Heroes in Business - Tate Stock Founder of the Chirp Wheel, struck SharkTank win with Lori Grenier

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Roll away back pain on the...Tate Stock Founder of the Chirp Wheel, struck SharkTank win with Lori Grenier, and Founder CEO ShipStud is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio, and online syndication.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Alliances Heroes. Alliances is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in David Kogan founder of alliances that's me and we have another packed morning today so thank you again for tuning in or if you're watching us online we really appreciate it and thank you for the fantastic feedback we continue to have and even most recently the feedback that we've gotten again on when i interviewed well you know richard branson so thank you again keep the feedback coming we love it we love it we love it all right now if

you haven't ever experienced a back pain well it's probably because you're real young because you know at some point in your life your back's gonna start really kind of feeling kink and feeling a little bit of pain and you know our next hero are you ready for this he developed something that's just been going gangbusters and it has to do with the back we've got with us tate stock founder of chirp wheel and also ship, but we're going to mainly right now talk about Chirpwheel. Welcome to the show, Tate. Good to be here. Thanks for having me. Hey, Tate, I'm just curious. How did your parents come up with the name? Where does Tate come from? To be honest, I don't really know. I do know that five kids that I know of were named after me,

so it must be a good name. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. All right. So let's talk about how did you come up with this idea of the chirp wheel? And then also want to find out is, is, you know, how this all really just came to be and, you know, what was the inspiration for it? So five years ago, I had a semester left in college and I was just about to get married. Honestly, I was looking for something to get me out of wedding planning. And I found this roller type device in my aunt's living room called a yoga wheel. And the yoga wheels were invented in the 80s, but they kind of were coming back. I didn't know it at the time, but there were a couple of companies starting to make these yoga wheels, which is a stretching product in yoga. And I looked it up on Amazon and Amazon finished my sentence.

So I knew that their algorithm was picking it up, but no one was selling them. And so I went out and I bought $400 in sewer pipe and $50 in yoga mat and strapped some skateboard wheels onto a table saw. And I would lift the pipe into the table saw, right? And cut it. And so I threw them up on Amazon and in two weeks I made $12,000. So I turned this 400 to 12,000 and that's how it all got started. And the product obviously proved itself really fast that it could sell. So. That's awesome. All right.

So things are rocking and rolling and then you decided, hey, let me give it a shot on Shark Tank. Yeah. So we got, we actually were called up by the producers of Shark Tank asking us to apply.

Now I had applied two times previous, by the producers of Shark Tank asking us to apply. Now I had applied two times previous, but it's really hard to get through a 60,000 person application process, right? So we started to go through the whole application, but we did get a little bit of top of the pile attention. So yeah, that just happened this last spring is when they called us up. That's awesome, that's awesome. Congratulations, first last spring is when they called us up.

That's awesome. That's awesome. Congratulations. First of all, in getting on the show. All right. Let's talk about the pressure of that too. So you're, you're walking out on the, you're walking right down those shark tank area with the sharks and all that. What's going through your mind?

Oh man. So a lot of people don't know this, but they don't, the music isn't playing, you know, the dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. It's not playing. so it's silent. And then you go out there and they have you hit your mark. And then they get all these shots of you, right? There's boom cam and they have you stand there for about 60 seconds. And then the producer yells, begin.

And then you jump right into it. So it was nerve wracking. begin. And then you jump right into it. So it's, it is, it was nerve wracking. And, uh, and then you talked to us about the parts. So you ended up accepting and accepting a deal, getting, getting offered a deal and accepting a deal with Lori. And, uh, how, how's that been then since it's been good. Um, just like any other business deal, there's a lot of due diligence. And so we're actually in that right now where her team has all of our numbers. They have all the information they need. And then the process, I don't know, I think it's typically five to six months.

And so hopefully we hopefully it goes through. Really, we are really looking for that partnership. But just the fact of just the fact of being on it, what have you seen take place since it's aired? Oh, man. A lot of a lot of love from our customers. It's definitely helped the business grow. It aired on October 30. So it's right before holiday season. So it really teed us up well to get a whole bunch of traffic and attention on our brand and then be able to monetize that and help a lot of people out with back pain through this whole Christmas season. So that's been great. It's just like, you know, I've gone to your site. I think it's really cool what you've got.

We're going to talk more about that because right now you're listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. So you know what to do. Make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Why? Because it is the only place where entrepreneurs line. And we've got with us Tate Stock, founder of Chir you can reach him at go chirp.com so tate the product that you've created is who's your like main specific target audience like i've got a little bit of back pain yeah um but uh you know not not not consistently

am i a candidate you know like what's your what's your sweet spot? Yeah. So, uh, as far as demographic, typically 20 to 50 years old, um, we have some older 60 and 70 year olds, but it's more probably just for just general back pain relief. You know, it's a really simple roller type device. And so it's not like we're strapping you up to a system. But they're really easy to use. So we sold over a million wheels and our return rate is really low. It's an effective product for pretty much anyone experiencing a wide range of different back pain. Honestly, if it doesn't work, we take it back because not everyone's the same. And how often should someone be using it? We recommend daily for a couple minutes. It just depends if you're sore after work or after a

workout, you're you need to decompress, or maybe you have customers roll out right before bed or right when they wake up. So really just when it hurts, right? When you want to loosen up. So what we found and from doing many of these interviews, you know, this really launches the part to, you know, your first product on other products under other avenues and stuff that and other businesses, which now this has led for you to do Shipstud. Is that right? Yeah. So about three years ago, we decided to start our own shipping and fulfillment center. We were moving a lot of product for Chirp. And we pretty much ship for just a couple key brands that that are high growth.

And we just do that along with Chirp. So that doesn't take the majority of my time, but it definitely, I mean, it supports, it supports our growth with Chirp and Chirp supports Shipstead's growth so that both businesses work really well together. How about developing a wheel for other parts of the body like the neck and different things? Yeah, so we have a whole bunch of products in development.

Like you said, you know, you start with one, you dig deep with that one, and then you can expand. And that's really the approach that we're taking. So this next year will probably be more of a Super Bowl year where we'll have several different products come out. R&D has been working hard on that. And we're excited to, we're excited to make a splash in the pain relief space. How long does it take until you kind of start feeling a difference from using the chirp wheel? I would say instantly. Most people get a lot of pops when they roll out. There's three different sizes, and so the smallest one is going to dig deepest, and that one will probably give you the most pops.

deepest and that one will probably give you the most pops but people love uh by far the most popular thing to do for a customer i guess is to get the whole set right because they can they can change the different amounts of pressure that they get but you'll feel you feel relief right away how did you get the part of uh getting uh doctors to approve of it you know they get hit with so many different products and they see everything coming, but you actually got approval from a number of doctors. Yeah. So it first started with, so we started in yoga, right? And then two years into the business, we switched all the focus to back pain. And that's when we started going to physical therapists and chiropractic conventions. Most about a year ago, we had one of the top spinal

specialists in the nation from Yale reach out and want to test the product. And now the whole Yale hospital is stocked, and he uses it on all of his patients. And, and so I feel like it was a process of going straight to the consumer getting a lot of their feedback, and as well as coupling it with the medical community community now it's it's a roller type device right it's not like we we are the only wheel that's FDA registered as a class 1 medical device but we're not I don't know maybe the extensive medical route we didn't have to take so but we have partnered, you know, we partnered with health professionals from the beginning. So that's helped. That's awesome. I just, yeah, I love what you're doing and helping people. Cause you know, I mean, like when you talk to people and you tell them what you do and stuff, everybody probably wants

to try it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Back pain is one of those things. Honestly, when we switched from yoga to back pain, we went to a convention. And the first day we sold a yoga wheel. And then the second day we sold a back pain relief wheel. And the first day I think we sold three units. And the second day we sold out. So, yeah, people have the pain, right? And they want to try it. And they are willing to get down on the ground and roll out.

Because back pain is just one of those things that's so debilitating. If you get some relief there, I feel like your entire life changes. You know, a lot of people, though, create things that don't take off. At what point did you know, hey, you know, I've got something here? I understand, you know, you started on the Amazon, but what was the thing is, you know, I think that I can do this full time. you know what, I think that I can do this full time. It was probably two years into the business and we had done $180,000 in sales.

And then we switched the focus to back pain and that market and things took off. And $180,000 is great salary, but to run a business on that, it's just not sustainable. And then I think really the aha moment was we needed to figure out how we're going to sell more of this product. And that marketing shift and some of the brand shift that we did, that's probably the biggest aha. Like, okay, we could actually grow this thing.

Right. And how many people would have given it two years? Yeah, yeah. My wife and I didn't pay ourselves for three years, like not a dime. We'd lived off of savings. And so, yeah, it was a it was a grind. What about some secrets you could share with young adults, you know, ones that are starting off? You know, they look at the term of entrepreneurs being this magic, logistical thing, right? And what advice, though, secrets do you have that you could share with them in regards to your success? Yeah, I actually have never. Well, I do.

I love it now, but I've never in the past. I didn't like the word entrepreneur. I don't know why it was just I don't know. I just didn't like the word. But as far as secrets, one, I would say launch imperfect products. At the beginning, we don't know, I just didn't like the word. But as far as secrets, one, I would say launch imperfect products. At the beginning, we didn't have a sticker. We didn't have a logo.

We didn't have a shipping box. We had a product that could help people in a certain way. And the core functionality of using that product was to help stretch in yoga. And so get that out there. Find out if it's gonna sell. Because if it's a hobby, make it a hobby. I guess that, and that couples with my second piece of advice is don't be a hippie. Now, meaning you can be passionate about business and the game and the opportunity you're creating,

but you don't necessarily have to be passionate about the specific product, right? That's my belief. I don't think that the product you start selling doesn't have to be one of your hobbies, right? I've never done yoga before. And I don't have a big medical background. But I'm, I love the game of business and the the people we get to support our customers, our employees like that is what really drives me. So those are two pieces of advice. Excellent. Well, Tate, you created something that's taking the back pain world by storm and helping many overcome what's holding them back. That's the hero, Tate Stock, founder and inventor of Chirpwheel.

Make sure you go to GoChirp.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show.