Advice Line with Chris Riccobono of UNTUCKit

0:00 Before we get into the episode, thanks to our presenting sponsor, Anthropic, they make Claude an AI built for the problems that take real thinking. research, strategy, planning, and making sense of a lot of moving pieces. Give it a try, for the next thing you can't quite stop turning over in your head. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash H I B T. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show.

0:47 who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. Alright, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Untuck It co-founder Chris Shricobono. Chris, welcome back to the show. Great to be here again. Uh so Chris, when we last talked not that long ago in twenty twenty five Uh you told us the story of Untuck It, and if anybody missed it and wants to go back and listen, I highly recommend you do. We'll we'll drop a link to it in the show notes.

1:24 Chris, you started out as a medical device sales rep. You had no fashion background, um, and you were thinking about different businesses. Until this idea came to the shirt idea, a shorter shirt that you know button down shirt that you could wear untucked. And you almost talked yourself out of it'cause you thought, well, if if there was a market for it, somebody else would be doing it. But within about ten years of that idea Uh, with the help of a a a friend of yours from Columbia Business School, Aaron San Andres, you guys built Untuck It.

1:53 going from zero to like seventy three stores in just four years. Um, you've been through a lot. That episode was so powerful because it was had so many ups and downs and A lot of s a lot at stake. First of all, how how have things been since we last spoke? They've been okay, you know, it never ends. We when I was on that episode we talked about Covid. We talked about Uh high interest rates taking on debt. D to survive Covid, and I believe we were just touching on tariffs

2:21 But we had not gotten there yet. I think we were we were predicting that There could be some tariff issues. Well they of course hit us hard. We had about nine million that was pulled out of our our bank account that we had no line of sight to. And that was for two reasons. One, the normal tariffs, but then also Trump removed in the middle of the night this three two one de minimis rule, which you could ship from Mexico. It had it had been in effect for like a hundred years without paying duties. So that that kinda doubly hit us

2:49 Um So we are fighting through it. We still have a loyal following. Um, we just started getting into wholesale, that's new. So that'll be our now we'll have e com stores and wholesale. Um, but we're working through the cash issues.

3:03 So you'll be in department stores? We'll be in department stores for the first time ever. That's great. Congrats on that. Yeah, should allow the brand to really scale even further. So I I want to ask you about another you know, we talked about this briefly when you were on on the show, but you had launched a second brand, a sportswear brand called Greatness Wins.

3:21 Tell me about a little bit about how that's going. I mean, you you know, this was a completely separate parallel brand. Um, hard to run two things at the same time and you're you're a very determined guy, but tell me a little bit about how that's going. That's going great as well. We pivoted there a little bit and for those who are out there are in um in anything that they're marketing on Facebook and Page Social, everyone knows that the customer acquisition costs Are very high just based on The amount of competition out there.

3:48 So our pivot was to go into wholesale. Earlier. But in this case Greengrass Golf Shops, which is For those of you know the golf brands, the Peter Millars, the Johnny O's Um you can do, you know, a hundred and fifty million north in just those shops.

4:04 The way I looked at it it was a way to increase revenue but also free marketing because if our shirts at your local golf course, you go in there, you buy the golf shirt, you then go home, you go on your website, you buy our shorts. So now we have a golf and athletic brand. It's a battle. It's j you know, retail is tough. You have the Vioris, you have the Lululemons, you have the The Alos, these are monstrous companies. Nike Um but we are finding a way, you know. By trying to go different directions.

4:32 And um You know, lower the cost of acquiring a customer and and it's exciting. I love that word battle because you've you I think you used it when we when you talked to us. You know, you're not sugarcoating this. It is tough to run a an apparel brand It is true. It is a constant battle. I have a qu I I was wondering, you know, Chris, I mean i i the the as you just explained, the customer acquisition landscape is so different from when you launched.

4:55 untuck it if you were starting from scratch in twenty twenty six, with no brand recognition. What would you do differently? How could how would you build Untuck It today? Do you do you even have a sense of how you would do that? What's interesting about Untucket was Everyone's doing paid social today.

5:12 Even when everyone was telling us all the experts in marketing were saying stop marketing on anything but paid social, it's all dead. We said, Well, we can afford it and we don't agree and we went on you we talked about this last time, we went on airline magazines We went on radio for a fashion brand, which is rare. 'Cause you can't see it. We went on Howard Stern, we went on The USA Today's back of New York Posts. Yeah and that's what made us successful. And we mixed that in with T V

5:38 More more expensive, paid social, and it all came together. And by the way, we're still doing that today, and very few are doing it. So That's how I would do it. Now it would be a lot more challenging because my cost of acquisition uh on on Facebook when it was us Casper and Bonobos, I think, and maybe Warby Parker back in two thousand eleven, it was a lot easier. It was like a gold mine. You went on there, you said, Oh my gosh, this is incredible. Those days are gone, pro probably forever.

6:03 And now it's getting even more complex. Now we're trying to come up with a strategy around AI and and no longer about SEO because now I'm going into ChatGPT and typing I want an untucked shirt. What's the best way to do it? And now we gotta figure out how we're gonna pop up and not someone else. So it's a constantly changing game, as you can imagine. Yeah. Well, Chris, let's t we asked you to come on to help us give some callers advice. So uh you ready to take a first call? Yep.

6:27 Let's do it. Okay. Uh welcome to the advice line. You are on with uh Chris Riccobono. founder of OnTucket. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, please. Hi Guy, hi Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. Uh my name is Adrian Alrez. I'm from Sacramento, California, and I am the founder of Eero Shorts.

6:45 Which is an athleture and lifestyle brand focusing on making Affordable shorts uh are Known as hybrid shorts. Cool. And tell me a little bit about the shorts. What w w where w like how would you use them? Yeah, so we call them hybrid shorts because uh I designed them with the goal that they should be shorts used for any pretty much any occasion.

7:03 Uh they're fast drying, so they can use it at the beach, at the pool, uh for athletes who sweat. They have compression for athletes for gym goers. Uh, people go hiking, weakened warriors. They're pretty much shorts meant for every occasion. And um that's how they're meant to be used. And tell me a little bit about uh how how this business came about. How long have first of all, how long has it been going?

7:24 Yeah, so I created this business two years ago when I was a senior in high school. Wow. Uh I'm currently a sophomore in college, so it's been my second year working on this business. I came about when I was playing volleyball in high school. I play on club teams and went to tournaments and I realized there was a need for more affordable shorts. Um short are sixty five to eighty dollars. nowadays and I believe that you shouldn't have to pay High price points for high quality shorts.

7:49 So that's why I kinda came with a goal to find a manufacturer to make Uh, more affordable shorts for young athletes and for pretty much anyone. So your shorts are looking at your website about thirty five bucks uh roughly. Yeah, I keep my shorts at thirty five dollars. That's my goal, it's my motto, to con stay consistency. I it's awesome. So you started this in high school and and you're did you find like a

8:11 manufacturing partner through like, you know Did you just g go online and find like a partner in or manufacturer in China and Start that way. I actually went to a sourc show in Las Vegas. I went there and I was able to meet vendors

8:26 Who sourced the materials. Uh I got to see what fabrics I liked, and from there I was able to find the fabrics and produce them overseas. Found a product that was high quality. And that's where I pretty much went from there. Uh so and tell me a little bit about how the business is doing right now. Wha wh what are you doing in sales?

8:41 Yeah, so our first year of sales, we became profitable. Uh our first year was uh a hundred thousand dollars sales. Nice. And this year and our second year, we're on track to make approximately four hundred thousand dollars. Wow. Amazing. And this is all D to C. Yes, all direct consumer, all uh e commerce we sell online. Uh we used to do public shops when we were smaller. But now we mainly just sell online through our website. Got it. Okay, um before we bring on Chris tell tell us your question.

9:05 Yeah, so my question is um I found I found success in my brand so far. Uh I appeal to volleyball players particularly. But I really want Aros to be more of a mainstream big name brand that can compete with other big name brands. So I wanna know what should be my strategies and goals to build a bigger brand identity to get more of a target audience. All right, Chris, I wanna bring you in, say hello to Adrian. Trying to figure out how to build his brand to to build it up and you know, scale it. Um let's let's think about there. First of all, thoughts for Adrian, questions before we try and answer his question. Hey Adrian, nice to meet you. Congrats, man. That's awesome that you're that young getting going.

9:41 Pretty impressive. Um So yeah, a lot lot a lot goes in my mind. I mean, obviously you're now in in my world of a of a new athletic brand, probably the most competitive place you can be. Not a bad thing, just you know, throwing it out there.

9:57 That you might have an advantage of is is the youth, right? You're obviously going after younger people and you've seen a lot of success stories there. I wish that I could be in that space at times because of the tick tocks of the world and because of all the different ways that your generation shops now, which is different than than the older generation. How how has your growth been what uh where's it been mainly through? Have you been on on paid social or have you been doing it free through through influencers or organic w growth?

10:25 Mainly through paid social Um, I haven't really done any influencers yet. Uh mainly just through ads, uh social media ads. Um we make a lot of funny videos on our on our Instagram, so that's how we pretty much post mode of our uh or mo most of our content. Okay. I I have a question for you, Adrian. A bunch of questions. I mean, uh listen, you're you're qu you are wondering how do you turn this into a more mainstream

10:47 brand, a bigger brand. Obviously that is your goal and I think that's an admirable goal. But I think before you start to think about that or to start to move in that direction, you have to ask uh yourself and answer a few questions, right? So first of all Who is your tribe, right? If you look at Untucket's it's it's uh sort of guys between sort of Roughly let's say twenty to

11:06 late sort of fifties at you know, athletic or, you know, wanna you know, sort of outdoors kind of lifestyle, but It's uh maybe slightly slightly more affluent. Um, I wonder who you are I mean, you you you play volleyball, this this started out from your experience. Is it college students, is it is it volleyball players, the young men who live in warm weather states, like who Who do you think of as your

11:30 Core tribe. Yeah, definitely the younger audience. Um, definitely people in college, people in high school. That's who I really made the shorts for. Um, I see people golfing in my shorts, people surfing in them. I see a wanting for a different use of my shorts, and I can really see it Especially in the younger generation. Um I mean we live in our shorts, so We're always using them uh in different ways. And and do you have a sense of what percentage of your existing customers buy a second pair? Yeah, about sixty percent uh of our customers return. So it's a pretty good return rate.

12:00 Yeah, no, the the one other thing I'd say is like what's your ultimate goal here? And I think it it makes a difference. Like, do you want to do this for fun in a way? You know, build this up to three, four, five million dollars. make a little few extra bucks and then go into finance? Or do you want to build this into a fifty million dollar brand. Uh I know it sounds obvious, but that's not always the case. Like would you be very happy with it being a five million dollar brand and pulling off a hundred thousand dollars And kinda living your life that way. Like what's what's your goal?

12:31 I definitely want this brand to be something big. I definitely like you said in the fifty million dollar range. I want it to be uh to be able to compete with the big brands of the world, like the Vioris, the Nikes, the Lululemons. Those are the people I wanna go after and those are the people brands I wanna be up there with. I mean those brands um they I think uh and on Tucket too built their their brands on specific tribes. You know, Lululemon

12:55 Obviously around yoga. Yore uh men's originally around men and uh yoga but then sort of board shorts, you know, m men who were surfing um and playing sports. And I think that's been core to their success. I mean I think what you

13:11 wanna think about as you m as you start to build out how you're gonna do this is Who who is your community? And if you think you know that than really

13:23 leaning into that tribe and building the brand around them and using them to be a force multiplier. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Definitely.

13:33 Yeah, my other thought is that um If you want to build this brand, you're gonna have to and I'm I'll speak to this all the time now because of of all the uh growing pains I've had with on Tucker when it comes from from cash flow purposes. You will need to raise money if you want to grow the brand. It's just a fact.

13:50 So Now's the time in my mind you want to go to friends and family. And you want to grab something, 150 K, right? On Tucker went from ninety to three hundred to five hundred. And that's when we raise money when we went to three million. Um

14:04 So that's my first point. And then the second point is you you really st have to start thinking about a strategy. You know, where what are you where are you gonna spend money, how are you gonna grow? And then yes, I think I agree with Guy, like who's your Your tar it seems like you found your target because there is not much competition in the volleyball world. So that made me think wait a second. Maybe you do want to focus on volleyball right now, and I know you wanna be shorts for everyone, but shorts for everyone, you're now competing with seventy great brands.

14:29 Not a bad thing. Yours are less money, although there are other brands that make it for less money. Maybe focusing on volleyball temporarily gets you out there. Because there's no competition. So you start running ads on volleyball to volleyball players might be a thought you might want to do that separately anyway. Um, because now you're the only game in town. But you really gotta

14:47 Fine tune that message. Shirts designed to be worn on Tuck to me. a year to come up with. That message is important, right? Shorts for everyone, can't really use that. We all have those now. I I mean I sell them too, right? Shorts, you can go swimming, you can go play Play golf, whatever it may be. Just think about how are you gonna continue to differentiate beyond the price point.

15:07 Got it. Chris, one one final thought. If if if Adrian is to r was to raise cash, you know, in the next let's say two or three years, where would you put that cash? I um I like to simplify This stuff. in a way. If you're especially if you're an e commerce brand, at the end of the day you need good product

15:25 And then you mark and you sit back. Right. That's how you're gonna know whether you're gonna succeed. And I don't like wasting time like This was me, right? I had no interest in building a five million dollar brand. I wanted to build a big brand. And if I wasn't going to, then I didn't need to be hanging around wasting time doing it. That's just me. That's not everyone. So my point is bring some money in and allocate it to marketing.

15:46 And see if you can get some momentum. But That's changed a little bit because it's very, very hard. on paid social to get momentum. Right. So you have to think about

15:56 Other ways You know, and I'm making this up. Maybe there's a volleyball radio something or maybe there's something l you know, and you start marketing there for nothing and all of a sudden people are coming in. And then of course for you, I mean I would focus on content on TikTok and on, you know, telling your story, fine tune your story. But the I would use the money. I hate to say it sounds

16:16 basic, but it's product and marketing, right? That's that's gonna determine whether you're if people if you're getting the brand in front of people and they're not buying, well there's a problem, right? I'm just saying get the cash in the door while you are scan while you went from a hundred to four hundred,'cause it'll be a lot easier Then when you go from four hundred to five hundred or six hundred. Yeah. Definitely, yeah. The brand is called Eras Shorts, Adrian Alvarez. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling in.

16:39 Thank you for advice. Yeah. Thank you. Good luck. It's great. It's great. I mean this guy I mean, even if it totally collapses, which it won't. Uh he's got His whole career ahead of him had to build on this and uh I mean

16:57 Everything he does at this point just increases the The the chance that he's gonna succeed. I was gonna say the exact same thing. If it were to fail, he's ahead of the game. Exactly, yeah. Alright, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round of advice. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.

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19:00 For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash H I B T. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and my guest today is Chris Riccabono, the founder of Untuck It, and we are taking your call and let's bring in our next caller. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. My name is Preet Anand. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Snug Safety. And I'm calling from the Rockies.

19:39 Uh Snug is a free daily check-in for seniors who live alone. So that way if something happens. people will know and can get them the right help. Okay, thanks for calling in. So this is an app that you're talking about. It it's a service through the app. Yes. Okay, and tell me how it works. Like I'm a senior citizen, how does it work?

19:55 Super simple. So guy you would pick that After breakfast, you want to check in with Snug every day, let's say at eight thirty in the morning. We'll send you a bunch of reminders. And if you don't open your snug app and hit just the basic check mark. By eight thirty? We will then send you a few more reminders.

20:12 then we will notify your emergency contacts. Hey. Guy did not check in this morning. Here is his last known location. Um and that's on our free plan. If you are on our paid plan, we have a alarm service that will call you as well.

20:25 Call your emergency contacts. And then if still no one confirms you're okay. arrange a visit by emergency services. Hm. Okay, cool. And tell me a little bit about um how w when this started and the story behind it. Yeah, so uh this was

20:39 Uh back in twenty seventeen Uh I was in the process of selling a different business. And Uh I had a Conversation with a custom, her name was Jan.

20:48 And she said, You know I don't need help where I can Call for help. I need help for if I can't respond. If something happens. In her case, she had had a seizure before.

20:57 And she says, Who's gonna know? You know, she at the time was seventy, she lives alone. And she was worried that If something happened No one could know for days and then when she could have gotten help.

21:08 She wouldn't. So that's where it started from there. Uh we we realize, you know what, this is something different, this is unique. We learned about how many people are living alone in the country. Now over 17 million uh seniors live alone.

21:21 And we Realized we could do something focused for them and it's just been the little engine that could from there. Cool. All right. I imagine pre that there are probably some competitors out there, sim maybe slightly similar services. Tell me a little bit about how how you guys are doing. Fine w I mean, where your sales at right now?

21:40 Yeah, we're we're in the mid six figures, right around four hundred thousand dollars in annual revenue. Growing uh this year. should grow 70% or more. Um in that's subscription revenue. Okay, that's great. And how much does the subscription cost?

21:54 Uh the subscription is twenty dollars a month. And I imagine most people who are um d who are who are sort of interested in this or interested for their parents or or elderly relatives. It it's definitely that. Um, in a lot of cases it's the senior hood themselves who chooses for it because they want to stay living independently. That

22:14 They don't want to be in a position where They become burdened it's a Easy light touch way. So that way they can Keep their independence.

22:22 Right. Okay. Um before we bring on Chris, tell us your question for us. Yeah, it's you know We're doing all right. Uh, but we really want to grow awareness of SNUG. Yeah, there's all the time.

22:35 Uh we hear about people who say, You know what, I wish I had known about this. years ago because my mom could have used it. Or somebody who says, you know, I had to give up my dog because I was worried about what was gonna happen to them if something happened to me. And so we just need to really grow awareness about what we do and

22:52 How do we do that with the targeted budget? Not even just customer acquisition, but just awareness of the solution. Alright, Chris, I wanna bring you in. Um please say hello to Preet and his product is called Snug and You know, you're dealing with a older customer base, right? You're basically s targeting this to people over sixty five. How do you increase awareness? How do you reach these folks? Congratulations so far. Nice to meet you.

23:15 Um what do you have any marketing budget? And what is it and what are you doing? Yeah, we we have uh we do have marketing budget. We We can this year Easily deploy up to fifty thousand dollars could go more if we need to.

23:29 But Uh right now most of our growth comes from the combination of Google and word of mouth. I would say about seventy percent. is just word of mouth. We are seeing some success on actually sponsoring YouTubers who are senior YouTubers.

23:45 But we're constantly trying new things to try to find that channel that'll help us break out. So Yeah, you know, one thing that I like is um Believe it or not, is is radio.

23:55 Radio reads. targeting on Sirius or Spotify or where you hit a massive amount of people. And you can Really target. Your your demographic

24:07 And you can get a nice thirty second read that tells the whole story. You know, a a notch above that as you go on like a um I'm not afraid of politics, just you know, when I market. So this this is not my my I'm not gonna say one way or the other who I w who I would choose politically, but you go on these shows, like whether it's a CNN host, a Fox News host, or uh you know, who have these radio shows. people listen to those, these people who follow these political

24:31 Commentators are obsessed with them. This is the type of app I feel like that if you get to the right person, there's no reason not to have it. You know, I could say it if my dad was alone right now, I would sign him up. Why not? Right? To me it's a great product. It's not a hard sell. Um So to now you just gotta get it out there. And obviously going on paid social, which is the normal

24:52 way you would go. Just don't think that's that's the best way. It's tough to create an ad, right? So I think telling the story in thirty seconds, whether I think it start with These reads on Spotify or on Sirius where you can just hit Tons of people.

25:07 And the next level would be you you pick one guy and I would almost do both in separate times so you can measure them. You pick one guy, yes, a little more expensive, might be seven hundred a read. You know, do three w weeks worth. If the guy's passionate about that, it will work. Um

25:23 And if it doesn't work. Then you learn something. Like it's important to know why isn't it working, right? So you know, it's not wasted money. It's okay, it's the message is being told wrong. If that didn't work and that didn't bring in sales, then I gotta tweak the messaging. I think it's great advice and and and pre you probably came to the conclusion that social media really isn't where you wanna deploy Your cash because your your product is solving an emotional problem, right? It's it's

25:48 This is a a trust based product. And a trust based product is is is distributed through trusted people intermediaries, right? Like so I would look at terrestrial radio rather than um Spotify or even Sirius because I think a lot of seniors are listening to

26:04 terrestrial radio like the Dave Ramsey's or the Mark Levin's and you know Sean Hannity's of the world of Brian Kilmead's w whoever it is, I mean that and by the way, that's expensive. There's no question it's it's not Yeah, it you know, it it's not a bargain. But to me that's uh the a starting point. But the other thing And this is this is interesting because I I recently w was talking with a PR uh rep and I was asking like what what matters now? You know, and ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, matter was an article in the New York Times, right? Or if you're trying to come up with a new product in cosmetics, you go to like Vogue or Cosmopolitan. Today it's of course it's all online, right? It's all social media. In your case, it's somewhat different. Like

26:47 you may actually really benefit from having an article in a local paper or Or a spot on local TV news and your story, the story of what you built is really compelling. Like I would think about really Putting some time and energy into pitching local T V reporters and local

27:07 uh newspaper reporters to r or or community publications to write about this thing. How this happened. How did how did you start this business? What was the idea behind it? Now you wanna You really want to also aim the message at the adult children, right? And that's where some social may be interesting, right? But I still think earned media Uh Is

27:29 a really interesting thing to explore'cause it's like Is you know, as Chris said with radio, it's almost like an old school way of doing things. And in your case it may be the sweet spot. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we've we've definitely seen

27:42 earned media have a lot of impact for us. Uh, you know, we were in N PR like a few months ago. And we're still, you know. up significantly year over year off of that. Um and we've also seen some success with ARP before.

27:56 You made a good point. You you almost want to test whether it's the forty year old perk kid or the the actual A lot of these older people are very stubborn and they don't actually want to that type of service. So it's almost more that that it's the children. So then I don't think that changes the game or radio. You might just want to check you know, more w stuff that I market for Untucket, which is sports radio and stuff like just normal people listening in. Yeah. And then And then yeah, it is ki it is I've I've never been able to figure this part out, but it's

28:24 Like if you can find a way to get to every geriatric doctor They're gonna wanna provide that to their customer. You can put those brochures in there, they'll talk about it. Um to their patient. But that's challenging because you gotta have a kind of a sales force. But It's that type of product that you have people who will want to share it. Right.

28:42 you know, if you're in that position, a church or a doctor It's a benef it's beneficial for these for these elderly people. Yeah. Well can I can I ask you all one more question related to that? Sure. So

28:53 A lot of folks don't want to use something like a life alert or something that that physically signals. Uh a you know, lowering independents. And what we haven't done so far is sort of message let's call it.

29:06 against life alert or as an alternative to it. I personally get fired up about it because, you know, life alert. hasn't really innovated since the eighties. And when you set up with them. It's a three year contract unless you die.

29:21 Um yet they still have Massive. Brand awareness. On the other hand though You know

29:27 If you do it that way, you're sort of you advertising for them versus taking through these trusted channels. How do you how do you all think about that? I don't think this is a necessarily a competitor to life alert or alternative. I think it can be it can be. Right, but Life Lord famously, I fall and I can't get up. Right. I think that's what it is, right? Classic commercial, it was parodied. I mean it's it's like I'm not surprised it's a huge brand and and they probably haven't had to innovate very much. It's very simple. You push a button, I fall and I can't get up, and you press a button.

29:57 Um that is a product that probably a lot of people Like and want to use. This to me is is co could be complimentary in the sense that it is more like This is just a daily check-in. It's different. Life life alert is something you only use in an emergency. This is just daily reassurance. And I I think you really want to position it that way because

30:19 Life alert. If you got a life alert, that's a that you know the anxiety just kinda ratches it up, right? You're like, Oh my god, and you're out of it, you're not gonna be pushing the life alert. You could be laying there alive, you know, there's a lot of pe there's a lot of reason You gotta be pretty with it to press life alert. You just fell and you can't get up. That's kinda or you have chest pain. But I think it's more the examples that I read about with you are like post seizure or You know, maybe you're just out of it for whatever reason and you're not thinking of. Whatever, yeah.

30:48 Yeah. We just shared a a story of somebody who had a low blood sugar attack and uh It's not got them paradics, so yeah. Okay. Thank you. I love it. It's awesome. Uh it's a co really cool idea. Congrats. Preet and on the brand's called Snug, the app. Uh good luck. Thank you for calling in. Thank you. Good luck, Pre Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the Advice Line.

31:14 Right here on how I built this lab. Alright, let's bring our next caller. Welcome to the Iceline. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business, please. Uh hello guy and Chris. I'm Derek and I'm calling in from Arlington, Virginia. My company is Hockey Ninja, and we are a hockey equipment company. We specialize in hockey visors. The half shields you see the pro players wear, and for our customers that want a little more protection, our full face titanium hybrids.

32:12 Awesome, welcome to the show, Derek. So visors, I'm assuming I I I think when I watch hockey, does anyone play with an open face helmet anymore? I think there are a few players that are still grandfathered in, um, but there was a rule passed that's probably ten or fifteen years now that you're no longer allowed to play without a visor. Right,'cause a puck hits you in in the forehead and it can Yeah it can be devastating. Right. Yeah. And what I mean, if the players in the NHL are already playing with a visor, tell me who is y who are your customers. You know, my customers range from beer leaguers, um, you know, hockey actually is a growing sport again, to high school players, even youth players at this point. The majority of the business right now, especially in the US, players care a little bit more about their dental work and so The full face shields are a bigger part of the business. We started out with visors and we've kind of added we started with three products, now we're probably close to thirty. But the full face shield is the core part of the business right now. The full face shield. So in and just

33:10 Describe what it looks like. It's not it's uh it's not like a metal cage, right? It's like a it's a clear plastic. Yeah, and so up until recently you've had a choice of the full metal cage, which I never loved having the bars, you know, two inches from my eyesight. It was it was kinda tough. Right. Or um you had the kind of what we called the fish bowl. It was an all plastic piece. not great airflow, they tended to fog. And so this is this is kind of a marriage of those two things. Um we have a titanium lower cage and we have a replaceable really high end plastic visor. And you can even wear that visor as a vi you know, the replacement visor can be worn as a visor only. Got it. Okay. Tell me what makes your product different. I mean, this exists, it's out there.

33:51 why would somebody buy from Hockey Ninja versus I don't know uh the big brands that I that are out there? I think first and foremost it's it's for for us it's safety. We import Macroon, which is a Lexan plastic from bare material sciences in Germany. And so this is a material that's used by Audi and Bugatti for the headlamps and it's known for Impact resistance, it's known for optical clarity. And my background on the consumer electronic side of things is is more so on the optic side of that. And so it's something I know a little bit about. Also, most testing bodies will test those visors, other the other brands at at 65 to 75 miles an hour. We test ours at 120, which is faster than any you know, pro slap shot that's ever been clocked. So from a safety standpoint, um optical clarity are anti fog.

34:38 coatings I think are second to none. You know, that's a challenge with this type of shield. If you play, especially in the summertime in an indoor rink, there's a lot of humidity and if you don't have a good product, it's gonna fog on you and that that doesn't end so well. So and I'm looking at your site and these are not crazy expensive. I mean some of them are fifty bucks, seventy nine, eighty bucks. You're so you you mentioned that you were in the industry, you focused on Is this your full time job now, what you're doing at Hockey Ninja? No right now Hockey Ninja is a side hustle. Um you know th that's something I think I have in common with Chris. I know for a long time, even into the seven figures that you were still working your job at G E and I and I think that was kind of a relief to hear'cause

35:18 Sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm maybe not a true entrepreneur because I haven't gone out of a limb and just kind of thrown caution to the wind and gone down that path. But I actually still love my full time job. But hockey niche is my baby and I wanna s I wanna grow this thing. Awesome. Okay. Before we dive in further, what's your question for us? Being that it is a side hustle and my time is somewhat limited, do I go down that path of leaning heavily into social media, which we've talked about you guys have talked about a lot on the show already. Um, but you know, that's not my forte or because we recently receive NHL clearance on several of our products, do I go down that path and and go after those equipment managers and those teams and and try to grow that side of the business and maybe get a player involved. Okay, interesting. Before I forget, uh what what are you guys doing at sales roughly?

36:06 So um right now we're averaging around two hundred and fifty K. We've gone as high as four hundred and that's kind of leveled out a little bit. Um but I but I think we could easily do a ten X or more if we get the right formula. All right, Chris, uh I wanna bring you in. Derek is trying to figure out, you know, at this point Do to you know social media, do they focus on social media, to work with a a player or or m some kind of hockey influencer, um

36:30 And also like you, I mean I still think about the story, but you sit on an airplane and you're with like st a medical sales device guy and you're with your colleagues and they open up the airplane magazine and there you are in an ad for Untucking. They're like, dude, what are you doing in my airplane magazine? I love that story. It's so funny. So you were you were doing you were like burning the candle, right, at both ends for a long time. So you can probably relate to Derek in a sense on this. Oh yeah, Derek, congratulations. Nice to meet ya. L let me ask you a question.

37:00 Have any professional players ever worn this product? Right now there are not any NHL players. We just got a clearance and so I didn't want to approach equipment managers in the middle of the playoffs. They've got so much going on, those guys never sleep and so we were kinda waiting for the right time. There is an equipment managers conference coming up here shortly that we were gonna we've been to before, but wasn't as fruitful fruitful as we'd hoped because we didn't have clearance yet. Um we we had a player

37:25 maybe seven or eight years ago, pre COVID, we had a player all lined up and we didn't have the clearance. And so um That's kind of where we are right now. I think with equipment you gotta get it on guys. That's just my quick thought because if my son was seventeen and you're like, hey, give it to your son, I'd be like, Who's wearing it? You know, because it's safe around safety, so it's really important So um do you have do you have any money to

37:47 To pay to pay someone or what what's your like, you know, Yeah we we do have a budget for that. And and originally we did find a player and actually our whole thing was we were gonna lease them a Range Rover. That was that was gonna be our our payment to them. They were gonna get a nice car out of it. We had a two year deal lined up and that's kinda where we were and I don't know that that wouldn't be a a great idea now, but you tell me. Well the first thing is if you do bring on a player, you're gonna still need a budget to market it. Right,'cause that you're gonna use him.

38:17 in your ads, right? He's not just gonna Miraculous. Make the product sell. So you gotta look at it like that. I mean I I do the we do this all the time, we're just running a a great add with uh Garrett Cole right now. Jacob Chuba from the Rangers is also doing something. Brock Bowers from the Raiders, so so I'm very familiar with it.

38:35 Yeah. Th the other thing I want to say was that I don't know the s the sector, right, this category, but if if there are competitors out there, it seems like your advantages are significant. You did a lot of work in optics, as you mentioned. So you've got that credibility.

38:51 You're it sounds like you're bringing in really high quality I mean, if it's used on Audis and Porsches, the same material and people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for those cars and now you're using it in the visors To me that that means something. I mean these are premium materials you know, if I had to pick between uh you know, social media or whatever and then onto a human, I would definitely choose the human and and

39:14 And not necessarily I mean Garr Garrett Cole is still an amazing pitcher, even though you know he's what thirty, thirty four, thirty five. He's he's probably expensive for you guys, I imagine, Chris. But I so I wouldn't go to NHL stars, right? I would go for Maybe uh you know, you mentioned equipment managers, but maybe kind of a a player who's just Not that well known, right? there are plenty of players in the NHL who are

39:39 they're not getting the same kinds of endorsement deals and and and but it but still might get some playing time and and 'Cause you wanna see it, I agree with Chris, you wanna see it on the player. But of course you want to be very strategic about How how many dollars you put behind that.

39:54 Sure. We do have some ends in that space. Like right now We're the main visor sponsor for a pro three on three league, which this summer there's a world cup in Europe, which we will see some former NHL players wearing our product. Um there's also the US uh season that's about to kick off that will have some pretty high end players, not NHL. But you know, some fairly well known players and and they'll all be wearing our brand. There's another I if you're telling me that all players wear them and that yours is better than what they're wearing now, if those two things are true.

40:26 then I might even go a totally different route. And go to someone big And give them twenty five percent of the company, you're gonna say, No way. Well no, I'd be open to that. And that

40:38 mean if you can convince them If if Jack Hughes was sitting right here And Jack Hughes and I w had him here with me and I said, You gotta try this thing. It is better than what you're wearing. He puts it on he's like By the way, even if it's equal, I'll throw that aside. But if it's better and he's like, This is awesome, I need it. You want twenty five percent of the company and I'll give you, you know, fifty grand or whatever you can afford.

40:58 And maybe we can bring his brothers in too. Yeah. Yeah, but that's my like my buddy had a a cooling spray. And he was almost almost did a deal with Venus Williams or Serena, who wanted fifty percent. And I was like, Give give her eighty percent. Like that once you if It just because the products that like a shirt does that doesn't work. A product that you're using people really believe if Jack Hughes is skating in that. And starts to promote it amongst his friends and is that that can grow a t. Yeah. So there's I think Guy's point is one way, you go about a bunch you get a bunch of

41:28 of guys who are and by the way, NHL, you're in a great place. They're not expensive anyway, right? They're just not. You go to you go to gu guys who are maybe You know The third, fourth. Line.

41:40 You can get them for nothing. That's one route. The other route is you get one guy, you give him equity And he is now part of your brand and he's gonna promote it because he thinks this brand can can grow to a thirty million dollar business or whatever number you think can grow to. That's great advice. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I love that. Um and and then down the road, you know, who who knows? Maybe b maybe baseball will require visors for batteries at some point. You know, you never you never know. Well, it's true. You can transition that into anything. Ski goggle, like if you're good at that. thing that you do, then that's how you grow it even further.

42:11 Yeah. The brand is called Hockey Ninja. Derek, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thank you guys. Take care. Yeah. Thank you. Chris, before I let you go, um a questi that I've been asking every But he comes back on the show, which is if you could go back to when when you started this, like knowing what you n know now and all the experience you have as an operator and you know, as a leader.

42:34 What what advice do you think would have been helpful? Wha what do you wish you would have known? back when you when you started building on Tucket that might have been helpful for you? All this stuff is really hard. Like really, really hard. And

42:48 But listen, it's still going wrong a lot of things for me. Um You just can't get upset about it. You can't get down about it. You can't get depressed about it. You gotta just kinda keep moving forward. You're gonna have all all the advice we just gave to implement all that is really challenging. I know they're gonna hang up all these people like I used to do and be like, love the idea, but how am I gonna do that? What do I do? Where do I go? How do I

43:10 You just gotta Find a way and realize that It's not gonna be easy. You might go spend that money on marketing and lose the seven grand you just raised. Well You gotta figure something else out. Um

43:21 I put myself through so much pain and and worry and depression because And now with the new brand, I kinda just shake it off. Like I okay, I was waiting for something like that to happen. So I just wish I enjoyed the journey more. Like what all of these guys are doing. I mean, I love this. Like these are the just to get to the point where all these guys we just talked to are at, that's admirable number one, and you're way ahead

43:44 Of Ninety nine percent of the rest of the world. So If you fail even, go to the next idea because you clearly have what it takes if you've gotten this far. It's Chris Riccabono, founder of Untuck It. Chris, thanks so much for coming back onto the show.

44:00 Thank you, guy. Really appreciate it. And by the way, if you haven't heard Chris's original How I Built This Episode, uh you gotta go back and check it out. It's such a good episode. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. Tell me about the about that first batch of inventory,'cause you I mean, you say that the shirts were terrible, which is s shocking. I mean I I don't Well, it comes off the off the boat in New York, you open the boxes and what, they You see right away that they're not good.

44:29 Well actually when people started wearing'em and saying that they now used it for a rag for their car, that's when it really uh But you know what's funny? You know what's funny? I didn't We thought through it and said, you know what, we will one day get them back. We'll keep a list of those people, and I'm gonna lose X amount of customers. I mean, you didn't have a choice. This is entrepreneurialism. You just have to survive.

44:54 Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyos.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com. Or call us at 1-800-433-1298. leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Massini with music composed by Ramtina Era Blue.

45:39 It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was An Lee Huang. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Carrie Thomson, Sam Paulson, Niva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Roz, and you've been listening to how I built this. One more mention for our presenting sponsor, Anthropic.

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