Selling mountain bikes all over the planet

Okay, Jeff Cayley, it has been – for me, it’s been a journey. I guess it’s been a journey for you too, but I’ve known of you, and have been impressed by you for many years now, if you didn’t know that already.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that.

I see you as a mountain biker, an entrepreneur, and to me, those are two really awesome qualities… So you’re high up on my list of people to care for in this world, and even if you didn’t know, I’ve been really impressed with Worldwide Cyclery… What’s crazy though is when I ask people about it, and where they buy their mountain bike gear, they don’t always say from you, and that makes me sad. I feel like you should be the most well-known, just as much as anybody else, and… I don’t know, so you’re not always on the top list, but I love your business no matter what.

Yeah. Well, there’s a lot, man… The retail space is challenging and competitive, and it’s changed a lot, and… Yeah, we’re definitely well-known, and the third biggest in the US, and I think the fifth in the world when it comes to the enthusiast high-end mountain bike space, but… There’s still a lot of options for people to buy things these days on the interwebs.

Yeah, I don’t usually ask people to introduce themselves, because I kind of like just do it with you naturally, but… I feel like you’re a left-of-center guest, insofar that this show primarily speaks to software developers. We don’t usually talk about mountain biking. However, we did have a mutual friend, Adam Miller, on this podcast, years ago, I guess back when he was the original founder of Revel… Still is the original founder, but now he’s buying it back. We’ll probably get into some of that detail, but…

Oh, yeah.

I had Adam on, I would say during some of the heyday for mountain biking… This last several years has been a unique space, but… Just because you’re a unique guest for this show, please, introduce yourself, to some degree. How would you introduce yourself?

Yeah, cool. Well, I’m definitely not a software developer, although I am very much a nerd, in a sense. I love technology, and business, and finance, and all of that, but don’t specifically work in that. So yeah, I grew up in Southern California, and was just always into extreme sports. Mountain biking was the most prominent one for me. I started racing a lot when I was a teenager, and raced a couple of years professionally out of high school, and broke plenty of bones… And I was doing Enduro and downhill racing, and had always worked in the industry in the off-seasons as well. From there, I opened up a mountain bike shop that was online and in-store, with the idea of it being very much tailored towards the high-end enthusiast portion of the market. I wanted it to be very multi-channel retail; so e-commerce heavy, but still have a good in-store presence as well. That was in 2011, so I opened that business when I was 21, which was quite some years ago now… And I just grew it and scaled it.

We did a lot of unique content marketing to put ourselves on the map, and have always had a lot of fun in the game of business, like trying to make sure our marketing came across as enjoyable and fun and authentic and creative and unique. It really wasn’t super-tactical. It wasn’t calculated, in a sense. It was just more real, and this is what we are, and we educated people on the things we knew about in the space, and did right by our customers, and worked really hard to build a good business that had repeat customers and all that, and curate all of the best stuff the mountain bike world had to offer.

So yeah, we’ve done that for quite a long time, and around 2016 I had kind of started seeing some cracks forming with that business model of bicycle industry retail… So Worldwide Cyclery, just for context, was a retailer. So think your traditional bike shop, albeit mostly online, and specifically geared towards the high-end segment of the mountain bike portion, and catered towards the enthusiasts. And that business was – it was just the model was changing, in the sense that a lot of the brands in the industry were starting to sell consumer direct, and the retail landscape was changing because of that.

COVID came along and the bicycle industry went through this massive boom cycle. Everyone who was already a mountain biker just rode more frequently, and got more into the sport, more intrigued with it, and people who weren’t necessarily mountain bikers got into the sport… It was just a great socially distant activity to get into, and the whole industry boomed, all the categories. That lasted longer than most people thought it would. It happened probably a couple years, then it went through a huge bust cycle…

And needless to say, pre-COVID we had done a couple things as we saw some faults and cracks with the business, one of which was fire up a mountain bike hard goods brand, which actually did the design and manufacturing of things like pedals, grips, bars, stems… So we [unintelligible 00:07:44.14] that business, called Trail one Components, and it’s really tailored towards giving back to the sport, as well as manufacturing all the products. And then we also acquired a very small brand that we did retail called KETL Mountain Apparel. And it was in its infancy. One of the distributors we worked with had made it as sort of a cross-functional, versatile apparel brand that had some mountain bike pieces… And we actually ended up buying it from them, because we really wanted to get into the apparel space, because we just really enjoyed apparel of all kinds in the outdoor segment… And we did a lot more – when I say “we”, it’s like me and my business partners. We did a lot more than just mountain biking.

[00:08:23.00] So that was in late 2019 that we did that, and that business now, KETL Mountain Apparel is actually a bigger business than Worldwide Cyclery. It’s grown and scaled really fast. So yeah, now I’m basically running Worldwide Cyclery still, which has three retail stores, still a big online business, running KETL Mountain Apparel, which makes some mountain bike-specific gear, but mostly adventure/travel apparel of all kind, all menswear… And then Trail One Components, which is a mountain bike hard goods brand.

So yeah, that’s a long-winded way of saying, you know, just some random kid from California who was really into mountain biking and outdoor stuff, and also really enjoyed the game and sport of business.

Yeah, I look at the things you’ve done, and from the outside it’s easy to see the highlights, but I’m sure there’s a lot of challenge in there. 2011 - was that still Worldwide Cyclery in 2011? Or was it a different brand?

Yeah. So Worldwide Cyclery was the first one. The industry was in a unique spot… Because if you look at the bike industry ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and even into the aughts, it was kind of a heyday for brick and mortar bike shops. Brick and mortar bike shops did really well. They were good businesses. They had decent margins. They were relatively easy to operate. They were good, small businesses. That obviously got really turned up when e-commerce came into the fold, and sort of that 2011 to 2022 was sort of the heyday of the e-commerce side of the cycling industry. And yeah, Worldwide Cyclery was the first one; I started it at age 21.

The reason I named it that is because, if you remember, the US had fairly recently gone through the huge financial recession, and the USD was actually pretty low against the basket of currencies, and mountain biking is a super-global sport, and we have access to a lot of the best stuff in the United States… And there was a big opportunity I saw that you could sell a lot of this stuff online internationally. And that was the initial market I was really focused on, which is why I named the business Worldwide Cyclery. And for the first three years of Worldwide Cyclery, so 2011 to 2014, we were predominantly international, in terms of where we were selling and marketing. And then that shifted. The USD just got stronger and stronger, different countries that were big sort of mountain bike markets, their currency went downward, and our business shifted much more domestic.

So yeah, Worldwide Cyclery is kind of an old business now. It’s funny, I hear people all the time calling their businesses a startup, and it’s 10 years old. I’m like “Just because you’re losing money doesn’t mean you’re a startup, if you’re 10 years old.” Or even five years old. Get out of here… You’re not a startup just because you want to be cool. So no, I’ll never say that about our business, even when it was a startup.

I would say too that you’re – and I don’t know you personally; I only know you from the persona you put through the internet, basically. The name you attach to your businesses, and then I think maybe your personal presence on your YouTube channel primarily for Worldwide Cyclery… I obviously see you in product shots for KETL , because you’re the star…

I’m a free model, so that’s why… [laughs]

You’re the free model, yeah. Why not, right? If it works for Jeff, it works for everybody else, kind of thing. So I only know what you allow people to see, let’s just say. And so that’s my personal perspective. So you know you, you know your own struggles, you know your own therapist, you know your own friends and all of your whatevers you’re not sharing with me… But I see you as somebody who’s really sharp with business. Not like oddly, but unexpectedly. You’re a racer, you’ve got this athleticness to you… You’ve grown up in this very harsh sport, you’ve broken bones, as you’ve said… I don’t know what kind of mental problems you have to keep doing it, considering the broken bones, but I kind of get it, because I’ve OTB-ed and crashed. I haven’t broken anything as a mountain biker, so maybe I’m not really a mountain biker if I haven’t…

[00:12:28.24] The collarbone is kind of the rite of passage, so consider yourself lucky so far if you haven’t broken one of those…

You know, and I’m just old enough now to know that I’m like “You know what, I like mountain biking, but I’ve kind of – I’ve dialed back.” It’s just, I know what I’m capable of, and I’m only going down mountains that I can pedal up. Or want to pedal up, which is the challenge of downhill, I would say. Or any version of it. The point I’m getting to though is that you’ve got this extreme sport, let’s just say, background. How did you learn about business? Was it just through the school of hard knocks? Did you learn because you had to? Did you go to school for some of this stuff? How did you get sharp on the business side? Was it just – and I don’t mean that pejoratively; was it just dumb luck? Or how did you get sharp? Because you seem pretty sharp.

Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate the kind words. And yeah, I mean, I’ve fielded this question a number of times, because a lot of people do see me goofing around on the internet, and then also realize sort of what I’ve built in the business side of things, and they’re like “How did this guy do that?”

How does that person equate to that person?

Exactly.

Explain.

It is definitely unexpected.

And you do have a very funny humor, too.

Thanks, man. [laughs]

Like, you bring a lot of real genuineness to you, which is why I loved your primary brand in the first place… I was drawn to your authenticness. And then even Liam and the rest of the team being equally authentic, equally as customer caring, equally as passionate… That’s just truly unique. But that’s your content side. That’s not your business side. How did you get sharp in business?

Yeah. So the business side - I think part of it was a little bit of just something I always enjoyed, sort of unknowingly. When I was a kid, when I was about 11 years old, that was when eBay was just this awesome marketplace where anyone could sell random things… And I had sort of discovered eBay as a fifth and sixth grader, and started selling random stuff I could get my hands on around the house… And my dad had – he would get gifts at white elephant parties, or whatever. He’s a medical malpractice lawyer that defends doctors, and super-nice dude, doesn’t know anything or care much about business… He’s just a really passionate guy in the medical legal field. And he would get random gifts from parties that he would never use, and they’d just sit around, and I’d be like “Dad, do you want this pen, or whatever random thing you got?” “Nah, you can sell it.” And so then I’d go to the garage and sell things.

So I started selling all this stuff on eBay as a kid, and just figuring it out. Just poking around, reading, figuring it out. And then I started knocking on all the neighbors’ doors and telling them I could sell things for them on consignment, and started doing that… And looking back – I didn’t even think about it at the time, but looking back on it, I was like “Oh, obviously there was some natural inclination towards business and sales, and just commerce.” Because I was doing that at a really young age.

And then I loved BMX bikes at that age too, and so I started disassembling BMX bikes and custom-painting them, just with spray paint, and using tape to create graphics on them and stuff… And then I would paint people’s bikes for money in the neighborhood, and build custom BMX bikes that I would custom-paint for friends… And I was always wheeling and dealing, doing stuff that I just thought was fun, and never really realizing that that was clear signs of business acumen and entrepreneurship. I never even thought of it that way. I just did that stuff, because I thought it was fun and enjoyable.

[00:16:02.10] I’ve got incredible, supportive, nice, kind parents, that have just always let me be myself and chase my passions when I’ve had them… And business just kind of fell into that. And I started working at a local bike shop when I was 14. Great local bike shop, called Michael’s Bicycles in Newberry Park. Still in business. They’ve been in business for I think longer than I’ve been alive; like 40 years, or something. And the owner is just a classic, charismatic, good salesman, awesome owner… And I just learned a ton hanging out around him. He actually really cared. He liked people. He was really a people person, he loved selling bikes, he loved riding bikes, he loved working on bikes, he loved running a small business… And I just watched and listened and observed, and really enjoyed that.

A lot of the business acumen that I got was from just working alongside a small business owner, that was passionate and good, and getting to work… I think getting to work alongside a small business owner, like owner-operator, is a really good educational thing in your formative years in business and entrepreneurship, because you get to see their decision-making and what they think about, what they care about, how they care or don’t care for customers, things like that.

And you learn some stuff that you shouldn’t do. He was, like most small business owners at the time, a little sloppy with organization and inventory, and sometimes how we would organize and prioritize people’s service work, or not prioritize people… Just your classic small business owner stuff.

So I just learned a lot from working there as a kid… And once I got better into mountain bike racing, I was getting sponsored and getting free product, and then in the offseason I would sell it on eBay, and sell it through Pinkbike forums and stuff… And yeah, I just always enjoyed all of that. I enjoyed selling things, I enjoyed the… I always had sort of an optimism towards sales in a sense… And it was just easy, because if somebody comes in, they want to upgrade their bike or buy a new bike, to me it was just so easy and natural to sell that… Because people are buying these things to have fun, and smile, and get an adrenaline rush, and be healthy, and go outside. So I just always thought this is the best thing to sell, ever. You’re selling fun. You’re selling bikes. So I just liked that a lot.

From there, I had seen this opportunity to sell more, and sell online, and told the owner about it, and he’s like “That’s awesome. You should do that, but I’m not interested in doing anything more complicated in my life.” And he was quasi-retired in a sense, didn’t really want to work much harder than he had been. So then I just did it myself. I was like “Okay, how can I figure this out? How does this work?” Just basic stuff. Super-basic, fundamental things that I just learned by doing very much so.

So I was like “Okay, how do I get my first small shop? What do I do? How do I get money to buy inventory? How do I list inventory that a distributor has, that then I can sell, and then immediately buy from there, and then ship it out?” And these are things that people have terms for in the e-commerce world called just-in-time inventory, and little stuff like that. And I just figured it out by doing. And because I enjoyed it, it was really easy for me to learn everything… And business was just something that I thought was genuinely fun to do. And when something is fun, you do it a lot, you think about it a lot, you get creative with it… And it’s so frictionless to learn because you’re enjoying the experience.

So I just learned by doing. And in the early years of Worldwide Cycler, I in large part had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t really understand a P&L or a balance sheet. I kind of figured it out… And then I just read and learned, and then you go to the accountant and he explains things, and then you go back and you read more stuff about that, and sit there on Google and study stuff… And - man, it would have been nice to have ChatGPT back in those days.

Hah! Yeah…

[00:19:54.23] You know, instead of sitting on Google for hours, sifting through articles covered in ads, and reading things, you could just talk to an LLM. But anyways, I just learned by doing, and that’s it. I think that’s the best way to learn, especially when your ass is on the line, to some extent. Like, you’re running a small business yourself - that’s how you learn seriously, and take things seriously.

And yeah, and then it’s like different stages of the business. In the early years, I learned the fundamentals of just finance, and the basics of buying and selling inventory, stuff like that; customer service, customer support, all that. And then as the business evolved and we kind of needed to hit different… You know, we needed different levers to pull in order to keep growing, it was then “Okay, let’s get more into marketing. How does marketing work? How do we get people to have desire to buy these products? What is customer acquisition cost and how do I understand that?” And so I just learned all this stuff by doing. And because I liked it, I just dug into the information more.

And I was also just – a lot of it’s humility. You have to just know you don’t know a lot, and try things, and experiment with things, and fall on your face and get back up, and not be afraid to ask dumb questions… I don’t know. So yeah. And I’d barely graduated high school. So I went to high school for 2 years, and then I went to charter school, which I qualified for because I was racing mountain bikes as a junior professional athlete… I went to charter school for a year, and then I just figured out you could take the California high school proficiency exam, and I just took that and bounced. And 5 years later I had a multi-million dollar business. So I didn’t learn anything from any formal things. It seems cool to go to business school and learn this stuff, but just doing it yourself I think is a great way to learn, and that’s how I did it.

Yeah. I mean, I also think about the other incumbents in the mountain bike retail space… Now, I started the show off by saying that I genuinely am surprised. When I mentioned my affinity for your brand, Worldwide Cyclery, where I buy the majority of – I would say, most of my mountain bike stuff. When I ask folks about you, they don’t know, because there’s Jensen, and there’s other major, major brands.

Yeah.

How did you navigate not just learning by doing and that aspect, but competing against some of the biggest dogs on the planet when it comes to distributing product to mountain bikers? That’s gotta be challenging, I guess, to put it lightly…

Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I think part of that is just industry knowledge. I always tell people when they’re interested in business or starting a business, I think one of the most important things is you just really need to understand your industry. Who are the players in the industry that matter? Who are the newcomers? Who are the incumbents? How are they acquiring customers? How are they retaining customers? What’s their reputation like? What’s their strategy? Is their strategy getting dated? Is it still relevant? If you just think and ask a lot of those questions, and the more you have clear and concise answers and understanding of all of that stuff within an industry, that’s where you can begin to see really strategic places where you can fit in and compete and do well. And so that’s what I did. I was in the industry so long that I knew and understood all these players, and their strengths and weaknesses… And I also understood a lot of how the industry was evolving, from a very granular, backend side of things.

Jensen had started in, I think, 1999. So I was a kid – I used to buy from them when I was a little kid. And they’re still a great business, chugging along, right? But their model, because it started so long ago, it was before a lot of the brands and distributors within the industry had good B2B eCommerce platforms. And before those eCommerce platforms that they used for the B2B side had really good APIs. And then it was before a lot of these software products that came about, which was basically a more sophisticated ERP system that would allow you to take an API from a distributor and configure it, and conform it, and then send it to Shopify, eBay, and Amazon… And so there was a lot of technology and software products popping up in the eCommerce space, while simultaneously, this sort of backend software side of things within the industry with these brands and distributors was getting more sophisticated.

[00:24:21.18] And I was so in the industry, I saw all that stuff, and understood how that stuff was happening. And when you do that, you start to realize and see opportunities, and you start to also notice what competitors and usually incumbents aren’t as attuned to that stuff… And maybe they don’t want to integrate it because it’s a challenge, because they’re fine the way they’re doing things, and they want to continue doing them that way, or because they have these legacy systems that are hard… So you just start to see all this stuff, and that’s how you figure out where you can compete.

And yeah, that was a lot of it. It’s sort of boring, behind the scenes stuff, but it is important stuff… Because when you want to go up and fight against really good competitors out there in an industry, you have to understand the industry landscape in a very intricate way like that.

What do you think made you win? What was the initial win or two that really made you think “Okay, this is legit. Not only is it a good business, but I can actually run this business. I love the people I’m growing up with, or adding people on…” Because you can’t do it alone. You’ve got great staff that helps you on the sales… And just – selling mountain bike stuff is not like sales. It’s just passion, in a lot of cases. I feel like what you said before, it does kind of sell itself if you’re selling it to the right person. Now, if the market has dried up in terms of customers, it’s a different thing. You had a huge upswell whenever COVID happened, then a big old let-out, so to speak. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how – not so much how that changed the world, but really, it seems like it’s damaged the mountain bike industry in a way… But that’s a different – let’s table that for the moment. When it comes to the first initial few wins, when did you really see the light? Like “Okay, I can do this. This is the future. Not this is a temporary thing, or this is something I’m trying. This is what I’m actually doing. Now I’m this.”

It’s a good question. I definitely think there’s been – and I think every business goes through phases. There’s phases of different reasons of why you can grow, and then you tap out that strategy and you have to find a little bit of a new strategy, or just different methodologies to continue to succeed… You know, in the early days, all I was focused on – I started at age 21. I was just trying to make $60,000 a year. That’s all I wanted.

That’s hilarious.

I was like “I’ve just got to make $60,000 a year.”

Why that number?

Because at the time, it was like “If I could make $60,000 a year, I could comfortably pay rent and travel a little and ride bikes.” I don’t know, it wasn’t really that thought through. It was just like “Oh, that’s a living wage.” I was making like 30 at the bike shop. If I can make 60k, I’m going to be having a great life.” I don’t know, that’s all I thought about… Which is so funny how much my brain has evolved, and how quickly it evolved just in a few years of starting the business. But that was the initial focus, which I look back on and still laugh at.

But going back to what I said about the way that these software products were coming online in the industry, and the industry was figuring out API feeds, or just data feeds and yada-yada, some of the initial ones were just that; literally, just that - just figuring out how to use software tools, and build a little tech stack that could then push distributors’ inventory data feed into your ERP system, and then you could modify it in a certain way, and then you could advertise and sell that product. Just little weird backend technical things like that. That was some of the first things that put us on the map

[00:28:02.27] And that financial model was actually pretty amazing, because it didn’t really cost much at all in terms of upfront expense. It was very minimal cost to just build this little tech stack, get the products advertised, and then you were up based on a just-in-time inventory model. So you’d sell something for $100 that you didn’t even own, then you would take $70, give it to the distributor, then you would ship the thing out, and now you’ve made 20 bucks. And then just do this over and over again. Just really simple, basic, just-in-time inventory model.

That was the first thing, just figuring out a little strategy like that. And then that only goes so far… Then it becomes like “Okay, now we need to build a website, and now we need to figure out customer acquisition costs, we need to understand how sustainable is it to have an eBay brand, an Amazon brand, versus your own website, and have great repeat customers on your own website.” So you start to understand the viability of all these different ways of selling things, and the viability of how you acquire customers and retain customers…

And so the second piece was “Okay, now we need to figure out how to market really well.” And we didn’t really put a crazy amount of tactical effort into that, because you can’t as a retailer. Because as a retailer, you’re mostly confined to this about 30 points of gross margin, which is quite small. So you don’t really have much room for customer acquisition costs, so you have to pretty much do it in a very, very bootstrapped way. And that came down to content marketing. And that was – so I got really interested and good at SEO, and figuring out how to take knowledge out of my head about random things, whether that was how to set up clipless cleats on your pedals, how to tune your suspension, random stuff like that, and writing it out into articles.

And then we started making YouTube videos, and we started talking to the camera, and rambling off random things that we thought… You know, most of the original ideas for the YouTube videos were fielding all these customer questions. And there’s a lot of this complicated compatibility stuff in the bike industry. It’s like “Does this fit this? Does that fit that? What would happen if I put this fork on this bike?” Random stuff like that. So then we would just make YouTube videos based off of those questions, to just educate people. And there was still a huge gap in the marketplace on YouTube for that. There just wasn’t those videos. So we just started making educational mountain bike videos about upgrading your bike, compatibility things, tips and tricks, random stuff like that. And that was largely free, in a sense. It was just me talking to a camera. We’d do some super-basic editing and [unintelligible 00:30:34.19] on YouTube. And people really liked it.

And that had a lot of side effects that I never knew were going to happen… Because not only were we then educating mountain bikers and getting views and getting brand awareness, but then people were going “Hey, I actually like these guys. These guys seem cool and genuine and they helped me”, and people naturally have some level of reciprocation in them, and they’re like “Because these guys helped me, I want to buy at this retailer.” And we saw that happening and we go “Oh, this is actually building us fans, not just customers. It’s people that actually genuinely appreciate that we wrote and/or filmed useful educational mountain bike content that was helpful for them. And then now they like us and want to shop with us, instead of our competitors selling the exact same product, at the exact same price.”

So you start just learning these things, like “Oh wow, that actually worked quite well. Let’s just double down on that and make more useful videos. And let’s make more useful content.” And so that was the next big lever that helped really put Worldwide Cyclery on the map, that made people realize who we were, and just want to shop with us. That was a big one.

And of course, there’s the thousand other small things that people love to gloss over… But if any business is successful, there’s 1000 other things behind the scenes that you have to do to win. Maybe the big, overarching, obvious strategy I can tell you was - yeah, we got quite sophisticated at content marketing and built an audience, and that made people want to buy with us, but realistically, we still needed to have a good website, we still needed to fulfill those orders on time, we still needed to have really timely responses to our phone calls and emails to help people out, to solve warranty issues, to just do the basic stuff that customers had a great customer experience with when they shopped with us.

[00:32:23.22] And that was a strategic advantage, because a lot of these incumbents, they were terrible at answering emails or phone calls, or just their customer experience was terrible… They were very transactional, in an industry that shouldn’t be transactional. This is a passion-driven industry; you should be able to call and talk to someone who actually rides bikes, and they can tell you their experience with this product, and if it’s compatible or not, and if they like it. You shouldn’t be getting some boilerplate, weird, useless answer. People started realizing a lot of these incumbents were almost like fulfillment houses. It’s like, “I could just buy something here, but that’s. It ends there. They don’t know anything about the product.”

They’re not helping you make a decision…

Totally. Yeah.

Gaining affinity… We’ve had some email exchange since 2022… We’ve been trying to get you on this podcast for a bit. And it’s not your fault, it’s my fault, too. That’s how things work out. But I think I shared with you – because I was excited. I want to concur on a lot of things you just said there, because I think I watched Liam build several bikes… And I think they were your bikes…

It could have been, yeah.

…now that I think about it, they were Revel bikes… And I think I learned how to do certain things. And I’m not a bike mechanic, but I can build a bike from scratch today. And the reason why is because – I think a large part of that is because of the passion that you talk about, that came through personally yourself and those you’ve brought into your team… But that YouTube channel for me was pivotal in my mountain bike journey…

Nice.

…just because I – I personally got more into the sport when I realized and learned how to take care of my own bike.

Yeah. That’s awesome to hear.

Like, it was just really daunting to think – having that agency over my ability to, one, control the component, and then two, just control my… What’s the right word to say…? My trust in it, because I tightened the bolt to the right meter, for example. Or I know I chose the titanium bolt over something else, for example…

Yeah. You know you did it right, and your bike’s not going to fall apart under you and it’ll be your fault.

Yeah. Or I know there are new brake pads, or just – I can go down this mountain with more confidence, because I built and chose the components.

Yeah.

And that began with, I think, the fidelity that you allowed through your YouTube channel; not just the ones which was like what’s cool about SRAM, or what’s cool about this, or why you choose SRAM over Shimano, or… You know, these little tastes; I wish you’d let out more of that, because I would personally just consume all of your content to get whatever you would share, whatever nugget you would share. And it was never enough. And it wasn’t even your fault. But I literally watched Liam build multiple bikes for you, particularly, learning how to build and how to put a star nut into a stem, for example. Or even how to cut a stem and not get it wrong and get pissed off because you’ve spent 1,200 bucks on a new Fox fork and you’ve cut the stem too short. That’s just – don’t do that. That’s the worst ever. And I would wait weeks to make that cut. I would procrastinate even building the bike, because… It’s such an expensive cut to do wrong, you know? And what’s the right tool, even? There’s just so much mystery in that world that I feel like you unlocked and enabled, and so I would just literally – like, every video you dropped, I would be the first watcher, always watching.

Nice.

[00:36:09.05] And I loved your usage of the surveys. I would love to know your data behind the scenes, like how much of this is truly beneficial to the business… Because you ask a lot of really good questions that me as an enthusiast, I want to answer. Because I want to share my response. But as a collector of data, I imagine it helps you do very valuable things for the industry, selfishly, but also naturally. But I’m just curious about that, too. But anyways, I loved your YouTube channel. To me, it was a treasure trove of goodness. It was where I found my community when I didn’t have community. It taught me a lot about taste, and how you choose tires, or how you pair tires together… These are things that I didn’t ever knew. And I got excited about like bike tech. Because I’m a technologist, and I love technology generally; I love data, and specs, and the why’s and the how’s, and stuff like that… And so your channel really enabled me to dig deeper.

And then when it became time to order anything, it was obvious… Every time you sent me something, you always gave me a code to get 10% off or 15% off of next time… So you –

Yeah. One of those little strategies for repeat business.

Yeah. I would say - and maybe this will be helpful to you and your own ego I would probably say more than anything, is that it never felt like you were trying to sell me. It always felt like you’re trying to serve me, which is a whole different thing when it comes to – I think Jensen versus Worldwide Cyclery. What you built and what they built is dramatically different in terms of like how I buy, or why I even care to buy from you versus them… Because I know why you’re in the game. And so a little bit of a gush session there, but I really just appreciated the YouTube channel. And I think – one, I’ll let you respond to that, but then two, I’ve got a follow-up on that. So I’ll just let you respond to some of my gushing, if you don’t mind.

Yeah. Well, thank you. I appreciate that, and it makes me happy to know that people like you enjoy the videos, learn from the videos, and just got more into the sport because of it. I actually really liked the way you said that it doesn’t feel like we’re selling, it feels like we’re trying to serve. Because that’s a great way to say it, and I’ve never thought of it that way. But that’s certainly what we’ve all – that’s basically what we’ve always tried to do. One of the core values of the company is we try to impress ourselves and impress our customers. And the theory behind that is we’re trying to operate a really good business, and part of that in our industry is to never be derogatory, which is very common in the industry. The industry is kind of notorious for being very clicky, and for it being really hard for new people to come into the sport… Whether that’s just casual mountain biking, serious mountain biking, road cycling, whatever.

A lot of people have this experience where they walk into a local shop and they feel very belittled by the staff, and talked down to… These are so common for you to hear these stories. “Yeah, that guy was just a total douche. Acted like he was a snob nose and I didn’t know anything. And I didn’t know anything, and that’s why I was there. Like, help me.” There’s a lot of that snobbery in the bike industry, which is really unfortunate, because it’s what keeps new people from getting into the sport and liking the sport, and sticking with the sport, of any type of category of cycling.

So yeah, we’ve always talked about that, and always tried to be the place where – because the whole other thing too with bike shops is, they carry a few brands that they sell that are bike brands, and if you were to have bought a bike from another shop, or direct, a consumer direct only brand, and you walked into that shop to get it worked on, they’re going to be all snob nosy about the fact that you didn’t buy the bike there. It’s like, that’s ridiculous. You’ve got a customer coming in that just wants to spend money and have the – it’s just crazy.

[00:40:09.25] There’s a lot of lack of business sense, and too much uppity, clickiness in the industry. And we’ve always tried to fight against that, and not behave that way. So yeah, I hope we’ll always maintain that, but it is tricky, because it is a complicated industry. It’s easy to get into the sport, and then feel overwhelmed, and go “Man, this is too confusing to figure out what bike to even buy, how and where to use it, how to upgrade it…” Yeah, it’s just a complicated product. But if you like the stuff and you like learning about it, then it’s a very fun industry, because there’s a lot to learn and know about the bikes themselves.

Yeah. I feel like y’all did a great job of tastes. So you seem like curators, tastemakers… So it made me trust your opinion more, because I knew you had a reason why you chose a certain direction. It wasn’t because this was bad and this was good, it was just more like “You know what? I kind of like the way that SRAM brakes stop, with a progressive state, versus like an immediate stop”, which I think is one thing you’ve particularly said over the years… And it helped me choose SRAM over Shimano when it comes to my brakes… And to this day, why SRAM is my braking system. Not that I would never try others, but I trust it more because of some of that back and forth. I’ve also had many pairs of brakes on my bikes over the years, and so I’ve bled enough brakes to really hate doing it. And I procrastinate bleeding brakes every time I have to do it. It’s not fun. It’s not hard either, but it’s just like one of those things where you’re like, you know…

Yeah, it’s tedious.

Yeah, it’s kind of tedious. It’s very tedious. But I use SRAM brakes for those reasons. And I tried them, though. So I bought them, tried them, and agreed with what you agree with. And so it wasn’t like “Oh, Jeff said X, so Adam does Y, and therefore happiness ensues, and no crashes.”

Yeah. That’s cool to hear, because I’ve always tried to communicate that there’s not always just a black or white, right or wrong. There’s a lot of personal preference. Some people like the feel of Shimano brakes for that exact reason you don’t. And that’s okay. Let’s all admit that. I don’t know, a lot of people are not willing to admit that; if they like what they like, they think that’s right… And it’s like, “No, that’s not how the world works.” And you can communicate that better, and explain that some people like this for this reason, and some people like that for that reason. So I don’t know… Part of that’s just, I think, being able to communicate that stuff well.

And and as a retailer, you’re kind of uniquely positioned to do that, because if one of the brands themselves makes that content, they obviously have to be obscenely biased towards their product. But as a retailer selling multiple ones, you can sort of better educate people on the differences, the intricate differences between them, and explain that. Yeah, it’s just personal preference in a lot of ways, and explain why they’re different, and then people can think about their own preferences, and try accordingly, like you did with breaks… So that’s cool to hear.

Mm-hm. So content market was obviously the big push for you. Do you think that was the unlocker, when you saw the worldwide of your brand truly become – I guess you were worldwide initially, but this YouTube model, where you can reach and touch so many people… And I think now even - I’m going to scroll back up; I think – not that subscriber counts matter, but you have almost half a million subscribers. Almost 540 videos, Jeff. This is on Worldwide Cyclery alone, not even KETL’s channel, or Trail One’s channel, which I know you have separate channels for each of those… Did you see a dramatic difference whenever you started to create content? Like, even from not so much a “get customer, make money” standpoint, but like, people enjoy working here more; like, morale. Was it more fun? Did you grow your network as a result? What were the amplifications and benefits of just like diving further into YouTube?

[00:44:14.02] Yeah, that’s a fantastic question, because it’s a good point in that - yeah, a lot of those. Yes. Big, big changes there.

And like I kind of alluded to earlier, the YouTube videos were initially just “Hey, this could be a great way to build brand awareness, and we have a lot of knowledge about bikes and all these components, and our industry… Let’s share that on YouTube, and let’s share answers to the questions that we’re getting all day. So we did that. And then we started realizing, “Oh, people really appreciate this, and they reciprocate, and then they’re becoming fans, and they’re getting more into the sport because of what we’re doing…”

So yeah, that was really fun. And it did internally change the culture too, because the brand was a lot more defined, sort of why we exist and the services we provide, whether that’s good content marketing, educational, YouTube content that also makes people laugh at the same time, and operating a good business, and supporting people having fun on bikes… So all that stuff became much more clear. So you can sort of write “This is why we exist. This is our mission, vision values.” You can write all that crap down, but unless it’s very viscerally clear to the staff who works there and the customers who shop there, it doesn’t really mean anything. And for us, YouTube made it clear. It made it very tangible, like “Oh yeah, this is very clear. This is exactly how we support people having fun on bikes. This is how we educate the mountain bike community on the knowledge that we have of all the stuff we sell. This is how we curate the products.” It became very visible as the YouTube channel grew and as the business grew, and it was very visible to us and our team internally, as well as externally.

So yeah, I think that’s a cool piece, because a lot of businesses can – you can have a big business, but it’s still very behind closed doors - how they acquire customers, how they treat their customers, how they treat their employees… But a retail business like ours, especially with a lot of content marketing on YouTube, it became very clear, in any way you look at it, who we are, what we’re all about, what we do, how we do it. It’s very just obvious and out there in the open.

So yeah, I like that aspect, because it definitely changed a lot of things in our business that made it a lot more real and tangible, and just transparent to anyone and everyone, whether they’re inside or outside.

Did you have anyone inside like “I want to be on the channel now”, or did you have this clawing, so to speak, of people wanting to be on camera, wanting to be involved in the process? Or was it sort of standoffish…? How was the reception to the rest of the staff and folks you have involved?

Yeah, it’s funny you ask… Most people don’t claw to be on camera. It’s kind of the opposite. In the early days, some of the very first videos we ever did were these very super-basic “What’s in the box?” If you bought a fork, you might wonder, “Does it come with the axle? Does it come with the star nut? Does it come with the [unintelligible 00:47:23.16]?” Some brands included some of those, some brands didn’t. Whatever, just super-basic “Hey, here’s what’s in the box.” Just really basic videos. And I thought those would be really helpful to do on some of our top-selling products, because if you’re about to spend $900, $1,000 on a product and there’s no video anywhere that just tells you what the heck is in the box… So I was like “Let’s just make these really basic ones.” So I did one and I was like “Okay, so here’s sort of the template for it”, and I’d have a couple of the guys try it.

[00:47:53.22] And a lot of people didn’t enjoy, and don’t enjoy having a camera pointed at them, and trying to be clear and concise and articulate, and some people just struggle with that and don’t really like it. And YouTube - as much as it’s an all welcoming place, it doesn’t really work unless you’re kind of good at speaking, in a sense. You have to be clear and concise and articulate and charismatic, and know what you’re talking about, and that has to be apparent… People can feel if you’re uncomfortable, or inauthentic, or they’ll just bounce to some other distraction if you’re slow. It’s just a hard place to hold people’s attention, even if they’re looking to know exactly what you’re trying to tell them.

So it’s tricky… It’s harder to be clear and concise on camera than I think some people think. And if they try, and they get that heart rush of adrenaline and they’re like “Yeah, no, this sucks.” So… No, it’s actually kind of the opposite. Most people are like “Yeah, yeah, go ahead, Jeff. No one here wants to be on camera. You do it.” [laughs]

Yeah. “I mean, it’s your company, man. Do the job.”

Yeah. And I mean, I had no intentions of really doing that to begin with, to be honest. I just thought –

You had to.

Yeah, I just had to. I was the guy who could just do it quickly, and concisely… Because the other thing too is like an efficiency thing. So if you take 10 takes, you’re just wasting so much time. Whereas if you could just say it right the first time, it’s over. You’re done. The video’s good.

So yeah, it just kind of depended on who was good at that stuff. And you can probably see in our channel now, Jared and Liam are on there a ton. And Jared has come – both those guys have, but Jared especially, because he’s mostly on the YouTube channel, talking now. He’s come so far over the years at just getting way better at just being comfortable, and fun, and natural, and explaining things on camera, than he was in the early days. It just takes time to get good at YouTube, and being on camera, and stuff like that.

It does take time. So Jared - remind me, is he the fellow with the mustache? No?

He often has a mustache, yeah. And then the long, long brown hair… Yeah.

Sometimes a flavor saver, sometimes a mustache…

Yeah.

Always crazy hair…

You never know. Yeah.

Some hat that – yeah. Okay, I know Jared then. I know Liam more than I think I knew Jared. I knew his face, but I didn’t know his name.

Yeah.

And mainly Liam because he seems the one who’s the in-house mechanic. He can build anything, basically. He knows all the specs, to the Newton meter, before it’s even released. He knows it all.

Totally. Yeah. [unintelligible 00:50:24.17]

And he’s got [unintelligible 00:50:25.03] into process… He seems like a pro at being a mechanic.

He totally is.

I always appreciate his videos on that. And I was trying [unintelligible 00:50:32.23] trying to find a “How to build a mountain bike”, and what tools to use is like the weirdest puzzle in the world to ever solve. It really is.

[laughs] You’re right.

You would think Park Tool would do a better job, and they do do a good job, but it’s kind of – some of their content is like so general bike, that it’s not [unintelligible 00:50:52.28] into mountain bike, which is way different…

It is.

Sure, you have a head too, but it’s just got different things. You get different specifications, geometry etc. that comes into play. And just trying to find out how to build things. I mean, I don’t even know where you would go to school to learn how to build a mountain bike, or become a mechanic. I don’t even know if that even exists. I’m sure there’s certifications out there, but I was just trying to be an enthusiast. I wasn’t trying to be a pro… But I did want to do pro-like things, and use the pro-like tools, because I wanted to do it right… I’ve done things the wrong way, let’s just say. With the wrong tools…

Everyone has, man…

…and it either broke, or it didn’t right… I had to buy the thing twice… It was a mess. Okay, so no one clawing at the camera; you have to be, because you’re a founder, and you’ve got to do it… I would say you’ve got a natural knack for it, I would say. My favorite –

Yeah, I’m not bad at it, right? Good enough that I can hold someone’s attention, and explain things, and not have to take five… And that’s kind of all you need to start.

[00:52:00.21] Yeah. I think more so than anything, it’s clear you’ve got experience, and it’s clear you care. And I think those are the two kind of core ingredients that you have to have to do that job for your company well enough. Because it’s not just showmanship, or showpersonship, it’s literally being able to explain how things work, and why you have particular – why you prefer Maxxis tires over Continental. Maybe you don’t, maybe you do. Who knows. Or why you prefer this combination, which I think is the most unique conversation with a mountain biker, like “What tire combo?” That’ll put you in a click right off the bat. I’m sure you are still rocking your DHF for life, or something like that. Right? Was it DHR2 on the front for you?

Oh, it depends on the bike. These days I’m –

Rekon/Dissector is your pair?

Yeah. Well, actually now the new Forecaster.

Okay, Forecaster.

The bike I ride the most often now, the trail bike, which is a Yeti ASR at the moment - yeah, Maxxis Forecaster in the front, and Maxxis Rekon in the back.

Yeti ASR. What is the Yeti ASR?

It’s their new – it’s really like a world cup-level cross country race bike, but with really aggressive geometry, and a little bit more travel… So it’s just this incredibly capable, super-lightweight, fast, all around bike that I’ve just kind of fallen in love with since they introduced it. It’s super-fun to ride.

Yeah, because it feels as fast and light and as efficient as a full blown XC race bike, but when you’re on it, your body position and the way that the geometry is and the way it corners and stuff, it feels much more like an Enduro bike. So it’s just a cool blend of the two that’s really fun to ride.

And you also have this history too, which I think is – because just like that, you juxtapose the ASR to Enduro, but you also said cross country, which… For those who don’t really mountain bike and you’re just listening in because this is the podcast - those are very different.

Yeah.

Like, very different. Cross country and Enduro is like dramatically different. Similar in the fact that they’re both mountain biking, but dramatically different in the downness that you go, on purpose, and the pedaling up, so to speak. I know a lot of cross country does pedal up too, but I guess it depends on how hardcore cross country you’re going, really; it depends. But the majority of it is pretty pleasant. Now, if you’re world cup level, maybe it’s not so pleasant. I don’t know… I’m down playing cross country, but it’s not as hard; or it’s just different than Enduro, really.

Yeah, totally. It’s a little bit more like distance running on the track, versus trail running. Still running, but different terrain and different mentality, and –

You get different flavors there.

Yeah.

So we’re in the weeds measure, but why Yeti over the latest Revel thing?

Well, Revel doesn’t quite have a bike that would be similar. So they have something close, which I do really like, and rode for a long time, which is their Ranger. And the Ranger is similar, in a sense, but it’s still a bit more on the trail bike side in terms of it being heavier. The Ranger actually has just a better suspension platform, it pedals better, it descends better… But it’s like almost two pounds heavier. So it’s a bit of a different bike. It’s just more – you look at all these things… You end up splitting hairs in a big way, but you have bikes that go all the way from cross country, pushing a little into trail, a little trail bike pushing into Enduro, Enduro pushing into downhill, more travel, more sort of slack along geometry… So they just all change.

I just go back and forth between what I’m riding more often and what I like to ride, and recently I’ve been more into adventure racing, and that has a lot more cross-country-esque style riding in that sport, and weight is really important.

So that’s why I lean towards that ASR, and have really enjoyed it. And I hope Revel comes out with a similar bike, but Revel’s definitely more of a trail and Enduro company through and through, and has never made a full fledged XC race bike. Maybe they will. I hope they do at some point, because – yeah, I love Revel, and I love supporting that brand.

[00:56:19.11] I’m actually – I think I’m queuing up… I’m torn between either building up one of their new Rascals, which is their trail bike, or that new Enduro bike they have. So yeah. But I’m always changing bikes. So if you ask me in three months from now, I probably won’t have that same bike.

Yeah. Don’t necessarily follow your lead, because you probably have 20 bikes or more over your lifetime…

Yeah. I’m always changing them, and I always have – like, I have a Banshee Titan, as well as an Enduro bike right now. So I have the Banshee, I have the Yeti ASR, I have a Revel El Jefe, which is a titanium hardtail… So I kind of always have at least three bikes that I’m riding for different reasons, at different times… And then I’m always like changing those three. But that’s what you’re supposed to do, man. When you have a bike shop and you love bikes, you just try out all the new stuff, and… You just go through phases. You go through six months where you just love riding XC bikes, and then you’re like “Ah, I’m over that.” You just want to ride Enduro bikes all day, and you do that for three months. And then you’re like “I’m going to bike packing now. I want to do big bike packing adventures.” You just get bored and try different stuff. That’s part of the fun.

Yeah, for sure. Alright, one more thing on YouTube, and then I want to take a turn towards Trail one, and KETL expansion, the empire… The downfall of the industry, the craziness with Revel, because we have some similar ties there, and just where things are going. But I do want to ask you, given the fixed gross margin in retail - and you’re in retail in all sectors, right? So you’re apparel, but you’re selling, so you’ve got direct to consumer, even with KETL, you’ve got Trail one… You’re creating, not just selling. So you’re literally manufacturing, you’ve found out how to do that, and then you’re selling those products, and you’re giving back to trails, and communities… And I think Brian – I only known him as BX –

BKXE, yup.

Yeah. But his name’s Brian. You know Brian, he’s a friend of yours… You got him involved, which I think is super-cool, because he’s like diehard biker forever… And I think there’s even like this biker/YouTuber kind of like trend that was there… And then it’s sort of came and gone with COVID, kind of thing…

Yeah.

But if content marketing is so strong for you - and I think your latest for Trail One was like a year ago, video-wise. And I don’t see you putting out a ton of content for Worldwide either. What is the bottleneck? Where is the throttle, I suppose, for you in this industry with how crazy it is? …and y’all making more content, and growing… Like, is there room for growth? Where is that space at, considering how strong this is for you on marketing and capturing? Because that’s the whole reason we’re talking, is because I found your YouTube channel at one point and got more into your brand and who you are personally… And I just don’t see you posting as frequently, given how important it seems to be for you.

Yeah. So I can definitely explain that. You know, in a perfect world, if I was a trust fund kid, we would just make all sorts of fun videos all day.

You’re not a trust fund kid?

Unfortunately not.

You don’t have an endless supply of cash?

[laughs] Unfortunately not.

Come on, Jeff…

[00:59:36.02] I wish. So the way it’s evolved is, you know, as I sort of mentioned earlier that the bike industry has gone through some crazy tumultuous boom and bust cycle with COVID, and even pre COVID we’d recognized the industry was just evolving. The sort of heyday of the online retailer was coming to an end, because all of these brands were starting to sell consumer direct, and they were starting to get good at it… And that’s sort of a – it’s just an annoyance to a retailer, because… You know, Worldwide Cyclery fundamentally is meant to take – we have a couple hundred different brands that we intentionally curated the best brands in the mountain bike industry and the best products in the industry, and got them all in one place, and you can shop them all in one area… That is still a relevant value proposition and very convenient when you want to buy a new Fox fork and a Maxxis tire and a pair of Shimano brake pads all at the same time, in one place. And it was even more necessary and useful when you couldn’t really buy those from anywhere else other than other retailers. But now that you can buy directly from Fox, or directly from Shimano, or directly from Maxxis, it just changes things, because now you’re competing directly with the brand selling direct. And if people don’t necessarily need to buy two or three things at once from different brands, they just want to upgrade or just want to buy one thing, they just go to the brand directly. You’re never going to outcompete that brand when it comes to SEO. If someone’s searching for just that brand, obviously just that brand’s going to show up at the top, always. And if people end up there and they can just easily buy from there, they just do.

So the industry just really changed. All of the brands in the industry, if you look at a pre COVID probably 10% of them sold consumer direct. And the other 90% just didn’t, and they just sold through retailers. And that’s how the industry worked. That’s all changed, and now it’s literally flopped, and about 90% of the brands in the industry sell consumer direct. They still, of course, have retailers, but they’re competing directly with them, in the sense of when a customer goes to buy a product.

So the industry has just totally evolved… And we saw that happening, and it’s just the nature of the beast. It’s a bummer. Nobody’s happy when their original and good, healthy, fun business model starts deteriorating. Like, that sucks, but welcome to business. Things evolve, things change… The classified ads in the newspaper got demolished by Craigslist, which then got demolished by the internet. Shit just changes.

So Worldwide Cyclery’s business model is just – it’s not dead, it’s not obsolete, it’s just not nearly as viable, and it’s not living in the heyday that it once was in that sort of 2010 to 2022 era. And because of seeing that, we wanted to really get into basically owning our own brands more vertically, so we could kind of control everything. And KETL Mountain Apparel was a huge one for us, that we really saw a lot of potential in, and wanted to grow and scale and put effort into.

And that catalog now – you know, we’ve got 40 different styles of all sorts of stuff for outdoor and travel, adventure wear… And we designed it ourselves, we manufacture it, we market it, we sell it, we fulfill it, we do the whole thing very vertically… And it’s our brand outright. And that brand has grown substantially. And if you were to look at all three of our brands, that brand has the most longevity and sustainability in its business model. And so a lot of our focus has gone there… Mine specifically, and kind of the key leaders in the business have really focused there.

It’s new, it’s exciting, it’s fun, it has longevity and sustainability to it, and we have so much more control over it, because we’re not a retailer, we’re just actually the manufacturer of everything, and the retailer; it’s all more vertical. So a lot of our effort’s gone towards KETL.

And the way we’ve grown KETL thus far hasn’t been the same strategies. It’s been a bit more paid marketing, because that’s a more viable customer acquisition strategy than the content marketing side of things. And every industry, every product - there’s just different levers and different things you can do to help grow revenue. And for KETL, that’s not necessarily been content marketing just yet; a little bit, we’re dabbling in it, but it’s been more so making a really good product, and then making really good digital ads, and making sure we’re there, in front of the right people, at the right time, that are looking for menswear of that sort.

[01:04:08.12] So we’ve put a lot of effort into that, and we have pulled back effort on the Worldwide Cyclery content marketing side because the business model just kind of sucks now, if I’m being honest. Not only is Worldwide Cyclery competing directly with all the brands it sells now when it didn’t pre-COVID, but the industry’s had that boom and bust cycle, and the bust cycle has dragged on for what feels like two and a half years now, and it’s still in it. The industry totally over-inventoried itself, and that’s caused a huge amount of discounting, and margin deterioration… All these things just really added up.

And on the tech side, simultaneously, what’s really been a huge issue for everyone who was in the e-commerce space, especially the ones that did content marketing, is you don’t get organic traffic from Google anymore. Like, it’s just basically pay to play. Like, you just type in a Google query for a product, and 95% of the page is pay-per-click ads everywhere. And the organic stuff is so far smashed down below the AI overview and the paid shopping results of images, and the paid click text ads… Your organic traffic – like, if you just look at the structure of a Google search engine results page pre-COVID versus now, it’s dramatic how different it is. Like, people just used to get a lot more traffic from Google for free, organically, and those days are just gone. Google has just kicked everyone in the nuts. And that’s just totally smashed e-commerce businesses that were fairly dependent on content marketing, and forced them to pay to play. And if you’re forced to pay to play in an industry that has terrible margins, and now you’re competing in the ad auction against the freaking same brand you’re selling, selling it direct - it just sucks.

Tell it like it is, Jeff. Tell it like it is.

So we have to acknowledge that and pivot accordingly. And Worldwide Cyclery is still a good, healthy business, and it’s fine, but the heyday is over. So we’ve moved on a little bit from it, and said “We’re not going to neglect it. It’s still a great, awesome business. There’s still a value prop to having the curation of all the stuff there.” So we’ve just toned down the level of content. We put out about one video a month now, we put out a couple of podcasts a month, and that’s it. Articles here and there… It’s definitely way less content than we used to.

Yeah. That makes me sad.

Yeah, I know. Well, if you want to call 200 brands in the industry and rejigger the entire structure of the industry, I’d love for it to go back to the way it was. But unfortunately, the times have changed.

Break: [01:06:43.15]

Do you see a direct line of like “Make video about X (for Worldwide in particular), sales happen”? Do you see due effect happens? Do you see that cause and effect?

Yeah, not as much anymore. We used to. And I think we will again, once the sort of bust cycle of the industry is over. So a lot of what happened – when I say the bust cycle… So there was a boom and bust. What happened during the boom is people overindulged in the sport, and then they pulled back how often they participated in the sport. And while they were participating a lot and sort of overindulged in the sport, they bought a lot more stuff, they got really into it. They had to cancel their Disney World trip to Paris because of Covid, and they instead just did a regional trip and went to Moab and rode mountain bikes with their family. So people really overindulged in the sport, which was great, for the time being. But then it’s reined back. Gyms opened up, soccer fields, baseball fields, football fields… Everything just kind of went back to normal post Covid, and people stopped riding bikes as often. And they had bought a lot, and the industry that overproduced a lot, which then caused a huge amount of discounting across the board. And people also just had – they’re buying good, hard goods, that last a long time.

[01:10:04.26] The consumption of anything and everything in the bike industry, whether that’s even consumables, like tires, grips, chains, pedals, stuff like that - even that’s tapered off, because the participation slowed down, and because a lot of people literally bought extra grips, or extra tires, because there was like these weird times where there was no inventory during Covid, because of the supply chain disruption… So there’s still this bust cycle going on, so there’s so much less demand and consumption across all categories in the industry happening right now, that it’s not as easy to just “Make video about X and sell X.” Whereas pre-Covid, it was. Things were normal, and steady, and chugging along, and you could introduce people to new products they hadn’t heard about, or an upgrade that they hadn’t had, and they’re like “Wow, that actually looks like it would be sweet. I’m just going to buy that right now.” So it was way more clear pre-Covid. And then during Covid it was just nuts. You could sell anything. It was crazy.

You could sell anything…

The industry was nuts. It was so funny, from –

It was a wild time. It was a wild time to be on the opposite side of that, Jeff. You guys were hammering out videos, and enjoying life, and clinking your champagne glasses… Here’s me, trying to get my tires just to go and just ride.

Yeah. [laughs] I’m curious, what was your experience? Do you feel like you overindulged during Covid? Like, your amount of riding –

Definitely did.

…and mountain bike content consumption and mountain bike related purchases in 2020-2021 - were those like higher than you’ve ever had in your life?

Oh, yeah. The pinnacle of the number I would ever spend too, I think, was in those years.

[laughs] See what I mean?

Yeah. It’s natural, I suppose…

It is. Yeah.

It’s such a weird phenomenon to be – because I discovered mountain biking before that, but discovered my passion for it around 2019. So the year before things blew up, I got back into the sport, more so than I had – early 2019, I bought a specialized… I should know this off the top of my head; a stump jumper. What they’re most known for. I bought a 2019 stump jumper. It was like two grand, which I thought “Oh my gosh, I would never spend two grand on a bike.” Now I’m like “Dude, I got this bike for two grand.” This was a deal.

Yeah… [laughter]

I know you know what I mean, because I’ve seen some bikes you’ve built…

Yeah.

You know, I got this bike, and I enjoyed it, and then for whatever crazy reason, I took it apart. Everything was off of it. I couldn’t even ride it anymore.

[unintelligible 01:12:51.08]

Yeah, I replaced the rear shock, I replaced the fork… I reran brake lines, which was super-painful in that kind of frame…

I had to get a fishing thing from Park Tool, which was amazing… The first time I did it, I don’t even know how I did it. I didn’t have the right tool. And then Park Tool, thankfully, has – I don’t know what you call it, but…

Internal cable routing kit.

There you go. You probably know it off the top of your head, because you speak their lingo. Internal cable routing kit. There you go, Jeff. Good job.

[laughs]

Showing off your true colors here. And so I did all that. It was really wild. But I discovered the sport, I would say, before Covid, but was falling in love with it, and at the time when everybody else was about to. And so my timing fall in love with the sport was just poor timing, comparative. It wasn’t because of Covid, but I think I leaned in even more, because obviously, I’m into it, so I might as well go even further… And I live here in Texas, near Austin, and we have a city called Burnett here, that has –

[01:13:59.15] Spider Mountain, right?

Yeah, Spider Mountain. If it weren’t for Spider Mountain, I think mountain biking would be very boring here in Texas.

It’s good, we’ve got lots of cool trails, but nowhere near California’s trails, or nowhere near Colorado’s trails, just comparatively. We don’t have mountains here, we’ve got hills.

Hill country, as they call it.

Yeah. And I live in the hill country, and it is amazing. And Spider Mountain, TL;DR for everybody who doesn’t know, is a lift serve, I think about 500 feet of descent total… So it’s like lift serve, which means you get onto a lift, like a ski, you put your bike on this hook and it goes up with you, and then you come down with gravity. No pedaling required. Total fun. And it’s amazing.

But that was my experience, was I got into the sport when everybody else was starting to. It wasn’t because of Covid, but it was also because of Covid. Like, it was just timing, that’s how it worked out.

Yeah.

And probably like anybody else, I wanted what I wanted, and I wanted it now… And now was never fast enough. And I remember everything being out of stock. Everything was out of stock. It was insane.

Yeah. That was part of it.

I don’t even know how you guys kept it going with like how chaotic it must have been during that time.

It was chaotic, man. And it was for everyone. Because the bike industry had – that participation just went through the roof; interest in the sport, purchases in the sport just went through the roof at the same exact time the supply chain just shut down. And most of the products in the industry are made in Asia… So all of a sudden, you sold all your product with this insatiable demand, and then you couldn’t get any more of it… So then that led to this massive inventory outage for a long time. And then when the inventory came back, people overbought. They’re like “I’m not going to – I don’t need three sets of brake pads, but I’m going to buy anyway, because they might be out next time I go look.”

I’m pretty sure I have a pair or two of extras, even as we speak.

Yeah. So that has a really, really hardcore long term side effect with this boom and bust cycle in the finances of the whole industry. It’s still lingering.

I think I have two chains, Jeff. In case I break my chain, I’ve got two more chains, I think even as we speak.

Yeah. Everybody did that.

So I’m good on chains for the foreseeable future.

Exactly. Yeah. So… It’s still lingering. Isn’t that crazy?

That is, yeah.

That caused some serious issues for the industry, and it was very hard to navigate, and a lot of the brands, as you’ve seen, went through just a cash flow crunch. They ended up ordering more inventory than they needed, because they thought the demand was there, and then all of a sudden when the demand slowly tapered off, they had all this inventory they couldn’t sell. And then they needed cash, and they didn’t have cash, because they had too much inventory… And then bam, bankrupt. Just like that. Businesses can be very fragile in a volatile economy like that, which is why a lot of them go bankrupt, and a lot of businesses fail. yeah, tough times. And yeah, speaking of Revel, Revel went through that craziness too, in a way.

It was like they – I think you just started to promote them around 2019.

It was.

Or maybe it was 2020.

It was 2019, yeah.

It was the year of COVID, I believe. Yeah. So I guess more on your content side, I really appreciated your trip to the HQ. I loved that behind the scenes stuff. I loved your perspective on boutique brands; in the industry of bikes in particular it’s unique, but it turned me on to this whole new aspect of like boutique brands in almost every industry I care about, from computers, to biking to you name it… Your personal passion towards the boutiqueness of Revel. It competes with Yeti. Yeti is a really well-known name brand, comparative, I would say. I mean, you probably have a different perspective on comparativeness to it, but carbon frames, amazing suspension… I think you call them super-bikes. They’re both super-bikes…

Yeah.

[01:17:59.29] But they’re built by very different companies. One is a big box kind of retailer kind of thing, that wins the world cups, and Revel is fairly new, but has similar roots, but it’s got that boutique nature to it. I loved your perspective on boutique bike brands, and building things around those things…

What was I trying to tell you, though? I liked that though. I liked your boutique bike brand kind of aspect when Revel first launched. But going to their HQ and seeing Adam behind the scenes, and… Like, no one was doing that kind of stuff. And someone who cares about what they buy and why they buy it likes that kind of video.

Totally.

I don’t know what it cost you to produce it, but it was worth its weight in my gold, because –

I don’t know either.

….it helped me fall in love with Revel, fall in love with Adam, fall in love with the team there, fall in love with the reasons why they showed up to do what they do to maybe even care about Revel in the first place. So it’s this really weird phenomenon that happened, but Revel launched right at the same time as the downturn of like Covid, and I think I got my bike – oh, Jeff, I think I bought it… I bought the frame only. I call it the Silver Bullet. It’s the T-1000 Revel One. Sorry, the Rascal One. And I bought the frame only, and I think I got it in December, November, 2019. And I built it during Covid.

Nice.

So I didn’t even build it right away. I bought it, took my time with it, bought components, took my time with it… And then it just took me a while to like really settle on everything I wanted to build with it. And that’s how it worked out for that particular building that bike there. But I bought it as a frame only, and I think it sat in my studio office for a bit there for like at least two months, just taunting me… Just taunting me, like “Build me now, please.” And I’m like “I don’t have my time. I don’t have the time to do it.” So I eventually did, but it wasn’t until like things had shut down, and things had changed that I actually had time to build it. So… It’s how it works out.

Yeah. I’m glad you still pulled it off though, because you could have had it sitting there for a whole year with no inventory on just one final remaining part, or something.

Oh, my gosh…

So it sounds like you pushed through it.

And something stupid, right? Like a brake pad, or something like that.

Yeah. Or [unintelligible 01:20:30.03]

Yeah, exactly. Something dumb, that’s like critical, but seemingly non-critical in the grand scheme of things. Let’s zoom out big, and look at your foresight to not collapse under the weight of all of the Covid stuff… And then I think you bought KETL before, so a lot of precursors you sort of paid attention to to make you make some moves that were wise prior to Covid, so that you can sustain everything that happened during Covid. How did KETL come about, how did Trail One come about? Why did you feel like it made sense to go vertical and make your own things? And is that dramatically harder than retail?

Yeah, I mean, the reason we did both the project and the Trail One project - this was pre Covid - is because (I’d mentioned) we’d already started to see how the mountain bike industry was evolving, just the cycling industry in general, with a lot of the brands going consumer direct, or offering that as a channel and squeezing margins… We saw the faults and cracks just doing a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; SWOT analysis, as they call it in the business world.

[01:21:45.05] So we’d seen this stuff coming, and we’re like “Yeah, this is how we need to combat it. And it also seems fun, too.” It seems awesome to be like “Well, we’ve got this great infrastructure and team that we’ve built with Worldwide Cyclery, the industry’s evolving in a sort of unfortunate way… But it also seems awesome to fire up a couple of our own brands that we’ll own outright and be more vertical with.” So that’s why we did both those projects.

And yeah, I’m eternally grateful for pulling the trigger when we did, because as the bike industry went through that boom and bust, those two brands, KETL in particular, because it’s not reliant on the bike industry, because it’s mostly outdoor apparel, that really pulled us through in a big way in the last just two, three years, once the bike industry sort of blew up and went downward, and KETL just kept growing, which was amazing, because it’s just operating in a much larger total addressable market, and just menswear in general. So KETL has been doing super-well, and just growing, and growing super-fast. And a lot of our attention has gone there.

And Trail One is definitely still sort of in the bike industry, deep in the weeds, because it’s a straight-up mountain bike component company, so it’s still a bit of a victim to the industry situation, and I have a good, optimistic sort of long-term view for it… But Trail One was also meant to be a great bit of a passion project; it wasn’t really meant to be some huge, big, dominant mountain bike component brand. We wanted to make really good mountain bike components that we always wanted, and work with a good engineer to design them, and then have a really cool and unique sort of philanthropic element to it, where every product that sold, a dollar goes back to a trail network that it’s named after, so we could actually build a brand that truly supported the sport of mountain biking. And part of that was just – I think that’s the right way to do things, and I think it helps push the industry forward when somebody comes out and says “Hey, guess what, we have comparable flagship level mountain bike componentry, that’s at competitive prices, and it is actually really giving back to the sport in a cool way.”

So yeah, both of those businesses, between KETL and Trail One, have been amazing. I’m so glad we did both of those, because obviously, we couldn’t have predicted a giant boom and bust cycle during Covid, or predicted Covid… So yeah, it was just good to have those. And yeah, now they’re a core piece of the puzzle, and like I’d mentioned earlier, KETL is actually a bigger business that Worldwide Cyclery now year to date.

Yeah. Are you familiar with the state of Texas at all?

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Do you come here frequently?

I wouldn’t say frequently, but I’ve been to Austin many times and Dallas many times.

Okay. Do you know the brand HEB?

No.

Okay, so you should study HEB.

Okay.

And I wonder if what you’re doing – now, I didn’t piece this together until the moment you just said this, and this is why this is like off the cuff for me… So HEB is a really well known Texas beloved. Like, if you live here in Texas, you don’t really shop for groceries anywhere else other than HEB if you’re a true Texan.

Okay…

It’s like that. And Texas has got a lot of pride in terms of its choices, its size, the rain is literally bigger here… Okay, when you get hit by a raindrop here, you get knocked down. That’s how big rain is here.

[laughs]

I’m almost not even kidding with you. It’s seriously big. So HEB is a grocery store. And you know, a common thing - Amazon’s doing this, a lot of the brands, they attract a lot of the customer base, and then they take Energizer batteries and replace them with Amazon basic batteries, as an example.

Yeah, totally.

And I’m not saying that Trail One is the Amazon basics, by no means am I trying to say it’s lesser. But it’s not – it’s been a while since I built my bike and thought about the components I used, and I forget the brand that I used. Race Face. I should know this… I use really nice, really cool bars from Race Face. It doesn’t matter which ones. They’re like R35s, I believe. Carbon bars. Really fun. Probably more than I need, but I go downhill here and there.

[01:26:01.12] The point I’m trying to make is that HEB, the thing they’ve done uniquely different than I think a Kroger, or an Aldi, or – I’m not even an aficionado of a grocery stores. I just know this because this is how HEB is to us Texans… When you go into HEB, you will often choose the HEB brand, not one because it’s cheaper - because it is - but two, because it’s got these particular roots. It’s Texas farmer grown, or as local as you possibly get while still being packaged good, for example.

Yeah, that’s cool.

And so HEB has this really good salsa you can get there called Texas Texas. What a better name for salsa, right? Texas Texas.

Yeah.

Not only one Texas, you’ve got two Texas in there, okay? And if I could buy a stock in this company, Jeff, I would totally buy stock. It is the best salsa you’ll ever get from a can. It’s amazing.

Yeah. Nice.

But it is an HEB brand. And so they aim to come out with competing brands to what would typically be the incumbents, probably a little bit better. And because of the way HEB has positioned their brand, it’s seen as even better; not just a cost-comparative better, but like a literal product better. And I’m wondering if KETL and Trail One might be that for you.

Yeah, yeah, they are, definitely. I mean, Trail One would be more similar in that sense, where – Trail One has gone after the specific components that are basically fully optimized, not really going to change very much; when you’re thinking about grips, handlebars, pedals, stems - you know, you can put your own unique flavor and spin on it in some different ways and preferences, but in many ways, the innovation plateau has been hit years ago for these categories. And if you can make a competitively priced product that is in every way, shape, or form as good or even slightly better than all of the incumbents, and it has a better story and a better sort of actual supporting the sport type of brand behind it, it can just be – like, that’s a way better value prop, right? So yeah, so Trail One has been that way.

And KETL’s funny, because apparel is such a crazy space… When you look at outdoor apparel, there’s anything and everything. You can buy outdoor apparel from Amazon or Costco, and you can also buy Arc’teryx for $900 and feel cool. There’s so many options and price points, and branding, and fashion, and aesthetic… What do you care about? Are you buying it because you want people to see your Arc’teryx logo and think you’re rich? Or are you buying it because you actually want a small, rare brand, that has technical attributes that you really care about? Or do you just frankly want the cheapest rain jacket you can find, and you got it at Costco? So it’s a way bigger market, with way more options… So KETL for us is very different, because we’ve positioned it in a way where we’re really just making the stuff that we specifically want. And we specifically want it at this price point, so not as outrageously as expensive as Patagonia or Arc’teryx, but expensive enough that it’s actually really good; really good, high-quality fabrics. And it can come with a lifetime repair policy, and it can come with really high-quality zippers and buttons and trim details, and fabric that lasts, and actually performs well.

So you’ve got to hit some level of higher enterprise point to make that happen, but it doesn’t need to be Arc’teryx level, which - at that point you’re just paying for a fashion brand. And it can’t really be below that, towards the Amazon or Costco price point, because it just frankly falls apart and doesn’t function well.

So we’re kind of figuring “This is a sweet spot we think is relevant, and what we want. And these are the designs and aesthetic that we want.” So we’re just really trying to make stuff that we specifically like and enjoy, price point-wise, functionality-wise, looks-wise… And luckily, that so far has just resonated well, and we’ve found the people who also care about those same things. So yeah, that’s been fun. But that’s kind of the gamble you take in a lot of business when you’re creating a product, is “Well, we like this. Hopefully other people do…”

[01:30:16.17] Yeah. Well, I see the grand scale of KETL, but I’m not seeing the grand scale, at least from my perspective, of Trail One.

Yeah, there will be. It’s a tiny niche market. Trail One is going to be a niche market of high-end mountain bike components for enthusiast mountain bikers that care about good quality components that give back to the trail network. And yeah, it’s a way smaller niche market, and that’s fine and understood.

So the products there aren’t changing much, because like you said, they’re already kind of stabilized products anyways.

Yeah. I think we’ll continue to introduce more stuff with Trail One and refine existing things, and find new categories to break into… And we’ll also do some experimental stuff that… You know, one of the ways we’re going to evolve it in the next couple of years - there’s a lot of these obscenely high-end, crazy, nice boutique European mountain bike component brands, and I’ve always loved those, and I think we can make some of that stuff in the US. Trickstuff is an example of that, or Intend Suspension. There’s some wild stuff that… The engineering and the passion that happens in - a lot of it’s in Germany, because a lot of manufacturing’s there - is insane. And a lot of those crazy high-end boutique rare things only exist in Europe, and I think Trail One could definitely make some stuff like that in the US.

And talk about a niche market… This is like the niche of the niche of people who want a $300 titanium stem, or something like that… But that’s stuff we like, and we’re going to try making it, and it’ll be much smaller quantities, but higher price points… And yeah, just a fun brand to run, and something that we can be proud of, because it actually is genuinely supporting trail builders and trail building efforts all over the place, which I think matters for the sport.

It does matter for the sport. I think you’re gonna laugh at the page I’m on on Trail One… I was on the “Titanium rotor bolts upgrade kit.” You offer – if you didn’t know this, you offer gold, which I love. I don’t have gold as a need.

I have been a rainbow guy myself, oddly enough…

There you go.

That dipped. I got my chain, I think is that, I think my rear cassette is that…

It sounds like you need some matching rotor bolts that are made out of titanium.

Yeah, I really do, so that’s why I was looking at these. I was like “You know what…?” I didn’t know you sold bolts, but now that I know that I can get some…

Valve stems too, if you want to pair all of them together…

Yeah. I might just have to get my bling on, my matching bling. The design of the things here is so good, though. How did you – I imagine your process to build this was find the right people, hire the right people, put them in the right kind of places, let them go and do the right work… Or how much personal hand did you have in the design? Because there’s a lot of minimalism, and a lot of similarity in the – like, from the bolt, to the stem, to the… You name it. There’s a lot of similarity to just the look and the feel.

Yeah. So kind of keeping that consistency with the industrial design language across the whole product line is something we’ve always been cognizant of. And the way we’ve been able to pull that off is - yes, myself and Liam have had a ton of input on all of this stuff, and we’ve also been fortunate enough to… I have a longtime industry friend who’s actually one of the original founders of Raceface, since left Raceface once they got acquired by Fox… And he was able to connect us to – and he’s actually one of the founders of Trail One, one of the co-founders. And he was able to connect us with an incredibly talented Ph.D. level engineer that did a short stint at Raceface on a work visa. He’s an Irishman, but he did a short stint at Raceface on a work visa in Canada for a while… And now he’s actually back at the University of Dublin, teaching really sophisticated engineering classes. And it’s a side – so Trail One is a side project for him as a co-founder, too.

[01:34:24.25] So we’ve got some really good people on the procurement side, figuring out the best factories to manufacture this stuff, and then the engineering side to actually do all the really technical CAD drawings of all the stuff… And then Liam and I having a lot of input on how things look, and should be shaped, and specs, and all of that. So yeah, it’s just piecing together a team like that, that can execute on good products.

Yeah. Well, you’ve done a great job. I will tell you, I don’t own any Trail One products. And I think it’s because I bought all my stuff, and I’m like “Well, I don’t need two stems.”

Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Just generally – I mean, I would like to have another one. That would mean I have to sell my current Raceface one to just replace it…

Yeah.

So there’s not a lot of utility in replacing it… But had I not already purchased – now, the next time I get grips, I’m gonna get your grips, that’s for sure. I think I’ve done the OD…

ODIs? Yeah, we have a bunch of different models.

The ODIs, yeah. Whatever you guys suggested, I think I eventually landed there. I took some of your advice on which different grips to try out, and just landed on the ODI. I think they’re Pros, if I recall correctly. But they’re kind of like thin, they’re not super-thick. They’ve get some good grip to them. They’re about 20-ish bucks, they’re not super-expensive; maybe 30 bucks, I don’t know what the number is, but… Fairly affordable. I mean, how often do your grips – I mean, I think grips probably last… My grips probably last me less than yours, because you probably bike every day. I don’t get to bike every day, Jeff.

It all depends on how much you ride.

Yeah, man. It really does. But I’m a big fan of Trail One. Just haven’t personally bought any of your stuff yet. I’m looking forward to the day when I need to replace something, and there you go - I’ve got Trail One’s handlebar, instead of a replacement from something else. All that good stuff.

Yeah. Well, thanks, man.

What about KETL then? How do you take this to the – this must be the juggernaut of what you’ve got going on. Is this the biggest thing you have going on right now?

KETL? Yeah, absolutely.

KETL. Yeah. So 80% of your time is going to KETL, and then 20% is sprinkled elsewhere? Or how does it work?

Pretty close. It’s probably 70-30. They are all pretty intertwined though… So the three stores that we have for Worldwide Cyclery, which are also basically small retail store on the front, customer service and admin in the middle, and then warehousing and fulfillment in the back. So we have one of those in California, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. And those stores also do all of the warehousing and fulfillment for KETL and Trail One. And then it’s all a bit intertwined in the back in terms of who’s working on what brand, and how the finances are commingled… At least on the Worldwide Cyclery and KETL side. Trail One is a separate entity… But anyways, it’s all been intertwined, especially the infrastructure and staff, with all three brands. So I couldn’t tell you an exact percentage split that I have, because it’s pretty intermingled, but…

Too hard, yeah.

Yeah. But needless to say, KETL is a huge opportunity for us that’s growing really well, and we know it’s just an important piece of the puzzle. And frankly, it’s something that we’re having a lot of fun with. To be honest, as you probably heard in my agitation talking about the bike industry, I’m a little demoralized; not just with the – the boom and bust cycle is what it is, but more just the way that the industry has evolved in a way that’s really, unfortunately, neglected good retailers, good retail infrastructure, good marketing for the sport, to get more people into it… It’s just evolved in a way that is detrimental to the growth of the sport, and that’s a bit demoralizing on the mountain bike side of things.

[01:38:11.16] And on the apparel side of things with KETL, it’s actually been the opposite. It’s actually really fun to see the enthusiasm people have for being adventurous, and traveling, and going outdoors, and how technical fabrics have really come a long way, and manufacturing methods have come a long way… And there’s a lot more cool little intricate, useful details you can mix into apparel that didn’t really exist years back. And for people who care about little thoughtful details like that - and we’re those people - we like designing that stuff, and testing it, and making it, and finding the people who also care about those things. And for KETL, that’s just been a huge win. We’ve had so much fun doing that.

And yeah, the reviews and testimonials we get on the product and the repeat business we get kind of speaks for itself. So yeah, it’s grown very fast, and been definitely a huge focus of mine. And yeah, that’s a lot of where I’m putting my energy these days.

This could be a big business, right? It could be a $50 million plus kind of business. I don’t know, I’m just picking a big number. I don’t even know if it’s a real number or not. And KETL could be a really, really, really big business if you play the long game right.

Absolutely.

And you spend the right kind of money on marketing, and…

Totally. Yeah. I mean, there’s billion dollar plus apparel brands all over the place, and even just in the menswear category Lululemon does over, and Patagonia does over hundreds of millions in just outdoor menswear only. So…

Really?

…way bigger total addressable market.

So my number was pretty accurate then.

Yeah, actually on a small scale. Like, a $50 million apparel brand is not even really a…

It’s nothing.

That’s like a little brand in the scheme of things, yeah. The big dogs are pumping out way bigger numbers than that.

And when you say outdoor, do you mean just basically anything that has to do with hiking, camping, biking, you name it kind of outdoor?

Yeah. It’s all very blurred in a sense now, especially with how a lot of people wear “outdoor apparel” casually, because it’s so comfortable… But yeah, what we specifically like is making apparel that is versatile, that you can kind of wear daily, and be really comfortable in traveling, but also have sort of the necessary technical attributes to get out there and perform during hiking, trail running, mountain biking, kayaking, fishing, whatever, you name it, just outdoor activities. And then just making specialized products too, like rain shells, or more specific pants, specifically fit short for mountain biking, or specific pants for rock climbing… Stuff like that, too.

So yeah, we’re continuing to just build out all the apparel that we ourselves actually use a lot. And we do a lot of mountain biking, hiking, trail running, adventure racing, rock climbing… We do all those things, so we’re just making a product lineup that covers all those bases.

So you just go and do what you do, and you find challenges and problems… You’re like “Okay, let’s make this new thing to solve this problem.” The Jeffinator, I don’t know. I’m just thinking of something just cliché and stupid really, but you know, you just do what you do and solve problems for those that are like you.

Yeah. Yeah. In large part, that’s right. Yeah. And it’s funny, I think solving problems is kind of a funny thing in business, because it used to be imperative, like “What problem are you solving?” But now I think a lot of modern businesses are “Did you build the mousetrap better? You didn’t invent the mousetrap, but did you build it better?” A lot of us – we live in 2025. The number of inventions that you’re going to come up with now versus what you’d come up with 50 years ago are very different. So a lot nowadays is about refinement, and refinement towards specific use cases, or specific demographics. Little details like that, I think, are important in businesses. You can’t just judge your business off of like “Is it solving a real problem?” It’s like, well, no, we didn’t just invent a way to search the internet in the year 1997. Instead, we’ve figured out how to really refine a rain shell for traveling.

[01:42:30.12] There you go.

Whatever, you know?

Which takes a whole different kind of subject matter expertise to do so.

Yeah.

You mentioned LLMs, APIs, and I think even AI initially early in the call… Does AI play a role at all in your day-to-day life as an individual? Are you using AI? Is it helping or hurting your business?

Yeah, absolutely… I am definitely a nerd and all that stuff, and love it and enjoy it, and I’ve been an early adopter of all of it. And yeah, I use ChatGPT daily, for a whole range of things. I always experiment with our businesses on Google Workspace, so I always dabble and experiment with the way that Google is integrating Gemini, which is largely terrible and not very useful… Our customer support staff and the content guys, they’re using it to write articles, reply to emails… Yeah, so we’re leveraging it every which way we can, and every which way that’s possible, whether that’s to automate tedious tasks, or… A lot of it’s just language related, writing things and replying to emails, stuff like that. Proofreading stuff… There’s so many useful cases for it.

I don’t know, by and large, people love to say how helpful it is, and yes, we’ve absolutely seen some efficiency gains for it, because of it, and use it all the time internally, for personal reasons or business matters… But it’s not revolutionized anything yet. It’s not like – I’m not firing people because I’ve replaced them with AI robots, like just answering customer support queries automatically… There’s still the human touch. The humans are just much more efficient so far. Way more efficient, which I think is cool and useful. I mean, you’re in the space where there is probably some pretty substantial things being revolutionized, with writing code, and stuff like that.

Everything’s changing.

Yeah…

It’s a whole different – the response from you to the response to somebody else we talked to today… We recorded a podcast this morning, for example, and it’s just dramatically night and day changing the future of software development…

Yeah. That makes sense.

…as we speak about it.

That’s cool.

It’s totally changing how a seasoned, senior, professional, well-trained, multi-language-aware software developer writes software today is dramatically different today than it will be tomorrow. I mean, it’s always been true, but specifically now, we have the burgeoning effects of that truly taking place, and not being this pie in the sky potential; the literal truth coming true, as we speak. It’s so wild.

So it’s wild, y’all are using it on the implementation level, where you’re a word calculator, is how we describe it, right? I’d imagine you personally are probably running different business models, maybe you’re doing different forecasting, or ingesting data, and doing stuff like that. That’s how I personally am doing things. I’m not solving different – I’m forecasting in scenario-based, you know, breaking the business, so to speak. Whatever we’re trying to do, as an example.

Yeah, it is cool. Amazing tools have come out so far, and I’m always trying to find different use cases for them that I enjoy… And I also just love to research and learn anything and everything, so being able to converse with all of humanity’s knowledge is pretty cool, and I use that all the time to learn and study and research, which is super-fun.

[01:46:09.05] I am curious too, just from your perspective… You know, we pay for a lot of SaaS products, and everyone in the eCommerce space does, and they’re usually grumpy about it… Do you think that all of these SaaS tools in the eCommerce space are going to get disrupted a bit in a way that’s going to benefit eCommerce companies? Am I still going to need to pay $3,000 a month for an ERP system, which is just a piece of software? Or pay $500 a month for a review platform for a Shopify plugin? Or is that just going to get destroyed because people are going to be able to build those for so much less money?

I think even if somebody rebuilt it, they would still find a way to charge you for it, so I don’t think the money goes away… I think what may change potentially is if you had a software team already that was building software internal tools for your companies - which you may already have - I think that their job grows. So if you’ve got even a one or two-person – I’ll just call them a tech team; somebody who runs the websites. It could be a small team of two or three.

I’m just hypothesizing. But now their job should be to start to think about how to build out your own internal tools, build out your own internal systems… Because it’s getting democratized more. And it’s not that non-software developers are making software, it’s just that people who are less entrenched in software creation have new liberations, new guides, new… Like, you’re a lifelong learner… I would just say it’s like more on ramps to the road you may want to go on. It’s kind of like that. It’s not like a literal just “I’m doing it for you.” It’s now you’ve got an uncanny buddy that’s willing to help you, provided you pay it, to do the work, kind of thing. And that’s going to get more and more expensive over time, potentially; you have some diminishing return when it comes to that. Some people are paying 200 bucks a month, as an example, to Open AI, and their higher end things. And same thing with Claude and Anthropic. They’re paying the higher end versions to get access to more unfettered or unlimited or multi-user, or whatever you call it. And you’re going to have that. But I think if your tech team is making software for you, over time they can begin to make more software for you, and maybe start to chip away at those extra services that you don’t really need anymore, because they’re kind of like a database in the cloud, basically. Now, they have security, and maybe they have SOC-2 compliance or some sort of other compliance that you need to now take on internally… The problem just shifts. Your cost basis probably stays somewhat similar. Like, if you pay them three grand a year, you’re going to pay somebody else something per year to deal with the problem, to now have the problem. So it might just shift a little bit.

I think over time you’ll have more of an opportunity, if you don’t already have an opportunity, to create more of your own business level software that’s bespoke, unique, one-off kind of thing. Like you mentioned, APIs, and ingesting data, stuff like that, you know. That’s my guess, you know…

Yeah, yeah. It’s cool.

So if they’re not already doing that, they should be doing more of that… And I think more internal tools is probably good, but now you’ve got to maintain them. And when they break, they’re broken, and you’ve got to fix them. So you know…

There’s always a pros and cons of building internal.

Yeah. You’ve got to judge your downtime. Was it worth it to take it internal? Well, maybe we gained some agency over it, but now we also gained the full-on maintenance ability of it. Like, we have to maintain it. When it’s down, it’s our fault, you know? And so we had to learn uptime. Now we have to learn a whole new problem set. So what was once just a WordPress website or a Shopify website has now grown into a whole different problem. So it depends on if you want to bite that off.

[01:50:02.16] Yeah.

So that’s my thoughts on it. But I’m glad you’re using it. I’m glad that AI is a part of what you’re doing on the day-to-day… Because I mean, if it wasn’t… But you’re sharp, Jeff. You’re sharp. You know what you’re doing. So what’s the next big thing for you? So if KETL is where things are at now, how do you – like, what makes life good for you? What’s the next thing for you? What makes life good for you in these next steps you take?

Yeah. So, my take on business in general is I’m not trying to conquer the world. Quite the opposite. I’m trying to run a lifestyle business, and do it really well. And what I mean by that is I want to have a business that I can be really proud of in the way that it treats its customers, the products that it produces, the way that it treats its internal employees, the way that it brings things to the world, whether that’s humor, or creativity, or content… I like a business that I can be proud of, that hits all of those things in a really good way, and just provides a great, awesome life for myself and the team. And that’s it. We don’t have revenue targets, we’re not trying to be like “Oh, let’s hit this next year. Let’s hit that next year.” No. We don’t have investors. This is just – we’re having fun over here.

Can we make a good living, running a good business, with employees that love working here and customers that love shopping with us? That’s it. That’s all. Just calm down after that; just have a good life.

It sounds so perfect.

So that’s my outlook on it. Well, thanks, man. I mean, it’s definitely contrary to the typical “Hustle at all costs, build a unicorn, sell it.” No, not at all. I just want to run an awesome, fun business, and have a good time doing it, and make sure that along the way we’re building products that we can be proud of, and that people love working here and people love shopping with us. That’s it. That to me is important. I feel much more sort of fulfilled and vindicated when I see positive testimonials about the service we provide, the products we make, and the happiness and cheerfulness of our internal staff, and our ability to take care of them. That to me is what matters.

I’m not going for an exit, I’m not going for an IPO, none of that. I’m just trying to enjoy myself, enjoy my life, make sure I take plenty of vacations and time off, and stay fit and take care of my body, and make sure the rest of the staff does that… And yeah, to me that’s like what a lifestyle business is and should be, and that’s what I care about. So definitely contrary to, I think, most “hustle at all costs, build and scale, be the unicorns” take is. I’m kind of the opposite.

That’s good. It seems like a healthy outlook on your next steps, and just generally how you operate. That’s why, like I said, I gravitated towards what you’ve done. Even if it wasn’t – you could have been doing something different. If you just had the same energy… Like, the thing I’m now into is golf. I don’t know if you’re into golf or not. You’re into golf, by any chance?

I like golf. I’m not super-into it, but I definitely enjoy it. Yeah.

So when I saw KETL, I was thinking “Gosh, the next obvious maneuver there would be potentially golf…” I don’t know how well – it’s almost outdoorsy.

Yeah.

It’s definitely athletic… And it charges high dollars, potentially, for – your average polo costs… You know, a low cost is like 50 bucks. A decent cost is like a hundred or so dollars for like a decent polo, you know? So I don’t know. There’s room in that space too for, I think, a lot more – it’s probably crowded, but there’s room for fun.

Totally.

So the same reason why you’re in the business you’re in currently is I think there’s the same kind of fun nature. And there’s a whole new playful nature coming to golf, that hasn’t quite been there in the last, I’d say for most of its time; the last five years it’s changed, and I think it’s ready for a younger audience, which means new people coming in, which means a whole new different psychology of buyer, where the older psychology of the buyer may have been this, I don’t know, clicky-uppity golfer, where I think now the landscape of who golfs… I’m just so surprised by who golfs.

[01:54:15.05] Yeah.

I’m like “You golf? Like, for real?” “It’s like, I wouldn’t take you as somebody who cares about your score, or like what you’re trying to break, or what club you’re trying to– you don’t seem like the kind of person.” Not you, but like this fictitious person I’m suggesting.

Totally.

I’m so surprised by who’s involved in golf, you know?

Yeah. It’s a cool sport, and it’s great to see how well it’s done post Covid. It’s actually one of the poster childs of business, that funny enough, it gets compared to cycling for all the wrong reasons… Golf had quite a big boom as well during Covid, and it’s hung on to the customer base. A lot of people got into golf and have still stuck with golf post Covid. It didn’t really bust. Whereas a lot of these other sports, cycling in particular, went boom and bust. And people said “Well, a lot of the reason golf did so well was it was a little bit more–” I don’t think inclusive is the correct word, but it was a little bit more – it was more appealing long-term to different people. And they actually enjoyed it. Like, they went and got into golfing during Covid, and never liked golf before… And it became habitual to be like once a month, or even every Sunday, they go out and play with their boys. And some people take it really seriously, some people go out there and do a beer a hole… But the golf courses and the people who were on the courses and the staff at the courses and the experience of golfing wasn’t ever really derogatory or exclusionary, and so more people got into it and just kept doing it and they liked it. And it’s like hung on to a lot of these newcomers to the sport in a really good way. In the exact opposite way that the cycling industry got all these newcomers and then just lost all of them.

So it is cool to look at how well the industry’s done… And yeah, I’m actually – just in the apparel space too I have gotten familiar with some of those new golf brands that are much more off the cuff and unique, and Bad Birdie is one of the ones that I follow and admire. It is cool. Yeah, there’s new golf apparel that’s a little more technical, but a little more flavorful and edgy…

Yeah, and you’re right, I think as the baby boomers phase out off the course, there’s going to be a lot more millennials taking over the golf course scene, and the flavor is going to change, and it is cool to see the industry change and evolve like that.

Yeah. I think you’re right about Bad Birdie. They’ve got a really cool brand.

Yeah.

I like a lot of their stuff. I mean, you look at everybody in all their – every photo, it’s somebody that’s 30 or younger, you know? So… I have no idea what your age is, but people who listen to my show know my age, so I’m not –

Yeah, I’m 35.

I’m not 30. I’m 11 years older than you, Jeff… It feels weird to say that.

[laughs] Well, we’re all aging slowly but surely, man.

Yeah. You know, one day at a time, right? One second at a time… Well, I look forward to you – so are you hinting at the fact that KETL might get into golf?

Oh, I don’t know. It kind of depends on –

Any thoughts at all about that? Or a whole separate brand.

Yeah… I don’t think we do a separate brand. Most people are asking us when we’re going to make women’s apparel, and I’m not trying to – like I explained my business philosophy earlier, I’m not trying to boil the ocean. If I were to just all of a sudden make golf wear, or women’s wear, it would be for the wrong reasons. I’m not trying to make products to sell them for making money. That’s not what I’m trying to do here. So I want to make stuff that I like and I’m into, and if the handful of us who are kind of calling the shots on what products we make next, and what sort of categories we get into, if for whatever reason we all start golfing more, we’ll probably just make golf apparel. If for whatever reason we all start surfing more, maybe we’ll make more surf apparel. So I literally can’t predict what we’ll make in the next five years, because it just depends on what we happen to get into more.

[01:58:02.18] Recently, a lot of us have gotten more into backcountry skiing, mountaineering and adventure racing and trail running, so we’re just making more stuff for those categories, because we like that. And we’re definitely interested in making bags too, because we travel a lot, and there’s so many different bags out there, and like little intricate things about bags that you can do there…

[unintelligible 01:58:21.24]

Totally, yeah. And everyone’s got different preferences, and so… And footwear, I have no idea. It just all depends on what we end up – just like the few of us here, what we really get into. But I would bet at some point - it might be a few more years - we’ll go through a phase where we’re into golf, and we’ll start making golf apparel just because of that reason. So we’re just making shit that we want to use, and like, and what we’re into at the moment, so… Who knows what it’ll be next.

That’s a really good thing. Well, I was hoping you were getting into golf, because I figured that at some point you’d start to offer my next passion sport, which is golf, some content, or some insights, you know… All that good stuff. I think the space around golf is so really unique, really it is. I’ve been enjoying it, personally. I’ve been enjoying playing with friends… I like it for business, I like it for networking, I like it for just getting outdoors.

Totally. Agreed.

One thing I think that golf has over mountain biking is the collarbone scenario.

Yeah, much safer.

Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot easier to be mobile with my body not broken, because I crashed going over some really chunky stuff… Which I find super-fun. I mean the adventure in me, the – I’m 46, so I’m not young, I’m not old either. I’m at that age where if I break something, it hurts more than it did 10 years ago… So I’m a bit more cautious of a rider. But at the same time, I get out there, and I just – I’m shredding hardcore. But I’m definitely more mindful of my shred.

Yeah. Same.

Whereas like two or three years ago I was a little less concerned about it. Now I’m more concerned about it. And so golf is seeming like a better hobby/sport, because it’s got different benefits, let’s just say. Just different benefits, you know?

Totally. Yeah. I admire any sport that has like a good way for you to get outside with friends, and converse, chat, get exercise, have fun in the sun… Like, I don’t care what it is, I like all those things.

Yes.

And I really appreciate how golf has evolved into such a social sport, where it just becomes a great way to get away with your boys and go hang out for eight hours, playing golf, and shooting the shit and laughing, and walking around. That’s fun.

Well, you’ve got good days, then. I can’t do eight hours. I’m not allowed. Okay? I’ve got four or five, Jeff. If I’m gone five hours to golf, that is the full day of golf.

[laughs] You’re in trouble.

Yeah, I’m in trouble at that point. I’ve got different things that time me and bind me, so to speak, but…

Totally.

Yeah, I’m glad to hear you’re engulfed. That’s interesting. What else – what’s left unsaid, Jeff? I know we’ve gone for quite a bit, probably more than you probably thought you would, but what’s left unsaid to this audience that is just curious about your next steps, or any further insight you can offer?

Yeah, I think we covered a lot, and yeah, I appreciate you having me on the show. I know I’m definitely a different guest than you normally have, so I appreciate that… And yeah, man, it’s fun chatting all this stuff with you. I mean, one of the things that - if I were to be an advocate for anything, I’m definitely an advocate to live a good life, and just be thoughtful about the way your career is shaped, whether that’s your own business, or how well your career feeds your lifestyle… I definitely am an advocate for lifestyle businesses, like I explained. Try and find a business you can run that is fun and enjoyable, and you can be proud of, and/or try and be in a career or a space, a job that you really enjoy the lifestyle of it, and you love your work, and you love the industry that it’s in… I’m just an advocate for that, because I’ve seen so many people come to our businesses from these corporate jobs, they’re just like “I couldn’t do it. I loved bikes my whole life”, or “I loved outdoors my whole life, and I’ve been an engineer at Gore-Tex, and I just can’t stand it anymore.” And then they take a huge pay demotion and come work in a much more fun industry, and they’re like “I should have done this forever.”

[02:02:33.22] So I’m definitely an advocate to tell people to just be thoughtful about how you spend your eight hours a day working, and ideally, it’s in an industry that you’re passionate about, and can really feed your lifestyle and your hobbies in a good way. So yeah, that’s the only thing I’m a true advocate about, and I want people to think about and consider. Because I think the days of us having to grind away to just make a paycheck at a job we hate just to survive - those days are kind of gone. Like, we’ve got so much more opportunity in how big and complex this economy is now to take advantage of that, and actually love what you do in your work.

Yeah. And I will say that the show’s taken a bit to get coordinated, because every time I’ve reached out to you, you’ve been busy. You’ve been traveling the world… So you really do speak what you’re saying, because that’s the reason – that’s reason why, it’s you’ve been busy.

Yeah, I’m all over the place. My calendar’s booked out a long ways.

I think you were going to like to Australia, or something like that? You’re like “I’m leaving to Australia for this bike trip”, or something like that. I’m like “Well, dang it, I want to go. That’d be kind of cool.” But that’s your life. You get to sell bikes, and make gear, and make components, and influence folks… But at the same time, you get to go and just see the world and enjoy the sport, and enjoy the people you’re doing it with.

Totally, man.

It’s just so cool, man. I’m so proud of you, so just proud of what you’ve done… Stoked for all the stuff you’ve done, for you and the team, for sure.

Well, thank you. And I appreciate all the kind words. It’s just awesome to chat with you and hear that you had a great experience getting into mountain biking, and learning from our channels, and getting more into the sport from that. That’s awesome. That’s literally why we do it, so people can learn and enjoy and get more into the sport and have fun doing it. Like, that’s the whole reason. So… Always cool to talk to someone –

You made it more fun, that’s for sure. I mean, really, I think the work y’all did with your YouTube channel, and just the way you - all the things you talked about with your company, the way you design it, from being thoughtful… You know, one thing I’ll leave you with is I was choosing between a hard tail and a full squish at the time. And I thought – at the time, I thought it had to be either/or. I didn’t know you could buy two bikes, Jeff. I didn’t know you could have two bikes, okay?

[laughs] Just like you’ve got two computers, you’ve got two bikes.

Yeah. I was like “I can have this hard tail and I can have my full squish, and I can have two bikes.”

Totally.

I didn’t know that at the time. So I was really like “Okay, I’ve gotta get one of these things.” And I was looking at a hard tail frame, and I was trying to choose the fork, and it was a really helpful process and enjoyable process to email your support folks, and then not just tell me like what options were good to consider, but to dream the bike with me.

Yeah. Nice.

That was the coolest thing ever. It wasn’t just customer support, it wasn’t just “Let me get a question answered about this product”, or “Here’s the link on the web. Go find out yourself, dude.” It was like “Okay, no, I see what you’re thinking. Like, 130 in the front for this bike, and while that makes sense, maybe you want to go 140, because you’ll be a little bit more aggressive…” This is all insider speak for how many millimeters your fork travel will be, you know? So just – without having that community, without having other buddies to like really… I mean, I had other friends, but they were tired of talking about things with me, you know? So to just have friends by association through Worldwide Cyclery, it was pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah. Nice.

If you go into your support systems, you’ll see a few emails from me, kind of stupid, asking questions about forks and travel and what to choose…

Hey, that’s how it starts, man. Everyone’s got to start somewhere. It’s complicated products.

It is. And I always appreciated the fact that just the DNA of your business was “Let’s serve this person, versus sell this person.”

Yeah.

Let’s serve them in their quest for more knowledge, and their quest for more enjoyment, and a friend, you know? And that to me was really, really cool. And it spoke dividends compared to your competition in this space, so I appreciate that.

Nice.

But Jeff, again, thank you so much for being the awesome entrepreneur, and just curious person, the athlete that you’ve been to explore these sports, and not just explore them and keep all the goods for yourself, but find a way to share it with others, and build a team, and build a business… And really, what you’ve built is just tremendous, and I’m so thankful and so proud of you. So I appreciate it.

Well, thank you. Can’t say thank you enough for the kind words.

Thanks, Jeff.