes In Marketing

GearMunk, A Pathway for Transformation

From Childhood Fun to Digital Expert

Erik grew up in Colorado and was introduced to the tech world when his parents got him an Apple II. It was there that his love of technology began, and it continued to grow. He began his first startup in 1996 by writing HTML code and continued his trend into technology throughout his career. He has consulted in the digital space for brands such as REI, DSW Shoes, Cabela’s, American Eagle Outfitters. It is his out of the box thinking that has catapulted multiple companies into success.

Consumers Are Forcing Changes In Marketing

Marketing used to be a one-way conversation between brands and customers, with brands doing all the talking, now it has become a multi-channel dialog, with the customers deciding where they want to consume content and how. After consulting in the digital space for brands such as REI, DSW Shoes, Cabela’s, American Eagle Outfitters, Erik founded GearMunk in 2013 to give consumers a pathway to allow their voices and opinions to be heard by brands. GearMunk has designed a system to allow for cottage brands to be discovered by the public without having to go broke trying to finance their marketing for awareness.

GearMunk, A Pathway for Transformation

GearMunk is an online, video-based, gear review platform that is democratizing the outdoor gear industry, and changing the way brands interact with consumers. It is a rewards and community-based system, that allows the reviewer to earn a credibility score, which allows the reviewer to be paired up with a brand that could give you discounts, free gear, and demo gear.

Would you like to connect with brands by giving your honest opinion on their products? 

LINKS MENTIONED

GearMunk

GearMunk’s Facebook

GearMunk’s Instagram

GearMunk Twitter

Thin Air Gear Show (Virtual Trade Show)

SPONSOR

Wildstory

TIMESTAMPS

37:05 - 37:20 (15 sec EB) We know that statistically now...their whole job is to sell products.

37:21 - 37:59 (38 sec EB) What we do trust...that’s coming from a brand voice.

39:17 - 39:27 (10 sec EB) If you can tell your story...it’s worth it.

43:20 - 43:42 (22 sec EB) Brands are finally realizing...the way the consumer wants.

49:18 - 49:52 (34 sec EB) These big shows have always been...that made that happen.

54:20 - 54:35 (15 sec EB) I love the challenge of changing...whether you’re a brand or a consumer.

QUOTES

People try to make the startup fit into their lifestyle, rather than making that startup their lifestyle. - EB

The rule of good enough applies in almost everything. - EB

Virtual trade shows aren’t the way of the future, but no trade show will be successful without a virtual component. - EB

The market wants what the market wants, and it doesn’t care if it hurts your feelings or not. - EB

Podcast Transcript

Erik Boles 0:02

You know, I know people that don't have everything they want, like, they just don't complain about it. It's the ones that complain about it. And usually, my first question is, what's your favorite TV show? And if they answer that question I'm like, then it's your fault. You don't have everything you want. Because you could not watch that TV show and have an extra hour every single day, to be busting your ass to build a startup or doing something about you not having everything you want. You're making choices, which is totally fine. If that's your jam, that's your jam. But don't complain that you've been served a bad deal when you are proactively making a choice on how you spend your time.

Marc Gutman 0:41

podcasting from Boulder, Colorado, this is the baby got backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators, and entrepreneurs. I like big backstories and I cannot lie. I am your host Marc Gutman.

Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby got backstory, how a serial entrepreneur built five companies exited three, and is now gearing up to host the biggest outdoor industry trade show in the world. Now, if you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over at iTunes. iTunes uses these as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on the Apple charts. And ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to produce this show.

And today's episode, we are talking to Erik Boles, a serial entrepreneur who has started five companies and exited three. Currently, he is the founder of Gearmunk, an online gear review platform that is democratizing the outdoor industry and changing the way brands interact with consumers. What struck me about the conversation you're about to hear is that Erik is a technologist futurist

advocate outdoor enthusiast, and has his finger on the pulse of not only what it means to build a brand, but also realizes while the fundamentals are the same, the game is always changing. Listen up to how Erik describes the changes that technology has brought to brand and marketing, and how our own consumer tastes have changed rapidly. were once used to be a one-way conversation between brands and their customers, with brands doing all the talking, and the brands would decide where and how to tell their story, pushing out anything they wanted via TV commercials, or print ads and newspapers.

Now it has become a multi-channel dialogue with the customers deciding where they want to consume content and how the consumer has a voice and is loudly using it. Erik points out that those brands that aren't aware of this are going to be in big trouble in the future, if not already the story is one of taking risks, following his heart, solving problems and looking for opportunities. And this is his story.

So Erik, what is Gearmunk?

Erik Boles 3:18

So Gearmunk is a virtual video-based platform all-around outdoor gear reviews, hiking, skiing, backpacking, paddling, camping, biking, climbing, etc. With the added flair that it is a rewards-based system. And it's community-based.

So rather than listening to a few people tell you what gear you should buy, you're getting the wisdom of the crowds, and they're incentivized through algorithms to be genuine and be honest, because then you're in a credibility score, like a wine score or something similar. And that determines what rewards you get and we start to connect you with brands that find you interesting and they give you discounts and free gear and demo gear and all that

Those kinds of deals.

Marc Gutman 4:01

So when I was working in the movie business, we had this concept that we call like a high concept comedy, you know, and it was this idea that it was a little bit more complex. But at the end of the day, it was still a comedy. And as you're talking, you know, I was like, Wow, that sounds really complex. But I'm sure that it's fairly simple. Where did the idea come from? I mean, I like to think that most businesses are born either out of inspiration, frustration or desperation was Gearmunk born out of either of those?

Erik Boles 4:28

maybe a mix of a couple of those, right? So I started my first startup back in 96. I've always been in the tech space. We've always done things that I've heard everybody Tell me Oh, that'll never work. Well, we've had three exits and then one that you know made money but we never exited. And now we're on to number five and through bad decisions and too much drinking. I took a job with the fourth-largest newspaper company in the US and went on to lead them in digital media. Till I realized that newspapers

We'll never really understand what that word digital media means. And so there was the frustration component, right is that I knew that there was a better way to do stuff. And then on the digital side, I consulted for a lot of brands, like like like Rei Cabela's DFW issues, American Eagle Outfitters, things like that. And once you understand the outdoor ecosystem, and you learn that these these these retailers, they're not telling you the whole picture because they're there to drive sales, which is great. It's exactly what they should be doing. But you're not really getting the best.

You're not getting the best reviews. You're seeing the five-star reviews and not the one-star reviews. And in fact, Amazon was the first company that we went to showed you side by side, the five star the one star, what's the best review? What's the worst review and everybody in the industry was like, Oh my gosh, I'm showing the worst review. And so they obviously only show five-star reviews versus the one that is the most valuable. So we kind of predicted some time ago that five-star reviews would start to go away. Because they're, they're immediately broken, right? If you're the kind of person that says, Well, I never get five stars, so four is as high as I go. Well, thank you. This is why we can't have nice things, you've ruined it for everyone. And now we have this broken system because you've done it on a 25 5075 to 100% scale versus 20, 40, 60, 80 100 by eliminating the fifth star.

And now we're seeing like Netflix goes to a thumbs up or a thumbs down. So ours is really based on was this review helpful? not helpful, and how genuine was it? So a bunch of different that's actually a 21 point algorithm. So really kind of sift through like what makes this a credible review and that that's what really determines your credibility score. And what we kind of saw was, okay, there's all these great brands out there that are probably you know, the north face and Patagonia and arc corrects and all these cool companies, but there's also

So thousands of brands out there, these cottage brands that nobody has ever even seen before. And they're making amazing stuff. And we're like, there's got to be a way to get these brands in front of consumers that are looking for the next latest, greatest gear, whether it's climbing gear skiing here, whatever, you know, and we ran across this company that nobody's ever heard of. And they had this backpack and this guy was showing it to me was a ski backpack. And she was like, unzip that pocket on the bottom. And there are these two little plastic t handles on webbing.

And I'm like, I don't really understand what this is. And you pull the webbing out and when you let go, it retracts in on a reel, and I'm like, okay, I still don't get it. She's like, you're skiing, you're with your kids. You're on a cat trail, where your kids can't ski because they're young, whatever. They come up to you. Unzip this pocket, grab these t handles, you ski drag them behind you. And when you get to a point where they can go down elegant, they let go and they retract into the backpack. And I was like, Oh my God, why does everybody own one of these?

And she's like because we're not big enough. We don't have the capital to get into any retailers, whether it be specialty or Rei. So nobody's ever heard of us. And I was like, okay, we're gonna make sure that people hear about you. And so that's really the inspirational side is, you know, we think all good gear deserves a chance. And we're the platform to do that.

Marc Gutman 8:20

Oh, my gosh, there's like so much to unpack right there. But first, sorry, no, no, it's great. Like first I can't even believe that that ski tote thing exists. I can't tell you how many times like I've either a well, first I tried to reteach myself to ski because I'm a snowboarder, and I was a hazard on the slopes to myself and my children.

And then my motto was screaming Hey, Ruby, put out your arm. And as I came by my snowboard, I would yank her arm out of her socket and get her going, you know? Exactly. You totally get it. Yeah, totally. And so, Wow, that's so awesome. But what I heard in there to Erik was just these this amalgamation of, of the ideals of fairness credibility, your background in tech and then this like love for the outdoors. So, you know, let's take a step back and talk a little bit about your upbringing. I mean was young Erik I mean were these things that were when you were nine years old are these ideas that were swirling around your head at the time?

Erik Boles 9:18

So my dad was a high school administrator, literally from since the literally the day I was born. And you know, one of the I amazing parents still do, but they one of the smart things they did when I was young when the apple two computer came out, so I'm aging myself a little bit.

They were like, this kid needs a computer. So they bought a computer and that's back, you know, when computers were $3.3 million, or whatever for an apple, and that kind of began my love of that environment. And I just kind of took off and it was with me all through high school and I was kind of that way

Your kid that was like, really into computers, but also was like, you know, a starter on the football team and blah, blah, blah and all that stuff. And, and so it's always just kind of stuck with me being around computers my entire life. And then I took a short stint and was a firefighter for 10 years in Washington State. And, you know, everybody had CompuServe and, and whatever. But then AOL came out, which was really the first, you know, an integrated environment where people could do cool stuff.

And we saw AOL. And all of a sudden, I was like, there's a business model here, like AOL is going to change the way people perceive being online. And you know, this was really pre-internet because they all were just a closed ecosystem, but and that's when I launched my first startup and 96. And we sold that in 97. The lessons I got that so we were just a web design shop back in 96. Right, we just did web development, and back then

Nobody knew how to write HTML, there was no drag and drop HTML editors to build web pages. There was none of that stuff. So you had to know HTML. And you didn't have to really be good at it. Because every single website looked like shit. So anybody could be a web designer. So that was great.

You know, I remember like talking to this one customer. They're like, Hey, can you do that little mailbox. We're like, the door opens and the envelope comes out in the envelope goes back in the door closes. And I was like, yeah, we can do that. They're like, we want that. And I was like, no problem. And now I look back on that. And I'm like, Oh, my God, why did I not talk them out of that. But back then that was cool.

But working with these businesses, and they were like, Hey, you know, it'd be really great if we didn't have to have a printer on every single person's desk and a dial-up internet account for every single person in our office. So when we sold the first company, which was incidentally named Cowlitz, internet advertising and internet design, because that's we were in Cowlitz County, Washington. And that's what I would love to have my first lesson in branding that you don't name your business Cowlitz

Cuz nobody knows what it means or how to spell it. And from there, when we saw that we're like, let's start doing networking for businesses where you say, okay, you bring in one DSL line, you have one printer, everybody prints to it, everybody's online all the time, whatever. And so we started that company. And we sold that. And that's really when in late 98, early 99, that's really when we started to see networking or dynamic websites take off, right?

So PHP, and MySQL and database driven dynamic type websites where, where it wasn't just a static webpage that looked like a digital phone book. And the problem that everybody had was, okay, I go to Company A, and they design, my back end, my PHP, my whatever, my Java, my JavaScript, and then they move it to our servers, and everything breaks. And the hosting environment blames the people that wrote the code and the people that wrote the code, blame the hosting environment, and we're like, Alright, well, we don't really want to get into front end web development, because we already know from 1996, we're really not very good at that. So why don't we build a hosting company that also does development.

Everything lives in one environment. There's one throat to choke when something breaks, and then partner with front end web development firms. So that's what we did. And that was one of those things that back then everybody was like, how that you can make a business off of building dynamic back end websites. And I said, You know, I think by 2010, I think 75% of the internet will be driven dynamically. Well, it was actually 2004.

And it was 99% of it. But everybody thought it was a stupid idea. And so we did that. And we became the largest hosting company in the state of Colorado and hosted stuff not only in Colorado, but nationwide. And we sold that and one of the companies that we hosted was all of the properties for freedom communications, which is the fourth-largest newspaper company or was until they broke apart and we hosted

Every single one of the 118 properties. When we sold the company, they said, We need somebody to run interactive, why don't you come do that. And I said, I'll come on for six months, but I don't really believe in anything that you do at the newspaper level, I don't think you'll ever be successful. And so I'll give you six months. And seven years later, I looked at my watch, and I was like, holy shit, I'm still working for a newspaper. I gotta go.

Marc Gutman 14:24

And so interactive. I mean, like, you took this and maybe for our listeners, you can set the stage because you went through a real big chunk of history there. And like, I mean, I remember AOL. I remember I got on it, like, like I didn't, like no one really knew what kind of like screen name you're supposed to have. And most people have like anonymous names, where now I'm like, Hey, I'm Marc Gutman on everything right or Marc at Wildstory. But like then I was cinema star. You know, that was like my name. I was like, you had to have like some like real fancy name. And then and then you moved into and just for our listeners, maybe you can even set the stage like what is a dynamic website at that time, the back end like what's

going on, what are the complexities because I remember, like building websites was like moving mountains. And I think to your point it had it was nothing like it is today with WordPress or Wix or any of these other options that people have. Yeah, if you could just like kind of remind us what that time was like when you're when you're talking about dynamic development.

Erik Boles 15:19

Yeah. So so you know, back Back then it was like you would write this static HTML, which is Hypertext Markup Language and you would, you know, you would literally go into like a text editor. And if you wanted text to be bold, you would do a, an open bracket, a B, and then a close bracket, and you would type the words you wanted, then you would put open bracket slash be closed bracket, and that was opening the bold tag and closing the bold tag. And you're right, it was like moving mountains. Well, then people were like, I wonder if there's a way that somebody could email me directly from my website. And that you know, was kind of the birth of PHP which is a coding language and uses a database Based on the back end, where, you know, somebody feels like we see him everywhere today, right?

You're like, hey, contact us, you only put in your name, and your email address and your message, well back then that'll have to be custom written as well, there was none of this, like drag a form in and drop it and all sudden, you had a contact form, like you had to go through and write all of the code on the back end to make that work. And more and more people were saying, you know, we want to be able to, you know, have a contact form or have other dynamic content. You know, I mean, today we look at it, and it's like, well, yeah, I'll just go write a blog post, and it'll load, it'll just update the front end of my website. And that's super easy. You know, back in the late 90s, as you said, that was moving mountains.

And so the only way to do that really well for customers was to write that interface where they could go in type stuff. And then we got to the point where when you type stuff, you would click on the B button for bold or the you for underline or the eye for italic, and you know, left center, right, justify all those things. So that's really what we were doing. was building that back end infrastructure for our customers, where they could have this dynamically driven website that relied on all this back end code, and more robust servers to host it.

Marc Gutman 17:11

And like, how long did it take back in the day to make a form? For example?

Erik Boles 17:15

Oh, gosh, I mean, you would spend 15, 20, 25 minutes I mean, you know, writing that code, obviously, once you have the code written, you just kind of copy and paste it into whoever's website and go through and just change the, the relevant, relevant information, but, you know, early on testing and all that, and then the security vulnerabilities are involved, you know, I mean, you know, to your point, it's like, now if I want a contact form, I drag it in, center it, maybe put a border around it, and the whole thing takes 45 seconds. And back then, I mean, it was easily 15,20 minutes to write anything useful in PHP,

Marc Gutman 17:51

and you had to be a specialist.

Erik Boles 17:52

That's right.

Marc Gutman 17:54

What brought you from Cowlitz to Colorado?

Erik Boles 17:58

So I was actually born and raised in Colorado.

Otto, I moved out to Washington to work for the fire department. And, you know, Fire Department jobs are really not that easy to come by, and you apply all over the place because that's what I really wanted to do as a firefighter. So, you know, in the late 99 that's where Yeah, 99 I was like, Alright, we'll move back to Colorado. And that's where the third company that the hosting company, which was Rocky Mountain web tech came from, and then we sold that and went to work for you know, freedom communications and newspaper company.

Marc Gutman 18:30

Yeah, and I love that and we have a lot of similarities in the fact that kind of bouncing from different disciplines and so, you know, how did you come to the conclusion that you know, firefighting wasn't for you and then how did you muster up the courage or the gumption to make a change because I know my own past and story those are always the hardest, you know, when you're like, oh, man, I've got like, the metaphorical sunk cost of like, I'm here I'm a firefighter. I've invested in this like making a change.

Gonna be difficult. I don't know if it was like that for you. But you know, I'm just kind of at a turtle editorializing with my own experience. I mean, it wasn't like that for you.

Erik Boles 19:08

Yeah, well, very much. And you know, and I think I think that's really the big thing about building a startup going out on your own doing those type of things is that, you know, in in in the mid-90s, I mean, I was 25 years old, and it's like, of course, I'm gonna do this because you're young and, and, you know, you've got the world by the tail and, and you don't have a whole lot of things at risk. Now, you know, being a startup number five, and much older, I certainly see where people are way more apprehensive to build that startup, but, you know, kind of what drove me into it was I was like, there's, there's, there's money here, you know, oddly, they don't, they don't pay you a whole lot to go into burning buildings for a living.

Oddly, you think they'd pay a lot more but they don't. So, I was like, you know, and, and the great thing about being a firefighter is it's the best part-time job you'll ever have. Because you work 20

on 48 dot 24 on 48 off. So really, it's, you've got all the time in the world to do something else. And then when the first one, when you call, it's advertising, that design really took off. And then we sold that. And then we parlayed that money into, you know, the, the networking group, which was the bowls group. And that really took off and I was like, I think I've got to make a decision here. Like, I'm either gonna, I'm either gonna start running startups full time, or I'm gonna, or I'm gonna do other stuff like, like fire department and whatever and all that.

And so that's really when I when I made the decision that you know, it's probably a lot safer and healthier have a lifestyle to kind of go this direction. So that's what I did and, you know, yeah, so that that's, that's kind of how that worked out.

Marc Gutman 20:46

Yeah. And so being such a seasoned entrepreneur and kind of going through the process, so many different times, like what's what's scary about a startup,

Erik Boles 20:56

everything, everything. I think the big I think that I think people that start a startup, whether it be a tech startup, whether it be a true startup or just an entrepreneurial venture, whether it be hanging open a coffee shop, which is arguably easier because a blueprint is there, right? It's like there are hundreds of thousands of coffee shops, all you have to do is really follow their model and make something unique.

It's still very, very scary, because you're like, we don't know if it's gonna work. We don't know if people will use it. We don't know any of those things. But, but I think probably the biggest misstep that I see people make in doing that is they're half pregnant throughout the process. So it is a I'm gonna invest as much time into this as I can, but I really can't because I've got to do X, Y, and Z as well. And I've got to have this job which I fully understand, you know, you've got to have your nine to five to pay the bills and feed the kids and, and pay the mortgage and all that. But the biggest misstep is I've got to have that, but I've got another, you know, 12 hours.

A day might asleep a little bit of sleep, where I could be working on this. But I've also got, you know, whatever my favorite three TV shows are and things like that. So they really try to make the startup fit into their lifestyle, rather than making that startup their lifestyle. And I think that's where almost all of them fail, because they just don't put in the time and the effort. And that's what, that's where you get the words, the horror stories. I've you know, it's so brutal starting a startup, as long as you're willing to commit to it, man, it's really not that tough.

Marc Gutman 22:29

Yeah, it's kind of like, it's kind of like that saying, you know, this plane has no landing gear, right? If you if you're flying the plane and no, you can't land it, you're probably gonna fly it versus if you know, you can touch down and you have a safety net or you just don't have the energy because you're working another job. It's really difficult.

Erik Boles 22:47

Yeah, that's that that's, that's a great analogy, you know, and, you know, this is this is the issue that I take with everybody that that complains about how they they don't have everything they want in life and whatever and No, I know people that don't have everything they want, like, they just don't complain about it. It's the ones that complain about it. And usually my first question is, what's your favorite TV show?

And if they answer that question I'm like, then it's your fault. You don't have everything you want. Because you could not watch that TV show and have an extra hour every single day to be busting your ass to build a startup or doing something about you not having everything you want. You're making choices which is totally fine that if that's your jam, that's your jam. But don't complain that you've been served a bad deal when you are proactively making a choice on how you spend your time.

Marc Gutman 23:34

Well said and having gone through startup land myself, I know exactly what you mean. So let's kind of go back a little bit to your career and you know, you started off in a more traditional advertising space you then got into what and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm hearing it is less of a traditional advertising space more of a technology space. You're doing back Development you're doing hosting, then you get into interactive with freedom was that again more of a traditional advertising role?

Erik Boles 24:10

Well, so they freedom did something very, very smart early on, and that is they created an entire interactive division. And then every city, whether it be Orange County, or Lima, Ohio, or Florida or whatever, or Colorado, they had a separate building away from the newspaper that was their interactive team. And we led all of the online efforts, then somebody at a corporate level made a decision that it was really stupid to have two offices, and they could work a whole lot better together, if they were all in the same building.

So they took all the interactive people and stuck them into the newspaper building. Which, if you ever want to kill creativity in interactor person, stick them in a newsroom with a bunch of journalists and that will happen almost instantly. And that's exactly what happened. And it's not their fault. I mean, journalists are our bread through school, and whatever to say.

Our job is to be the fourth estate, get all the news, get all the facts and tell the story The next morning in print and put it on somebody's doorstep, it's just not the way that people consume information anymore. And they did not all of these blanket statements immediately invalidate themselves. But the majority of print journalists don't really have a desire to do anything online.

They're their passion, they're fueled and they're driven by writing, you know, 13 column inches of news or 20 inches of column column column inches of news and printing it the next day and spending three four days on it. You know, rather than being like hey, here's a story let's get it up on you know, New York Times calm and let's get it up there in the next hour. You know, and so it's kind of changed for them because the world the rule of good enough applies in almost everything right so when

I think it was five camera with the airline was but you know, when Captain Sullenberger landed his Airbus

In the Hudson River, The New York Times USA Today Washington Post printed a story about it the next day, and nobody cared, because I got everything I needed to know about that plane crash from people that were standing on the wing of the plane on Twitter, within 10 minutes. Right. So nobody read their stories. So, yeah, I got a little bit off topic there for ya know, and I apologize. But yeah, that's, you know, it's that that's kind of what literally drove me out of the newspaper industry was, we were setting a budget in, I think it was 2005 or 2006. And we had budgeted laptops, air cards and video cameras, and we were going to write them the portal where they could go out and shoot video and upload that video to their various news websites, whether it be the Orange County Register or whatever.

And I had a editor, take their glasses off and look at me and said video on the internet. That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. And I was like, wow, I gotta go.

Marc Gutman 26:58

That's awesome. That's kind of like my story.

Like when I first saw a camera phone I was like that is the dumbest thing I've ever seen who is ever gonna want to take a picture with their camera now granted the technology was awful and it looked like a you were you know in some like Vaseline smeared world or something like that but for those that had the fourth right and the you know, the vision and the foresight and all that kind of stuff, they saw it coming. I did not

Erik Boles 27:23

Yeah, you know that back then, like, you know, me being again on the on the on the more technical side, it's like you couldn't walk into a data center if you had a camera phone in your pocket and the early days of camera phones they made you check it at the front desk, because you couldn't take pictures inside the data centers. Now you can you know, it just be everyone had to check their phone you know, I mean, there's no like, that's everyone's everyone's got a capture device, of course. That's right.

Marc Gutman 27:51

This episode brought to you by wildstory. Wait, isn't that your company? It is and without the generous Support of wildstory, this show would not be possible. A brand isn't a logo or a tagline, or even your product. A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product service or company. It's what people say about you when you're not in the room. Wildstory helps progressive founders and savvy marketers build purpose-driven brands that connect their business goals with the customers they want to serve. So that both the business and the customer needs are met.

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So you're going through your career and you got out of that that business and you founded another tech company, I believe

Is that correct?

Erik Boles 29:01

Yeah. So So number four was, we were like, okay, we know that this was literally on the tail ends of the of the video on the internet. That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard story. And me and a buddy of mine, Brian went to lunch. And, you know, we literally, I said, we're going to lunch, we're going to outside Johnny's, and there's a good chance I'm going to drink a beer during lunch or I might come back with a deer rifle because I can't handle the stupidity inside this building.

And over lunch, we started talking, we were like, What if there was a, like an online video show that was all about the outdoors. And so we kind of put together what was at the time Colorado outside of TV, and there was a destination guide. So like Breckenridge or Vail or Aspen or Park City or whatever, and like everything you want to do when you go to Breckenridge on a ski vacation. There was a Activity Guide. So once a week there was a full HD video that was all about, you know, some activity whether it be skiing or whether it be mountain biking or something like that we cover a specific trail. And then there was a gear guide. And that gear guide was the latest gear, you know, the type of gear like, you know, avalanche gear for winter season, the kind of stuff you need for camping, all those different types of things. And really, we're like, Okay, how the heck do we do the gear guide, because we don't really want to go out and spend hundreds of thousand dollars a year. So I cold called somebody in marketing at Rei corporate in Seattle.

And I said, Hey, you don't know me. My name is Erik, I live in Colorado, we're going to do this really weird thing. We're going to do this gear guide. But we don't really want to buy a whole bunch of gear and we're not the experts on gear. So we'd like to do it in an Rei store in Colorado Springs with your gear and your staff because they're experts. And she said, that's a great idea. How do we get started? And I said, I don't know because I didn't expect that answer from you. She was like, Okay, fair enough. She was like, why don't you call me back when you figure it out. And I was like, okay, have a good day. And we hung up and I was like

Like, that was just a yes, tomorrow. Yeah, I don't. Like I don't I'm not even sure what that just happened. And within two weeks, we had camera gear sitting on my front step, you know, which back then was 10 grand worth of camera stuff and lighting and microphones and audio and all that. And another week later, we were in an Rei store and with lighting and all that and going over camping gear, and backpacks or sleeping bags and bikes and everything else at Rei carries. And that's really what kind of spurred that, that moving forward.

And then we expanded that programming as well. It was, um, we were at a at a mountain biking festival and flew to Colorado notice the fruit of that tire festival, and everybody was drinking beer. And I was like, you know, this was in I think, 2007 ish, I think was in 2007. And I said, you know, I've got this buddy of mine that does a stupid wine show. And he gets a ton of views, and everybody watches it. And I was like, why don't we do a craft beer show? We all love craft beer. Why don't we start a craft beer show because

There's a real tie between people drinking beer and mountain biking, skiing, hiking, backpacking, it's it seems like they kind of go together. So under that same company, we launched what was known as beer, tap TV.

And 435 episodes later, of all HD video, and that's back when putting HD video putting 1018 to 1920. By 1080 HD video on the internet was super expensive. And you paid for everybody that viewed it. And we had like, right around a million viewers a month and that's back in 2007 2000 2008 2009. And so that that's when, you know, we had beer, tap TV and all that and, you know, again, we made money out of it, but it was never really an equitable company just because there was so much overhead in it. And, you know, I talked to a buddy of mine that worked for Ford Motor Company, he's like, we love what you do. We love the show and how irreverent you are, and we would really as Ford Motor Ford Motor Company, we would love to advertise

There's a problem. We sell cars, use it on a camera and get drunk. And those two don't really go together very well. And I'm like, No, you're right, they don't. So you know that that's back when being irreverent on the internet was like, still kind of a risky brand move for advertisers, they didn't really want to tie their name to it. So it was really, it was a lot harder to monetize, that we think that would be a whole lot easier and more successful now in 2020. But But back then that was a little bit tougher to do. So we shut that down. And I kind of went on to do other things.

Marc Gutman 33:35

Yeah, I mean, what was that, like that day? Did you shut down? Was that a frustrating moment?

Erik Boles 33:39

You know, I really don't think it was it. There was certainly amongst everybody, all of us are together and, and we were like, you know, it's kind of sad. But it was at that point where we'd like we had tried so hard to monetize it, and we were just too early, and then the marketing ecosystem wasn't ready for it yet. Which kind of seems to be kind of you know, The tone of everything I've done is I'm just too early for it. But, um, so it was almost like a sigh of relief, you know, when we was like, we don't have to do this anymore and worry about, you know, how do we pay for hosting? And how do we pay for this? And how do we pay for that, you know, all those different elements that went with it and, and when you look at the at the alcohol world, whether it's wine, beer or spirits, they have at the federal level, what's called the three-party system, meaning that if I am New Belgium brewing company that makes that tighter beer, I cannot sell my beer directly to you as the liquor store.

The federal government steps in and says you have to go through a distributor, well, distributors, own territories, and nobody else can be in their territory. So essentially, it's like the beer mafia. That distributor says, I can set the price. And so for every dollar that's made on on a six-pack of beer, it's like, some crazy number like 65 cents of that dollar goes to the distributor, another 20 cents of that dollar. goes to the liquor store. And then as the brewery you get to pick up what's ever left, what's whatever's remaining? The 15 cents remaining?

Marc Gutman 35:07

Yeah, that's gotta be frustrating. I mean, just being a futurist, being someone who's about efficiency and about making the experience better and seeing all that inefficiency and all that waste,

Erik Boles 35:17

right? Yeah. And you know, and then there comes at a rubber bands again, right? Like we had this deal. Were not Anheuser Busch, but we're like their own by now. Anyways, they, um, they said, Hey, we really want to fly you guys to Germany and come look at the at the back brewery and blah, blah, blah, do a live show from there and we're like, yeah, we're in like, we won't even charge you money. We're in. And then we said something that was very much untoward about Budweiser. Between the time they had said that and the time that we were actually going to sign the deal. And they watched the episode apparently and heard that we didn't say great things about Budweiser, and they just kind of pulled out of that.

Deal entirely. So we missed that opportunity as well. But there was that, you know, there was that, you know, you get it doing a podcast, right? It's like, yeah, I can either like, toe the company line, or I can just be honest and whatever. And then we're getting to that age now, where it's like not even getting there. We've been there for five to seven years, but we're in that space now, where it's like, this is what people listen to his podcasts, you know, like this one, that that are that are genuine and real. And they don't listen to the, you know, the ones that are that are toeing the company line.

Marc Gutman 36:28

Absolutely. I mean, that, that authenticity, and just like, you know, the transparency of a brand and, you know, also, you know, realizing that we're all people whether you're a brand, a consumer, someone running the, you know, the beer, the beer show, whatever, right, like, and I think as consumers, we can super sniff out when it's inauthentic. And when it's a paid placement and when someone is just, you know, selling us and we hate that and I have to imagine that that's also, you know, a big motivation for you and Gearmunk.

Erik Boles 36:57

Yeah, absolutely. And then that's it. You're exactly right, you hit the nail on the head, right is that we know when we know statistically now that like 91% of consumers do not trust brand messaging, they just don't they know that they're being lied to. And even when we're not being lied to, we think we're being lied to, because their whole job is to sell product.

So what we do trust is our, you know, we have a know like and trust environment around people that resonate with us and a regular people just like us, whether that'd be a blogger or a YouTuber, or an Instagram or a podcaster, or whatever, whatever walk they come from, those are the people that we build that, that that that affiliation with or that affinity with. And so when they say, hey, I've got this great pair of hiking boots, or I just bought the brand new Fiat or you know, I bought, you know, this baseball bat or this dress or whatever, we intrinsically trust them way more than we trust somebody that's that's coming from a brand voice. So really, we're

The Smart Money is for brands and brands are finally starting to realize this. There's been obviously the front runners that figured this out years ago. And then there's the huge monolithic brands that think they can't be disrupted. We call those the newspaper brands. They, they feel like you know, we're too big we can't be disrupted we have too much money. And really, the way to sell is by getting you know, is by channeling all your efforts, not into print magazines, or TV magazine or TV ads, radio ads or whatever. It's by getting your, your brand in front of bloggers, podcasters YouTubers, Instagrammers tick talkers, whatever, you know, it's interesting that you know, in 2007, or he's like, I'll never be on Twitter. That's the dumbest thing ever.

And then eventually they were on Twitter and then in 2011, they were like Instagram how Bane are you? Hell no. As a brand, we're not gonna be on Instagram. And then eventually they were on Instagram so you think that they would learn their lesson and now in the marketing world, we're still hearing from brands. Tik tok tik tok is stupid.

Well, that's stupid Tik Tok just had 313 million downloads in q1 of 2020. And they're almost a billion downloads now in North America for for for Tik Tok. So, you know, there's certain brands that just simply are never going to get it. But you're right. It's like, you know, if you can tell your story through a channel that has an audience, you know, whether that audience is 10,000, or whether that audience is a million, you know, it's worth it.

Marc Gutman 39:28

Yeah. And you'd mentioned that, you know, historically, you felt like, you know, the name of the game for Erik Boles is like, hey, you're ahead of your time, you're pushing new ground, you're forging new ground. Do you feel that way with Gearmunk?

Erik Boles 39:40

Not now, I don't, but I did. When we first sat down to start talking about this. With gearmunk many, many years ago. We were like, you know, we're getting out of the, you know, we're getting out of the newspaper game. We're going to do this blah, blah, blah. And then we got into the outdoor industry and the outdoor industry just simply wasn't ready for it yet. They're just not digitally, forward. And you know, a lot of the smaller brands that that can't go into retail because they don't have the capital to distribute, you know, 150 backpacks or 1000 or 10,000, whatever. So that's why you always see the Northeast is Patagonia is whatever because does send you that product.

And if you're a small brand, you're like, Okay, there's a lot of challenges to getting into retail, right? One is, I don't have the capital to send them 1000 backpacks. So let's say somebody gives you a loan, and you can go make 1000 backpacks, or you have an investor, and you send them 1000 backpacks. If they don't sell all thousand of them, the way that environment works is they send you back, whatever they don't sell. So if they send you back 600 backpacks, they only pay for 400 of the backpacks, you get the 600 back and you have to figure out what to do with those now. And you know, you've lost money on that. And you know, in addition if if I'm if I have my backpack hanging on one peg in a specialty outdoor store, and now I have to convince that salesperson to sell my backpack

One of the bigger, you know, well known brands, and if I'm the account rep for a bigger unknown brand, I just come in and say, Hey, the person that sells the most northface this month, we're going to spiff you guys 2500 bucks. I just bought every single salesperson in the building for 30 days, nobody's going to sell your backpack because they're all selling mine, because they want that 2500 bucks. So the younger brands that have never had this opportunity, they're like, we see the opportunity and what Gearmunk is doing here and in the email and those types of things that we do, and they've been huge adopters of it. And then there are some bigger brands that get it that that have a more digitally focused or more technically aware team and they're like no, we want to be part of this.

But uh, it and you know, the other thing is that big brands are afraid of anything that has democratized You know, when you've got millions and millions and millions of marketing dollars, it's really easy to on level the playing field just by being loud noisy and you can't hear any other brands, you know, if I'm a small brand and I take out a 160 page black and white ad in the back of a magazine that everybody reads, and if I'm, you know, the north face or Patagonia or one of those, and I take out a two page full color spread, which I can afford, and I do it every single month for 24 months, you're probably never going to see that small brand in the back because you're so attracted to this big brand.

So yeah, so the small brands got it and now, oddly enough with with with the global pandemic pandemic of COVID-19, and all these brands, we've been talking to saying you better have a direct to consumer channel and they're like, No, no, no, we go through retail. And retailers have been like, we don't want to have any comp play. We want people coming directly into our store. And I'm like, you don't understand that the customer owns their journey. Now you don't you don't dictate how the customer buys stuff. And if you dictate, they have to come into your store. They'll just go get it on Amazon or Zappos or a billion other places or backcountry calm or Rei and

So they, they, you know, they, they didn't do any of those things. And now all of a sudden, the government said you will be closing your day your doors for at least 70 days, retailers are afraid as they probably should be. And I'm hoping that they recover because I got my start in high school working in especially retail shop right here in Colorado doing selling outdoor gear. And but brands are finally realizing we have to survive, we have to we have to build a way for our business to move forward. And that is that let us engage with podcasters YouTubers, bloggers, whatever, and all the users that are directly on the Gearmunk app and figure out a way to connect directly with them and drive sales back into our channel the way the consumer wants. So we're we're finally getting to that. That tipping point of everybody finally gets it and realizes what we're doing. And you know, and that that's why we launched you know, the thin air gear show, which is really the outdoor ecosystems first real virtual tradeshow.

Marc Gutman 43:57

That's a perfect segue. I was gonna I was gonna ask You just about to get into that. And it's interesting because right before this little segment you were talking about the reluctance for different brands to adopt new social channels. And it mirrors exactly the, the segment you just described about the outdoor industry's reluctance in retail reluctance to adopt new sales channels. And so it was just really interesting to me to hear you, you know, lay out kind of that general overview of brands and social channels, and then kind of how it mirrors what's going on in the way that people want to interact and purchase from brands today. And so, so thank you for that. That's really cool.

Yeah. And if you could get into talking to us a little bit about, you know, tell us what thin air is like, what the idea, you know, behind that, how that how that came about, and where we can learn more about it. Sure. So So back in. Gosh, I want to say it was 2015. We were at this huge outdoor trade show in Salt Lake City and we're sitting in these folding chairs with 3000

Erik Boles 45:00

People, 2000 people, whatever it was, and there's a panel up on the stage talking about sustainability, and the environment, and blah, blah, blah, and whatever. And my business partner at the time, Brian looked around the room and all these people and all these booths and all this infrastructure. And he was like, hell yeah, sustainability, give it up for that. And I was like, No kidding. What is the carbon footprint of a show like this? I was like, why is there no virtual tradeshow? And, you know, we're like, oh, we have the next greatest thing, virtual tradeshow. And we started circulating the idea. And, and everybody looked at us, like we had horns growing out of our heads.

So we're like, Okay, I guess you guys aren't down to the virtual tradeshow yet. And so we kind of had this idea. And as we started to head into this, this global pandemic, we're like, you know, some of these trade shows are going to be shutting down and, and things of that nature and it's really not so much about capitalizing on that opportunity. It was really more about what do all these small brands

They don't have this enormous operating budget, where they can weather the storm. What really happens with them, when they get into this environment is okay, we've got a problem where everything's going to shut down. We have no sales, no, no clear path to sales. How do we fix that? And so that really was kind of the mission behind it. And we're like, we know everybody's gonna be doing zoom conferences, you know, they're gonna be like, Oh, we have a virtual trade show, and it's gonna be a zoom conference. Well, that's not that that's not a trade show at all. That's a webinar and they created the term death by webinar for a reason. It's horrible. So we're like, it's got to be different.

It's got to be cool. It's got to be fun. So we've really started to spin the wheels up on that. And then the largest show Outdoor Retailer when it cancelled. We were on the phone with everybody with each other as a team and within five minutes saying, it's time to pull the trigger. We got we got to press on the gas. And we came up we've got a bunch of technology that we wrote on the back end and then we build through you know,

Amazon AWS and other things that already exist, but we kind of wrote all the build all the glue, essentially, that holds it together. And we built this environment using several partners and whatever that is truly like a video game like like you pick your avatar and you choose your skin color, your gender, your clothing, your hair, your height, your weight, everything like you fully customize yourself, then you're dropped into this virtual environment where you walk through and there's booths everywhere. And the booths are all fully customized by the brand, just like they would be in a regular trade show. And you walk up and you can interact with everything product displays, you can interact with video, and it's got 3d with what's called 3d spatial voice technology in it. So as you walk up your names above your head, just like it would be in a video game, whether you're playing fortnight or whatever, and they see you coming up and the guy at the booth is like, you know, hey, Erik, I'm, you know, john from you know, mountain Smith or eco-vessel or whatever. Tell me more about you and you're like, hey, I've got this blog, right?

Got a podcast, I've got this, I really want to check out what you guys are doing. He's like, great, come right over here. And it's literally real-time voice conversation. And I can hear other people around me just like I went on the show floor having a conversation. And as I get further away, they get quieter. As I get closer, they get louder, and everything's digitized. It's just like being in the real world, other than the fact that you can't physically pick up a hiking boot and feel it in your hands. But that can be done post-show very easily.

But it was really something completely different than what anybody else in the outdoor industry was doing. And that's really what spurred us to do it was Let's drive this thing within their show to where you know, these brands can actually have an opportunity to have these conversations and then build all these analytics into the back end so that you know you're not sifting through all your stuff post-show as a brand and saying, Where does the business card that one person that I wanted to talk to? Or if your immediate person saying where was that business card from that one backpack company or that one cooler company. You can't find

Because everything is right there like who visited my booth? What did they click on? What did they see? What did they touch? What did they hear? Who did I have conversations with all that's built in. So when the show's over, as a as a media person, you can connect with them and as a brand they can connect with you. And that's the other thing is that, you know, these big shows have always been, let's drive sales into retail so they could sell our product. We're like, there's a better way, the better way is get in touch with influential podcasters bloggers, YouTubers, Instagrammers, etc. Have them tell your story to their audiences and then immediately drive those sales back into your into your product, whether that be at your retail, which is fine, or econ retailer, yourself or direct to consumer. But that just seemed like the logical win for us and has for a long time. And then this really was the cataclysmic event that made that happen, you know,

Marc Gutman 49:52

totally and I have a background in that space. And we can talk more about that later. It's not that exciting but I just have some some knowledge there.

And, you know, I feel like it's been like pushing a boulder uphill to get people to adopt some of these technologies. And to me, it's just crazy to think about how quickly we've adapted from a brand from a marketing standpoint when forced to do so. And you know, we've been sitting here talking about virtual trade shows and how, you know, they're better for the environment and more effective and all these things, but really, until we're forced with like, Hey, you got to do it. We haven't done it. And I think much like we're seeing with people working from home and flexing schedules, and everyone's like, wait, this, this works just as good, if not better, probably for less money, less footprint, better quality of life. I mean, do you really think that we're going to be able to continue with virtual trade shows and this will be the way of the future?

Erik Boles 50:47

I don't think it's the way that I think it is, and it isn't. Let me explain what that means. I think for the foreseeable future. Physical trade shows very much do exist. Humans are humans, we want contact, we want to get opia with that.

How'd each other and say hi and pick up products and go have a beer with a friend? I don't think there's any successful trade show going forward that doesn't have a virtual component to it.

Marc Gutman 51:12

That's a great distinction. Yeah. And I think it's much like the way that we're interacting with brands today that you've highlighted several times. Like look, you have your, your core brand messaging and channels, but then look, you got to find different channels where your audience also is like a podcast or a YouTube channel or tik tok.

Erik Boles 51:28

Right?

Marc Gutman 51:29

Yeah, very good.

Erik Boles 51:30

Yeah, that's, you know, and then we like, we had a conversation with one brand. And they were like, Well, you know, it's not like they're going like, like, Where are these people gonna go to find good gear? And I'm like, What do you mean, I was like, they're gonna go into one of 3000 different Facebook groups that has 60,000 people in there, where they can ask questions. They're like, well, they're not gonna like buy a hiking boot based on somebody else's recommendation. And I'm like, they're doing it right now. Like, it's been happening for years. And they're like, are they getting the right hiking boot? And I was like, That doesn't matter.

Right wrong right or right or wrong hiking doesn't matter what matters to you in the in the outdoor industry is that they're not going into your store and buying from retail, because they're buying online. So you better figure out a way to become a content creator if you're a retailer and add value, add value, add value, so that I know that, you know, when I when I've narrowed down my decision, I'm going to, I'm going to go that direction and you're going to see retailers or brands themselves, follow the Zappos model, right? Which is, Hey, I think I need maybe this one of three different hiking boots, great, we'll send you all three of them, try them on in your home in the comfort of your home, walk around for an hour and each one, see which one feels the best and send back the other twos. Zappos pioneered this over a decade ago, you know, 15 years ago, and you send them back.

And so I've got the pair of hiking boots that I want that I know that that are comfortable and I love So, you know, I certainly don't think retail is dead if they choose not to be but if they don't fully embrace and hug and love and make out with the fact that digital is here. And this is the way people are buying shit now, they will be. So you know, it's it's, it's the newspaper model all over again, right? It's like, you know, blogs will be dead nobody's gonna listen to podcasts, whatever, and look where newspapers are now. Right? So you know, the the, the market wants what the market wants, and it doesn't care if it hurts your feelings or not. So you can be as romantic as you want about the way things used to be. But the pirate ship is going that way and you're either on it or you're stuck on the island and the choices pretty much yours.

Marc Gutman 53:35

No, I love that tough talk. I really do. You know, like you can, you can deny it all you want doesn't mean the world's gonna change to your point of view. And I think that's something that's so important to understand that really the the customer in the consumer does drive, what we're doing and if we're not focused on that, it's going to be a really tough road.

Erik Boles 53:54

Yeah, well, you know, I think it was Neil deGrasse Tyson that said, you know, the beautiful thing about science is it does

doesn't care what you think about it? Like, it's just science. Like you can believe it or not believe it, you know, you can believe that the earth is flat if you want. science doesn't care if you think that or not.

Marc Gutman 54:13

Because we come to a close here, I got one last question for you. What do you love about building brands?

Erik Boles 54:20

I love the challenge of changing things. I love moving things forward. I love doing things that haven't been done before, that that make life better for people, whether you're a brand, whether you're a consumer, doing something that's not like, I've never once been in it for the money. It's never been like, I think we can make a billion dollars at this. I mean, I've never built a billion dollar startup my life and I probably never will. I don't think I'm smart enough. But there's this opportunity where again, you know, it was like, we started to discover and we figured this out and then I take 2014 or 15. Again, this big show in Utah that you use in Utah called out retailer, they have the main Convention Center.

And then they have what they called back then the pavilions, which are these three enormous like circus tents out in the parking lot in the middle of the summer and the Utah E, which is amazing. And we're like, we wonder what's in there, we went in there. And it's these, you know, 800 startup brands that nobody's ever heard of before.

And we're like, the world would be a better place not only for these brands, but for consumers as a whole, that they had way more choice on amazing outdoor gear that are being made by these people. Right? So that's really what drives me is like, you know, how do you create things that just make the world a little bit easier, a little bit better for everybody and you know, and then truly make the outdoors more approachable. You know, there's so many people that are like, of course, I would love to go camping, but I'm not going to drop 2500 bucks on a tent, a pack, a bag, Camp stoves, whatever, you know, bags for the kids, all this other stuff. You don't have to that's the beauty of it is you know

Don't have to go out and buy the super expensive name brand stuff. There's all these cool manufacturers out there that are doing such cool stuff. And it really empowers more people to get outdoors get away from video games, you know, get away from the TV, live a better lifestyle. I mean, just everybody wins brands when consumers when you know the outdoors wins. You know, the more people we get outdoors, the less chance or is that somebody the governor level is going to turn it into an apartment complex.

Marc Gutman 56:31

And that is Erik Boles. I love his retelling of how brands have been reluctant to adopt the social media and other channels where the customers are. It's crazy to think big brands continue to repeat the same mistakes. You think they learned after they were sure the internet wasn't going to be a big deal. But then again, I'm the guy who thought cameras and phones would never take off. So what do I now? Thank you again to Erik Boles. We'll link to both Gearmunk

The Thin Air outdoor show in the show notes, please go ahead and check those out. I for 1am looking forward to attending the Outdoor Retailer show virtually. Well, that's the show. Until next time, make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS so you'll never miss an episode. A lot big stories and I cannot lie to you other storytellers can't deny

BGBS 032: Chad Mellen & Keith Bristol | Knack | What Would We Give to a Friend? Chad Mellen, co-Founder, and Keith Bristol, Chief Digital Officer, of Knack Bags join us to talk about how they took a pain point and frustration, turned it into an idea, and then developed an entire company around it. [...]Read More...

Chad Mellen, co-Founder, and Keith Bristol, Chief Digital Officer, of Knack Bags join us to talk about how they took a pain point and frustration, turned it into an idea, and then developed an entire company around it. They share what they did, the steps they took, and the sheer determination it took to get the prototype made, and the final product flying off the shelf! This is the story of how two career executives broke ranks & built a product that no one else would.

If you like stories of trial & error, and ultimate success of the American dream, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! 

What we’re talking about

From Childhood Admiration To Path Blazing Careers

Testing, Testing. It’s Launch Time!

 An Idea Is Born From the Security Line At the Airport

Chad Mellen spent most of his career in the branded luxury and premium accessory & retail industries. He has held roles such as CEO, president, CMO, VP Sales & Director across several high end brand name companies. Keith Bristol has previously been a creative director at an ad agency, and was instrumental in building the direct to consumer businesses throughout the US and globally. He has helped launch startups, scale, or progress to acquisition. He also holds the title of “household athletic director”. Both of these men travel extensively for work, and yet, even though they worked in the bag industry, traveling was still cumbersome and frustrating. They were searching for the perfect bag to help make traveling for business, or leisure, a lot easier.

From Childhood Admiration To Path Blazing Careers

 At the end of 2016, when Chad was standing in line to get through security at the airport and trying to dig his ID out of his many bags, he had an idea. What if there was a bag that was multi-function? One bag to do it all! The idea was born, but far from production lines, even though Chad worked in the bag industry. As a child, Chad loved brands & was fascinated with how a logo, a symbol (equities) transmits so much about the product, but also who uses the product. Keith was the same way, but with advertising. He was obsessed with advertising, especially product advertising and branding, as a kid. All this passion and experience led to a business partnership that helped them to develop a product from a simple idea, to one that customers could use to make their lives a lot easier.

Testing, Testing. It’s Launch Time!

Chad and Keith partnered together to use their collective experience, and they formed Knack Bags. From their former jobs, they knew that it was vital to get input from the customers they were hoping to sell to. So they had prototypes made, tested them, got feedback, redesigned, and repeated the entire process again and again until they felt they had the perfect multi-functioning bag. They tested everything from the material the bag was made from, to the zippers that closed it, all the way down to the color of the button you click on when you “Add to Cart”! No detail was too small. Finally, on October 23rd of 2018, they went live with online sales. How fast do you think they sold out? (Spoiler alert: They’re consistently rated with the top name brand bags in the travel industry!)

Are you ready to take your idea and turn it into reality? 

 LINKS MENTIONED

Knack Bags Website

Knack Bags Facebook

Knack Bags Instagram

Knack Bags YouTube

SPONSOR

Wildstory

TIMESTAMPS

37:41 - 38:24 (43 sec CM) I think that given the blurring...unsustainable multi-bag approach.

43:08 - 43:21 (13 sec CM) The biggest moment was when...I was buying a bunch of bags.

48:21 - 48:56 (35 sec CM) I just love the fact that our bag...that’s the fundamental point of this product.

48:58 - 49:34 (36 sec CM) On the service side...put everything we do through that lens.

QUOTES

Knack is all about trying to rethink how people carry their life with them. - CM

You have to be willing to take risks & have failures, because in order to lean into that magical side, it’s not always home runs. - MG

This is the bag for the mobile professional, and travel is only a portion of what they’re doing. - CM

Podcast Transcript

To me, the biggest moment was when I had to write that first purchase order. And I had to write that first purchase order before we had any kind of financing in place. So basically, I was buying a bunch of bags. And you know, I had a real crisis of confidence that point in time, like, you know, do I really want to do this, but luckily, Keith was on board at that point in time. Again, he kind of balances my things, and he's very optimistic and he was really excited about this. And that meant a ton to me. So, you know, it really helps soothe my nerves to write that purchase order and send that deposit through.

podcasting from Boulder, Colorado. This is the baby got backstory Podcast, where we dive into the story behind the story of today's most inspiring storytellers, creators and entrepreneurs like Baxter. And I cannot lie. Hi, I'm your host, Marc Gutman, Marc Gutman, and on today's episode of Baby Got Back story, how to career executives in the bag and luggage industry broke ranks and built the bag that no one else would. Now if you like and enjoy the show, please take a minute or two to rate and review us over in iTunes. iTunes uses these as part of the algorithm that determines ratings on the apple charts. And ratings help us to build an audience, which then helps us to continue to boost the show. Today's episode we're talking to Chad Mellon and Keith Bristol of knack bags. Mac is a new and exciting company that is getting a lot of attention for their unique perspective. One bag for both work and play.

Chad is the CEO and founder of knack and has spent his career in the branded luxury and premium accessory and retail industries. As a senior executive, he has been directly responsible for the development and growth of several iconic American and international consumer brands at private, public and private equity owned companies in the writing instrument that means pens, pencils, that same type of thing, luggage, leather goods, handbag and accessory categories. Before knack. He helped co president cmo VP sales and director roles across companies such as at cross to me and coach Keith Bristol is the Chief Digital Officer at knack prior neck. He's been a creative director at an advertising agency and was instrumental in building the direct to consumer businesses for ebags. Calm and to me.com in the US and globally. He has helped launch bootstrap startups scale or progress to acquisition and he's a husband and father I have two daughters, and I love this. The household athletic director, Chad and Keith both met while working at the well known luxury luggage company Tumi and knew that someday they would work together again. They just had to find the right fit. And this is their story.

So what's Knack all about? a knack is all about trying to rethink how people carry their life with them. That's really it. And we've said from the very beginning, you know, Keith and I, we just fundamentally don't get the current bag industry. And I've been part of the bag industry for a long time. It's been a lot of time, it coats a lot of time to me. And the idea that you have to put the things that you carry kind of in specialized bags, to get from point A to point B Or not optimize how you carry them? It just doesn't make sense to us.

What do I mean by that? If you're going to go to the gym from work, what do you carry? You carry your work bag you carry your gym bag. If you're going to take a quick overnight trip for business, what do you carry, you carry a carry on, you know field or a duffel and you carry your work bag. You know, if you've got a kid you're taking out, you probably have a tote in a diaper bag. It just doesn't make sense. That's how the business is, you know, the industry has been built. They kind of grow businesses by further refining single function bags that match you know, increasingly smaller use cases. And our whole idea was, why can't one bag do almost everything and do it equally well, and that's what max about, you know, it's a business bag. It's an everyday carry bag that also really works well. So the travel bag and gym bag, a bag carry photography equipment in a lot of different uses the whole idea is you now have one bag to live your life.

And thank you for that. And that's a great overview of what Knack is and what you stand for. And right now currently you are based in Oregon. And for the both of you, are you both originally from Oregon?

Well, actually, we're by Coastal and Keystone, Oregon and Portland and I'm in. I'm actually looking out right now on the beautiful shores Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island

vary by Coastal you're about as cooked by Coastal as it gets.

We're about is by Coastal as it gets

it so Chad, where did you grow up?

I was born in New Jersey. And my dad was a marketing executive at Sherwin Williams, which is a paint company and they were in New York City. My mom and dad were both born and bred dyed in the wool New Yorkers. And you know, when I was five, the company said to my dad, you're moving to Cleveland, Ohio.

That's where their headquarters were. He thought he was being sent to you know, purgatory or hell, you know, it just This was the worst thing in the world to go from the tri state area to Cleveland, Ohio. So I went when I was five grew up in Cleveland and like my parents loved it. I mean, absolutely loved it. I consider myself in Ohio and Clevelander medine the wool Indians fan and browns fan and you know, brought that curse to my kids.

The only thing worse is being Alliance fan because I was raised in Detroit. So I've also brought that curse home to my family so I can relate.

Yeah, it's the same thing. At least the Tigers won something recently.

That's right. That's right. And Keith, how about you were you grew up?

Yeah. So I grew up in Nebraska actually, in the heartland I grew up on a farm. So I you know, it's it's funny, I was the first kind of generation to leave the farm and, like go graduate from college and live in the city. I always wanted to live in city. I don't know why really, I just did. It always just drew drew me always really like just the people and new and different things and farming just wasn't for me. So I kind of left that. behind and yeah, from there I moved to what to school in Nebraska actually and then moved to Colorado. And then recently in the last six years moved to Portland, Oregon.

So I migrated West, but I'm definitely a Midwestern or at heart diehard Husker fan. And so Chad and I have a lot of fun with Nebraska, Ohio State, although he has way more fun than I do in the current moment. Recently, recently, yeah, yeah. So

yeah, it'll come around. It'll come around.

So yeah, that's kind of where I grew up and and sort of my path.

Yeah. And so to Midwest guys, like were you both into bags and fashion when you were

young men, you know, it's funny. I guess you could say mark, I was pretty oblivious about everything, like right through college. And no, I wasn't at all I love brands. And that's something that I carry with me the idea of a brand has always fascinated me. The idea of That, you know, kind of a logo and a symbol and an aura. You know, what we call equities now can actually transmit so much information not only about product, but about the person who uses the product. absolutely fascinated me. So that's probably the only thing that I can say that really kind of drove me to where I am now.

Yeah, I would actually, it's kind of funny because I didn't realize that chat. But I was the same way. I was a little bit more like that with advertising. So I was really obsessed with advertising. I just loved any kind of advertising as a kid Prop, any product advertising, anything like that. And so in branding, I thought was just really a cool thing.

So that's why I started my career actually out as in an ad agency as a creative art director and a creative director. And how I got into bags actually was a complete fluke. I was in Denver, and I moved to Denver for a startup. And that was back in the dot bomb days when everything kind of was really really high and then it crashed really, really hard and ended up being at that company for like six months or eight months. It went under and I was looking for a place to land and I found e bags and I really really liked e bags because they had a, you know, kind of a more mature leadership group. And I it's funny because when I started I was like, oh bags, like that's not really that interesting. I'll be in bags for like, I don't know, six months or something. And lo and behold, I was there for over nine years and I got to work with some amazing people and kind of found my love for bags then. And then kind of reconnected with Chad. So that's kind of my bag connection. But now I'm obsessed with bags.

Obviously!

totally. And it's so interesting. Thinking about that time and going back in time and thinking about ebags because I think for listeners on our show, like they don't like it's even in the name ebags like the revolutionary part about That whole business was that you purchased online, you know, and then they start to extend the brand a little bit into their their own product line but but thinking about just, you know, how revolutionary was that when you when you got there and you're like, we're actually like selling bags on the internet?

tremendously revolutionary. I mean, you know, the guys that founded it left Samsonite, because they wanted Samsonite. To do that. They wanted to sell online and Sam's like, oh, no one will ever buy online. And frankly, I think we were one of only three startups pure play startups to make it through the.the.com era back then. So it was pretty, it was a pretty amazing accomplishment and all the things that we had to go through for that. So So yeah, that was that was kind of a, you know, that was really amazing for me to be part of that. And even like you said, the name back then you had to be called a something because people didn't really know what e commerce was, you know, and gosh, how especially In the last, you know, couple months how much it's changed drastically for so many companies.

That's always been what I've done online commerce, even after I left ebags but in how Chad and I met was when he was at to me. We actually ran the tv.com website and back then to we did only have line drawings for their for their product, you remember that Chad said and then we had to reshoot we reshot everything for them to put it online to sell online. And that was like a big, big deal. It's just it's funny to kind of look back now and just think how, like second nature that is now but back then it was pretty groundbreaking.

Yeah. Did you know what you were doing? Or were you kind of breaking breaking eggs as you went it? Was it new ground? I mean, like, I don't think there was a lot of people that had a ton of expertise in any commerce in that way into that scale.

Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, you but that there wasn't really a lot of experience because we are We were really on the forefront of it, you know, there weren't a lot of people selling pure plays, selling online. I mean, there are definitely companies out there that had an online presence. And a lot of them were just had branding sites, they weren't even ecommerce back then.

So a lot of it was, you know, for us just figuring it out. And, you know, sometimes it was going with your gut, but we were really big into testing things. And that's always kind of stuck with me We test and see how people you know, react and down to like, what's what is the color of the button that they're supposed to click and what's the word on the button? And so we were really big believers in that and that's something I've taken with me everywhere I go and we you know, we do that here as well. So yeah, that's,

you know, Mark one of the stories Keith told me later on in our career is after we flew out to Denver, you know, we'd be the to meet he flew out to Denver to say, hey, let's, let's do this partnership where he bags and to me work together to launch to me calm You know, the ebags guys are just knocking it out of the park during the presentation. They're saying great things and we're all you know, this is great. It's fantastic. Can't wait to work with them. We left the building and said, Okay, guys, let's go ahead, we'll we'll, you know, tie the deal together. And let's go ahead and then what did you say Keith? after we left?

Yeah, so after, after the, the, to me, executives left the building, we all just kind of looked at each other like, okay, now how are we going to do this? And who's gonna do it? Like, what? We don't know what we're doing? We're doing, like, how to run an e commerce site. But we weren't really expecting to say yes, let's move forward with this because we had the backstory to that is we had tried to get to me to sell on ebags for Gosh, probably since the beginning of time, that that ebags launched. So to me was sort of that brand that we really, really wanted we aspired to get.

So when they, you know, talk to us about running their site, everyone's kind of like, yeah, we'll do it. We can totally do it when they left was like, how are we gonna do it? Do it. So it's kind of funny now this the two sides to tell those stories and it worked out great. I mean, worked out great. Yeah, to me was thrilled with it. We were thrilled with it. And, you know, I obviously met wonderful people there. And to this day, some dearest friends that I have her from too many bags, times and it's fun to kind of come back together with Chad to start, you know, knack based on all of our history that way. So it's pretty cool.

Yeah, so let's rewind a little bit and talk about that. So we're both of your first forays into the bag world. So Chad, like how did you get into this industry and how'd you get started?

Uh, so I left college and went to work for a strategy consultant in New York. And, and again, as I said, as a little oblivious going through school, I was kind of following the herd mentality in our school either one of two things you went to work for an investment bank, you went to work for a consultant And, you know, I picked the consulting room, kind of I don't even know really why. And I ended up with a firm called Kurt's on associates. That was a strategy firm that focused on apparel, textiles retail. And what I found after about two or three months, there was I loved that industry just loved it. And of course, I knew that they did this going into it, but I really didn't understand it. And, you know, I'm gonna give give a little bit of my experience away here. We were, we were dealing with people back then our clients were just amazing like that. Polo Ralph Lauren, I was working directly with Peter strong, who ran that company for a long time.

At Saks Fifth Avenue was one of our clients and I was working with Bert tans D there, you know, these are like real icons in luxury, branded business. And the most important thing was I had a client At coach, division of Sara Lee back then, and I got to know Lou Frankfort as a client pretty well and he said you know, why don't you come and work for me and I did. I went and became head of business development and then later head of men's products and product marketing and work with Lou who just taught me so much and you know, kind of one of the first aHa's in my career with Lou was how important a mentor is. And and the product was great you know, love the coach product. And this was way back. You know, again, I'm dating myself but this was you know, way back in the 90s. And Coach was about 100 million dollar brand at that point in time. And it just launched stores you know, about five years beforehand It was really a small business, a relatively small business and was starting to grow like a weed and the product is just fantastic. And the the kind of the smell of the leather and you know, going into the sample rooms and seeing the hides there. And how these guys picked out the right height and how it caught it and designed around it.

It was just fascinating to me. And so the product really grabbed me, but then also, the brand grabbed me. And one of the things that that Lou said to me and said to a lot of people back then it still stays with me to this day. And we use it at knack is that in a brand like coach which, you know, is a consumer brand, but also has a fashion element to it. You've got to balance logic and magic. And I thought that was just so really on spot on logic and magic.

You know, it's not all logic. This is not a spreadsheet business. There is some sort of element to that spiritual almost, you know, why do people like that color? Why do people like that shape? Why do people like that texture that's that's kind of a magic portion of it. And that's not something that I have much skill set in but the last portion of it also has to work with a magic potion to create this brand and this aura and this product. And you know, balancing logic and magic is something that I've absolutely carried with the rest of my career.

Yeah, and I totally love that. I mean, I, I speak a lot. And on the stage, I talk about that a lot when it comes to branding and building a brand that it really is this combination illogical and magical. And I'm sure you know, obviously, I didn't invent that it was it was passed down to me by other brand builders as well. And I firmly believe it. And that's one of the things that I love about it. And it's also a little frustrating about it sometimes, you know, that's the challenge. I mean, that it's, it's easier when we're talking about the logical side and putting things in a framework. It's a little harder on the magical side. And I think, at least from my experience, you have to be willing to take risks and to have some failures because in order to lean into that magical side, it's not always homeruns

Well, it also I think the real critical thing is as a manager A business or an owner of a business that that really is trying to work on both sides of the equation, you've got to learn how to kind of straddle, and, and manage and talk to and relate to people that are on the logical side as well as people that are on the magical side, you know, I found that, in my experience, people that are creatively oriented, just don't respond to the same kind of stimulus and direction and encouragement as people on the logical side of the business. And I think that's really challenging for a lot of people. And it's something that's been challenging for me, but, you know, I'd like to think I've kind of figured it out, and and very comfortable working with people on both sides of that equation.

And that's well said, and I think that, you know, again, from my perspective that you know, branding today isn't, you know, about logos and colors and in an icon icons, but it really is more about bridging those two sides. And being the bridge as a leader in the organization to maintain that, that feeling that purpose, that culture, all those things that go into being a brand. So, I love that. So why don't you guys take me back to ebags you guys are working there.

If one of you could first just paint the picture, kind of like, you know, Keith was doing a little bit of that talking about what's going on there. But I really want to paint the picture because when I look at, you know, the company today, and this is not a you know, I'm not here to bash on ebags but, you know, back then there was like something super revolutionary and something super cool. And today it's kind of like I'm not sure where they are in the in the whole mix of things. But what was it like for you guys working at E bags and what were you both doing there?

Well, I think Keith needs to answer that first. I was at to me I was, you know, I was head of marketing. I was the chief marketing officer and head of product to me. So I would travel out to Denver and work with these guys. I don't know Keith probably once every month or two for a couple days, which is always a blast. But Keith was the one that was really living the day to day life that he begs. Yeah. So,

yeah. So I mean, I can't speak to what's happened recently, because I haven't been there. It's been a while since I've been there to be honest. So but but when I was there, I mean, it was it was crazy. It was really, you know, we were the nice thing about ebags. And what drew me to it, honestly, and I said this earlier was the leadership. You know, I, when I first got into working in startups, I was the first one that I worked with was a we're all in our 20s. And there was just really no leadership and it was kind of a chaotic, to say the least. And so what I was looking for was really somebody that understood business and was running the business. So that's kind of what drew me to ebags not necessarily the bags part. I'm a huge fan of john and Peter and those guys that started the company because they weren't like I said they were they came from Samsonite, they were a little bit more had more experience. So they weren't your typical 20 some, you know, CEOs Have a startup. There's nothing wrong with that. Those folks are great too. But at the time, that's what I was looking for. And, you know, we were coming right when I got there was sort of right when the.com kind of started right bomb started happening.

So it was very challenging from the beginning. And of course, back then, people weren't buying as much online. And so, you know, we kind of had to earn that trust. And, and the biggest thing I think, that I took from my experience at ebags was just again, you mentioned it, Mark is taking risks. I mean, we had to take risks too. Especially doing something as pioneering as we were doing back then. And it's kind of funny to say that now because it's not that pioneering anymore, but back then it was it. So taking risks and also measuring and testing was so important. And the one thing I kind of took away is you know, from john Lord marketing, I think he's probably one of the definitely one of my mentors and he was such a visionary. He just really that's why he left Stanford. Because he really felt like there was a place for this and Samson, I didn't want to do it. So he wanted to be able to do it on his own. And the guy just really had a vision I always I tell the story to a lot of people, he he came in one day and he's always he always would come in with like, Hey, you guys gotta check this out or check that out. And one day is like, Okay, you guys all have to be told the whole company like you guys have to sign up for Facebook.

This thing Facebook is gonna change the world. It's gonna change, you know, how people are, you know, perceived the internet, we're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, whatever, you know, it's in again, this is when Facebook first came out. So we signed up for it, and kind of just left it and nothing really happened. And you know, like, what is price six or eight months later, like, all of a sudden, you get Bing, friend requests, friend requests, friend requests, and it was like, all of a sudden this thing just like, took off and it was crazy.

But he had that vision of like, realizing that you you know at the time, there were a lot of people that were doubting what that would do, but he always sort of had that vision of like, this will be a game changer. And so I've always kind of looked at things, new opportunities, you know, and I brought that to everything that I've done sense is to look at new opportunities as, as just that, like, it's something we should try if it makes sense. I mean, obviously, you can't try everything and you can't do everything you want to do, but you have to try to look for that future thing of what's gonna, you know, happen next. And so, you know, it was also built with really, really smart people.

I mean, they did a great job of, of hiring and bringing on really talented people that you can, you know, give them a direction and they run with it, and they're motivated. And I think that's what really, you know, they had great leadership, and they had great people that work there and that were driven. So those two things, and I think the product was really, really good. I mean, everyone needs bags, as we all know, but so it's a little bit of that, like, you've got to have all that working together. And as far as like where they are, again, I can't really say I know when I was They're there. You know, we went through quite a bit of stuff, obviously with, we went made it through the dot bomb.

As I mentioned, we made it through 911 a lot of challenges with all that stuff. But through it all, I think we just persevered. I mean, I know that's kind of cheesy, but like you, you just really have to face all the challenges that come with a startup and with building a business. Because there's going to be things that like that you can't control and what we're dealing with right now you can't control. But if you have really good people that are that are passionate and want to, you know, build something the right way, you're going to find a way to do it. So as it got bigger, obviously it changed because you get you get more people in there. And when I think when I left there were we had changed offices and I don't even remember is like 150 people.

I think when I started it was like 80 I was there kind of the first year in so it definitely changed a lot, you know a little bit more layers and different things like that which slowed things down a little bit. And that's The thing I love about what we're doing, we're small and nimble right now. And, you know, if somebody has an idea, they just run with it. And we jump on a call and talk about it, and it

and we do it.

And we test it and make sure that that it works. So

yeah, thank you for that. My apologies. I have right here that you both met it to me. And somehow I had the the signals crossed about.

Yeah, no problem. And yeah, that's how we met is with like I said, we tried to get to me and to me really was interested in doing their own e commerce site. But they didn't have the technology background. So we brought our technology background to run the to eat.com site, and then for the last probably four or five years that I was in ebags. I ran the division that ran to be calm. So that that way and yeah, that's exactly how Chad and I met so we met and you know, I say this all the time. Like you meet people throughout your career that you're like, I'd really like to work with that guy again, or, or girl or whatever, but Chad was always one of those folks that I really, really had a lot of respect for. And, and I always said, you know, I'd love to work with him again someday. And in fact, we tried to do it a couple times. But he couldn't convince me to move to the east coast in and this sort of this sort of worked. And it's interesting because he would, he came to me with the idea of knack.

I have kind of two criteria that I look for when I'm looking for my next opportunity. And one is the product like does it resonate with me and, and when he told me about it, I was immediately hooked because I travel a lot. I travel for one to two days, and I'm like, Oh my god, I don't know how many times I've stuffed a backpack full of crap and couldn't make it work or I pack a carry on quarter of the way full because I had to. And I was like, Oh my god, I would love to be able to travel with one bag and just expand it when I can.

So I love that concept. And then I really, of course, like working with Chad and admired him a lot. I think we actually balanced each other out. lot, you know, a lot of the things that he brings to the table and his strengths are not mine, and vice versa. And so it was just a great fit. And he actually wanted me to move to the east coast again. And I was like, I just moved to Portland. And it's, it's not, not in the cards for me. But if you're ever open for doing this and building a remote team, I would be interested because I've, I've managed teams remotely for, I don't know, 10 years of my life, and worked with offshore development teams, and so on and so forth.

So it's, that was nothing new to me. It's a little bit more new to Chad. And so he's like, I don't think that that's kind of what we're looking for right now. But, you know, we'll stay in touch and so I kind of advised and just sort of helped while he was kind of working through some things and then he calls me one day he's like, you're never gonna believe where the designer The bag is located. I was like, where he goes Portland, Oregon. And there's a backstory there but but I was He's like, you know, if you're up for Doing this and you're still interested, let's try it and see how it works. And we agreed that we would be upfront with each other. And if things weren't working, that we would figure something else out. But so far, it's been really, really great. We've been able to hire people from around the country, really, really smart people. And they all again, it's, they're all dedicated, and they are hard working, and they know what they're doing. And it's been great. And especially with this current situation, it hasn't impacted us working standpoint, obviously, it's impacted us in other ways like everyone else. But from a work standpoint, we've all worked remotely since we started the company.

So it's been a, it's been a fun thing to be able to do that and build this team. You know, the way we've built it is is pretty, pretty unique. And I think it's interestingly enough, I think it's kind of a sign of the future. I think there gonna be a lot more companies that that end up doing this because you can find really great people, wherever you want to find them and if you're organized about it, you can Grow a company like this. So

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Chad, so where were you in your career in your life when you said, Hey, I'm going to, I'm gonna start a new Bad Company.

It's a great question a little bit of backstory after coach I left and as we talked about went to work to me, as chief marketing officer to the tiny little company back then, and worked closely with the founder, Charlie Clifford. And, you know, went through real tough times real great times. You know, the the 911 time in a travel bag company was just devastating. And fire the entire marketing staff, you know, we all took salary cuts. It was devastating. Sounds familiar to today? Right? Absolutely. It's like, wow, I never thought I'd have to do this twice in my career. But the business popped back up. As a great brand great product, great team. And we sold the business to a private equity firm. And I left and went to Rhode Island to become chief marketing officer and head of sales at at cross writing comedy.

So the first time I had been since my consulting career out of the bag industry, and, you know, was CEO across for a while, sold that business in 2015, to a private equity firm, after I learned the hard way that it's not really a winning strategy to you know, fight against a secular consumer trend. Writing instruments, unfortunately, are going one way and it's, it was tough. But anyway, after I left and 15 took some time off, did some consulting, learn to play piano poorly, you know, had some fun. But ultimately, uh, two things happened. I started to work on a totally different startup with a friend of mine. Going to build Docker who had been the founder of interactive search holdings, which was a company that had survived the dot bomb and you know, had their big brand was I want calm.

So, and Bill and I were trying to do this, this crazy thing with Donor Advised funds and democratizing them and trying to bring them to companies as a benefit for employees to attract millennials. So it kind of got a little bit of the entrepreneurial bug in me at that point in time. So we were working on that. Ultimately, we decided not to proceed for a bunch of reasons but at the end of that kind of time period, I took a fishing trip to Costa Rica with with some friends, and it was a short weekend trip, but you know, still doing this Mike giving account with Bill and I had a business backpack with me. I had a duffel with me that had some fishing gear in it and you know, a couple pairs of shorts and some flip flops. And as I think flew from Boston down to San Jose airport. I'm walking around with two bags, both have filled in a place that speaks Spanish. I don't speak any Spanish.

So I've got these two bags of guy, you know, a cup of coffee in my hand. I've got my phone out with my Spanish translator app to try to figure out where to go. And I'm sweating bags are falling off my shoulder and said, this is just a terrible, terrible experience. I said, you know, I've been out of the bag business for a while, the first thing I do when I get back from this fishing trip, so I'm going to go buy a bag that carries my business stuff, and it's going to carry my you know, my travel stuff my clothes at the same time. I don't want to stick my underwear in my toothbrush next to my laptop, you know, so kind of the existing bags didn't work for me. So I got back to the States. And look for this bag, this bag that did two things at once. And it didn't exist. It didn't exist anywhere. You know, because I've been in this category for a while I knew all the brands, I knew the places to buy them. And I was shocked mark that this didn't exist.

It just was such an aha for me. And then I remember going to New York to visit with some people and just sitting in a coffee shop and looking out the window. And the amount of folks that had two or three bags that they were carrying, was shocking to me. Hey, like I said, Jim bags, diaper bags, tote bags, purses, backpacks, business cases, wheel bags, duffels. I mean, all these things, people are carrying multiple bags. I said, this makes no sense. And I knew like me, these people didn't have another option. That's when the AI hit me. And I said, You know what, it's time to get back in the bag bag category. So I reached out to Charlie Clifford. And he and I had been doing some work together at that point in time and said, you know, what do you think of this idea? And he said, I think that's a pretty good idea. And I kind of kicked it off at that point in time. So this was a Probably the end of 2016.

Yeah, and like all really good ideas, it seems really obvious and simple.

so obvious, so obvious. But then you step back and realize why no company has ever done this, because it is so different than the prevailing business model, which I said is you grow your business by figuring out the 10 needs that Mark has, and creating 10 different bags for each one of those needs. And you know, you figure out more needs, you figure out more bags. And, and that's so the idea of creating multiple function bags that do a lot of things really well, is just foreign.

It's anathema to to the, you know, the current category. So that's why I think it never got done, frankly. But as I said, I looked at this and said, this makes no sense. We've got to fix it.

Yeah. And I think the whole business philosophy of selling more by selling less is fairly new. You know, more, you know, there's some companies adopting that But I totally can understand that a big bad company looks and says, hey, we've got X amount of consumers how do we and fans and people in our network how do we sell them more they're not another bag another bag and I've I've fallen victim to that myself where you start to have a billion bags and I've got camera bags and I have you know messenger bags and backpacks and at the travel bag and I have the travel bag for when I want to be a little more business I have the travel bag for when I want to be a little more adventure like like it's crazy and now I'm like drowning in bags that I don't use.

That's exactly it. So I look at this and like Okay, first of all, this is really not a sustainable approach. You know, this is consumerism run rampant. Secondly, I think that given the blurring of people's professional life and their personal life and how those two lives intermingle all the time, it's just the fact that people carry a bunch of stuff with them every day. You know, it's not like 20 years ago where you had real cut and dried start to work day. into the workday gave you enough time to do stuff after the work day before the workday in your own time.

It just doesn't exist. So people are much more flexible and dynamic mobile, you know, professionals are a big portion of the workforce going from point A to point B and not working at a set office. You know, all these folks were being really ill served by this, you know, unsustainable multi bagger approach.

Yeah. And so you have this idea and you float it by other industry, other industry experts and and you know, they're like, good idea and then so what's the process like what like, What don't we know about starting a bad company? I mean, do you just go in and make some sketches and and have in so it yourself and oh, this is great. I mean, like, like, walk us a little bit through like, what that process looks like.

Well, I told you it's getting back to the my logic and magic comment. You know, I've got a lot of the logic side of me I don't have much the magic side, so I'm not selling anything that anyone wants to buy so much. You know, one of the beauties of being an experienced though say, or an older entrepreneur, first time entrepreneur is that you actually have a network. And you know, we're so lucky Keith and I that we can call on some of the most successful people in this categories direct to consumer fields or this category supply chain fields are this categories factories, or this category is branding and marketing and really pick their brains because they know us they worked with us.

So you know, I was really lucky that I was able to call some of the best factories both here in the United States as well as overseas and try to start getting an idea of is this even constructible this type of bag, I was able to find through kind of our friends network, great possible designers that I could then talk to and say okay, here's the vision, help me bring it to life. You know, help me make this into a three dimensional thing. And you're these are guys that are really experience. I was able to To talk to marketers that, you know, normally wouldn't have touched a brand new startup and concept phase to really help refine our thinking. So, you know, what did I do? I went and talked to a lot of people and then started spending a little bit money on on designs with a designer that we ended up meeting with who had worked at the north face and had a lot of experience.

We got introduced, and I'd met a couple of my factories and and brought the designs to them and say, Is this manufacturable? And they said, Yeah, we'll do some prototypes for you. They did some prototypes and some more prototypes, and about a year and a half of prototyping. And, you know, all at the same time, while this kind of magic was happening, the logic side of the business was was being worked on. We had the business plans, put together the financing setup, understand how we're going to sell to the consumer, you know, what the vehicles we're all that sort of stuff.

And I think if I step back, Mark, if I had any clue at that point in time? all the questions that we had to answer, I don't think I ever would have started this. It's just you know, in retrospect, it's overwhelming. But I think, you know, entrepreneurs tend to be optimistic and ignorant at the same time, which is a bit of a dangerous combination. And thank God we are thank God we were else this wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

Yeah, what did that first bag that first prototype look like? Do you remember it? Uh,

yeah. It's right here. I keep it. It actually, you know, it came out pretty well. It proved concept right away. And so it really it looked kind of the way we wanted it to work kind of the way we wanted it to. So we said, you know, what, we know this can we can do this. And the interesting thing is the price was kind of where we wanted to. So then it just became a process of working with designers and developers in the factory to iterate it. And then the most important thing is once we have some thing that was kind of, we were somewhat proud of.

We then started showing it to consumers and getting feedback, both in terms of how they use it, what features they wanted, what features they didn't. And since that point in time, our net community has really been part and parcel of our development, not only our product development, but our service development or service offering.

Well, that was a lot of kindness on that first bag. Like what wasn't working what was like when you got it where

you're like, Ah, it was it was too heavy. The zippers didn't open really easily it you know, the pocketing wasn't right. So there was just not functional pocketing to the whole thing. So we had to really think about it, you know, but the size was right. And it actually did work. So anyway, it there was a lot of things that we had to work on and you just start knocking them off.

Yeah, and it's, you know, now you're looking at it and you kind of chuckle but I mean Was there a moment when your heart sort of dropped or you felt like oh man, like, maybe this won't work.

So, to me, the biggest moment was when I had to write that first purchase order. And I had to write that first purchase order before we had any kind of financing in place. So basically, I was buying a bunch of bags. And you know, I had a real crisis of confidence at that point in time, like, you know, do I really want to do this, but luckily, Keith was on board at that point in time was, you know, really, one of the things that Keith is is really optimistic and he kind of balances My, my, I don't wanna say pessimism, but, you know, I questioned a lot of things and he's very optimistic, and he was really excited about this. And that meant a ton to me. So, you know, it really helped soothes my nerves to write that purchase order and send that deposit through.

Yeah, I can imagine as a new brand Look, I mean, a very easy To you would be like, does the world really need another bag? You know? And so there is this this confidence, this belief in yourself against the world. And I can just imagine that when you're writing that first purchase order, you're like, this is either going to be great, or I'm going to be giving birthday and holiday gifts of our prototype bag for the next 10 years to everyone I know.

That's exactly literally that is an exact quote. I remember saying to my family, I hope you like this bag. You're gonna get

it for a long time. That's right. And so you bought some bags, but do you remember the first bag that you sold?

The first neck? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So when we launched the business online, October 23 19, or 2018, and, you know, Keith had everything ready to go on the site. And I just remember that it goes live and I'm literally watching that first order to come through The first order didn't come through, we actually had a pretty good day. And I remember the guy know the guy that bought it. And like, this is a great, great feeling.

And then, you know, more orders came through. It's like that cartoon where you see the speedometer click, and then it clicks again. And then it clicks a little faster. And, you know, it was just such a high see something like that and say, you know, what, there are people out there that actually get this and like this,

that what about the first person that maybe came back to you and wasn't happy?

Well, I'd like to say that I'm the harshest critic of the bag. You know, I look at this bag and I see about 50 things I'd like to do differently or that don't work the way I'd like to. I have yet to have anyone come back and identify all 50 things.

So you know, usually it's confirmation when someone comes back and says, not for me didn't like it. It's confirmation that we just have to do better, you know, the next iteration the next version of the best has to be better.

Yeah. And so you're a brand that you know, a big part of your messaging, a big part of your positioning was like, hey, you're traveling a lot and doing these one or two day trips. This is the perfect bag for you know, how in this current climate being the marketers that you are, I mean, how are you handling that and starting to change your positioning in your in your branding?

Yeah, the real the real positioning about this is, it's the bag for a mobile professional and travels only a portion of what they're doing. So in actual fact, it's not the travel side of the business or the current environment. That's, that's impacting us. The fact that people are still sitting in their homes, you know, they're not going to see clients, they're not going to the office, they're not going to work out at the coffee shop, they're not going to the gym.

So you know, that's really the issue. But fundamentally, we believe that's going to change so right now we stay the course we really want to reinforce and we are reinforcing that we are a bag For what is going to happen when all these safer at home orders are lifted. And that's really, I think, a fundamental trend away from dedicated offices, five day a week commutes to those dedicated offices, you know, this, this pandemic that we're going through and the crisis it's creating, I believe and we all believe firmly is going to create a much greater number of mobile trout mobile professionals working from home part the debt part of the time working from clients part of the time working in an office part of the time, that environment is right for one bag. brand.

Yeah, and you know, so I recently became a private owner of an app bag and I will say that there are some real differences in in the knack bag and the way they you both are approaching this, this challenge. What are your some of your favorite you know, features that you just love about? The Mac that you know, you're like, aha Like I finally you know, I mean I think there's something so amazingly great about being into something that you care about and then being able to make it the way you want to make it because someone else isn't like what what features perhaps were big breakthroughs for you?

Well, there's two things one is actually product and the other brand related the product thing is I just love the fact that our bag, weighs looks feels like an everyday professional backpack kind of backpack you put your laptop in and take to work. But then it's got this fully functional, hidden expandable suitcase attached to it. That basically you you open it up and expand it when you want to use it. And you close it and you know get rid of it when you don't want to use it. So essentially, it is an everyday bag that that doubles really well as a travel bag.

I love that about it. And that's the fundamental point of this product. But, you know, on the service side, the business brand One of the things that Keith and I said from the very beginning, mark that, that it's been a guiding principle of our brand and our business, we don't do anything if we wouldn't have done it for a friend. And what do I mean by that? If we're thinking about sending out or doing a marketing program or doing a product, the first question we asked ourselves is, would we send this to a friend? Would we give this to a friend, what a friend find this a value? And, you know, I like to think that all of us at knack put everything we do through that lens.

And I'm really proud of that. You know, if you talk about to our customers about our customer service, if you talk to our customers about our approach to quality and our approach to our team, we really try not to do anything that we wouldn't do, you know, for good friend. You know, maybe that's a derivation of the golden rule but but it really has helped us and and I'm really proud of that.

Yeah, and, you know, we had a former guest on the podcast, Jed rose. And he said something to me that really stood with me and I think is relevant. He said, you can really tell a lot about a person, by the bag they carry in the shoes that they wear. And I'm like, oh, man, I agree. What can we tell about the neck person, you know, someone carrying a neck bag?

I think, you know, Keith, I'm interested to hear what you say. But one, I'd like to think that you see someone carrying that but they're smart. You know, they're smart in a lot of ways. They're smart about sustainability. You know, they're not buying into consumerism, you know, I think you'd have 50 bags. They're smart, and that they found a bag that serves multiple needs, that they've got one bag that serves multiple needs that they've got, you know, they're smart, they're smart, because they're not wearing a walking billboard.

You know, it's not like we've got logos emblazoned all over the product. So I think it's a smart consumer. It's a person that kind of You know, is a bit discerning and gets it.

Yeah, I was I was actually going to say well educated and entrepreneurial, you know, somebody who's, you know, out there doing cutting edge stuff and wants to be on the cutting edge of, of not only a bag but whatever they're doing in their life, you know, we've got a lot of executives that carry our bags that you know, whether they're startup CEOs or just people out there trying to do new things. I I that's how I would envision our customers and that's really a lot of the feedback we get from them and and, and then yeah, kind of going back to you know what Chad was saying one thing you know, back to the I don't want to rehash this But back to kind of the features and things. I agree with what Chad saying.

I mean, for me, just the everyday use of this bag has been like really great for me personally, I like the top pocket because I can grab stuff out of it and and easily access my wallet or my keys or whatever is there but I'll tell you what the offer moment for me is when I traveled the first time, it completely changes the way you travel. And that's, you know, whether you're taking a road trip or taking a flight, you know, not really hit me when I was able to walk on the plane the last minute and put the bag underneath the seat. I didn't have to fight for over headspace. And then the best part was when I had to do a layover, and I didn't have to check my bags, that gate check. As I walk off the plane, the whole lineup of people waiting to get their bags. I was like, wow, this that would normally be me waiting for my bag. But I'm actually just walking by you know, I'm gonna go meet a buddy for a beer. And I can get there 20 minutes sooner than I normally would.

I mean, we start adding that up if you're traveling all the time, it's it was the real aha moment for me. I'm like, wow, this is actually a game changer. So So yeah, I did not to backtrack, but I wanted to get that in before I before I moved on. But But the other thing that I think is really, really great about what we're doing is, and Chad alluded to this, but I'm a huge believer in really, really good customer service. And and listening to our customer. I just think through the years, it's just I look at the brands that I really like. And I've always had really good brand experiences, whether I have a problem with the product or I have a question. They're always really good about it.

So I think we've invested a lot of time and energy in listening to our customer and actually working with them and listening to them, you know, if they've got a problem, or sometimes, you know, like you said, Every once in a while that bags just not for that person. And we have a generous return policy and so all those things, I think, if people don't like this version, they're like, I like the concept, but I may like this, I'm going to come back for the next version.

And that to me is really the most important in building a brand because as Chad said, he looks at the bag and sees 50 things I look at it and see I don't see 50 Chad, I see maybe 40 that I'd like to change and so you know it's not it there aren't it's not going to fit everyone in we want to be able to You know, make sure that people are happy with their purchase. And if they're not, that's, that's okay, too. I think that's super critical.

Where's the name NEC come from?

Oh, God, I hate that question. You know, the canned answer mark is that, oh, people have a knack for, you know, carrying their stuff around with them. That's the canned answer. The real answer is, we just spent a lot of time trying to find a great name that resonated to both Keith and me that wasn't already taken in this category. And we went through a lot. So you know, this this bag was almost George, frankly. And we you know, we're kind of giving up at that point in time. But But yeah, it's it's really a it was something about you know, ultimately people have a knack they're smart they get it and they know how to get from point A to point B's like that. Well,

I actually love that answer. I just released a podcast maybe two weeks ago, there was a naming masterclass right is basically went through like how are we now names and we and it's all about finding the right name, not the perfect name. And, and it's okay, more than okay to do it the way you did it as long as you have a story kind of behind it what you do so, I mean, I think that's a great answer. And I think that's really relevant.

I think that, you know, a lot of times people think there has to be this like moment for their name where it represents the exact time that they were spoken to from above and got the idea for the business. But that's not the case at all. So yeah, I appreciate appreciate you sharing that because I think that a lot of people can can learn from that as well. So if they come to the, to the end here, what does the future look like for NEC?

Well, I think, as I said, given what we see as really a fundamental change in how people work that's coming out of this current crisis, we think we're in great shape to take this to take advantage of that and really, you know, when I say take advantage it I mean really help people cope. With this new work environment, our product really reduces friction and in their daily life, it makes it easier to get out their front door.

And you know, we believe firmly in helping people get out their front door. You know, both Keith and I have had really the benefit of being able to travel all over, you know, I've visited over 40 countries in my life. And I'm a firm believer in getting out the front door meeting people. And we can make that a little easier. And we can make this future world where you know, your commutes a little more challenging, and you're where you work is a little more challenging. If we can make that easier for our consumer. I think we will and I think it'll be great.

Chad Keith, thank you so much for coming by and sharing your story. We'll make sure to link to nack in the show notes. For those of you that don't like show notes, it's snack bags.com knackbs.com.

Thank you, Mark. Appreciate you having us. We it was A lot of fun chatting with you and thanks again.

Yeah, thanks mark. I really appreciate it.

And that is Chad Mullen and Keith Bristol of knack bags. I love chats insight that it was his network and experience that has allowed him to be a successful entrepreneur and really understand what makes a great brand. Too often, I think there's a misconception that you need to start a company day one, and go out and claim your personal legend. There's a lot to be said to building your learning and your network for brands that are doing it right. And then taking that knowledge and launching your company when you are ready.

Thank you again to Chad Mullen and Keith Bristol of knack bags. If you're looking for a great looking bag that is fit for both work and play. I encourage you to check them out. Well, that's the show. Until next time Make sure to visit our website www.wildstory.com where you can subscribe to the show in iTunes, Stitcher or via RSS, so you'll never miss an episode. A like big stories and I cannot lie to you other storytellers can't deny