In passion driven entrepreneurship, one of the biggest and most rewarding challenges is overcoming negative thinking. This year, there’s been a lot of talk about changes and instability in the bike industry. But for creative entrepreneurs like my guest this week, Andre Shoumatoff of Park City Bike Demos, change can be a huge opportunity!

Andre’s sharing how he and his partners used their knowledge of bikes and the current struggles of the industry to pivot into a new model of selling and renting bikes. We’re also discussing how to notice and respond to optimization points to grow your business, and what to do with customer feedback.

For anyone wondering how to turn what’s not working into a success, this episode is eye-opening. Andre’s got some amazing insights on evaluating the industry, advertising partnerships, and listening to your customers.

Bravery in Business quote “We really do believe that we've stumbled on to something, and it's been literally a brutal, brutal chore to get there.”- Andre Shoumatoff (click to tweet) Cliff Notes

• Started Park City Demos with some friends as a mobile bike rental business. 20% bike sales, 80% rentals, hoping to go on to sell a bike to 1 in 10 renters
• Pay attention to market demand and adjust your business/inventory according to these points of optimization. Originally, Park City Demos was only selling and renting expensive bikes, but they quickly learned there was a demand for a wider variety of bikes. Now, highest selling bikes are cruisers.
• Started co-marketing with other brands on digital marketing, which brought in a lot of people. This strategy can work really well, but only if you are well versed in it and working with a good partner.
• Figure out what business like yours that are going under have done wrong.  Identify what needs fixed in these business models so that you can pivot away from it.
• The traditional bike shop is slowly going away. Andre and his co-founders have evaluated the reasons these stores are suffering and are working to create new models for bike rentals and sales to make Park City Demos a success.
• Work on building customer experience. Collect customer data to see what people perceive your business to be, and then adjust to portray your message more clearly.
• Keep track of customer requests/ responses so that you will have a record to see what ideas/products that you’re not selling are the most in demand. Park City Demos keeps a simple excel spreadsheet of all their customer requests.

“If we do a good job with our tools, our sales, structure or standard operating procedures, and our technology, and then little things like physical space, etc. then we think we can sell bikes” - Andre Shoumatoff

Resources:

parkcitybikedemos.com

Show notes: http://intrepidentrepreneur.net/andre-shoumatoff