Transcript

Advice Line with Chet Pipkin of Belkin International

0:08 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz. 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. 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 tell us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Chet Pipkin. He's the founder of Belkin International. It's a name synonymous with computer cables, power banks, adapters, you name it. Chet, it's great to have you back on the show. Guy. It is so much fun to be here. Looking forward to all this time together. So I think about you all the time. I mean like even the back of my phone. I've got the Belkin magnet that I can connect to my laptop and use the back as a camera. I mean it's unbelievable the all the things that

1:06 Belkin makes you were Of course, first on the show back in twenty nineteen. And as always, we will put a link to that in the show notes, so uh check it out in that episode. Uh we talked about how you first got started in the early eighties, you'd hang out in like mom and pop computer shops, and you realize that computers. Actually, it's just so crazy we take it for granted. You couldn't easily connect a computer to a printer, for example, or to another computer. You just cables didn't exist. And so you started to solder cables and then sell them to to to shops and to

1:40 people who needed them, and eventually that turned into a business. You were twenty one You dropped out of college. Uh you started Belkin. And and if I remember, you really started it'cause you didn't have the money to start a P C company, which is kinda what you thought about doing. But you went on to start this other

1:56 business which became a huge incredible business. You were I've I've talked about this before. You were like Levi Strauss. You were selling genes to the miners. You weren't You want gold in the gold mines.

2:08 But you were selling the the axes and the The shovels and the tents and all those things. Yeah, at that moment, uh I thought that this couldn't be a real business, but it turns out that um allowing people to um connect and live the lives they want with uh tech is a real business and a really fun one.

2:27 Amazing business. Eventually you grew grew, of course, into a huge brand, huge company. In twenty eighteen it was sold for m reportedly more than eight hundred million dollars. Amazing story. Um Since then, Chet, you have stepped down as CEO. Give us an update about what's been going on in your life more recently. Yeah, so still very active with uh Belkin and uh Foxconn who acquired Belkin. Um, involved with a bunch of tech firms that are just getting Going.

2:56 And then doing a lot of work in the Lake Tahoe area. And then a lot of work in Education also. Am I right that you actually co founded a hotel? Yeah, Desolation Hotel in South Lake Tahoe. And it all ties together'cause we're just into creating great experiences for folks, whether that's in tech or

3:14 Anything else? And so that's the common theme. You know, it's so crazy because Belkin is like it's The the products are just ubiquitous. And there's so many Belkin products, right, that I use all the time. And when you started it, as as I mentioned

3:30 You really thought this was a side project that eventually maybe if you could find the cash, you'd build like a PC company. You never did. Because you didn't have the capital to do it. If you were thinking about, you know, if you are an entrepreneur right now and you feel limited by cash, right?

3:47 I mean, what do you recommend somebody do? I mean, do you do you recommend that they sort of do what you did, which is look for A way in Through sort of the side door? Yeah, so I think one of the best ways to kill a startup is to overfund it. So

4:03 Not having enough cash isn't always a bad thing. Makes us really really get to the essence of what it is we we need to do. So the first thing I would encourage people to think about Is identify a true problem. That is a real Issue for folks.

4:21 And if you can come up with a simple Elegant. way to solve that problem. You'll get the rest of it figured out. If it's a solution in search.

4:33 of a problem that doesn't really exist. I don't care how much money you have, I don't know you're ever gonna get there. Yeah. Chet. I'm curious to get your take on something. It's it's it just occurred to me, you know, because you you You dropped out of college to start Belkin and when you did that.

4:48 That was a little bit more unusual. I mean to go to college certainly at the time that you went and you know, was a it was a bigger deal. Now we're seeing a lot of young people graduate and and more and more anecdotal information that with AI you know, it could create more and more unemployment for traditional sort of c college graduates. I wonder whether you think that

5:11 There's still value. In going to college versus Trying to start a business. Yeah, when I was in high school, there was no doubt I was going to go to university and I was gonna finish. There's just no doubt about that. There was also no doubt that uh I was gonna start a business.

5:31 And as the business got going, the level of passion that I had for that versus the level of passion that I had for school. The former dwarfed. The uh second. I didn't have a choice.

5:45 There was no way that I could do anything in my life except pursue that. business. It's just where I was I didn't expect that to um happen. It I just did. And so I think

5:59 If people have Good intentions. good motives are in touch with their values. Following your passion. In that moment.

6:11 is probably not a bad way to go. And I do think of myself as a lifelong Larner. Um, so that's never ever gone away. Right. Um so education's critical.

6:24 We don't want to minimize that in any way. But it doesn't necessarily have to immediately follow high school in a formal Fashion. There's all kinds of ways for us to do our lifelong learning. Yeah.

6:39 For sure. Um, Chet, what do you say? Should we bring in our first caller? I think we're ready, guy. All right, let's go. Hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Chet Pipkin, founder Belkin. Please tell us your name, uh, where you're calling from, and just a quick line about your business, please. Hey Chet and Guy, thanks for having me. Uh my name is Daniel Moll, I'm calling from Toronto, Canada.

7:00 I'm the founder of EarthSuds, where we've created the world's first dissolvable tablets. of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and hand soap. They're more sustainable and more convenient for travel. Awesome. Daniel, welcome to the show, calling from Toronto. Earth Sud, so these are

7:14 Like um Like laundry detergent tablets, but for shampoo and conditioner and soak. Yeah, tell me how it works. Yeah, exactly. It's a little shampoo cube. You just add water, rub it between your hands, and then it'll suds up like a traditional liquid product. And you can just apply it to your hair, to your body. Awesome. Tell me the story. How did you start this business?

7:32 I mean it started uh a while ago while on a family vacation. I went wandered off onto a local beach and just saw it littered with all these plastic shampoo bottles and I was shocked because All the narrative at the time was reducing plastic straws. uh plastic grocery bags and no one was talking about the plastic toiletry bottles that end up in our landfills every year.

7:53 And so I got back to I was in college at the time, got back to school and just started tinkering in my kitchen, uh, trying different formulations. We first made shampoo strips. So if you know like Listerine Mouth wash strips, we made shampoo in that form, but they would dissolve too quickly. Tried a bunch of different iterations, thousands of of experiments later, invented shampoo tablets. It's such a great idea. I mean There's it's zero waste, basically. I mean you've got the tin, but the tin presumably can be reused or recycled pretty easily. Exactly. And on top of the waist portion,

8:23 Your liquid shampoo is like ninety percent water. So we're emitting huge amounts of carbon emissions just to ship around a product that is mostly water that you use in a shower where water is present. It makes no sense. So uh we thought we could create a better version. So I'm looking at your website. You've got four, basically four products. You've got shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand soap and I'm I'm just kinda describing the cubes. They look like candy actually. They're little cubes and it comes in a tin and you use anything. Use one and you just pr bring in the shower, you rub in your hands and then you soap down or you sh shampoo your hair conditioner. Tell me a little bit about where it's ha where are you are you sold only direct direct to consumer, through your website? Yeah, we're mostly online today. We're also on Amazon, and then we're getting into some retail stores and we're also carried by a few hotels and Airbnbs as well.

9:09 Got it. And tell me a little bit about your your sales. How you guys doing? Yeah, we're on track to do over a hundred K this year, so I'm excited for that continued growth. We've we've sold over two hundred thousand tablets today. uh to customers all over the world. and just hoping to continue that traction. Uh one big piece of recognition uh was that we were named by National Geographic. for reducing ocean plastic waste. And so that was a nice uh mark of recognition and has inspired us to keep moving forward with this mission.

9:35 That's cool. What are your what are your ingredients? I'm assuming given that it's environmentally friendly, you probably are like I hate to this term clean ingredients, but I'm sure they're Environmentally friendly ingredients. What what do you put in the soap? I mean it's a mix of uh clean ingredients that are surfactants. We have butters, oils Natural preservatives, essential oils to scent the products. Um no parabens, no sulfates, no silicones. Uh so we really try to make a a clean product, like you say. Is this your full time job?

10:04 This is my full time job. I left it. Awesome. My full time gig, I was working in consulting in in San Francisco for a company called Bain prior to this. Uh did that for three years and then decided This would be the time to give it a full time shot. So unless it's awesome on it full time now. Lots of people have left Bain to start businesses, but so you were doing consulting, now you're doing this is awesome. Okay, before we dive in further, tell us your question. Yeah. So my question today is

10:27 How can we get consumers to adopt an unfamiliar format like shampoo tablets so it becomes part of their everyday routine beyond just travel use? All right, cool. Good question. I wanna bring in Chet Pipkin. Chet Cool product, right? I mean this is Kinda awesome. It is super cool.

10:45 Uh the thing that I love m the most about it is what we were talking about before. Is it solving? an issue that people have and a problem that I have is the one that you bring up. I'm on the road a lot. There's products I want to use.

11:00 And I can't bring them with me. And with this way I can I also like it on the hospital. Yeah. Because

11:09 This will produce A lot less waste. I'm gonna be curious to hear a little bit more what the user experience is like with it. Yeah, tell us a little bit about who's who what are you hearing back from your customers and who's using it, who's buying it. Right now it's a lot of travelers. So it's folks that are taking it on a trip overseas or on a safari, they're going camping. Um so it's a lot of that portability use case. In terms of user experience, the first time you use it, it is a little different, right? It's unfamiliar. Um and so it takes a little bit of getting used to that first shower.

11:39 uh sud setting it up, but once you get the hang of it that first time it's pretty um self explanatory after that. It's not not rocket science. And are you you mentioned hotels and and how are those partnerships going? I'm actually how many h hotels are you partnering with right now? Yeah, we're in about a handful right now. They're mostly eco adventure lodges, mountain lodges. We've pitched to uh dozens and of hotels across Canada and the US. and they are a little bit slow to adopt new like this. The thing that's working in our favor is that there is some incoming legislation that is banning mini bottles in hotels. So they've already been banned in California back in twenty twenty three, this year in New York.

12:19 I'm in Washington by twenty twenty seven. So these state level bands which are a bit of a tailwind for us, but they're still a hurd to be able to get them to adopt. a different type of form factor. Mm. Yeah, Chet, you know, I'm curious because you mentioned something that I think we would both agree on. This this does solve a problem that a lot of people have, uh whether they're environmentally conscious and they want to be better stewards of the planet or they just don't want to travel through TSA with a bunch of of

12:44 But I will say they are loyal to their brands of shampoo. So what what do you How would you start to get people to think about something like this? Which is not a known brand.

12:57 To try and adopt it. Yeah, so I'd love to dig a little bit deeper into what the user experiences like. Are you measuring um what the user feels about her or his experience with it? Are you using anything like a net? A net promoter score or anything like that.

13:15 Yeah, we capture reviews on our site, so we have over five hundred reviews, uh about four point seven stars average, and then we also conduct user interviews, so we've done it. Over one hundred and fifty customer interviews today to try to get dig into the deeper qualitative insights. um and gather more feedback on how to improve the formulation, the packaging, the go to market, et cetera. Most of the research I've seen seems to say

13:38 The people Clamor. to be able to use an environmentally friendly replacement Yeah.

13:47 It doesn't cost them any more. And it doesn't inconvenience them in any way. As soon as It does cost more. Or the inconveniences there.

14:00 The resistance can Can go up better. At a quite high rate. So depending upon what the compromise or the sacrifice is that is being made In the mind of the user when the product is used.

14:16 That would be an area of sensitivity that I would want To explore more. I love the fact. That you're seeding this in hospitality. Can say

14:27 Gives people an opportunity to use it firsthand. I think for me I would keep leaning into that really, really heavy. Mm. That makes a lot of sense. A couple questions for you, Daniel. First of all, one of the things, one of the ways you're you're pitching this is it's convenient, right?

14:44 You know, I'm looking at your website and it says Hair and Body Tablets for Life's Adventures, but you could do something like you know, your shampoo now in the conve same f convenient format as a laundry tablet. But again, I'm not convinced that convenience is why people are gonna pick this. I I travel a lot, you know, and and I'm I'm perfectly happy to use the shampoo. in the hotels, especially in a nice hotel, just to try it. But here's here's what I

15:10 I think that you may want to think first of all Being consistent with your story and your message is gonna be virality any time any day. You know, you you're this is not having a viral hit, going to a an influencer, that could be fun if if it works, but being consistent, telling the story, speaking about this as much as you can. I look at your I'm looking at your website, it seems like you have given some speeches, I think you should keep doing that. But I keep looking at this and I keep going back to to to to three products. Tesla?

15:38 Method soap and sunbum sun tan lotion. Why did Method Soap work? Of course it's in a plastic bottle, but it's because they took an environmentally friendly product. which was the soap, and they made it, they elevated it. You know, at the time it was seventh generation and those were the brands that they were competing against. Method really broke the mold by making it cool and luxurious. Tesla did the same thing with electric cars. They didn't invent electric cars, they just made them So awesome for people.

16:05 Yeah. People went to them. Sunbum with Suntan Lotion was looking at you know Neutrogena and Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic and said, Hey, we can make a beautiful bottle. And really design the hell out of this. And I feel like This is a product that could benefit from a redesign.

16:23 that could really wanna I would suggest you wanna think about How do you make this into a product that is really desirable, not just for people who want to do right by the environment. But for people who want something elevated and luxurious and they get the benefit that it's good for the environment. Yeah. I think those are all great points. And

16:45 We will definitely look more into that, so appreciate the advice. Chet, is your is your ecolodge that you have in Tao is it is it kind of a Uh an upscale place. Yes. It's a small boutique hotel. I think that places like ours

17:01 would have a level of being curious about things like this. Uh I would love to be able to give uh what it is you sell. A go. and uh see what kind of an experience that I have with it.

17:15 Look at that. I think you should take chet up on that offer. We would love to send you some samples. Appreciate that offer. That'll be fun. Daniel, it's an awesome product. Congratulations. Uh the brand's called Earth Suds. Daniel Mole, thanks for calling and good luck. Guy Chet. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Yeah, I mean I I I think it's it's really cool. I think it could really, as they say, benefit from just some a few tweaks in the design to make it look

17:38 really sleek. You know, you think about um And it's possible you guys even have this brand at your at your lodges, Aesop, Aesop Soaps, even the name. You think of Aesop's Fables. The design is so beautiful. They're botanicals. Yeah. you know, I I'm not even sure if they're good for the environment or not, you know, but it's it's it just has this feeling and this aura around it that when you use it

18:01 And I think a lot of people listening would agree, it feels luxurious. I mean it's expensive too, but it has that feeling. And I think There's something to that. Yeah. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that Earth Sud will likely live or die. On what that experience is like.

18:18 I am curious to get my hands on a couple of them and and see. If it's a good experience. I think he's on to Something. If it's not a good experience, uh he's got a big hill to climb.

18:33 Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. I'm Guy Roz and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz, and my guest today is Chet Pipkin, founder of Belkin. international and we are taking Your calls. Hello, let's bring in our next caller. Hello caller. Hi Chet. Hi Guy. I'm so excited to be here.

19:11 My name is Meredith Hudson and I'm calling in from Long Island, New York. And I am the founder of Sideline Bags, which are the number one Backpack organizer, specifically designed for female athletes. And I design them to go inside your sports backpack to hold things like A hairbrush, hair elastic, sunscreen, kind of all the stuff that's typically rattling around at the bottom of a female athlete's sports backpack and sideline bags keep them all safe and secure.

19:40 Cool. Welcome to the show, Marath. So designed for women athletes who you know need to take off their earrings or their jewelry or or hair elastics and instead of it rattling around in a pocket in a backpack, it's it's this bag is designed for those accessories. Exactly. Got it. Okay, tell me how you started this this company. So we are about one year old. I am a mom of two very active teenage daughters who at one point were playing three or four sports at the same time. So you're leaving the house with a few different backpacks and inevitably we'd be pulling out of the driveway or pulling into practice and Someone would ask for a hairbrush, someone would need a band aid, and someone wouldn't be able to find their sunscreen. So I thought and being a former female athlete myself, um, I knew how important it was just to have those things so that you were organized, so that when you got to the field you could just really give it your all and, you know, crush it when you're there and not being worried about, you know, do I have a hair elastic or a hairbrush? So

20:37 I thought to myself, you know, there has to be a better way for them to stay organized because I'm giving them all these items, but they're kind of disappearing. So I started creating sideline bags just for my own two daughters, and it was going so well, and they liked having them, and I thought Actually this could be a thing. So that led to my first prototype. What sport did you play? I played ice hockey, field hockey, and lacrosse growing up, and then I played field hockey in college. Wow, that's awesome. Okay, so and ha tell me how you

21:07 You design this and then you you found like a manufacturer overseas to to start making them for you? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I have no background in manufacturing or retail. I literally drew on a piece of graph paper what I wanted it to look like. Um, and I had a a very good friend who um owns her own company and she's in manufacturing and I said, What do I do with this drawing? I want to make this bag. How do I go about this? And then just from, you know, YouTube and her advice and talking to some other people, I kinda went down the route of turning that into uh CAD drawing and then finding a manufacturer to make my first prototype, but I was I'm self taught in this world. That's awesome. What were you are y is this your full time work now? It it's not. I um I've been in advertising and media for about twenty years. I work in sales, so this is very much my five to nine in my weekend job right now. Wh which is great. What are you guys uh and you're selling

22:03 Through website. Through website right now only. Yep, I'm selling through my website. Um, I do a lot with TikTok shop, which is really exciting, and I'm also in a few retailers as well. And tell me about your sales uh what do you expect to do this year in sales. I think I'm gonna do a little over a hundred K this year, which is about ten X from last year. Yeah. Um it's been it's been such a whirlwind in the best way possible. Wow. All right, before we dive in further, tell us your question.

22:30 Yeah, so my question is about inventory planning. So I can't keep sideline bags. In stock the responses been incredibly overwhelming. I keep selling out. Um, and so my question is what is the best way for me to plan and buy inventory when I'm bootstrapping the business and cash flow isn't totally unlimited. Um, and also space isn't unlimited. I'm still in my house in my garage in my basement in every corner of every bedroom there are boxes of sideline bags but um the girls love the bags and we've been selling out really fast.

23:03 Awesome. Uh I wanna bring in chat. Um chat Again, I mean Cool product to solve clearly solving a problem for lots of people. Um what what thoughts about uh Meredith's question or questions for Meredith? Yeah, really like this. I've got a granddaughter. Who is an avid volleyball player.

23:22 Uh I travel with her. on uh all of her away. Balib. Tournaments. Um so I watch her and her

23:31 Teammates gear up first just for life. Right? And then they re gear up for the game. And then they re gear up again for life. So it's easy for me to envision

23:44 A much more organized way to do that. So really in touch with the problem that you're solving on that side. And I love the problem that you have with the business. We had the same problem at Belken.

23:59 Not enough cash. No working Capital. To invest In goods.

24:06 So the way we solve that issue. Возві формда вери тай алінс. with the person that was manufacturing our stuff. And we built a lot of trust. With them.

24:20 And so it wasn't Like a viable financial model for them, but because of the trust We built with them. We were able to get them to build a lot of things for us and to keep them on their books. And they allowed us to pull it off of them as we needed it.

24:41 We could have never afforded To have had that All of that stuff. On our own books. So I don't know if you'll be able to build a relationship like that.

24:52 But if you can, it could be a way to solve your issue. Mm. I have a question for you, Meredith. I mean, what is your What are your biggest sellers? And I I'm looking at your website now. You've got a bunch of colors here. Maybe nine c different colors. I'm assuming I'm just gonna take a leap here that black Black and maybe Navy are your biggest sellers? So it's actually Navy Blue and the Carolina Blue are our two biggest hits. But here's the thing that's unpredictable is I do a lot of team sales, which is amazing. I'll have a you know division one soccer team coach reach out and say we'd love to get them for the entire team.

25:27 Which is great, but maybe they'll come in and buy f you know, forty green bags. So green will sell really quickly, and then another team were like We would buy a hundred purple bags from you because our school colors are purple and I have to go and get certain color of purple manufactured. So when it comes to the the specific colors that I'm making, it's really dependent on the demand that I'm getting from various teams. I mean you don't have years of historical data, obviously, because you've just started this. So you're really gonna be looking at sell through rates for like

25:57 Thirty days, sixty days, ninety days. Are you selling out in a specific window, like is it does it uh do you sell out in like three weeks or two weeks or do you have any data around that? Uh some of them I sell out when I put it up on pre-sale before I even get the entire shipment. Um every time I do a reorder with my manufacturer, um, who's amazing, and and to your point, Chet, I think that's a very interesting area for me to explore is like working even more closely with them and and kind of how they can help me out there. We've been able to shorten the production time a little bit. Um

26:29 But I I've been I've been sometimes doubling my orders with the manufacturer as well. And I still can't um seem to keep enough in and In my house in stock. Chet, I guess I mean, normally you wouldn't want to drown in in unsold inventory. That's not a good recipe. You inventory management's critical for uh building a successful business. It doesn't sound like Meredith has this problem. I sounds like It's going in the door and out the in one door and out the other door.

26:56 I I don't know, I'm just thinking like Uh why wouldn't she just Order more than she thinks she needs. What do you think? I'm gonna guess she doesn't order more because she doesn't have the cash.

27:07 And uh I can definitely relate to that. And so how does she get more without having the cash? Um Is your inventory more like bananas, or is your inventory more like wine? Is there a lot of risk? Um in the inventory you have.

27:25 I actually think there's zero risk. I think if I got a lot and had it sitting there, I would eventually sell it over time. It's just yeah, okay, so it sounds like wine, it doesn't de a grade over Time. Yeah. So your sales are A hundred thousand bucks a year, do you have ten thousand dollars in inventory at any given time?

27:46 I'd probably like double that right now. Okay. Yeah. And what is the lead time? From the time you place an order until you have goods on hand. What is that period of time? It's about six weeks if I do air shipping, which is cutting into my margins, but I've been doing that sometimes because I

28:04 skinny margins better than no margins, and it's more like nine weeks if I C ship it. Which I would like to do more of just have it planned out so I'm just receiving shipments over time versus these like rush. Air shipped orders. Yeah, so I agree with Guy. It sounds like the problem you have is the problem we're all dying to have, is that our sales are constrained by a lack of goods. Yeah.

28:31 more fun problem to solve. then then I can't generate the uh sales. So I think you need to get creative with the working Capital. Constraint you have.

28:44 And so you can do that with your supplier? Yeah. If they're willing to undo that and and to keep it there for you. Maybe there's another way to solve it. Where an angel or or someone else

28:59 is willing to fund you know, that supply side for you. You'll need to give up some margin for that. either to the source of supply or the person who is doing that for you. But the cost of doing it that way is probably gonna be a lot less than the cost of shipping it air.

29:20 Yeah, the other the other thought I had was if you're constrained financially is As Chad said. you could w you could potentially work with the manufacturer to see if you can explore different payment terms, you know, like thirty percent upfront, seventy percent delivery. There are also other options like taking out some kind of loan, like non diluted uh loans. Um

29:43 Are you do you have uh are you on Shopify? Is this is your website using Shopify? Yes, my website is. I'm not using Shopify for any specific reason. There's a all a lot I think Squarespace, a lot of them do it. Yeah. I'm I'm not endorsing any of them, but they exist. These are places where you can actually take out loans. Have you explored any of that? Shop if I wants me to. It keeps prompting it w you know, right on the home screen when I log in there. Have you considered that? No, I I definitely could. Um I think I could also consider just a regular small business loan as well, depending on what the interest rate is. I did actually renegotiate my terms with my manufacturer just this last this last cycle of inventory. So that was a good first step. I'm glad that you guys agreed with that. Yeah. Awesome. Um, cool. The brand is called Sideline Bags. Uh Meredith Hudson, thanks for calling and good luck. Thanks so much.

30:30 You could even put That would probably be the best thing you could put in those bags. No, but it's it's really cool. You know, I'm not I've got two boys who are athletes and They just, you know, dump all their

30:47 Yeah, watching my grand teammates, uh they have a lot of accessories that your boys may not have. And so the way to manage that and to be able to keep track of that It's a good problem to solve.

31:07 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. Welcome back to the Device Line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz and today I'm taking your call with Chet Pipkin, the founder of Belkin International. Chet, um Thanks for joining me. Are you ready to take the next call? I'm ready. Alright, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, you're on the advice line. Tell us your name, uh where you're calling from and just a little bit about your business.

31:55 Yeah, hey Chet. Hey guy, I'm Ryan Helrigo and I'm calling in from San Diego, California. I'm the CEO of Rollflex, a company that specializes in making therapeutic massage tools. We are most known for creating the world's most effective. Arm recovery tools for things like tennis elbow. carpal tunnel and overall arm soreness. All right, cool. Thanks for calling in, uh, Ryan, appreciate it. Roleflex, so tell me, describe what this product is.

32:20 Like'cause we're on we're we're not uh it's not a visual medium here. Tell me yeah, build me a picture. The best way to visualize what the role flex is is Imagine a vice or a nutcracker, but for your arms And also for your legs. So instead of using vice. A vice or nutcracker. Okay, keep going. Just imagine it's like a torture device.

32:43 Totally kidding. Um To help roll out the pain and tension in your arms and your legs, so It allows you to use that leverage to create all the pressure instead of gravity, which is what we use a foam roller or lacrosse ball for. Okay. So you and and generally what kinds of people I mean athletes, but is it for

33:01 I mean is it you used it on your you mentioned your arms, also your your your calves, like where it it fits over what parts of your body. It's adjustable, so you can do both. It's most primarily used for tennis elbow and arm recovery. You can use it for arms, legs, um, as The better way to recover.

33:21 Got it. Okay, so it's like pressure. Like you'd go to a Masseuse and they would use their fingers and apply pressure to like knots in your In your forearms and things like that. Okay, cool. And how did you come up with this idea? Well, how did this start? Yeah, so RoleFlex started back in two thousand sixteen when my business partners they're both physical therapists and massage therapists.

33:41 They created this tool to help them alleviate their own tension. Imagine you're a Pete or a Masseuse working on people's arms and legs all day. You could imagine your arms after working on people would be really tense and really sore. My business partner Nick would go home to his sweet wife and go Honey, please help me roll out my arms.

34:01 So they developed this tool. To help do that to them themselves. Wow. And And this is a patent bes presumably a patented product and and yeah. And and where do you primarily where do you sell it?

34:13 We sell on Amazon and our website. Got it. And so how and so since twenty sixteen, so you're close to hitting your ten year mark. Tell me a little bit about your sales. What do you expect to do this year? This year we'll do about five million dollars in sales. Last year we did three. That's amazing. Yeah. That's awesome. And who are your primary customers?

34:31 So we always say if you have arms and legs, we can help you with that. Yeah. I mean that's pretty awesome, five million. Okay, so let's before we dive in further, tell me what your question is for us. Yeah, so the question that keeps coming up over and over and over again for me Is that we have large businesses think like manufacturing, logistics companies, military companies reaching out.

34:53 to have the role flex uh reduce worker comp claims. We have never successfully outbound reached out to somebody and got through. to the right point of contact to get the role flex to help more people. So my question is What are some pathways

35:09 when serving the B to B realm. In those spaces. What would you imagine would be a great pathway to help serve more people in that space? Yeah. When I hear government contractors or military contractors my my

35:23 uh my blood pressure goes up because it's so complex the R F process is just It's b it's so complicated and challenging and Chad, I'm sure y Belkin has been through this many times. Uh, so before we tackle the question, any thoughts or any any questions that you have for Ryan? Yeah, so I think you're both making A great point.

35:45 A frontal assault. is expensive and ineffective. with this kind of sales and market development the best way to do it. is an inside job

35:59 So if you can plant these experiences From people on the inside. Yeah. a firm that's done this in a brilliant fashion in the recent years is slack.

36:12 does is gets people inside of the organization to use it. And then people inside of the org are the ones that are fighting and clamoring for the org to adopt. So if you can get first some and then a critical mass of people inside the org. That are using it.

36:33 and being an evangelist for it on the inside that Look, we're losing all this time to people being down because they're injured. We're incurring all of these um costs. This is a life saver. For me and for us.

36:51 Create that demand on a the inside. And uh I think that things will be a lot more effective. Yeah, I think that's a great point and and Chet, truly that is the only way that we have Gotten to create contracts with these large companies for thousands of units. for workers comp because

37:10 It all starts with that one UPS driver or that one health and safety officer, but that's a really hard to repeat process. Have you been able to connect with HR or procurement officers at any of these places? Th that have been interested in in maybe partnering with you? Yeah, HR and then we have conversations around like

37:33 corporate wellness programs and We start moving the needle there and then what we've experienced in the past, and we've done it for a limited amount of time, um, is Something happens, the person's no longer working for the company, and then it's starting from the ground up all over again. Right. That happen that's normal. How much does does one of these devices cost?

37:52 It costs eighty dollars, the cost of a massage. So so have you been able to show, right? It's not just a nice to have perk, but have you been able to show that this could potentially be a cost reduction tool, right? Because workers' comp claims are high and it costs thousands of dollars, right, per employee if if somebody puts a claim in. And uh I mean if you can show with data and and I don't know if you've done this that that you know this can reduce repetitive strain injuries by I don't know, five, ten percent even You you then turn the product into a cost reduction tool. Like that to me would be the the best argument. Have you been able to make that

38:29 Case and make that pitch. We have on the consumer standpoint through doing our own studies, but we have not been able to um publicly share the companies that we work with that are willing to share their data reviews with us. And that's part of most of them come from Military contracting.

38:49 That we haven't been able to re leverage that. You can't publicly share you can't e uh anonymized it and just share data that that doesn't mention Uh that doesn't reveal who you're talking about? Yeah, we could do that, yeah. Yeah, well why why wouldn't you do that?

39:03 I feel like people always want like the name and Yeah, you can say we have uh uh relationships that are private and um you know, but the but here's the data. We will show you the data. from you know company, you know, Acme, whatever. Company X. Uh it's a well known company, you will know it, you'll st you'll know their products, you know what they do, but you know, we have a proprietary relationship with them, so we don't talk about and we would protect you as well. Here's the data we have from them. You they have a hundred employees, they've reduced their workers comp claims by five percent. It's could save them a hundred thousand dollars, they only spend you know, uh say save a million dollars, they only spend a hundred thousand dollars on this product, whatever it is, you know, you're gonna say, that's what you wanna do.

39:44 I think that's a great point. And I should definitely lean into that more clearly, yes. But the D to C bit what is what percentage of your sales are D to C? Ninety nine percent. Ninety nine percent direct to consumer. I mean that's pretty damn great. I mean the margins on that product must be pretty good.

40:01 Yeah, yeah, and it's uh we s we've scaled through meta ads, influencers, Google, TikTok. But we're definitely in this phase that we're looking to go to the next level and it's gonna require sales channel diversification. Chet, how important for Belkin were these big contracts versus you know, just selling to consumers. Yeah, so our B to B business, um

40:24 was often um almost as big as the business on the consumer side. Wow. And Even the delineation between the two is not that clear. Right. I mean, I'm not going to be able I use my tech at home, I use it at work. Is that a B to B?

40:43 path or is that a consumer path? And with with all due respect to that like frontal approach through HR and the and the people that write the POs for this. It's not the way I would do this one. Let's go. Yeah. I would be m much more much more on the Guerrilla side of things. So go where these folks are.

41:07 If you can get to them. And you can allow them to experience this. So like let's say it was on the sports side, you're gonna go to a Uh try try at the lead event. Um somebody's gonna be there y you know, selling bottle drinks and somebody else is gonna be having some kind of power bar. You're there with a booth with these things.

41:29 Right and say, Hey, you feeling aches or pains? Just give this a try. And You start solving that problem for people and they start talking about it inside of the organization.

41:44 And HR's hearing from them. And procurement hearing from them. That's where you're gonna get your breakthroughs. The problem with you doing it, even with the data and everything There's too many people trying to sell too much stuff. Yeah. And everybody's got all these claims.

42:00 They don't know who is credible and and who is not. For me, you have to get the inside voice. Whatever it takes to get those inside voices That's where I'd focus ninety nine percent of my effort. You're saying go grassroots. I love this, chit. I didn't know you were s you were a gorilla marketer. I love that. Yeah, I would explore ways to be able to reward or incentivize people that make things happen for you. So

42:26 I immediately don't know exactly what that might look like. But something on a referral or if you're able to make like these things happen for us, that this is your reward. I think I'd spend some time thinking about that, but that's where I'd put ninety nine percent of my energy. Awesome. Thank you. And I think that the the given how robust your D to C sales are

42:49 Uh that's really the core here. But one one thing you could consider doing is Trying to find a distributor. that works with these corporate wellness programs and obviously you'd have to cut them in But that could be you know an interesting approach, have ha sort of outsource

43:06 This outreach to wellness programs using your your products. And that's what we've been advised is a really good next step. Instead of trying to do it. all yourself and establish all the relationships, why not work with somebody that

43:18 That has it and then Then comes the conversation we are a fully bootstrap company around fulfilling uh these orders um at that scale and that scope. Yeah. Yeah, and I think this is an inside job. And um I wish you a lot of success with it.

43:35 Yeah, awesome. Ryan Hell Regal, co founder of Rollflex. Thanks for calling in, man. Good luck. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you so much. Chet. Um

43:45 I mean it's been a while. Since you were grinding through some of these shoes yourself. But uh I mean it kinda must take you back a little bit. It does. Thinking back grinding through this, I don't think about it every day.

44:00 But hearing these people With their own grind going on. Yeah. It emall comes back. I mean it's like I'm reliving it.

44:09 right I'm here in this moment And um I just want to dive in to um help them because these are solvable things. Um And I think Most of those, maybe all of those, we've had to solve in multiple Ways

44:27 and multiple times. Yeah, let's just go get it done. Awesome. Chet, if you could go back, right, w knowing everything you know now, back to when you were twenty one, you were starting Belkin, you were trying to figure this out, and you you could give yourself a piece of advice that you now know. What do you think would have been helpful for you to know? So I think for me

44:45 the systems and the approaches that we Invented were really appropriate and good for our business. And some of the biggest errors we made was listening to so called pros Tell us at a future point in time that the right way to run a business is you know, fill in the blank.

45:08 Yeah. And rather than just staying true to what it was that was working and our own systems and our own Our own DNA. Some of the times when When we tried to make that shift to the pros, it was actually a huge step back.

45:25 So I would just keep following the heart and keep following what works and uh not Not worry so much about what other people say are the right way to do things. That's Chet Pipkin, founder of Belkin International. Chet, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Pleasure to be here. Always great to see you.

45:45 It's great to have you. And by the way, if you haven't heard Chet's original How I Built This Episode, please go back and check it out. We will put a link to it in the podcast description in the show notes. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. There were days when I thought nothing could stop us that uh this was gonna work and uh this was gonna be the most brilliant thing ever. And there were other days that were really, really dark and um I just would hold my head and my hands and and say, Wow This is never gonna work.

46:18 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 guyroz.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 1800-433-1298. 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 Catherine Seifer with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edit by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Lafredo. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Chris Massini, Ramel Wood, Sam Paulson, Niva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to how I built this.