How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with RJ Scaringe with Rivian

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scaringe joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders. He also gets into how trade policies and shifting tariffs are impacting the automotive supply chain. First, we meet Ashley from Southern California, who’s deciding whether to take outside capital to take her altruistic ice cream brand worldwide. Next, Kwadwo in North Carolina is debating leaving his full-time job to go all in on his handcrafted furniture brand. Then Robert in British Columbia is looking to grow his backcountry skiing invention beyond the early adopters.Thank you to the founders of Vedder’s Organic Ice Cream, Crafted Glory and Zoa Engineering for being part of the show. If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298. And be sure to listen to Rivian's founding story as told by RJ on How I Built This in 2022.This episode was produced by Iman Maani. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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All right, let's go. Joining me this week is RJ Scoringe. He's the founder and CEO of the electric vehicle company Rivian. RJ, it's great to have you back on the show. It's great to be here. You were first on high built. He's been on twice. We were first on the show back in 2022.

And if you guys haven't heard that story, we will put a link in the episode description. I really recommend that everyone go and check out this episode if you haven't heard it before or even if you have. Because your story, RJ, is not, it's not a typical story we talk about on how I built this. Because you entered one of the most challenging industries possible, right? It's highly technical, dominated by legacy players. And of course, that's the automotive industry. And it's an electric car company to boot. But of course, fast forward, 2021, the first electric pickup, the R1Ts went public.

Now you've got the R1S, which is the SUV. I have one. It is an amazing car. I know I'm not supposed to endorse any products. It is an incredible vehicle. It is so beautifully made and a pleasure to drive. I think by now you've sold over 130,000 vehicles, including the vans that you build. So quite a journey.

I mean, even since 2021. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's amazing seeing them on the road and it feels like it was simultaneously just yesterday and also a long while ago. But the first vehicles where you started building for consumers, there was a lot of learnings and doing that in the middle of COVID. And then with the subsequent supply chain crisis that we had that really kicked off in 2022, you couldn't have imagined a more challenging backdrop to be building the company. But a lot of those skills we've built in terms of managing supply chains being really dynamic around, you know, how we think about those supply chains. We're now finding our really valuable skills because it's, again, it's a complex environment. It's about to launch our next product, which is R2, which is a much lower price product.

So it's a smaller SUV, and then you're going to launch an R3, which is a sort of a rally car hatchback. Beautiful. It looks like a rally car from the 70s. So cool. Yeah, it's funny. I was joking with somebody. It seems like every time we're launching a new product, some unexpected externality occurs. So in the case of R1, of course, the pandemic and then the supply chain crisis in the case of R2 or now, you know, there's really significant trade tensions that exist across the planet.

And in automotive, this is very significant because of how much was built in terms of our supplier base in Canada and Mexico. And so it's a very dynamic environment. Business, as you know very well, is often about uncertainty. We're living in uncertain times, RJ. your cars are entirely made in the U.S., but like most things made in the U.S., some of your components are imported. How do you think tariffs are going to affect the price of your trucks? Well, if we think of the R1 products, they're all built here in the United States. In fact, I'm in the plant right now.

They're built in normal Illinois. Normal in Illinois. And so, yeah, so we build the vehicles. We make the bodies. We paint the bodies. We assemble the vehicles. We build the motors, the inverters, the battery modules, the battery pack. So we have a very large operation here, around 8,000 people that work out of this site.

And we're now getting ready to launch ER2 out of this facility. But when you think about a vehicle and its supply chain, we have hundreds of suppliers per vehicle. But those suppliers have suppliers, and those suppliers that supply suppliers have suppliers. So we call that the, you know, our tier one supplier supply directly to us. But there's tier two, tier three, tier four. In some of our systems, it goes back six tiers. So there's six companies behind the component that's coming in, if you include the raw material sourcing. And so the nature of this very complex product, and therefore it's very complex supply chain,

means that, you know, the changes in trade policy and changes in tariffs can be really impactful to the cost to build our vehicles, even with such a U.S.-centric business. And so this is obviously grabbed the attention of every automotive. company, every automotive CEO, many of whom I've got great relationships with, we're all very quickly trying to rethink and in many cases re-rationalize how we design our supply chains, who are the companies we're working with, where are the production locations. And I think a lot of times at the headline level, we sort of think of tariffs in the context of like a very simple commerce model, like the world exists trading T-shirts and coffee cups.

Yeah. And, you know, there are companies that trade T-shirts and coffee cups and those are perfectly fine businesses. But for something like an automobile or aerospace, it's way more complex. And I'll just use as a simple example, lithium-ion batteries. So lithium-ion batteries, if you're using, what's mostly used here in the United States is a nickel chemistry. And we could decide we want to put nickel mines in the United States or nickel processing in the United States, but that it will take many, many years to build that out. And so it's not a question of can we will a nickel mine to suddenly exist in Oklahoma.

These things take a lot of time. And that's just one item in our battery supply chain. It's not as simple as if we raise tariffs, more stuff will be instantly made in the United States. As you say, it would take several years before that capability can be developed in the U.S. So really sort of calls into question some of the challenges that we have set up for ourselves as a country. And some of that came into focus during COVID, right? When it was clear that even medical equipment and pharmaceuticals are not made in manufacturing in the United States. And I understand that.

I mean, it makes sense that this will pose an enormous challenge. Challenge is probably an understatement for electric car companies. But I also wonder whether it's sort of a kick in the butt to sort of say, you know, Yeah. There needs to be a more diversified supply chain for these materials because if China, you know, an important and obviously industrial power decides that it, you know, no longer wants to export these products, that's a big problem. Yeah, yeah.

You know, you take rare earth minerals and for electric vehicles and magnets, it's a lot more than just electric vehicle magnets. It's, you know, medical imaging equipment. It's LEDs. You know, there's a long range wind turbines because they, of course, have magnets in them as well. well. So there's a lot of products that this will impact. And, you know, I've said this for a while, and I think a lot have, and we've often talked about it in a more theoretical basis to say the U.S. needs to bring onshore some of these core technologies, semiconductors, you know, refining of rare earth metals. And I think this is proving the importance of that. But it's going to require

policy that supports that. And it's also going to require us to find ways to work with China, you know, in the midterm. Like while we're building out those. capabilities that needs to happen. But it will take this is a this is not something that's solved overnight. This is going to take many years to redo this. All right. Let's talk about some good news for a moment because this is all this is all bit scary. You were a South by Southwest earlier this year and you said something really interesting about competition. Obviously the sort of the elephant in the room, so to speak, when we talk about EVs in the U.S. is Tesla because it's the biggest player, right? Even though they've had some challenges lately, when you spoke at South by

Southwest, you talked about the importance of having more choice for consumers, right? And you've always been, every time we've had, you've always been super supportive of Tesla and an admirer of what they do and all electric car manufacturers. But you really want to see an even more competitive EV landscape, which is a bit counterintuitive, right, because you're trying to capture market share. Boy, I love this question. There's almost an obsession, I'd say, of trying to find a way to pit different efforts and electrification against one another and this incorrect view

that there's going to be a single winner and for someone to win, everyone else has to lose. So if we want to see electrification grow from 8% to 100%, customers need lots of choices. And the lack of choice is best demonstrated by Tesla's extreme market share.

They have 50-ish percent market share because they have two great products, the Model 3 and Model Y are great products. But not everybody wants those form factors, that design, that look, that brand. And so we need to have an equivalent level of diversity of choice that we have on the combustion side. And so, of course, we're trying to help with that with R2 and R3. And you can imagine our 4, R5, as we continue to build out the portfolio. But for us as an industry, we need Riving to be successful, Tesla to be successful, GM to be successful, Ford to be successful.

for that reason, we were really excited about the partnership we put together with Volkswagen Group. Yeah, you just signed a partnership with Volkswagen last, I think, November, and they're going to integrate your technology in their vehicles. Yeah, yeah, we did a, there's a $5.8 billion software licensing deal, which is awesome, but it allows our software stack and our electronics that we've developed in-house to be deployed across a wide range of brands, a wide range of products. And our hope is to help create more really interesting, highly compelling EVs, you know, across brands like Porsche and Audi and, of course, VW, brands within their group.

And therefore give customers choice and therefore help drive 8% to 20% and 20% to 50% eventually, you know, get to 100%. That's awesome. RJ, let's take some calls. We've got some callers here who definitely are interested in hearing your advice. Let's bring on our first caller. please tell us your name and where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Welcome. Yes, hi. My name is Ashley Vedder, and my business is called Vedder's organic ice cream, which is located in San Clemente, California, and it is a gluten-free, dairy-free,

no refined sugar, ice cream sandwiches, and pints, and we fund Parkinson's research one scoop at a time. Wow. Ashley, thanks for calling in Vetter's ice cream. So you are a basically like paleo-friendly ice cream, I guess. You don't use refined sugars, dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free. So I'm assuming this is like coconut milk you're using. Yes. And what kind of sweeteners are using? Dates and organic maple syrup.

And we are organically certified as well. You said something, which you don't often hear in the same breath as ice cream, but it's also funding Parkinson's research. Tell me that part of what you're doing. So my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's. and while we were on his journey of working with a nutritionist to have a clean gut connecting to a better brain, I did a whole 30 challenge with a group of friends and two months into eating completely clean. We cheated, took our three kids, young kids to frozen yogurt and

walked out with belly aches. And I had an epiphany and it was there needs to be a healthy ice cream out there, a place where people can go and enjoy and get ice cream, whether you're fighting cancers, neurological diseases, or just like to be healthy. We have teamed up with the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Awesome. I have raised a total of $650,000 for Team Fox, and their names are on all of our packaging. And here we are. Here's fetters. And now we're in stores, and we have our own shop. Wow. Congrats. How many stores are you in right now? Right now we're in 56 stores, but we got accepted to 50 more, but I don't know how to get there. And even bigger than that.

We even got some big guys. And give me a sense of what your revenue is, what were sales last year? Okay, sales last year were almost 500,000. Great. Congrats. That's awesome. Thank you. What is your question for us today?

If you were me, and I'm just starting to grow and get bigger and more stores are accepting me and more stores want me and even Costco has my sandwiches right now. They're tasting them. They like them. They like for me to do a road show. But how do I scale? How do I scale this? What is your advice?

Well, first, I should say, looking at your products looks amazing. So I'm plant-based and love ice cream, but there's not a lot of great plant-based ice cream choices. So I did not know about this until now, so I'll have to check it out. I'm excited. But I mean, I think the really encouraging thing here is clearly have customers are trying it, loving the product. And so there's like that early product market fit. You have something that's working and people love. And so then the question is you think about how and whether you scale is what are you looking for?

If you want to scale to be like a very large company, have you thought about bringing an outside capital? or would you prefer to grow this more organically and bootstrap it? And they're very, very different paths. I know. I know. And that's what I'm teetering right now is trying to figure out which way to go, but also how do I even raise capital? How do I even, I mean, I know there's different ways of doing it.

But which way would you suggest? Like, what would you do if you were me? I do want this to be worldwide. I want everyone to have veterans in their hand. Well, if you want to grow into like a global ice cream company, I think you should begin the process of thinking about what an outside investor would look like or a group of investors and get really honest with yourself as to the tradeoff between today. I assume you own 100% of the business. You have complete control. There's no outside influences.

That's both good and bad. It's good in that you don't have outside influences as bad. and that some of the discussions and debates and connections, I find in growing and building a business, are really benefit from having investors around the table. These are, of course, people that are going to be very incentivized for you to be successful. And by definition of, you know, being investors and deploying capital in many places, have lots of relationships and connections. And so I asked a question and given the answer, I think my advice to you would be to absolutely pursue finding the right set of investors.

And I said it quickly, but the right investors is really important. And one of the things that I, it took a long time, but I would say we were fortunate in how I built Rivian is we had really aligned investors that allowed us to iterate, that allowed us to challenge ourselves. We could have pivots to the strategy. But they believed in and invested in myself as the founder of the company. company, but also we're patient and we're patient to let us build the brand in the right ways.

But not all investors are going to have the same point of view as what you want to build and how you want to build it. So spending the time having those discussions, spending the time meeting with different folks that could become part of your business is really well worth it. And I think you have to have those meetings to get to know the landscape. Yeah. And RJ, you raise, he has to raise billions of dollars even before you had anything to show for or not that's scary. You know, actually, one of the things that that this category,

particularly plant-based, sugar-free, hot, really hot right now, right? Non-dairy ice cream, that is a, that's a growing category within ice cream. But at the same time, right now, where we are in just in the sort of fundraising kind of environment, fundraising for food is hard. We know that we hear that on the show all the time. And many businesses won't even get serious investors looking at them until they hit $10 million in sales. But does that, doesn't mean that you are in a good position, in part because you have a really differentiated product. There aren't many companies out there. There are certainly other non-dairy brands, but not that many that are not using cane sugar, right, that are using maple syrup and date syrup.

And those are really interesting, expensive ingredients. So that's one thing you've been going for you. The other thing is you may want to start right now, right, by looking at your existing network. And seeing if you can raise some money that way, the other thing to think about is just talking to as many people as you can. We did an episode on Talentee ice cream. And that's an interesting story because the founder, Josh Hochschuler, he was on the ropes. His brand was collapsing, even though he was making a great product. And he was asking anybody he could if they knew anyone who might be interested in working with him. And he was eventually connected to two entrepreneurs who had sold their business.

business that happened to be Belvedere vodka, and they were interested. And they did take a big share of the company, but they helped him scale it into a massive brand that they went on and sold to Unilever. So part of it really, your job is to have conversations with absolutely everybody you know. Your network, you start with your family, and you ask people who they know, and you build and build and you have as many conversations as you can. And eventually, you know, hopefully, you will. will find the person or the people who want to take this on. Good idea. Thank you.

Yeah. I think I couldn't agree with you more. And I think the other thing is it's hard to connect the dots looking forward of how all the different relationships you have are going to ultimately enable you to find the right investors. Obviously, looking backwards, you can be like, oh, it went like this, this and this. So I think having, as guys said, lots of conversations and being open to meeting new people and to, exploring is really really key. Thank you. Great idea. It's an awesome idea. It's an awesome. It looks like a great product. Thank you. Tell me how is your husband's name is Justin, I believe. Justin. How is he doing? Um, you know, he is amazing. He's a rock star. He just is so positive,

keeps going every day. He's had the deep brain stimulation surgery done four times. But, you know, he's determined to beat it and to fight it. And so he's boxing. He works out every day. He actually has his own company that he's getting off the ground and wanting to sell in a couple of years. So, yeah, he's amazing. And we're a good team. Amazing.

So far, we're just staying positive, yes. Awesome. Congrats on that, Ashley. Thank you. Yeah, thanks so much for calling in. That's Vedder's Organic Ice Cream. from San Clemente, California. Thanks so much for calling.

Thank you so much for having me. Great to meet you. Thank you. Bye-bye. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question,

and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz, and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz,

and my guest today is Rivian founder and CEO RJ Scouringe. RJ, you ready to take another call? All right. Let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the Weiss Line. You're on with RJ Scorange, founder of Rivian. Tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.

Hello, Guy and RJ. So glad to be on with you guys. Thank you so much. Welcome. My name is Cuejo, and my last name is Swampim Pong. I'm the founder of Crafted Glory. And Crafted Glory is a handmade furniture brand that crafts airloom quality hardwood furniture that blends African artistry with Scandinavian design.

I love it. Welcome to the show, Quijio. So you are based in North Carolina. Yes, I'm based in Asheville, North Carolina. Which is a sort of traditionally a furniture manufacturing region, North Carolina, and still a lot of furniture is made there. I'm looking at images of your work, and it's so cool because the idea of African artistry and Scandinavian design, It seems like hard to imagine, but when you look at it, it makes perfect sense. You're like, oh, my God, that's exactly what it is. How did this business start? Tell me a little about it.

Yeah, well, when I moved to Asheville and moved into my home, I didn't have any furniture. I was a bachelor recently out of college, no furniture. And I started looking around for pieces that were interesting but couldn't find what I really wanted. So one day I decided to try my hand at making some end tables. And they were crude, but I fell in love of the process. So over the course of many months and weeks, I built out my 300-square-foot garage, started making pieces, eventually made some jewelry that I listed on Etsy, and that started my Etsy journey. Over time, people started requesting larger and larger pieces. And that brings me to today, where we make large coffee tables, dining tables, and ship them all over the country. Wow, that's amazing. So this is your now what you do full-time? No, and that's probably the reason why I having the conversation with you guys. I have been working a full-time corporate job since 2012. I'm a fabrication supervisor at a manufacturing company.

And all the while I've been working on building my brand. So I've been juggling both for the past about eight years. Is your background in engineering by any chance? Yes, I went to Carnegie Mellon University for a bachelor's in mechanical and master's in civil and environmental engineering. Wow, right up your alley, R.J. Another engineer on a show. This stuff is amazing. So you're doing, you're making furniture. Presumably, you are the one making it. And then you're also going to this other job as a supervisor. Yes. So tell me what your day is like. What's a typical day for you? A typical day starts pretty early. About 9 a.m. I'm in my studio and work for generally about four hours each day. And then come home, shower real quick, and head to work. I work second shift and get off at 2 a.m.

And the cycle continues. When do you sleep? Not much. My God. Okay. Lots to dig in there. What's your question for us? Yeah.

So my question relates to actually balancing both. My desire is to build a legacy brand that will endure for many years and make a big impact in the community, in the world, and for my family. And I'm just at that place where revenue is not quite enough for me to do it full time, and I need to do it full time in order to get the revenue to where it needs to be to support me and my family and make the impact I want. So looking for any suggestions on how I can position my brand to get to. that point.

How you can essentially leave your job and do this full time. Ooh. RJ, that's a lot of pressure. Are you demand constrained or supply constraint? If you had more time, you could conceivably generate more revenue. So is there enough demand that you'd be comfortable leaving your job? Not right now because essentially what we've been able to make in revenue without much investment in marketing.

at all. But we've proven that people want our products and love what we do and we're on the high end. So really, it's just a matter of getting in front of our ideal clients and spending the time on the marketing side of things, which is where I'm struggling with time. Quaid, Jude, can you give us a sense of what Jamaican sales a year right now? Yeah. We are bringing in about 180,000 per year. Right. And given your background as a mechanical engineer, I mean, your value is very high at a company. So I imagine that what you're paid is significantly more than what, you know, you bring in and profit after all of a sudden done. One of the things that I keep thinking about, you know, we did an episode many years ago with Jim Cook. He's been on the show a few times, the founder of Boston Beer Company. And he has a sort of very, I think, important idea about how to live your life. And he says, You know, if you're going to take the leap, you want to think about whether it's dangerous or scary. And a lot of things like leaving your job are scary.

But the question is, is it dangerous, right? Is it more dangerous to remain in your job and then wake up at 60, 70 years, 65 years old and say, you know, I wasted my life. I didn't pursue this thing that I really wanted to pursue. And the answer is it sometimes can be more dangerous. On the flip side, if you listen to that episode, Jim kept his day job for a long time. He worked at Boston Consulting Group. And at nights and on weekends, he really learned how to make beer. He looked at beer bottling plants.

He really kind of did his market analysis and research for at least a year before he was ready to go. You've been doing this, as you said, for about nine years now, I think. And so it is a significant risk, right? If you were to completely walk away from your job, I imagine, would you have, for example, health insurance? Would there be another source of health insurance? I would have to find another source for that. That's right. Right. So, I mean, one of the things you could do is save like crazy and take the leap and know that if it didn't work out, you're eminently hireable because of your background as a mechanical engineer. At the same time, you have seniority probably and you will probably continue to climb up the ranks and at some point maybe recruited by another company and earn more money. So, it is, there's a risk here, right? Because I think your business is based on your designs and your work, right?

Is there a way you can scale what you're doing? Yeah. Well, yes, it is based on my designs, but we do get clients who ask us to make their designs, and they'll come to us with drawings or specs, and we'll do that as well. As far as scaling, I, right now we're a small batch company, and we, we, pride ourselves in being able to invest the time into making quality pieces with a very close relationship with our clients. So I don't know how far I want to go with scaling it, but definitely to a point where I'm not hands-on with every single detail with the business.

I'd like to get to a point where I have a team that can create my designs as one part of the business, and the other part is I'm focused on the very high-end pieces. art pieces, collector pieces. So very high-end clients would come and say, oh, this is a piece made by Quajio himself. And then the other part of the business is running, we're making our standard pieces for clients. You know, and starting a business,

there's so many unknowns. And I look back now, I was just talking to someone in the team there at AIBiotics or asking me, what was the like in the beginning? It was just you. And I was like, you know, I didn't really, I didn't focus a lot on how it was going to fit. which sounds crazy, but I thought about how I could make it work.

But there are so many ways, like an infinite number of ways one can imagine the business not working. But once I made the decision I was going to go build it, then every day, whether the barrier was large or small, it was just how do we make progress? And so I think the question I would ask here is just, are you ready for that, like, leaned in commitment? And there are going to be days, you're like, oh, shit, like, this isn't going as I hoped.

But you're, you know, very employable. We have lots of openings here at Rivian. So, I mean, you're very employable. And you're at a point in life where it sounds like you can take this jump. You're already working around the clock. You're up in the morning right away working, and you're working until you said 2 a.m. So you clearly have the stamina to work really hard at something. So, I mean, I'm biased, but I would ask you, you know, why not?

I'm going to disagree here, RJ. I think you've got to be a little more cautious, Quojo. How many kids do you have? We have a six-month-old. Okay. Do you, is it possible? Because it might be able to split the difference here. Is there a world where your company, where you currently work, would be willing to give you a leave of absence, like a six-month leave of absence?

You know, I haven't explored that. My role is more hands-on. I directly manage my team. So not too sure if that's possible, but definitely something worth considering. But, you know, I've realized that the value that I've gained in actually doing both, even though I really desire to be able to cut ties and focus on Crafted Glory. And I think Crafted Glory really needs that for me. But at the same time, being in another manufacturing environment, I've gotten to really sharpen my skills of standardizing processes, manufacturing processes. All of that carries over into what I do. Yes. And so I'm very grateful for that, but I also realize that I want crafted glory to be a legacy brand. And I can't really do that part-time, I think. But, you know, by the grace of God, I've gotten this far, and I'm hopeful that it's going to go much farther. So take guys' point. And with the six-month-old, I can appreciate that.

Starting a living I have kids, there's a lot easier, sleeping on couches and things like that. But have you thought about if you lined up like a significant customer or enough revenue where let's say you had a year of runway of revenue and work that you could then look at that as the line through which you'd have to get through? so you know, okay, I'm going to go build enough relationships with enough design firms that locks up business for 12 months and then gives you the comfort to make the leap. Yes, yes. That's actually something my wife and I have talked about frequently. And we've taken some steps in that direction, one of which is we're actually going to be at ICFF next month, international contemporary furniture fair. Oh, nice.

Yeah. And we're really hopeful that some good partnerships will come through that. And actually this year we've applied to many grants and we've received many of them. And that is just helping to build that runway, as you said. That makes a lot of sense. And if there was a way to have some kind of contract with somebody that really gives you this year-long runway, then in that case, I would say, yes, take the lead for sure. And it may be that in the meantime, you may want to pause building furniture for a few months and try and focus on. seeing if you can develop a partnership and maybe the trade show is where you find that partner.

Yeah, that's really great advice. Yeah. You know, you said something, a guy, which I just doubled down on. So I started a car company. I love to work on cars. And one of my early learnings was in the beginning, I spent a lot of time designing parts. And it feels really good because it's the thing you enjoy and it's maybe the thing that initially drew you to start the business. But I realized after a couple of months, it's like, well, the company will never scale if I'm sitting at a laptop designing parts all day.

And so I quickly realized that so important, like for the company to be successful, I had to go focus on other things, which were building relationships and bringing in investors. And I think there's a really similar dynamic here where as much as you love being in the shop every day, probably the best thing you can do is to go build a really large book of business. you can have the comfort to scale the business, you know, as you've talked about here. And bring other people in to do it. Because, RJ, I mean, your dream was to build a car company. And probably in your dreams, the idea was you would be sitting at the drafting table and you'd be designing the car. But you can't do it. Even though you know how to do it and you've got the background.

It takes like 40,000 years. Yeah. Yeah. It takes a little while. Just like I can't edit this. I know how to do the editing in the show, but I can't do it. First of all, my producers are much better than me. but I cannot do it, physically do it.

So it makes a lot of sense at some point, Quo, that you're going to want to focus on the business side and still oversee the design, but you're going to want other people working for you. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we've gotten the taste of that. We have one part-time employee, and I see just with him the value in being able to step back,

assign work to him, and then I can do other things. So that makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that advice. Quajosan Pimpong, the company's called Crafted Glory, and mainly I think you sell on that scene. You've got a website. Congrats. Good luck. Good luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Wow. Some really cool stuff, you know, super cool stuff. And I think it is true. Like, RJ, you are an engineer. This is what you spent your whole life training for. And at the end of the day, you can't really be in the weeds on the engineering side. The design side, you just can't.

Yeah. One of the things in growing a building a business, you have to really recognize what are the things that you can uniquely do for the business so others can't, especially as a founder as a CEO. And then the things that others can do really well, you shouldn't be doing them. And also things that you may really enjoy, but others can do well. Maybe you let yourself have it every now and then as like a dessert, but thinking very honestly around where you spend your time is important. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. Stay with us.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. And today I'm taking your calls with RJ Scouringe. RJ, let's get back into it and take another call. Sure. Hello, welcome to the advice line. You are on with RJ Scringe, founder of Rivian.

Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hi. My name's Robert Button. I'm calling from Vancouver, Canada. and my business is ZOA Engineering. So at ZO. Engineering, we design and build products that help people move through the bad country. And our flagship product is the PL1. It's a portable rope tow system.

So it's like a ski lift that fits in your backpack. I have so many questions for Rob. Welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. I think you have landed on the perfect advisor here because, Rob, you must be an engineer, first of all. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a mechanical engineer as well. Mechanical engineer, but you're doing.

Okay. So let's dig into this. you have built a product, from what I understand, that allows you to ski and then tow yourself back up. Explain how does it work? It's really designed for backcountry skiing. So the way it works is when you're backcountry skiing, normally you're using skins to climb the mountain first. Yeah, so it's obviously a lot of work. But in this case, you still have to climb the first time.

But when you get to the top of your run, you can set an anchor that's either a tree or we provide a snow anchor. and you lay out your line along your run. You lay it out along the run, okay. Yeah, we use a rope bag, so you kind of ski down with the rope bag the first time. And when you get to the bottom, you leave that loose on the bottom, and the device attaches to the rope. You pull a throttle, and it pulls you up. So toes you back up.

So how long is the rope? So with the standard package, we provide like 1,000 feet, but you can link up multiple lines if you just want to have a longer run. So basically, for people who do backcountry skiing, You ski, but then you've got to hike back up. This way, this allows you to basically ski a thousand feet and get towed back up. Yeah, it's basically like a self-tailing winch is what you call it. How did this start?

Tell me how this whole thing started. I think that it's ultimately something that a lot of backcountry skiers or a lot of skiers in general kind of think how great it would be to have your own lift, have your own private mountain. And I think that's kind of the route for this. I was kind of fortunate enough to have some familiarity with precious motors and controllers and the technology behind it and was able to kind of work it out and realize that this is a feasible thing to do and kind of went from there. I mean, it's super cool. Rob, what's your, what's a question you brought for us?

Yeah, so our product is obviously quite unique. We're kind of the only ones in the market with this. And we have a lot of excitement about it, but not that many people that are really willing to commit to it. just yet. And so my question is, how do we go from early adopters to a more mainstream audience for our customer base? All right. Fair enough. RJ, we can answer the question eventually, but do you have any questions for Rob first? I guess just as context, I love to ski. And just a few years ago, I started trying backcountry skiing, which is wonderfully fun. But as you said, you could only do so many runs. I guess it's a stamina question with how much you can skin up and

down. So I understand the product concept. You know, thinking about it, it takes, in terms of like product market scale, it takes a part of a sport. So it takes skiing and backcountry skiing. So it's a niche sport within skiing. And then it takes that even further down to say someone is going and do multiple runs. And so like my first question would be other ways to broaden the portfolio to have other offerings that could appeal to someone who's maybe not backcountry skiing or other other like answer your products you could add to it or or if you're only selling to folks are backcountry skiing other other ways to create more attachment for other things into your portfolio yeah i guess to start i will say i think the market for like backcountry skiing

is growing often underestimated a lot of our customers backcountry ski by the way they'll take they'll take their rivian and then they'll go from there yeah and you know you do see a number of viable companies that that are really focused on backcountry skiing products but uh In our case, there are alternative markets for us, especially for us where, you know, we already have customers who are not necessarily back under skiers, but will have a property that they want to set up with the lift. And this is like sort of a very low-cost way to have your own lift. And we also have a lot of interest, but we haven't really broken into a number of kind

of business-oriented or government-oriented applications. So like Ski Patrol, I have a lot of uses for this, as well as search and rescue and in the military. So we do have a number of alternative markets with just this product. Yeah, yeah. Have you thought about, so skiing, and I think you're right, the backcountry is probably under accounted for. It's an awesome sport. How do you think about your company from a brand point of view?

Do you think of it as a backcountry skiing branded company? Oh, that's interesting, yeah. Because if it's a towing company, there's a really broad set of applications from like hunting to logging to pulling jet skis up on the beach to. Yeah, our mission statement right now is that we build products that help people move through the backcountry. So our focus is, you know, portable applications where we can move people through mountains effectively. And I think that's a lot broader than just skiing. And, you know, that can also encompass downhill skiing without the backcountry element, as well as a whole host of other applications, including stuff like hunting.

And where we get tons of people who ask, can I haul a buck through with this. Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So, yeah. That's what I was thinking of, yeah. The general outdoor world, but as a tool that can be used in the outdoors and is highly portable, that's kind of what we're looking at. Rob, a couple quick questions. Tell me a little bit about your revenue.

What do you expect to do this year? Or maybe what did you do last year? So this year we're expecting about 200 grand in revenue, so we're still quite small. And how much does the product cost? So it's $1,700 U.S. dollars for the complete package. That includes the rope and everything you need. So it's expensive, but a lot of people doing backcountry skiing are paying a lot of money anyway, you know, one of these caterpillars to take them up or something or some people do helicopters. And it's an investment. You make the investment and then you can do it.

One of the things that I'm curious about, because you asked how do you get more people to sort of try this out or to be aware of it? I mean, there are a number of ways. I was looking at your Instagram and you have about 20,000 followers on there, which is a great start. And I know you're putting videos out there. But really, I mean, I wonder whether you have tried out, for example, like pop-ups where people can try it for free at resorts, right? Have you tried going to resorts and offering people an opportunity to just try it or maybe working with ski rental shops to see people wanted to just rent it for an afternoon? It's still something we're kind of working on. Logistics-wise for our product, it's, I think a lot of the resorts are still a little hesitant. let us use it on resort.

And so, but what we've done is a lot more impromptu kind of stuff of just the last week. If we run across people while we're skiing, we'll let them try out the product. But it's definitely a plan in the future to get more people to try it out because we do get great reactions whenever anyone gets to use it. RJ, I know that you did not have to use celebrities necessarily to sell rivians, but I did notice during the Olympics last year, Martha Stewart was like on NBC talking about how she was so excited to get her Rivian.

Like she's waiting for Arrivia to come, which is, you know, I mean, she just did that. She just said that, right? Which is a big deal because she's a tastemaker. And I don't think you guys use celebrity endorsements. But Rob, I wonder whether, I mean, in your case, you know, there have to be famous backcountry skiers out there. Have you tried reaching out to some of them? Yeah. We're just dipping our toes in that right now.

And it's something we're really hoping to kind of launch and do more next season. But I think for my perspective, it's part of this. is about building trust in the product and showing that it's the real deal. So, yeah, it's a big part of our strategy going forward. Yeah, I think that the idea of getting exposure to it, this is a product that it so naturally links to exposure because the people using it won't take photographs of using it and say, I, instead of doing 4,000 feet of elevation, I did 25,000 feet, you know, and I only had to do 4'5 foot on my own kind of thing. So I think there's a real opportunity to tell those stories and find some people that get excited about it.

I agree. I agree with that, Raja. You know, we did an episode on Woop, the Woop Band, you know, this wristband that tracks, you know, all these things in your body. And the guy who founded at Will Ahmed, he's amazing how he launched this thing. He got it on the wrist of Michael Phelps and LeBron James without ever paying them. In fact, LeBron James and Michael Phelps paid him to use it. They paid for a subscription. And the way he did it was by going to their trainers.

You know, it's hard to get something on Michael Phelps's or LeBron James's wrist. But if you can get to their trainer, and the trainer is using it, he's the one who's going to say, hey, you really need to use this thing. And I wonder whether you can get this in the hands of ski instructors or, you know, race team coaches. As you mentioned, ski patrol, also people who are guides. I mean, everybody I know who does backcountry skiing almost always goes to the guide. Yeah, that's great. All great options. And I think something we're up to push for going forward. RJ, any last minute thoughts for Rob on how he could get this out of the world? I mean, a lot of the things we said here, which I'm sure you've thought about some as well, Rob. But I do think one of the things I'd spend some time reflecting hard on is what's the vision for the business and what are the details you're willing to be flexible on?

And what are the things that you really are fixed on? And the reason I raise that is the technology and the product you're developing have lots of other applications as we quickly brainstormed here. And they're creating a few different surfaces through which you could be successful may be really helpful. But again, you have to really reflect to say, does that fit the overall vision? And I think this idea of movement in the backcountry fits really nicely. Yes. is it broadens it and suddenly you have

appeal across a few different things and then the question is just how much effort you put into some of those different applications of your product technology the company is called Zoa Engineering and wow what a cool product the PL1 your own personal ski lift

Rob Button, congrats, thanks for calling in thanks so much for having me yeah great to meet you Rob do you backcountry ski as well I'm too nervously I'm very cautious I love skiing. I'm a very cautious skier. I ski everything, but very cautiously. You know, once you had 50, you don't want to fall and break something. Because in your out of commission, my wife tore her ACL last time we went skiing. So she's at a commission for a year. So there you go. Yeah.

Well, RGy, before we let you go, I want to ask you one final question, which is, if you were able to go back and give your younger self some advice or sort of an observation or encouragement, what might you say now? What do you know now that would have been helpful or encouraging back then? Well, there's so many things. I'd say there's two things I'd focus on. And there are things I would have probably said them, but maybe a little less emphatically. One is make sure you have the right people around you. and it sounds so obvious and it's probably a it's an answer you'd see in any question on how to build a business. But it's even more important than it even says in all the business books.

It's so critical in terms of your energy, in terms of how you find yourself being inspired, challenging, you know, the people that are challenging you. So I think that's really important. And for me, as a first time founder and also somebody who's learning how to run a business, knowing when to break those relationships, to say, hey, look, this isn't going to work. We need to bring somebody else in for this role. That took some time for me to develop, and now it's so understood. But in the early days, it wasn't as immediately obvious that sometimes I held on to relationships longer than I should have.

That'd be the first thing. And then the second thing, being able, like in the early stages of business, the flexibility that you have to adjust the strategy is such a strength. And it's actually big companies don't have this flexibility. And I think in the beginning, maybe you hold onto an idea as precious and want to protect it because so many people are telling you that your idea or your business isn't going to work, that it's like fight or flight. You decide I'm going to fight to preserve the idea. Yeah. But I think certainly in Rivian's case, a lot of the specifics of what we thought we were going to do in the beginning weren't the right answer.

And once we started to really realize that and have comfort in the strength of being. able to adjust our plans, not to say through our vision or our mission out the window, but to say we can be, you know, we can be flexible on the tactics. It really changed. And then also, what are the things we're not going to be flexible on? Like, for us, it was certain aspects of vertically integrating to our technology stack. But, like, if I was making what we first thought we were going to make, the company wouldn't be here.

And so, you know, it was interesting just having these discussions today because I do think, for every founder, it's a really important question. What are the things that really do matter? and then if those other things can be flexible, like have the fluidity of thinking around, you know, should they change, should you approach it differently. RJ, thanks so much. Yeah, yeah, this is great.

Good to see you guy. That's Rivian founder and CEO, RJ Scorringe. And by the way, if you haven't heard RJ's original how I built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. One of the things that is interesting with electrification is it completely changes performance boundaries that we previously accepted.

So our pickup, I was on the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway in California. This was maybe three, four weeks ago. I pulled up to a light. It was early morning. And a brand new Ferrari pulled up right next to me. The guy looks over me. I look over at him and said, hey, you want to see what we can do here. And so we both accelerate quickly off the line.

And I out accelerate by quite a margin. And we get to the next light. And he says to me, I can't believe my Ferrari just. got roasted by a pickup. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gairoz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you like to be on this show,

send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at H-I-B-T at ID. or call us at 1-800-433-1298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Iman Maani with music composed by Rumptine Arablui.

It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Elaine Coates, Chris Messini, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, J.C. Howard, and Eva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.