Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball

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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 who will help me try to help you.
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Alright.
Let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Chris Rooter, the founder and CEO of Spike Ball. Chris, welcome back to the show.
Thanks so much. Happy to be here.
Chris, you were first on how I built this back in twenty twenty three, and you told us all about how you turned Spikeball into a brand and how you helped turn the sport of roundnet into a professional sport. And by the way, if you haven't heard that episode uh with Chris and Spikeball, we'll put a link in the show description.
And I guess we should explain to people who haven't heard the episode that spikeball is basically and you you g you guys listening have seen it. If you're at the beach or at a lake or something or a park, it's basically four people standing around uh what looks like a little trampoline and uh spiking a a ball into that trampoline and and it's like uh sort of a w how do you describe it? It's like it's like uh
Volleyball meets
Um the one line I like to use is if volleyball in four square had a baby. Uh yeah, that's it. That was it. Yeah, it's essentially identical to two on two volleyball. Yeah. Rather than hitting a ball over the net, you're spiking a ball off a net that looks a lot like a trampoline.
Chris, you painstakingly built this brand into a mainstream
game um starting with like PE teachers
ultimate frisbee players, Christian youth groups, you weren't connected to any of these groups. You just found that that's
where the the product was resonating
h how did that happen? I mean d d ha and and when that happened, how did you lean into those
Into those groups.
Yeah, absolutely. You know, when the first few years of the business, uh, you could only buy Spike Ball on SpikeBall dot com.
Right. Um we had the benefit of I was able to communicate literally with a hundred percent of our customers. I could email them and ask questions and
Nearly every single customer I replied saying, Hey, thanks for buying Spike Ball. I'm gonna mail it tonight or tomorrow. It should show up in a few days.
By the way, if you don't mind me asking, how did you hear about it?
And that's where I heard a lot of people said, Oh, I'm a PE teacher and I'm always looking for new games and new games are ways to engage
Kids that normally don't engage. Or I'd hear from people saying, Oh, I was at an ultimate tournament
And I saw some people playing there.
Or I'm a
camp director at a Christian camp or something along those lines. But I asked the question enough times over the years where I was able to identify these themes in these buckets
You know, and I I also thought that you know, when I launched it, I was like, Yeah, volleyball players are gonna love this game.
And that was just what I thought.
They wound up hating it.
Um but it was these groups that I never would have thought of in a million years that loved it and
Once I did identify those, then I started, you know, getting to know them. Some of them I'd say, Hey, would you mind can we get on a call? Like, you know
I've never heard of this thing called young life. Like what is it and can we can I learn from you and
Oh, by the way, do you have any other friends in that community that I can maybe
Send a free setter to to so
That free product was really critical in the early days of
Spreading the word. Yeah. And Young Life is a massive Christian youth group. It's not like something you came you it was just it just kinda came to you. Um I know that that since we've talked and and actually around the time we talked, um you you were introducing new products like
paddles which I think are interchangeable with with uh pickleball, right? They're they're paddles that you can use to play spike ball, but you can also use them to play pickleball.
They're designed for more casual play. Yeah. They're not like if you're a hardcore pickleball player, you're gonna get a real paddle, of course. But yeah, they're very versatile and you know, I was just at one of our tournaments this last weekend and watched some of our top players ever just kinda playing off on the side with paddles and
laughing and diving and um we're just trying to find new fun ways to use our existing stuff.
Yeah.
Chris, uh
I think it's probably time that we take in our first call.
Let's do it. Okay.
Um hello, collar, please uh introduce yourself. Tell us
Your name.
where you're calling from, and just a tiny bit about your business.
Hi Kristen Guy, my name's Jimmy Davidson. I'm calling in from Riverside in southern California.
I'm the founder of Freedom in Motion. We're a chain of parkour gyms where we teach kids, teens, and adults the sport of parkour here in our indoor obstacle course gym. Wow, parkour like people dancing off walls and jumping and swinging and this is like gymnastics meet.
Like urban landscape.
It's like Spider Man without the webs. It's like skateboarding without the skateboard.
Um we actually try to distance ourselves from gymnastics.
pretty heavily, so we're not gymnastics at all.
Um, but you know, we we take the outdoor environment, the walls, the railings, the parking curbs.
And our mission is to transform all of that into a playground.
So cool. So you and and you're based in Riverside and how many gym do you have?
We have three gyms currently, one in Mirieta, California, Riverside, California, and Loma Linda, which is one of the blue zone cities. So that's kind of a cool mix right there. Yeah. And we intend on opening many more gyms so hopefully. Uh I actually live in Oakland, despite my gyms being down there, California.
Uh, and I hope to have a gym up here soon too.
Alright, so Jimmy, tell me how you how this started. I mean it's a great idea. I think of like when my kids were little, we used to take them like Jim Beree and you know, and and like rock climbing walls, which are awesome, but I'd never heard of a parkour gym. How did how did
You get this idea.
So
In high school, um when I had first discovered parkour, this is right around when YouTube kind of first came out, so found parkour through that.
In high school, we had a park work club and it became the largest club on campus at 150 kids. So imagine like a wave of 150 kids coming to climb all over your stuff. It was a lot of fun.
You would just go to like a park or you would just go to anywhere, an outdoor space.
Yeah, like the urban architecture in different areas provides different opportunities for movement and play and you can work on balance on those handrails, or you can work on climbing over walls on these walls over here.
And so
And and here's kind of how we got to me opening a gym. Um it got to the point where I was teaching kids, like parents were c paying me to coach their kids one on one.
And I would take them to just some parks outside.
And you
Probably can imagine that sometimes the local city government
Uh didn't like us climbing all over their city hall arch architecture in the front.
So
I had a meeting with the mayor at the time. This is when I was nineteen. I'm thirty one now.
Um and I had this adorable presentation on like here's parkour. You know, I like printed stuff out of my mom's computer.
And it was like let's have a parkour park, just like a skate park.
Hm and the mayor at the time was like, I don't know what parkour is, never heard of it. Sounds like a liability nightmare. Uh you're best off
opening up uh in the private sector.
So after I went and Googled what does private sector mean.
Um I figured out we have to open up a our own gym.
And you know, then
And I'm nineteen, so like then it was a whole hurdle of like business landlords like taking you seriously as a nineteen year old, they and also not knowing what parkour was. How do we find the money for that, like
It was a whole challenge, but in twenty fourteen, uh by the time I was twenty one, we were able to open our first gym in Mirieta.
Wow, how did you finance that?
Yeah, a a few ways. So I had been coaching a lot of kids doing a lot of private lessons and things, so I had a you know, a few thousand dollars from that. I had a job on the side, a few thousand dollars from that.
Uh we had a couple people give us some money. We had a uh an original investor give us some money
Our our business had one iteration and then it failed and then we reopened
You know, so like there's a little bit of of play in and how the financing worked out there.
Um but yeah, so a few sources and we were very scrappy with it.
Wow. So then you are you open this gym and ta describe for me like what it looks actually, you know what? I'm on your website now so I can see it freedom in motion.
I see like
All kinds of like bars to hang off and and padded
Things to jump onto and off of and ramps and yeah.
It's like a a three D obstacle course. We have walls, we have different platforms.
Um, and it's not like Ninja Warrior, where Ninja Warriors has like
bungy cords and s and weird rotate things. Parkour is actually a it's a martial art, right? It's the martial art of movement.
Just not fighting. So our indoor gym simulate the outside architecture of like walls and rails and things to jump and land on.
Um, and so our indoor parkour course just has all sorts of shapes and heights and and things for us, our coaches, to train our students.
the whole variety of of movements that come with parkour.
Hm.
That's so cool. Um, and uh before I forget, what's your question that you brought for us today?
Absolutely. So
Our parkour gyms thrive on a
Super passionate team. We need these passionate people to inspire a passion for movement and for play within our students.
Uh we have three gym now. I personally plan on growing this to a hundred million dollar company with a lot of gyms. So my question is.
How can I invest in my most passionate employees to grow their skills?
And how do I scale the recruitment of passionate and skilled people as we continue to open more parkour gym locations?
All right, I've got some thoughts. I want to turn it over to Chris Ruder of Spike Ball. Chris, um thoughts, questions for Jimmy.
Yeah, number one, congrats, Jimmy. This is such a cool concept. The fact that
You don't have one, you've got three locations. Like that's incredible. So you're starting to scale, you're finding what's working, what's not. I love that you didn't give up after the first one didn't quite work.
Um, you've got that grit, which is absolutely required.
Um
And most importantly, you're getting kids moving and being social and together. That's you know, Spike Ball, that's something we're trying to do as well. But I applaud anybody that uh is doing that. So that's that's
So cool.
Um
On the topic of how to engage employees, is it safe to assume
A decent amount of your early employees were already into parkour or kind of knew a decent amount about this.
Before you showed up?
Yeah, yeah, and you're totally right to clarify that. I opened the gym with a handful of my
Best friends, honestly, and so it's been a decade.
Since we opened.
So
Many of those friends have like trickled off.
we none of us knew what we were doing, right? So we all had like giant expectations of that we would be millionaires in in six months or less.
And when that didn't come to fruition, you know, like a lot of them just aren't around anymore.
So it's like as we grow and we get multiple locations, I need managers who
get the passion that we want to transform kids' lives that they see the world as a playground.
But also they have the technical, like, manage multi locations, uh run HR and and train like
integrity and a culture of high performance
Into
the coaches below them. Like
It's on that higher end that
It it can be tricky, like finding that skill passion balance.
Jimmy, do you um uh your CEO?
Correct yeah.
And so and you've got three locations, and I imagine that probably a significant number of your trainers are college aged, is that fair to say?
Yeah, twenty year olds. Yeah.
And so right now there's I mean, decent turnover, maybe they they might work for you for a year or two at most?
Uh it's like half and half. Some of them, yes, they come in, work for a while and then leave. And then the most passionate ones stick around for four, five, ten years.
And the question is how do you invest in those those folks to really help them help you?
There's a book, I mean, I and some people might might kind of, you know, recoil when I say it, but it's it's uh the the most successful
uh quick service restaurant in the world in terms of the yield sales per square foot um is
Chick fil A.
they beat everybody. Shake Shack in and out, McDonalds are even though they don't have as many locations of
Uh typical Chick fil A does about
eight million dollars in revenues, massive.
And the founder, Truitt Cathy, wrote a book many years ago. I think it's called Eat More Chicken, right?
What what's interesting about their approach, forget about everything else that you might think about Chick fil A.
They have a систем.
That
basically develops talent from within. So if you go and work there as a checkout clerk and you say, Hey, I want to manage the store,
They will m help you get there.
Or you say I want to own one of these one day, they have a very, very specific program.
that develops talent from within and grows people from within. And not Burger does a similar thing.
It's worth looking at even though you're doing a different kind of business because
You're so young, right, still as a CEO, and you're still trying to figure out the model here. But the but basically you need to create a system
That's
Identifies those people.
and then starts to give them incentives to stay. So
uh equity in the business.
um some kind of ownership as the as you grow incentives
um to help you grow. So if you hit five uh locations or ten locations, they get another point uh of ac you know, whatever it might be that
Mm-hmm.
creates value for them over time. You know, and and I think that
for you, you wanna really read widely about what other people have done and how they've done it to give you a framework'cause ultimately you're gonna have to go to lawyers and other people to help you actually
You know, codify this.
But it's but the principles around it are not that complicated. It's identify great people.
Give them a clear path.
To succeed and to grow.
And
Incentivise them so that as they help you grow.
They benefit as well.
Okay.
And I think you're spot on. Get like
Essentially an internal leadership university baked into our back end of the park or Jesus.
Um yeah, I I think that's
Awesome. I think the world of parkour could really benefit from having like a a baked in kind of professional incubator.
Jimmy, as you as you think about your march to a hundred million, and I love that you've got that goal. Is it a franchise model you're thinking? Is it corporate owned or
How do you think about these future locations?
Yeah. So I am
Right before
kind of really needing to pick that that path, right? Like I see Starbucks as the corporate locations raise. I see, you know, Chick-fil-A uh you know, lets an owner own a single location, like you just said, guy.
Um and and there's a few different ways to splice it up.
I don't know yet. Um
Ideally, we do it all in corporate.
'Cause it's it's working with kids.
So I wanna really make sure that it's safe and effective and has that culture.
Thank you
The culture is so vital because if a parent walks into the gym and and the culture is even just a little off.
It doesn't work at all.
Mm-hmm. So
I I guess my anxiety there is if we have franchises, um, I don't have like a total control over that.
Yeah, Chick fil A's made it work, right? There's a million franchises that have done it. I understand the sensitivity around being with kids, so
I were in your shoes, I would study as many
businesses that have physical locations, multi-location, and work with kids, whether that's a nursery school,
Or
jump zones or the inflatable house places or whatever, like copy their playbook. And I also love Jimmy that you mentioned the like employee university thing. Like
I think of McDonald's as you know their hamburger university.
Um, so what is your version of that? And I think step one is it sounds like you've already started.
documenting everything that's working. If you think of that star employee right now.
What is it that makes she or he great?
Write that down.
That is that persona you want to try and multiply.
Throughout your three locations and your fourth, fifth, sixth, and
The more you can define that playbook, right?
Yeah.
The more you can document what's working.
I think the better off you'll be.
Okay.
Jimmy Davidson, Freedom and Motion Jim. Good luck, man.
Congrats.
Alright, Chris, Guy, I really appreciate it. And Guy when I hit a hundred million, I uh have a straight on goal to come back as a back. Okay. Thanks, Jimmy. Um all right, 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.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Chris Ruder, he's the founder of the outdoor sports game Spike Ball.
Uh, what do you say, Chris? Should we take another call?
We love it.
Hello, caller, welcome to the advice line on how I built this URL with me, Chris Ruder.
Please introduce, tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a
Little bit about your business.
Hi guy, hi Chris, thanks for having me today. Um my name is Cindy Chin Smith. I'm calling in from the Boston, Massachusetts area.
I am the founder of Pen and Paces. We create cheerful and uplifting products for runners.
And we are best known for our Yell My Name Bib kit, which allows the ri marathoners to put their name on their shirts so they can encourage spectators to yell their name on the race course.
I love it. Okay, so Cindy
Thank you for calling in. So basically
It's a kit that you can add to the bib, and the bib is like when you run a marathon, there's a there's rules you wear the bib that they give you, but you are allowed to attach
Your name.
To the bib.
Yes, exactly. As long as it doesn't cover the number the of the official bib, you can put it on top or your on the back of your shirt or on your shorts.
Which I guess I imagine is super meaningful when you're like mile eighteen and you're just dying and someone's like Go, Cindy Just a random person'cause they see your name.
Absolutely. It's the best um kind of motivator and the morale booster at the end.
Yeah, have you been in in that situation yourself?
Yeah, I actually ran my fifth marathon last year in Chicago. And uh I absolutely uh the crowds on the major marathons are uh electric and when they yell your name, it's it's not like nothing else.
Um how did you get how did you get into this
business or have you been in apparel or in sports? Like w what what's what's your story?
No, yeah. I actually picked up running um as an outlet uh to deal with stress and burnout while working in the Bay Area in tech. Uh I just needed something to, you know, go out get outside and not be in my computer screen. And I fell in love with the sport and the community, and so much so that I wanted to create a business out of it to uplift and support other runners.
Where were you working in in tech? Uh I worked at Google for a couple of years and then startups um in fintech uh since then.
And so you completely left that behind and said, You know what, I'm gonna start this
This
Running gear brand
that has like positive messages that you can basically attach or wear or whatever.
Exactly. Um I had my son two years ago and that's when, you know, I had the choice of, you know, starting my own business or going back to um you know, just a corporate job, but um, you know, it was kind of a you you only live once um kind of thing. So I wanted to take this opportunity to see what I can do with this business.
And what uh so besides the name, like you can pin your name to your um your bib, what else what other things do you guys sell?
Yeah, so our uh kind of next p most popular line is shoe bags. Uh because you know, runners have like these more really expensive sneakers now. And so I have introduced a travel sneak that is kind of more fun than traditional kind of you know, just classic bag that people put their uh sneakers in for travel.
Got it. Okay. And um Cindy, what's your question for us today?
Yeah, so you know, my initial product that Yell My Name, BibKit, is very, very niche. Uh even in the running community, you know, there's um it's only for like the major marathon. So I'm looking to expand
into other products like these shoebags um and you know other kind of race day travel kits. And so, you know, I want to make them just like not plain and boring like running gear is currently. And so what advice would you have for uh for me to market a product that's like fun and uplifting and the designs are their kind of main differentiator?
Alright, cool. I'm gonna bring you in, Chris. You you who has created a light up
spike ball kit that enables people to play in the dark. So you know a little bit about accessorizing things.
Um
Do you have any questions for Cindy before we tackle her question?
Um number one
I wish this product was around years ago when I ran the Chicago Marathon, because if it were, maybe I would have broken the four hour mark, which was my goal and I did not, unfortunately. We shouldn't laugh. Four hours super impressive. Super impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I'll I'll I'll take it.
Um, number one, I love it. Uh can you share a bit on the um sales mix, so uh
Is the vast majority of your sale the name tag? Is it the shoebag or what's the general breakout there? Yeah, I would say uh ninety five percent is coming from the Yell My Name bib kit. Um and I introduced, you know, uh other
products, but the main next category were these shoe bags, but it's not very big right now. It's about five percent.
Got it. And can you give us a sense of how
Have you have you broken twenty five thousand dollars in sales?
Yeah, we have and so uh we're we were seeing a lot of growth this year especially. We've grown year over year fifty percent. Um and then we're you know looking to grow a lot more in the future.
And selling entirely direct to consumer.
Entirely uh direct to consumer. I've done a little bit of pop up shops, a little bit of wholesale, but mainly on my website, Instagram, um and we started doing Amazon as well.
And you're financing this whole thing yourself.
Exactly.
And so presumably your budget is pretty tight, right?'Cause you can't you don't you can't spend
tens of thousands of dollars or maybe even thousands of dollars on marketing.
Yeah, exactly. I want to keep it lean and I don't want to overspend. I want to do uh you know, kind of spend wisely as well.
Um, but it sounds like the shoebag is really where you see the growth.
Yeah, I do see there's up you know potential there and it's also a bigger market opportunity, right? There's not a ton of marathoners out there who are running the major marathons, but everybody has shoes, like even you know, nonrunners like travel with sneakers and things like that. But
Um, I think I do see that there's a opportunity for uh demand and also uh you know, for gifting.
Yeah, I mean this is actually a not
uh it's not an uncommon problem. I say this is in the in a focus group of one, namely me, which is every time I pack and travel, I'm like, uh, do I put my shoes this way? Do I I don't want the bottom of my shoes touching my clothes? So like
How do I pack him and I know people listening to this right now are picturing this'cause they're going through the same thing. You're packing your suitcase and you're like, I don't want the bottom of my shoes, that the sticky gum, or
So I'm gonna go to the case.
I'm gonna angle them like this, but uh but a shoe bag, a proper shoe bag that would still give me room
In my suitcase.
That makes a lot of sense.
Absolutely. And um the other trend that I'm trying to hop on is that their grocery bags are being banned from the you know stores and most people put them in grocery bags, but really to be more sustainable and kind of eco friendly, like a sh a reusable like travel shoe bag makes a lot of sense.
Alright, so Chris.
As somebody who
Culvated these niche.
groups, you know, s found out who's buying it, church youth groups, and you're like, well let's lean into that and and PE teachers, let's lean into that.
I mean, right now we're thinking about runners'cause Cindy's a runner.
Um, but I mean th there's gotta be other folks you should be targeting.
Yeah, I mean I would
I don't wanna say go deep and wide, but I guess as you're still in the early days and exploring, I think that's
probably the route. So one
How many marathon runners are there in the US? Let alone worldwide. But I'd say start in the US. I'm assuming it's massive.
I was just in Chicago recently and it was a few days after the marathon and seeing the amount of people walking around with branded gear.
Yeah.
People were still wearing it. I was seeing it everywhere, so
Just like you go to a concert and you you're you have no problem spending fifty dollars on a T shirt because it's this special event.
I think like people are in a different frame of mind where at these events, especially when it's a massive thing like a marathon. So can you do more on site sales there? Um
Or maybe go there and
witness with a pen and a paper, like what other product ideas can you get?
Um that would be my version of going deep.
Um and then the wide is
What other events have
Bibs uh or like the name kit. Um
Think of mountain bike races. Um triathlons, all kinds of things. All that, yeah. So is that the wide version and with the
shoe carrier. I mean, my God, any place that has cleats, running shoes, whatever
Um
Can you make a different version for each sport? And
I think as long as you're making something that where you've identified a need.
Yeah. And you're not like oh I think this could be cool. I'll just do it'cause I like it.
Um
In my experience
identify needs that other people have or a
problem that you think you can solve.
And run straight in that direction.
Yeah, I I I agree. I also think that and Cindy, you probably already thought of of this, but I do think that
Runners are a tribe.
a really passionate tribe, as you know, you're a runner yourself.
And I feel like to get to that tribe.
You've gotta be in the shops, too.
You've gotta be able to get into those shops and
Many of these shops are independently owned.
Yeah.
You know, the the proprietor is in there. They're they're interested in
showcasing things that are gonna be interesting to their customers. And I I would really be in Boston, um, I imagine they're amazing.
running stores there. Um have you gone to any of them?
Yes, I've reached out to probably uh half of the running stores in the United States and you know, and there's been some good good reception on some of my smaller products. But yeah, I guess the question would be is like, you know, any kind of tips in getting into these stores that, you know, may not initially show interest.
We weren't in any stores for our first five years. One hundred percent.
Spike Ball dot com.
For us
We were so focused on building the brand, building the community, and building sales at spikeball.com.
Eventually all the stores called us.
When Dick Sporting Goods reached out and said we'd like to carry your product, I thought it was a joke or somebody messing with me.
Same thing when Walmart did it, when Target did it, and all sorts of these small mom and pop toy shops and sporting goods stores. So um
From what I understand, that's not normal.
But man did it work for us.
Um they would have said what is this trampoline? Nobody knows what it is and
I think what resulted in them calling us, they saw this sort of cult like following. They saw this quirky thing that people were into it. It wasn't Chris Rooter trying to tell them the store that this was an amazing thing. There was all this outside validation on social media and elsewhere proving
That the world is into this.
The more of that you can get
the easier it will be to get into stores. Yeah. That makes sense. It sounds like
Uh build the brand and they will come.
I also think there's value in in seeing if you can just
Meet somebody face to face.
I if if uh one of these store owners locally we would be willing to meet with you.
Just to see you.
And to understand your passion. And that you're you're legit. You're a runner.
You're not like some you know
Dilettant coming into this, this is your passion.
And this is a problem that you are solving for yourself and you believe for other runners.
And I think there's a lot of value in just trying to go
one start a time in person, at least initially.
I love that idea. I gotta try that for that. Absolutely.
Yeah. Thank you.
Cindy, the brand is called Pen and Paces uh Thanks so much for calling in. Congrats. Thank you.
Ex.
Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar. Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.
Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking call with Chris Ruder, the founder of Spike Ball.
So Chris, uh let's bring in our next caller.
It was great.
Hello, welcome to the advice line.
Please tell us your name, uh where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
Hey guy, hi Chris. I hope you guys are both doing well. My name is Nigel Lewis and I'm calling from Rockway Beach, New York, currently. Um I'm the founder of Station Surf Shop. Uh started back in two thousand
Sixteen, um and we're traditional surf shop, catering to the New York City surfer. We sell surfboards, wetsuits, uh wax, leashes, everything you would find at a normal surf shop if you lived in
southern or northern California or Hawaii, uh you would find here. Uh you can take the subway to the beach here. So we do rentals like you would expect. Uh we do a unique thing called surfboard lockers because a lot of people in New York have small apartments or or husbands or wives that don't want surfboards in the apartment.
Um but what
I'm
most proud of with the shop has been
Just
The ability for the
People who kind of look like me to walk in and and uh and see someone that doesn't
traditionally look like what they would see behind a shift shop counter. So that's been that's been
Well I'm most proud of it being able to facilitate that.
A little bit for this community.
Awesome. Well thank you for uh calling into the show, Nigel. Um all right, so Rockaway Beach Surf Shop sounds like an awesome community.
Uh tell me how how long have you been surfing?
Yeah, so I grew up surfing I'm originally from Barbados, been surfing since I was ten, and it's slightly different there,'cause in Barbados, uh it's a water lifestyle. So I'm actually very used to being in the ocean and swimming, diving, surfing, that type of stuff.
And I always think of uh the Ramones when I think of Rock Wave. So I think everybody does that. Everybody does. Yeah. I'm probably not the only one.
So and and what's what's your question for us today?
Um so
I started this business and brought in some partners um to help me just kind of financially get it going. My background is pretty deep.
in um the surf uh and and skate world. I've worked for a lot of brands, I've been a sales rep, and been into a lot of surf doors up and down the east coast. That's what I did for work for quite a number of years. So I understand what that looks like, but I financially just you know I grew up pretty poor and and kind of just grinded to make what I had. So when I opened the shop
We did pretty well, but my partners always seem to leave. Um just because they have other interests that they're
involved in it. They're not committed to the grind. So my last partner left and I had to buy him out and get it done, but it put me into a spot where I unfortunately had to close the shop. Um I'm in the process now of reopening. We were lucky enough to secure a partnership with Paragon Sports in
New York City in U in Union Square to do a pop up. Like they like what we were doing. They heard the the story and they were like hey, we'd we'd love to give you a home until you figure it out. Um
But this was a pretty
important space for me and for the community and and and for all the organization that we support it and it's gone and it hit me very hard. And I have the
the the drive to kinda get it going again, but I'm
Just starting over, you know, like financially trying to get the money back up and this time I'm looking to do it with no partner. So
How do you deal with
Loss.
didn't close due to lack of business being good. It's it's um more just the amount of payout I had to do. I couldn't sustain it after giving out that much money. Um
How do you deal with that?
To where you feel motivated, you know.
So you had the store the st uh station surf shop in Rockaway Beach. You
Closed it.
When when did you close it?
Uh in December.
In December, okay. Um
And now you're trying to reopen it.
And
And it was successful and people loved it and you had uh you sold apparel and stuff and I'm actually I see you have a Instagram page up still, um, but now you're trying to figure out how to reopen it.
And your question is
How do you
How do you kind of plow through failure? So first of all
I I just
I really appreciate
you calling'cause you know, people call into the show with like, Hey, how do I scale this and how do I market this? And you're like
We failed.
And how do I recover from that? And um
It it's such a critical question because
You know, a lot of people think how I built this is about success. Oh, success. It's not. It it's actually about setbacks, mistakes, and failures. And I say this over and over again because I think
The best entrepreneurs
C Chris Schruder's one of them who's had many failures.
um on his path to success.
Without those failures you don't
You don't learn.
Yeah, a lot of big shows and media you'll see you'll only hear the
The positive and oh our growth chart was nothing but up and to the right the entire time. That's that's BS. That's BS. Yeah.
Yeah. Um so
I could do uh a couple episodes of just the last couple of years what we've been going through, and holy smokes is it it's hard and
Not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur, so I applaud you for giving a shot and seemingly you're dusting yourself off and saying I'm gonna
I'm gonna try it again and that's that's incredible.
Nigel, the first thing they need is a pep talk. Okay, and then we're gonna get down to brass tacks here. Um I I I think about John Foley. John Foley was on our show in twenty nineteen.
Okay, and
He founded Peloton.
And Peloton was the hottest
company during the pandemic. You couldn't get a Peloton. At one point
He was worth
almost a billion dollars.
Um, and he lost all almost all of it.
Actually. And I recently read an article where he in the Wall Street Journal where he basically said, Look, I'm you know, I lost
virtually all my money.
But
He has started a new company.
Around rug, around
sort of disrupting that market. And I love the energy and the spirit there, you know.
'Cause a lot of people laughed at him. Oh, uh John Foley. He doesn't care. He's like, No, no, it's fine. I had a setback, Peloton was amazing, lost it all, but I'm g I'm
I learned a lot. I'm gonna bounce back and I'm gonna build this next thing and he's
fully into it.
I actually think that's really inspiring.
'Cause a lot of people are rooting against him, but I wouldn't, you know, g especially given his track record.
And it sounds like you had a really good track record here. I mean seven years in business.
Sustainable store.
Okay, you sat back.
I it was you know, there are a variety of reasons but most most businesses don't make it past five years. But the fact that you've got a second chance now
That's really exciting. And so what
What I would say is
Really think about what you learned.
Really?
Spend time.
Doing a self critique.
In a very constructive way. Write down the things that you don't want to do again.
Right.
And
Really
use that seven years, those seven years as a gift that you were given.
This gift to know what not to do
in the second coming of this, right? The rebirth of it, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, I mean it it it makes complete sense. And and and the thing
with myself is that I'm I'm I call my philosophy uh I'm a realist. So if this thing wasn't working, I I get it, right? And I'm smart enough to understand that there's many factors that affect a brick and mortar retail store. And I address those in my business plan and so on. And I really appreciate what you said because it does feel like I've learned a lot.
Um
And I am looking to to
dust myself off and come back. Honestly, because the community is asking for it. I mean, there's three other surf shops here and everyone is like, when are you reopening? And the emails are coming in and Paragon has been doing relatively well with the pop up that we're doing there. So
You know, I feel like the writing's on the wall, it's like hey, this is just a setback.
Step back up and keep going. Um, but you know, sometimes
Just the motivation for that, you know, like the pep talk was helpful and and I definitely will take your advice and
literally write down the things that I think maybe I could do do better going forward. Um
But yeah, I d it's just
I I was always curious what the mindset is from people who are currently successful having failed to get back on that horse and really
kinda not feel this beaten down. Um
on it and then also too, like financially too. How do you
deal with that, you know, because once you fail like everything crumbles, right? Like your business your personal credit is tied into the business part of it if you're just a single person doing it. And there are all these things I'm trying to navigate.
And it's a little bit harder, but it's almost
It's weird that you said have something to prove but it's almost like I have something to prove to everyone who thought, Oh well, I knew this wasn't gonna work. Uh there's way more people that think it it it will and and will work. So
Um, I'm just again trying to navigate that and and understand the best way to go about it.
I so love that you have a community rallying around you. Yep.
I love that you have a partner like Paragon. Our product has been in Paragon for years and they are fantastic. I so love that store. If you've never been, it's this quirky, massive sporting goods store in uh Manhattan.
Um
And what you have is I think what most brands would kill for. You have people asking for the product, essentially your store.
You're down, they're rallying around you.
And this comeback is not this like fabricated thing that a fancy ad campaign
brings you back. It's gonna be
The will of the people.
Yeah. So I think I think the big the question going through my mind is how can you leverage
This group of people that want you to come back.
You know, on one one area my mind goes to financially. So is there a a Kickstarter or something that you get started, or is it a private conversation with a few of these folks that
Become shareholders. Yeah, maybe able to buy a chunk of the company and
Yeah, you're asking about finances. Is there
A CFO that uh works for some other company but loves your store that would be your wingman or wingwoman to kinda help you and
I'm guessing there's a lot of gold in this community and if you start asking questions
Sounds like they'd love to help you out.
Nigel, I think um let me ask you a question.
'cause I we're probably about the same age.
And I think
I think oftentimes
People in in our generation have a harder time asking for help.
Is that fair to say?
It is. I mean we did it.
We did a GoFundMe and we got uh you know, we raised I think like twenty six thousand dollars within the first week of it. Um and that covered any like past due rent. I paid off some vendors and I'm stubborn in the sense that I didn't want to file for bankruptcy because I have been a sales rep and I know how that affects
Accounts. But yes, I have a hard time asking because in my mind and you know, e everyone works hard for their money. So I don't want to be like, Hey, why don't you help me? When obviously No, no, but that's not what you're asking. You're saying I'm gonna give you an o you're not saying why don't you help me. You're gonna say I have an opportunity for you. Right.
It's to be a shareholder in this see what's so cool about what what you're talking about is surfing is very to me, and I'm gr I gr I'm in California.
It's very intimidating, right? I I don't I wouldn't feel comfortable walking into a surf shop and saying, Hey, I don't really know what I'm doing. Can you help me? Like I I I I want a place that's like uh c awesome, cool, let's go. And and that's what you're talking about. Yes. You're saying
This is like
It's like uh what was that movie, dodgeball? It's like the gym for everyone else. Uh it is
Also, the other part of this that I didn't really think about, because again in Barbados the majority of surfers are black, so I don't think about this. But in America and in New York, we're the minority in the surfing community. So my aesthetic of the store wasn't
You know, this California based you'd walk in and it'd be Bob Marley playing in the background and we'd have a little bit of rock and a little bit of soul some James Brown. And I think people walked in and and like you said, they didn't feel intimidated. And whenever we we we spoke to them, it was like hey station family. It was always a family conversation because I wanted you to walk in you your feet are wet and sandy. Yes. You know, you have
And I think that connected
And I know it did. I can't say I think it did. Um that's why I'm so like gung ho to do it, but
Um
You know, sometimes it's just good to hear the feedback from people who've who've kind of been through it and
Yeah. You just need that peptop, like you said. Yeah.
And and as Chris said, now you've got to start to harness that energy from the people like we want you back. And so every time you hear that
you've gotta say, okay, can we have a conversation?
I'm thinking about
raising money from the community as stakeholders. Everybody would have a stake in this business. Got it. Um
You know, you don't even have to make an ask or we can just say, What do you think about this idea?
and just ha start to have that conversation with people. I really want people t to own this with me because this is an opportunity to serve the community and to build a sustainable business that everybody can benefit from.
Yeah.
Okay. Uh
One point and one uh I guess thing to to
consider. I loved how you mentioned earlier the surfboard lockers.
Um
I'd never heard of such a thing, but man, that sounds cool and
Do you if you think of the when the store was open
what parts of it worked really well and what parts didn't. I'm assuming you've already thought of all this, but obviously whatever didn't work, okay, maybe
trim that but you know, is there a way to expand the lockers? I don't know if that's a moneymaker, but I love it.
I love the vibe that you describe of the shop also, you know, people with sandy feet walking in, music playing, Bob Marley like it that that seems very unique uh for the surf culture and you know, New York being
One of the fashion hubs, what where my mind is going is merch and apparel. Like
there's kids in South Dakota wearing Quicksilver and all sorts of other surf brands that aren't within a thousand miles of an ocean, but they just love that culture and
So is there a fashion you could work with that could learn your vibe, your brand, everything?
And is that a new channel? I'm assuming you had T shirts and hoodies and stuff. Um
But could you multiply that times a hundred and really run with that? I don't know. That that kind of excites me.
Yeah, no, it's it's great that you said that because that is
'Cause I'm like like you guys have said, this is what I've been jotted down for the next iteration. And and exactly what you said is what I'm thinking, is people came to get station merchandise, you know, and and um the lockers are a great business'cause it's almost like a subscription model. You leave your board, we charge one fifty a month and we have two hundred lockers, you know, and when they're full, it's awesome. And when they're
Half full, like it's still okay. Um
But yes, I I really appreciate the conversation and you know a lot of these things that you've you guys have mentioned I've been thinking about it, but to hear
Uh
qualified people like yourself, um
Kind of.
I don't know how qualified we are, but I will say, Guy, I am so honored to be on the show. I listen to almost every episode when I was starting my business.
Because it gave me the motivation to understand that everyone started from somewhere. You know, some of these amazing guys that are multi-millionaires now, you hear, Oh yeah, I lost my first shipment. And like it got held up in customs and you're like, What? You know, so um I really appreciate it and I never thought
I thought that would be okay, but I really appreciate um Well here you are. Here you are. Yep.
Nigel Lewis of Station Surf Shop.
Um good luck, congrats on on this. I'm cheering you on. Appreciate it. And when I get to to Rockaway Beach, I'm going right to the station surf shop. Surf lesson on me. Surf lesson on me. You're too cool. Thanks, Nigel. Have a birthday. Thank you.
Thank you, Nigel.
Chris, before I let you go, um
I I'm I question I ask a lot of people who go come on to join me on advice. What do you wish you knew at the beginning of s of starting your business that
you now know that would have been helpful for you.
Spend less, save more.
That that's great advice'cause it's very actionable. I love that.
Uh, Chris, thank you so much for coming back onto the show. Great to have you.
Thank you so much. This is fun.
That's Chris Ruder, founder and CEO of Spike Ball. And by the way, if you haven't heard Chris's original How I Built This Episode, you
Gotta go back.
and give it a listen, you can find a link to it in the podcast description, and here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.
At that time I had no idea.
How much it was gonna cost to manufacture.
I had no idea how much to make a website. You know, back then all websites were hand coded, so they were really expensive to make. Packaging, marketing, et cetera. What did you think you needed how much money did you think you needed to to raise?
We actually didn't set a number. We kind of just said
Invest whatever you're comfortable losing, because chances are very good
That you're gonna lose it.
Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gyros.com.
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And leave a message there, and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson, who also composed the music.
It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Neil Route.
Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, Chris Massini, Devin Schwartz, Elaine Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.