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Let’s get this out of the way now: most companies will not have someone go from intern to CEO in a matter of months. That’s a situation unique to James Standley and Solé Bicycles. What isn’t out of the ordinary, though, are the many challenges and hurdles that James and his team had to deal with when scaling Solé into the success it is today.
On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, James takes us through the trials and tribulations of the Solé journey, including various shipping and manufacturing disasters and lawsuits that nearly bankrupted the company, and he explains how he worked his way out of those troubles and what he learned along the way. Plus, he gives some secrets on what’s working well for Solé now, such as the strategy of finding different touchpoints to reach customers in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with selling to them.
Main Takeaways:
- Starts With Heart: While the relationship with your supplier or manufacturer might seem like a cut-and-dry part of business, it has to go deeper than surface level. f you are working with overseas partners, taking the time to meet, and understand, the people you work with in person and form a relationship with them will carry you further and ease some pain if there are ever problems in the supply chain process.
- What You’re Known For: Through unique partnerships and marketing opportunities, there is potential to reach people in different ways, even if that means you’re not necessarily selling them a product with every touchpoint. Having a relationship with customers is more important than selling to them at every opportunity, because if they know you for one thing and then find out you sell something else, they are more likely to buy from you across the board.
- Shot on an iPhone: There will always be a place for highly-produced, glossy marketing materials. But, more and more these days UGC and lower-budget content is what is resonating with consumers. As opposed to showing potential buyers something they have to aspire to, like a model, highlighting people and experiences that are familiar to them as they are now will convert better.
For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.
Key Quotes:
“I went from being technically an intern in May to the CEO in August.”
“Do your diligence and find the supplier that makes the most sense for you, and not just use the first one that you end up getting placed with or you end up meeting with. You have to go over there and develop a relationship with them — it’s so important. They have this saying [In China], ‘First, you drink tea, then you drink Maotai and then talk business.’ What I mean by that is, they want to meet you, the different suppliers and the different people over there want to meet you. They want to build a personal relationship, and then they want to talk business because it’s so important there to have a personal relationship, as well as a business relationship.”
“So many of these different scenarios could have totally bankrupt us or ended us, but I think it builds a lot of character by going through these different situations and surviving it and learning from it and growing from it.”
“There’s a reason nine out of 10 businesses fail. There’s so many things that can go wrong with building a business, but you have to learn to embrace those challenges and know that you just have to fight through it. There’s not always a way to figure it out, but oftentimes, if you keep working at it and keep fighting, you can find ways to get through these things. If you do get through them, these are like business cards, or things that’ll stick with you and you could grow and build on them as you continue to build your business. …We’ve now learned to embrace the challenge and just know there’s going to be some new challenge, every year there’s going to be some new we’re going to get hit with, and you just have to learn to embrace it and take it head on and not let it beat you up.”
“You wouldn’t think of us as a music business or a bike business, but there’s people out there in the world that only know us as the Fixed Tape company. There are people who’ll find out and they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh, you guys sell bikes.’…It’s about [finding] organic unique way to reach new customers and relate with our customers.”
“If we believe our product could fit in someone’s store or someone’s space, then we’ll hit them up. We’re very confident in our product and our brand and we’ll sell them on it.”
Mentions:
Bio:
James Standley is the President and CEO of Solé Bicycles. He began working with the company while in college at Chapman University. Today, Solé sells thousands of bicycles every year and has cultivated a unique lifestyle brand that connects with hundreds of thousands of people.
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Transcript:
Stephanie:
Hey everyone. This is Stephanie Postles and you’re listening to Up Next in Commerce. Today on the show, we have James Standley. He’s the president and founding partner at Sole bicycles. James, welcome.
James:
Hey, how are you guys doing?
Stephanie:
Doing good. Thanks for joining us.
James:
Yes, I’m super excited to talk about all things ecommerce with you guys.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I was just looking through your website and I am very excited to get a bicycle after this. I didn’t even know I needed one, but now I do.
James:
Totally, totally, yeah. We have tons of great bikes and yeah, and tons of cool different colorways and options and a bike for just about anyone’s kind of need.
Stephanie:
Awesome. Tell me a bit about how you started Sole. I think it was in college, right?
James:
Yeah. My business partners, that I ended up starting the business with and I, we met back, funny enough, my first venture, which was a music festival I helped start back in college. We were both partners in that.
Stephanie:
It was called the Coachella for the Mountains, right?
James:
Yeah. It was called Snowball, and the idea was Coachella meets on the mountains. Yeah, there was this guy, Chad Donnelley, who I knew through the lacrosse world. I played college lacrosse and he came up with the concept and I was always involved in music. Growing up, I was a concert pianist, and I had DJ’ed in college and been in bands growing up. We met through the lacrosse world, and he came up with this idea. He had reached out to me just to ask my opinion on the project and what I thought about it. At the time, I was a freshman in college and he was asking me about it and I ended up just going back to him and say, “Hey, I want to be a part of this. I think this is amazing.”
James:
I was part of that initial team. We kicked off this event with … Our first, we had Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Bassnectar, and Pretty Lights, and Diplo and all these amazing artists come out and sold like 15,000 tickets. It was a really cool first venture and a first event. Yeah, so Jake and John, my original founders with Sole, they were partners in it as well, and they helped get some of the money for the project. We met, first year was a huge success and we stayed in contact. At the same time, they were coming up with the idea for Sole, and going back that summer, between my freshman year and my sophomore year of college, they were looking for some additional help on Sole.
James:
I said I’d come in and I’ve got a more like operational financial sort of background or mind, and they were more of the creatives and the visionary type of people. I came in, helped clean things up. We got the business off the ground. Then going through the summer, they ended up going and raising some money and starting another business, and I ended up taking over the business. I went from being technically an intern in May to the CEO in August. Yeah, so that’s how I got involved. Shoot, that was 2011. So, we’re going on nine years ago, and I’ve been CEO ever since.
Stephanie:
Wow. Very cool. That’s a wild story. How many bikes were you guys selling when you took over, and where are you at now? So I can get the scale of the company.
James:
Totally, totally. Yeah. Our first year we were featured on this big Forbes article and the business sort of took off, and I think we sold maybe a thousand bikes our first year, which was a lot for a first year business. This past year we’re going to sell about 15,000 bikes.
Stephanie:
Wow.
James:
Yeah. We’ve grown quite a bit.
Stephanie:
That’s great. What is the selling point of Sole bikes? How’s it different?
James:
Totally, totally. Yeah, for us, our main selling point is you go look at the bike and it’s just going to look different than any other bike you’ve ever seen before. We’re really heavy on our marketing and design and colorways and wanted to make something that’s really, really simple, easy to use, easy to maintain, but also looks really beautiful, and something that has a personality, and really people can relate to. I think a bicycle, for most companies, is more of a utility product, something that’s really spec-driven.
James:
For us, we wanted to make something that people were really, really proud of, and it’s like, they can relate to, and find a colorway that really matches their personality, or they could this store music fixed tapes or find these other ways that people can relate to the product. That’s really allowed us to set ourselves apart from other bike brands.
Stephanie:
Cool. It seems like pricing is also a big thing. The one thing I’ve always thought is, why the heck are bikes so expensive? Why? How’d you get your guys cost down so much?
James:
Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. The biggest way we do it is we work directly with a manufacturer and we sell directly to our customers. Just the natural, by cutting out some of the normal distributors or middlemen, we’re able to offer what would be a traditionally higher price point products for a lower price and pass those savings onto the consumer by selling direct.
Stephanie:
Tell me a bit more about that, because what did that look like finding a manufacturer? I think I saw you found, in the early days, your manufacturer on Alibaba. Right? Which I was like, oh, that’s interesting because I feel like Alibaba … I’ve been there before and there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of people. It’s hard to know who to trust, it’s hard to know if they’re going to send me something good. How did you guys go about finding a manufacturer there? Did it work out well? Give me some behind the scenes.
James:
Totally. Totally. Yeah. Our first, when we got the business kicked off, we actually were involved in this Ali-Baba business plan competition. Back when we were in college, Jake and John had applied for this business plan competition. They won it and we got a $15,000 grant from Alibaba. That grant or that money paid for them to initially go over, meet our first supplier who Alibaba had helped set up, and we got our first order of bikes in. That’s what the initial financing that got the business kicked off. But over time, went through a few different suppliers and really had to iterate our process.
James:
I spent a lot of time over in China meeting with different suppliers, refining the product, getting it to a place where it is today. It took a lot of trips over there and a lot of refining.
Stephanie:
In the early days when you’re picking your suppliers and manufacturers, what would you do differently this time around? What lessons did you learn or what things did you maybe stumble on in the early days that you can avoid if you were to redo it now?
James:
Totally. What I would recommend is, we got placed with the supplier via Alibaba, and we just worked with the first person we were placed with. I think we ended up switching a few different suppliers over time, but what really ended up getting us with a supplier that we were super happy with is we went over there, and I went to one of the big trade shows, and we ended up visiting another 15 or 20 during this trip I went on about year two or three, and that trip we ended up finding the supplier we worked with, still to this day.
James:
We really got to go out and meet these people and do your diligence and find the supplier that makes the most sense for you, and not just use the first one that you end up getting placed with or you end up meeting with. You got to go over there and develop a relationship with them. I mean, it’s so important. They have this saying there. It’s first, you drink tea, then you drink Maotai and then talk business. What I mean by that is, they want to meet you, the different suppliers and the different people over there want to meet you. They want to build a personal relationship, and then they want to talk business because it’s so important there to have a personal relationship, as well as a business relationship.
James:
If you’re going to try to source something from China or overseas, I’d recommend going over there and meeting these people and spending time with them, and learning, meeting them as people, and really developing a relationship, because that’s going to help that business relationship over time and make a really, really strong business relationship.
Stephanie:
Yep. If you don’t go and meet them and you didn’t really do your due diligence, what kind of problems could a new company encounter? Did you encounter any issues in the early days with some of your suppliers that you stopped working with?
James:
Totally, totally. Yeah. The supply chain for a bicycle is pretty complex. For our product alone, there’s over 50 parts. Those 50 parts come from 20 different other suppliers, and then those have to come into an assembler, the assembler puts the product together and then it’s shipped over. There’s a ton of different things that could go wrong. A good example would be we had one of our biggest shipments ever, at the time for the business. We had put in an order for summer, and it was like 2000 units. We had also set up a big sale online with a company called fab.com. At the time, they were having … I don’t know if you remember the company, fab.com, but they were one of the fastest companies to a billion dollar valuation, I think, and people were talking about it as the next Amazon.
James:
It was having this really big moment. We were selling really well on there. We partnered with them and we were like, hey, we’re going to bring in a bunch of units. Let’s have a really, really big sale. We have this massive sale. We sell like 1,500 to 2,000 units, pre-sell them, and ends up being the biggest sale ever on fab up to that point. So, do the sale, goods come in, and then we ship all the product out. Well, our manufacturer had packaged the bikes slightly incorrect to where … The crank arm usually woven through the front wheel, which is detached, and then tucked to the side of the bike when it’s shipped. They were all packaged slightly off that almost every single bike came with one of the spokes popped off.
James:
You get your brand new bike that you just bought offline, brand new, beautiful bike, you open it up, and one of the spokes popped off, which it’s like … You can’t ride it, but it’s a small problem, but it’s not an easy problem to fix. Oh my gosh, that situation almost bankrupt us. What ended up happening we-
Stephanie:
What did you guys do?
James:
Yeah, we had the product on credit. We had given we had been sold the product on credit, so we went back to the supplier and we were like, hey, this is going to bankrupt us. We got to figure something out, and they refused to take any discount on it. Then, our advisor was like, “Hey, we’re going to just hold payment until we get something settled.” They ended up serving us a lawsuit. They came to America, served us a lawsuit.
Stephanie:
Oh my gosh.
James:
So we were served, and had to go through this entire … Mind you, I’m like 21 years old at the time. I’m still in school. We get served a lawsuit. I’m like, oh my gosh, what is going on? So, we had to hire a lawyer who was our body. He was only like 30 and we didn’t have a ton of money. We had to put together a case and actually go out and defend ourselves.
Stephanie:
Yeah, did you win?
James:
We go through this, and we hired this lawyer, and he’s like, “Look, you guys don’t have the money, [inaudible] afford me, so I’m going to teach you how to build this case.” I went and actually built this timeline of everything that’s happened, and we came up with a case theory and counter sued them. They responded and deposed me. I had to go through this 40 exhibit eight hour deposition. But we held our ground and got through it. After that, it got to the point where it was like, financially it made the most sense to settle and were able to settle for what ended up being about half off of what the original was. Yes.
Stephanie:
That’s wild. I’m just imagining being in college, dealing with it. How was that experience being in college? I’m just thinking, all of a sudden, you have this company and you’re having to go to China and now you’re getting sued. What was the college experience like for you when you were having something very different than probably a lot of your peers go on?
James:
To be honest, it was really exciting. You felt like it was just so cool to be building something and going through this. We were so ignorant, I think, going through a lot of this stuff, which I think ended up actually helping us. It was just very shoot from the hip and like figure it out. Yeah, so many of these different scenarios could have totally bankrupt us or ended us, but I think it builds a lot of character by going through these different situations and surviving it and learning from it and growing from it. Yeah, it was exciting. It was really fun and exciting. The goal was just like, don’t go bankrupt, don’t die. Keep fighting and figure it out.
Stephanie:
That’s good. I like that. I could see it also just making it seem like, well, what else … Nothing can really scare me. I’ve gotten sued. I almost went bankrupt. There’s nothing too scary out there after that. I think it’s a good place to be.
James:
Yeah. I think it’s part of building a business. You’re going to face adversity and a lot of … There’s a reason nine out of 10 businesses fail. There’s so many things that can go wrong with building a business, but you have to learn to embrace those challenges and know that you just got to fight through it. There’s not always a way to figure it out, but there’s oftentimes, if you keep working at it and keep fighting, you can find ways to get through these things. If you do get through them, these are like business cards, I guess you could say, or things that’ll stick with you and you could grow and build on as you continue to build your business.
James:
After going through all this stuff over so many different situations over so many years, we’ve now learned to embrace the challenge and just know, hey, here there’s going to be some new challenge, every year, there’s going to be some new thing that’s going to … we’re going to get hit with, and you just have to learn to embrace it and take it head on and not let it beat you up.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I love that. You guys seem really good at partnerships. I’ve seen some of the very well-known companies that you work with, who they get their own custom bikes built, and you’ve got things with artists going on and music and all that. How do you how do you view that strategy in your playbook to be able to access new customers and new markets, and how do you even develop those partnerships?
James:
Totally, totally. A lot of that was built from, again, when we started the company, we weren’t the traditional bike guys. We were coming from the music background and fashion background. A huge art scene. We had all these relationships early on, and just out of pure having those relationships, we intertwined it in business, and you have the fixed tape series, which one of our early employees was a professional DJ, so he’s like, “Hey, I got this idea. Let’s create an hour long mix to listen to while I’m riding our bike, and we’ll go get some other DJ friends to do it.” That piece of content. Just that, that we created that and it’s been rolling ever since. We just launched the Sofi Tukker one, which was, I think our 76th mix tape.
Stephanie:
That’s cool.
James:
Then that artist creates that mix, and some of these DJs are very globally known DJs. We posted on our SoundCloud and they showed on their SoundCloud, and it creates this nice piece of content that people can come back to and find Sole, or find that mix each month. It’s funny because we’re not … you wouldn’t think of us as a music business or a bike business, but there’s people out there in the world that only know us as the fixed tape company. There are people who’ll find out, they’ll be like, “Oh my gosh, you guys sell bikes. I thought you were just the fixed tape company or something.” It’s just organic sort of different little marketing tricks that we’ve, or little tactics we’ve built over the years.
James:
They just are organic, unique way to reach new customers and relate with our customers. We do the different partnerships. Again, I’ll use the Sofi Tukker example. They’re a big DJ group. If you don’t know them, they’re a big DJ group, globally known. I think one other fun facts, I think they have a platinum record in every country in the world except Antarctica. They’re pretty big and they’re up and coming. They had a song that’s called Purple Hat. One of the lines in the song is purple hat cheetah print. We thought, how cool would it be to make a purple hat, their purple cheetah print bike? So, we had connections.
James:
One of their agencies or marketing companies or whatnot. So, we were able to get a pitch in front of them and they were super stoked on it. Yeah, now we’re selling purple hat cheetah print bikes. Again, it’s a cool way to … What other bike companies are selling purple cheetah print bikes? It’s just a unique way to reach new customers and provide a unique product and put a cool product out in the world that no one else was doing. I think it’s just thinking that way with the bike industry has allowed us to build up these partnerships and set ourselves apart from other bike companies.
Stephanie:
Yeah. When you’re doing these partnerships, these partners can also sell it on their website. Right? So, it’s not all being sourced back to your website as a central hub. You’re essentially letting these partners also sell the bikes on their websites as well. Right?
James:
Totally, totally. Yeah. For each partnership’s bespoke and different in their own way. Sometimes like, we did a partnership with Wildfox, which is a women’s centric fashion brand. We did these like really beautiful floral prints all over a bicycle. They took them in and they sold them through all their retail shops, as well as their partner wholesale shops, as well as their website, and we sold on our website. There’s a bunch of different ways we can structure it. But yeah, it’s usually just bespoke to whatever that partnership is.
Stephanie:
Well, that’s a good segue into, I mean, when you’re thinking about, you’ve got these mixed tapes going out and partnerships that aren’t anywhere close to like the biking industry, how are you tracking conversions? Is your goal to try and get people to listen to these mixed tapes and then come back and buy bikes? Or how do you think about what your goals are around these different projects that you’re doing?
James:
Totally, totally. With the fixed tapes, I think we’re trying to push out a certain amount of content each month and each quarter. Then we go out and we build content calendars around what are different initiatives that we can tap into? I think when we’re thinking about content, we like to look and start with email. Email is like one of our highest converting marketing channels. We’re constantly filling and adding to our email list, and then from there, we’re trying to push out two to three emails a week. We’re mapping out our email pushes. We say, what are the different content initiatives that we can tap into? So, we try to do a fixed tape every two months. We try to do artist series every quarter and large-scale partnership once or twice a year.
James:
We map out all these different things we’re trying to do, and then we funnel, and then that leads into email. With email, where you can’t really just send very bland marketing type style emails every month. You’re not going to get good engagement. So, we have to create stuff that’s engaging. I think we’ve just gotten so good at creating this stuff very cost-effectively that it ends up paying for itself through the conversions of email. It’s also a great brand building. They’re all great brand building initiatives, and they all kind of build on themselves.
James:
If I do a big large-scale partnership with like a Sofi Tukker, that’s going to come back and open up new opportunities down the road for other potential brands, or other potential artists. It’s sort of all builds on itself as we go bigger and bigger.
Stephanie:
When you’re talking about emails really high, when it comes to converting customers, how do you think about creating that engaging content? What pieces of content are working or what emails work best?
James:
I think one of them more interesting fun little emails that we came up with years ago and it’s like the easiest thing [inaudible] to create ever, is we do what we call Sole Saturday. Sole Saturday, it’s one photo by the Sole team and then three user-generated photos. Every bike we ship out has a little tag on it that says tag at Sole bicycles hashtag, and you use hashtag of the bicycle for a chance to be featured.
James:
Then, what we do is as we’re spelling product, customers are going out and taking photos for us, and every Saturday we feature three of our customers. That, again, it’s just like … we’re using user generated content and it’s creating a nice email that people can go back to and see if they’re featured. It’s actually very high converting as well.
Stephanie:
That’s fine. Do you think having actual customers and photos is where a lot of brands are going to be headed, less about the models and the people who look perfect and more about … Is this someone who reminds me of myself and I can see myself riding that bicycle, yeah, feeling a better connection with them?
James:
Totally, totally. It’s funny you say that. Because even when you look at … you go to our paid spend or paid marketing, a lot of times the [inaudible] produced sort of content where it’s on a really … Get a really expensive content creator to produce it and it looks very professional, versus like content that’s shot on iPhone or content that’s just shot with customers’ photos. That ends up converting a lot better than the higher produced stuff. I think that’s just the people can relate more to it.
Stephanie:
Yeah. I agree. What kind of channels are you putting that content or the more natural looking content that your customers are creating? What channels are you finding are working best right now to convert customers?
James:
We’re constantly testing when we’re doing Facebook and Instagram ads. I’ve been serving different type of ads to different audiences on Facebook and Instagram with different types of content, the more professionals type of content versus the more just shot from iPhone vibe. Even like, over the last year, we’ve had a big uptick on our online business because of COVID, and people being at home and wanting to find a way to get outside and escape from this madness.
James:
One of the craziest things that we found was iPhone ads or the story ads-specific, so had to build just enough format for iPhones were converting at like crazy, crazy higher row ads versus just more static or traditional images or ads on the Facebook or Instagram. That was like a crazy thing we came up on this year.
James:
There’s a very beautiful, simple ad where it’s just like the bike on the beach and you have the sky in the background and then the sand below it. Then just the brand and a little copy below it. That little ad actually absolutely killed it for us this year.
Stephanie:
That’s great. Are you still using, maybe not that ad, but still putting new ads into the story section on iPhones?
James:
Yeah. I recommend any brand out there that’s doing … I mean, I’ve been learning a lot of this as we go and trying to get better at it, but when you’re creating your ads on Facebook and Instagram for when you’re setting that ad up, you can actually split it so that it’s like, you have this certain photo for the stack set up and then you have a different photo for when it’s served on story. My biggest eyesore, or I hate is, when you’re on a story and you get an ad, and it’s like an ad that’s built for the display. So, it has the kind of squared picture and then it has the words under that.
James:
I don’t know if you guys have seen that, but it’s such an eyesore to me compared to a beautiful ad that’s like really built for the stories. Just making sure that you have the ad set, the story specific ads, it’ll help your conversion so much. That’s helped us a ton.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that’s a really good point. What kind of return on spend should a brand expect from the iPhone story ads versus maybe Instagram or Facebook or Tik-Tok.
James:
That’s a tough question. I think it’s specific to the brand and the product they’re selling, and then, even the time of the year. For us right now, our ROAS is way lower than like the middle of summer. It’s almost like a 10th of what it was during the summer. That’s just because it’s seasonality, our product. We saw specific … static first story during the summer, I think it was converting 3 or 4X of what it was static. But that’s specific to us. I think every brand is different, every product’s different. But yeah, I think that can give you an idea of the potential.
Stephanie:
Yeah, very cool. Is there any other new marketing channels that you’re trying out, that you’re like, I’m not sure if this will work, but we are allocating some funds here to try this out?
James:
No, for now we’re focusing just on Facebook, Instagram. We’re doing Google AdWords and media retargeting. I want to dip my toes in some other things. I want to try the Tik-Tok and I want to try some Pinterest. I’ve heard about the Tik-Tok, but the tracking is not that great on it. We haven’t done anything yet. Also, Tik-Tok’s I think for a little bit lower age or younger demographic than what our target audience is, so we haven’t tried-
Stephanie:
I don’t know. We’ve had a lot of people on here saying Tik-Tok works well. That originally, it was just the dancing videos and younger people and all that. People are like, it seems like there’s still a good arbitrage opportunity on Tik-Tok right now, because the attribution and tracking might be worse, but you still get a lot of the benefit of going onto a new platform before they increase the pricing and actually understand what kind of conversions they’re hitting. I don’t know, [crosstalk] to check out.
James:
Totally, totally. There we go. That’s my takeaway from this. We’ll give it a go. We’ll give it a go.
Stephanie:
Yeah, give it a whirl and see. When new customers are coming on your website, I want to talk a bit about like, how do you guide them through the funnel? How do you personalize things and show them, not only content, but also maybe a bike that would work for them or that might peak their interest?
James:
Totally. Totally. It’s an interesting … there’s a few things we do. We have about our bikes page, where it’s like, which Sole are you? That walks them through the different, we have like six different models. You have the single-speed fixed gear, you have the City Bike, you have the Dutch Step through, you have the three speed City Bike, and then you have the Coastal Cruiser. Top Bar and Coastal Cruiser are down and slanting more. We have a page that we’ll walk the customers through the difference between all of those and the pros and the cons of each of those. That can explain the style.
James:
Then once you know the style, what we do different than maybe other companies is we actually … Each product, each colorway has its own product variant versus like, you may go see a single-speed version of one of our competitors and they keep all the colors on one product page. We create the personality and each colorway has its own personality and its own page. It really helps customers, like okay, I like the red bike, and see the lifestyle on it, and just for that red bike. The red bike would be [inaudible] for a walk and it’s got its own story, help the customer really fall in love with that product, and tell a story around each of them, versus them all being bundled up on the one page.
Stephanie:
That’s great. Very cool. Then, I was seeing a couple of retail stores that you were partnering with, probably pre-COVID, but it seems like there’d be a really good opportunity to have those partners also kind of market and share for you while they’re getting in front of their own new customers as well. It seems like they would kind of take on the budget, the marketing budget to then share your brand under their brand, if that makes sense.
James:
Totally, totally, totally. Yeah. We’re seeing a big uptick with like these online third party wholesalers and distributors. That’s been, for us, I think our product, it’s got such a great look and feel to it that it can transcend from, not just traditional sporting goods or traditional bike-centric channels. We can sell on sites like an Urban Outfitters or on Zola, or some of these other more lifestyle driven sites that want a cool lifestyle product in the bike space.
James:
That’s one of our big initiatives that we’re trying to get on more of these like third-party digital wholesaler channels, because in the last year, what we’ve seen the biggest takeaway from all this is like, everything is going digital much faster than it was prior to COVID.
Stephanie:
Yep. Are those partners showcasing your brand? Are they more white labeling, like ordering the bikes and then putting under their brand to say, okay, this is an Urban Outfitters bike, or are they actually saying no, this is Sole [crosstalk 00:33:32].
James:
Yeah, we’re selling us as Sole. Yeah, we’re selling us Sole through these third parties.
Stephanie:
That’s good. That’s awesome. How are you getting in front of these big partners? Urban Outfitters is huge and super popular. How did you even get in front of them and convince them to partner with you guys to sell your bikes?
James:
Yeah, just cold email them. Right?
Stephanie:
I hear you cold emailing. Tell us your secrets. Come on, James.
James:
Very easy. Yeah, we’ll go out there. If we believe our product could fit in someone’s store or someone’s space, then we’ll hit them up. We’re very confident in our product and our brand and we’ll sell them on it. It works a ton. Then there’s other partners that have reached out to us and want us to work with them. I think, a good example we were connecting … Target reached out to us and we’ve just recently started selling on Target’s website, which I think is … It’s interesting with them. Target’s trying to, in each of their product categories, bring a more 21st century brand in. I think like we really fit that really lifestyle driven 21st century brand for a product.
James:
Normally, there’s not a lot of brands in the space that have that kind of fit. I think we really fit those as well. That’s an exciting one for us. Then, like I said, the Zola. Zola’s a massive, or one of the biggest wedding registry sites. We’re one of the only bike brands on there as well, and do really, really well on there.
Stephanie:
Ooh, that’s a good angle. I wouldn’t think to put a bike on a wedding registry website, but that’s awesome, because a lot of times it’s just the same old, same old. You’re like, I don’t need more plates, but I can go for a bike. I would put on my registry.
James:
We sell so many likes there. You’d be really, really surprised. It’s a great wedding gift. We have a his and hers, so almost every single order that goes there, it’s two bikes, obviously.
Stephanie:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Really good strategy. How are you keeping up with fulfillment in the backend? Especially when you’re integrating all these partners like Target and Urban Outfitters, what happens if target has a big surge and they’ve got a bunch of traffic come to their website, and all of a sudden, you’ve got 500 bike orders? How are you guys keeping up behind the scenes to make sure that you don’t go out of stock or have issues on the backend?
James:
Totally, totally. This was something that this year that we’ve invested a lot of time and energy and effort into, is leveraging technology to make sure all of this stuff runs super smooth. We’re using a third party warehouse that has their own systems. Then, we have to use an EDI software or partner to connect to a lot of these systems. It’s just spending the time, energy and effort to really automate all this stuff and make sure all these systems talk to each other, and there’s inventory pushes going out multiple times a day. You put in the front end work to automate all this stuff so that you can avoid those problems.
James:
There’s systems that say, hey, there’s inventory pushes that happen multiple times a day to all these systems, so if there’s a big spike on say Target, that inventory is removed and pushed out to the other channels so that there’s no overselling or minimal over selling. That still happens a little bit here and there because the inventory pushes don’t go out all the time. It’s a couple times a day, but yeah, it’s just about leveraging. There’s a ton of technology out there, like using the technology to your advantage to automate the stuff.
Stephanie:
What are some big bets that you guys at Sole are making over the next couple of years? Where do you think the bicycle market is headed? What are some things that you’re betting on that you’re not sure if they’re going to pay off or not over the next couple of years?
James:
Yeah, totally. I think it goes back to digital. We’re super focused on digital right now and we’re super bullish on digital. We’re investing in this technology to make sure that we’re set up the scale and then we want to continue to expand where we’re selling and who we’re selling in front of. Then, on top of that, it’s continuing to expand how we market our product and where we market our product and the media partners we can use to get in front of these different people. I think the biggest thing … People having a stay at home as a result of COVID has set all these new habits. I think they say like, it takes three weeks to set a habit, and what? We’ve all been at home since April.
James:
Everyone’s having to shop from shop online and shop at home. Once we come out of COVID, those habits, I don’t think are going to go away. For us, we’re super bullish on making sure we have a really solid foundation with, not only our website, but the online e-retail partners that we’re selling through so that, as we come out of COVID, we continue to have really strong distribution digitally to the future.
Stephanie:
Yep. I could see some of the retail partners leaning on you guys also for maybe advice and best practices. I’ve seen some of the bigger companies kind of looking at, not that you’re a startup, but looking at startups, looking at people who are able to be agile and move quickly, and trying to figure out like, well, what are you guys doing? Tell us what are the best practices right now, because what we’ve been doing for the past couple of years was just thrown up into the air and we have to rewrite how we do things now. So, do they ever hit you up and be like, “Hey James, how should we set this up? Or how are you guys doing this so we can replicate this?”
James:
Totally. No, no, no. There’s always like other people in the industry that we’re talking to. There’s always people that we … Whether it’s people in the bike industry or other businesses, other friends that have businesses. Again, always happy to talk with them. For us, you say that we aren’t a startup, we are a startup. We’ve been doing this for 10 years, I still feel like it’s a startup. Our team’s still pretty lean. There’s only 10 of us. We’re super nimble and able to move quick, which is great and allowed us to pivot and make changes when things like COVID happened, that bigger companies can’t do.
James:
Once we find successes, we can double down and grow on those. Yeah, we’re staying nimble and going with the flow and learning quick. Yeah.
Stephanie:
That’s great. All right, cool. Let’s jump over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I’m going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, James?
James:
I am ready.
Stephanie:
All right.
Stephanie:
What is your favorite business book that you think about or refer back to [crosstalk 00:40:28]?
James:
It’s not a business book per se, but it is You Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins.
Stephanie:
Oh, okay. I like that. I actually have not heard of that. I don’t think.
James:
The quick hitter on it, it’s about overcoming adversity and pushing yourself. I think that’s so important in business is understanding that you can overcome adversity and always setting your bar higher and higher. Again, it’s not technically a business book, but I think there’s ton of good business lessons you can learn from it.
Stephanie:
I like that. That sounds good. I’ll have to check it out. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about, and who is your first guest be?
James:
Oh my gosh. If I were to have a podcast, I would talk about … Personally, my favorite thing outside of business and bicycles is traveling. I would do a travel blog and my first guess would be, Oh my gosh, I would pick Barack Obama.
Stephanie:
There you go. I’d listen to that. That sounds good. What is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for you?
James:
Oh my gosh. The nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me. The nice thing, oh, this is big.
Stephanie:
Heavy.
James:
My friend, Mario and Ken, in the early days when we started up our USC shop, these guys would come out every year and work for back to school, which is our craziest time of year for that shop. We sell like a thousand bikes in two weeks, and they would come out and stay at my place, crash on my floor and help us every year for the first four years. So, shout out to Mario and Ken.
Stephanie:
Oh, that is really nice. That’s a good answer. What trend or tech do you not understand today that you wish you did?
James:
What trend or tech? Tik-Tok.
Stephanie:
There you go.
James:
I don’t get it, but I feel like I need to get it.
Stephanie:
Okay. I’ve had some other people say that as well, so you’re in good company. Others don’t also do not understand it. All right. Then the last bigger one. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year? It can’t be COVID because we’ve had too many people say that.
James:
I think the big thing impact on ecommerce, I think it’s going to be shipping. I feel like shipping is going to change drastically over the next one to five years. You have like Amazon starting to do their drones. We’re starting to see in LA these little robots that are delivering food. Then, on top of that, FedEx and UPS are just killing everyone with all their fees and their pricing. We’ve been in peak surge charges since July. I just feel like there’s so much potential for disruption there, shipping.
Stephanie:
Yep. Oh, that’s a good answer. Yeah, I agree. I see a lot of companies, a couple of them actually are in Canada who are trying to get one and two day shipping. I think a lot of more companies will be leaning into that once they figure out how to make that work, and they also see how reliant they are on the FedExs, the UPSs, and how much it disrupts businesses.
James:
Totally, totally. Please someone come out here, please help us [inaudible 00:43:54], it’s so expensive to ship bikes.
Stephanie:
Well, maybe James, that can be your next business. You’ve done a lot in your day. You might as well just start a shipping company as well.
James:
There we go. There we go.
Stephanie:
All right, James. Well, thanks for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Sole bicycles?
James:
Totally. You can check us out at solebicycles.com, or our Instagram, which we update daily, @solebicycles, and then my personal is @JimmyStans.
Stephanie:
All right. Thanks so much.
James:
Thank you guys so much. Appreciate it.
