The Nick Bare Podcast - 093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

In the fourth chapter of the 'Building the Brand' series, I take you through my return to the U.S. after a nine-month training rotation in South Korea in October 2016, this chapter details the pivotal moments and lessons learned in expanding Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN). From moving into our second warehouse to the trials and triumphs during the transition period, the emphasis is on the commitment and mindset necessary to achieve success. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:30 Recap of Chapter Three 05:46 Lessons Learned from Going All In 08:36 Returning to the U.S. and New Beginnings 12:32: First Warehouse/Transitioning Out of the Military 18:20 Early Challenges and Team Expansion 24:19 The Struggles of Opening a Gym 36:13 Realizing the Need to Focus on BPN 38:51 Sharpening the Axe: Preparing for Battle 40:08 The Rollercoaster of 2017 40:57 Documenting the Journey on YouTube 42:11 The First Taste of Financial Success 47:47 The Cash Flow Nightmare 59:33 Meeting Steph: A Life-Changing Year 01:02:25 Expanding the Team 01:05:21 The Power of Content 01:08:08 A Shift in Focus: Health and Wellness 01:15:07 Forcing Growth: The New Warehouse 01:21:47 Overcoming Challenges: The Internet Issue 01:23:13 Conclusion: A Year of Transformation Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio FOLLOW: IG: https://www.instagram.com/thenickbarepodcast YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Previously on building the brand. First platoon, Bravo Company, 212 Cav, titled The Misfits, that was my platoon that I was assigned to. I was the platoon leader, leading 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers. And this was a very intimidating environment to walk into. Here I am this brand new second lieutenant expected to lead that platoon. And that's where I truly valued the responsibility of being a leader. every other part of my life, I turned off.

It was Army number one, BPN number two, creating content number three. BPN sales slowly started to grow. No, it was so slow over such a long period of time that it was really hard to recognize the wins and the results. But you could feel the momentum. And I learned at that point that every time I seek discomfort, I experienced some sort of new level of growth. And within the first 90 days of being in.

South Korea, we went from doing $2,000 a month in revenue to $10,000 a month in revenue. My nine-month goal was accomplished in 90 days. I filmed the video and it was just me documenting my day. It went from 5,000 views maybe to a million views. And the YouTube channel went from 30,000 subscribers to 80,000 subscribers. The exposure that video brought me in the brand was, like I said, pivotal. But it wasn't the one video that did that. It was probably over 100, maybe hundreds of videos before that one.

You just got to get started. I didn't know how to build an online following. I didn't know how to build a business. I didn't know any of these things. It was just doing and then learning from my mistakes. And with each additional day, each additional YouTube video, how do I do this a little bit better? South Korea in the nine months I spent there provided me a huge key that was pivotal for my life.

So if we view life as this opportunity to collect keys, by the end of this life, we want to be a key collector of these different experiences and perspectives and ideas and outlooks. And that's how I now view opportunity, discomfort, hardship. The reward is the key. And these keys that we collect to unlock opportunity. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is another installment of our building the book. brand series, the multi-part series, and this is chapter four, I'm titling chapter four, go all in. And where this chapter starts is when I came back to the United States after a nine-month

training rotation in South Korea with the army. So it's October of 2016, and I'm boarding a plane leaving Camp Casey, South Korea, heading back to Central Texas. And at this time, a few weeks prior, I believe it was a few weeks, my brother Preston moved from Pennsylvania to Texas. He quit his job. I asked him to quit his job,

which he did on the spot. He packed up a U-Haul with all of our inventory. And he moved down to my house in Texas. And at the time, I purchased a home in Texas with a VA loan. It was a brand new three-bed, two-bathouse, Temple, Texas. I paid $130,000 for this home. No money down. Like I said, VA loan, I think my mortgage was like $900 a month.

And a few weeks before getting back to that, the States, pressed to move down, and was operating the business out of that home. And during that time, he also found a warehouse, and he signed a warehouse lease for us. 2590 Oakmont Drive, Round Rock, Texas, 7-8665, Suite 420. It was 6,000 square feet. It was perfect. It was perfect. We signed that lease.

I signed that lease when I was in Korea in my boxers, in my barracks room. Preston facilitated the whole thing. And we landed back in Texas. We hopped on buses. Those buses took us into Fort Hood. I got off that bus and my mom was there. My dad was there. Preston was there.

They greeted me. We hugged. It felt so good to be back home. And there was just like, this excitement, it's so hard to even explain what it felt like and how powerful it was. But there was this excitement, one of being back in America, seeing family, being able to touch family again, people you know and you love. But this excitement of this next chapter of life is going to be so much fun.

I mean, we just signed a lease for our first warehouse for BPN. Four years prior, I was establishing the LLC in Pennsylvania in my parents' kitchen and then building this business in my college apartment. And here we are signing a warehouse lease, 6,000 square feet. I never thought we would get to that point. It almost felt like I was dreaming. And all I wanted to do after getting off that bus and hugging my family was go straight to that warehouse. So that's what we did. We got in the truck at Fort Hood.

We drove straight to Round Rock and we went and looked at the warehouse. And there was just like this energy that was crawling. all over me. And there was so much excitement. And I just wanted to do everything right there. I just wanted to go, go, go, get started, start filming, documenting, creating, building, all the things. And it was actually tough to hold back and restrain myself.

But I knew it was going to be a long journey, a long process. because there was so much happening at this time of my life, October of 2016, coming back from South Korea, signing this warehouse lease, and then starting the process of transitioning out of the military. So I had a four-year contract with the Army, and that ended up getting me out of the military.

My last day, active duty service was May of 2000. So there was obviously some time between landing back in in the state and then officially transitioning out of the military. But the transition process of leaving the military and going back to being a civilian is actually a pretty long and drawn out process. There are certain classes and courses and requirements that you have to go through, accomplish, chief in order to, successfully transition out. So my transition out of the military pretty much started as soon as we got back from South Korea. So during this time, I'm transitioning out.

We're preparing to build out our future HQ and warehouse, creating all this content. And like I said, the energy was so electric that it was pure passion and excitement for this next chapter, this next journey. And as I've described in the previous parts of this series, there were certain parts of my life where I realized that I was in the driver's seat. I was in complete control of the outcome. One of those first times is when I landed in Fort Benning, Georgia. I made the drive from Pennsylvania after graduate in college to Georgia. I pulled into my apartment complex, I sat in my truck and I realized the things that I accomplished while I'm here, it is my responsibility. I have to own that. I am in the driver's seat. The second time is when

I made the drive from Georgia to Texas and I pulled it in my apartment complex and I thought the same thing. I am in complete control of the outcomes I experience and I am responsible. I have to own that. This was another one of those moments where I get back from South Korea. I go see this warehouse that we just signed a lease for that we really didn't know if we were going to be able to afford and we didn't know the future success or failure of this company. And I realized in that moment, I'm in the driver's seat.

I'm in control. and I have to be accountable for the outcomes we experience or do not experience. The wins, the losses, the successes, the failures. Pure accountability. And if you are not willing to take pure accountability, I promise you you will never achieve the outcomes you want. That's when I was able to go all in. This is the first real time within BPN that I could go all in

Because the military was no longer going to be my primary job It was not going to take up hours and hours and hours throughout the week I was not going to be going to the field any longer I was finally able to go all in spend every waking moment on BPN and that's what I committed to doing. That's what I truly decided I was going to do. I was going to go all in and I was not going to turn back no matter what happened. And I experienced the success that I did because of that commitment, that commitment to go all in.

Now, it's funny, shortly after getting back from Korea, and one of the YouTube videos that I created, I made this comment and I'll never forget it. I said, I just spent the last four years of my life doing a lot of running. And I just want to get big and strong. I said, I will never run a day in my life again.

And if you follow me and if you've been following me for any amount of time, you know how much my life has changed since those words came out of my mouth, I will never run a day in my life again. I now run every single day of my life, many, many miles. After multiple marathons and triathlons and ultramarathons,

running has become a significant part of my life. But I truly did commit to that. When I got back from South Korea, I committed to never running a day of my life again because I thought bodybuilding and powerlifting was going to be the future for me and this brand and BPN as a whole, we were going to be a strength bodybuilding brand. Now, shortly after getting back from Korea and moving into the home that I owned with Preston,

Joe Pivots ended up coming down in Texas. Joe was technically our first employee after me and Preston. And when I was in Korea, like I talked about in this. last chapter, I had two phone calls that were pretty significant. The first call was depressed and to tell him and ask him to quit his job and move to Texas, which he did. That's a call that I made. A call that I received was from Joe Pivots. And I went to college with his brother, Jonathan. We were in ROTC together. And I met Joe briefly when I was at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, going to school there.

And I met him actually in the library at IUP because he wanted help losing weight. So I wrote him a diet plan. And because his brother was Jonathan and me and Jonathan were in ROTC together, Joe was familiar with BPN. and me starting BPN in college and then building it while I was in Korea. And I got this call, this random call from Joe one day when I was in Korea. And he said, and I see what you guys are doing online. I want to be a part of it. Which was one of the most random calls I ever received,

especially not knowing Joe much at this point in my life. And I was like, you know, we got nothing to lose. So I told Joe, once I get back from South Korea, come fly down to Texas, meet me and Preston. We'll show you the warehouse that we just signed the lease for. We'll show you what we got going on, and we'll see if it's a good fit.

So shortly, after I got back to the States, and me and Preston were living my house together, the small house was probably 1,300 square feet total. Joe flew down from Pennsylvania to Texas, and we went and we showed them, BPNHQ, the warehouse. We talked to him about the plan. We showed them where we were packing orders out of this one small room in this home and temple.

Then he said, I want in. I want to join. I told him, Joe, I can't pay you much. I'm not even paying my brother right now. I'm not even paying myself. We can pay you a little bit, but until, we get this company off the ground, I can't promise you much. And we can put an air mattress up for you in this house and you can live here with us as we build this thing. And it was no

questions asked. No questions asked. He said, I'm all in. He went back home, packed him stuff. A few weeks later, he was living in Texas with me and Preston. It was me, Preston and Joe. living in this home in Temple, Texas. I was transitioning out of the Army. Preston and Joe would go to the warehouse and start working on it during the day. And they'd come back at night. And I would come back from the Army

in my day of training and working about 5, 6 p.m. And we'd make the drive to our warehouse, which was about 30 to 40 minutes away from Temple. we decided to put the warehouse in Round Rock, and we'd spend the whole night there filming videos, creating content, building out in the warehouse, getting it ready for our full move-in and expansion. And for a few months, it was that same routine of just work, work, work, create, create, train, train, train, sleep a little bit, repeat, repeat, repeat.

repeat, repeat. And as I got really close to my time of transitioning out come May, we decided we needed to be closer to the warehouse. So I sold my house in Temple, Texas, and we rented a house in Round Rock that was 10 minutes away from the warehouse. And me, Preston, and Joe, moved into that rental. and shortly after I transitioned out of the army and it was game on.

It was full speed ahead. Me, Preston, and Joe. The three amigos, the three-man team, just trying to figure out how we were going to get from where we were starting to where we wanted to be. Now, we had a game plan, and that game plan didn't necessarily work out the way we thought it would. So when we signed that warehouse lease, 6,000 square feet, I want to say our rent was $9,000 a month, which we could barely afford. As I was telling you, when we came back from South Korea, the supplement business, BPN was doing about 10,000.

$10,000 a month in revenue. When we signed this lease, we got a few months of free rent up front that allowed us time to just get settled in. So between the three of us, our game plan was that we were going to build BPN in this warehouse, but in order to cover the rent,

which BPN cannot afford what we do. We couldn't spend all the money we were making on rent and utilities. We decided to open a gym. gym. So 6,000 square feet, about 3,000 of the space, we turned into a gym. The other 3,000 square feet was office. It was storage for inventory, pallets, and then packing stations. We had two packing stations at the time. Unfortunately, the reason that didn't work out is, one, we didn't have enough money to get the amount of equipment we needed. for a public gym to be truly an attractive public gym.

We had like two squat racks, dumbbells, a few machines, some cables. And just the location of that warehouse was in the back of this business park, this dark business park, tucked away behind all these commercial properties. So it was one really hard to find. And you weren't going to just come across it unless you followed the content we were creating. and the mission and message we are sharing. So we didn't get enough members to truly make it worth our time. We didn't get enough members to really put a dent in the rent that we needed,

but also the time that we were spending and allocating on the gym and keeping it open was distracting us and keeping us from building the supplement company. And when we opened the gym, we had this massive event. We spent months kind of building out the space, like I was saying. And me, Preston, and Joe were really in his strength training at the time. When I got out of the army, I set this goal of wanting the deadlift 700 pounds. So I was spending all of my training working up this 700 pound deadlift. And the day we opened the gym, I went for that 700 pound deadlift.

I did it. It was one of the most like, mess. memorable experiences my life. I'll never forget pulling 700 pounds in front of all these people standing around me and just being on this high of. I just transitioned out of the army. I just signed a my first warehouse lease. We were building BPN. I was doing it with people I loved and enjoyed and I just pulled 700 pounds, which was a goal I set months and months and months prior. I was like, we're living the dream. This is it. This is like what I was meant to do and pursuing my life. And it was all fun until things started to get really hard. And what ended up

happening was the gym required someone to be there all the time. We were open seven days a week from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. So, so, either me, Preston, or Joe having to be there while it was open because it was a liability having our packing stations, our inventory, all of our money in this warehouse. And we didn't want people being there, leaving the door open while all of our net worth was tied up in that building. So it became very hard for us to actually do anything outside of having to be at the gym, which was also keeping us from building BPN and learning how to build an e-commerce based supplement business. So we made our first hire. We hired this young gentleman who,

to this day, I can't remember how we came across him or how he ended up working for us. but we hired someone to help us work the front desk of the gym so that we could spend more time learning how to build BPN. And a lot of our strategy was just more content. Create more content, gain more brand awareness, create more content with other creators online, collaborations, just learn what we got to do to build a business.

Between the three of us, we had zero experience building a business, especially in e-commerce business. So you're just trying to figure it out. We made this one hire who we thought would alleviate a lot of our issues. And that was one of the first times I've realized that there's this saying that goes, hire slow, fire fast. Well, in this case, we hired fast. and fired slow.

And just to provide some framework and context to the way that me, Preston, Joe's mind worked in this period of our life, early 2017. It was truly a whatever it takes mindset. And every ounce of our mental bandwidth was going to be spent learning how to build BPN. And we'd come to work every morning and we'd be in that warehouse. until late at night. And we bring our food, we prep our meals. We didn't have a fridge.

We didn't have a microwave. We didn't have filtered water. And I bring that up because now if you walk into BPNHQ, we got fridges and microwaves and snacks and drink fridges in every suite. We get food catered in weekly so the team has access to beef and chicken and rice and things to eat for their lunches. We do team lunches almost weekly. We have a gym.

We have a sauna. We have showers. We have this whole built-out facility here in the BPN campus, which now sitting here in 2024 is completely different than what it was in early 2017 with me, Preston, Joe. In early 2017, we didn't have a microwave to heat up our food. We ate all of our food cold. and we never thought anything of it. And I don't share this to say, like, we wanted to be harder so we didn't heat up our food.

No, we, like, we just didn't have space or the money to spend on a microwave at the time. And we had a fridge, but it was one of those small mini-fidges that you'll find in, you know, a motel or a hotel. And the only reason we had that is because a friend donated that fridge to us. because they didn't want it any longer. So we would eat, you know, our food lukewarm after it was sitting out all day. We wouldn't heat it up. We drink the water right from the spicket. All of these things, which I'm not complaining about,

but it just puts things into context then compared to where we are today. And this story I'm about to tell about this gentleman that we hired to help us work the front desk. And the one day he asked, like, hey, do you guys not have like a fridge or a microwave here at the warehouse? We're like, no. He goes, well, why? You know, we just never thought much of it. You know, there's not space for it. And we really don't want to spend money on it.

And to be honest, we just don't have the time for it. Like, we'll just, we'll eat our meals when we're ready to eat. And they won't go bad. We'll let our stomach be the judge if we're getting sick or not. We don't need things cold. We don't need things warm. We just need things to keep us going. We need that fuel.

So a few days later, after we had that conversation, he walked in with a microwave. He brought a microwave from home. And he would bring it to work when he'd come to work and he'd take it home with him every night because he wanted to use it at his house or his apartment too. And me, Preston, and Joe, were so offended that he brought this microwave in every day. I think we were more offended by the fact that he took it home at night as well. He'd bring his microwave to work. He'd take it home with him.

And we're like, you don't need to heat up your food. What are you doing? We're here to work. We're here to build. You're here to heat up your food? What kind of nerve? How bold of you to think that you need to heat up your food when we're just working? I was just talking to Joe about this story the other day because it's just so funny the headspace and the mindset we are in back then,

but it was a whatever it takes attitude and mindset. And we didn't want to take time away to heat up our food in that microwave or specifically. the money on that thing or try to find a place for it in this packed office. And we were so offended by the fact that this employee brought in a microwave to our warehouse. Needless to say, he did not last very long at BPN. One, well, there's a lot of reasons, but it wasn't a culture fit. me, Preston, Joe, were there to work. We were there to build.

We wanted to build something great. We knew broadly what we were trying to build, what we were trying to accomplish. We didn't know how exactly we were going to get there. But we all three were aligned. And if we're going to invite you in to work for this team and build alongside of us, you have to have that same mindset, whatever it takes. takes. That one individual, early on, we realized not a culture fit. Yes, it's just a microwave. And it sounds ridiculous, but it's the principle behind we're going to do whatever it takes.

And you're going to come join this culture of what we're doing and how we're doing it. And if you don't agree and you don't like it, this ain't the team for you. And that's okay. But we're building something and we're building greatness. Shortly after letting this individual go, me, Preston, and Joe sat down and we realized we had to focus. We had to focus on what we wanted to build, what we were trying to build. In this game plan that we created earlier on of building a gym to cover some of the expenses and the warehouse lease so we could build the supplement company on the side, that game plan had so many holes in it that was holding us back from actually accomplishing the things that we wanted to accomplish.

And it wasn't really a hard decision to make, but we decided to close the gym. And we knew that if we closed the gym, we could spend more time on the supplement business. And if we could spend more time on the supplement business being BPN, then we wouldn't need the money that the gym was bringing in and we could cover those costs with the additional money we were making from BPN. And it felt really risky.

It felt really tough, but it felt right. And that's what we did. We closed the gym. We let our members know we were closing it, which there weren't many. But from the outside looking in, all these people who were kind of watching the journey

thought we were failing. It's like, well, here's Nick. He went and started this company while in the military, left the military because he wanted to go all in this company and build this gym. The gym failed, close the gym, the supplement company must be next. I'm sure from the outside looking in,

that was the perception. That was the thought. That's what was going on. But no, that was not it. I was just sharpening my axe. Irwin McManus talks about this. And I love this concept of sharpening your axe when you're in a time of a lull. It could be between a down period of your life or a transition.

In this case, close the gym, preparing to go all in and build BPN into its full. potential, it's his transition period, which feels like a lull. And that lull can sometimes feel counterproductive or inefficient, but really it's when you are sharpening your axe and you're preparing to go into that next season of battle. And from the outside, looking in during this lull, it's, oh, this is failing, this is falling apart. No, it might be a little quiet right now, but it's quiet because we are sharpening. our axe to go attack this next objective. We're preparing to go back into war. And that's honestly what it felt like closing down the gym. We closed the gym, sharpen our axe, and went back

into attack the back half of 2017. And it was a game changer. It was a complete game changer because we hyper focused. Now, 2017 was easily the hardest year my entire life, the most stressful year of my entire life. It was the year that I transitioned out of the military. It was the year that I stopped getting paid by the military. It was a big learning gear, but it was also the most fun, rewarding, fulfilling year of my life up until that point. I wish that I could go relive 2017 tomorrow. I would go relive 2017 all over again. And one of the best parts about documenting this entire journey on YouTube is that I can go back and rewatch some of these videos we created during that time, which I do often.

There was so much passion that was just getting started. And we were learning and trying and winning, but also failing at the same time. And we documented and shared everything on YouTube, the entire journey, the entire process. I mean, every day it was film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat. Film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat. Seven days a week, every single day. It didn't feel like work. Did not feel like work. It felt like Christmas morning every day I woke up. It was me, Preston, and Joe. Filming, working, editing, working, training, editing, working, uploading, sleeping, and repeating.

In 2017 was the first time I actually took money out of the business. It's when I started paying myself. And Preston and Joe. I wasn't getting paid by the military any longer. So we started paying ourselves a little bit. just enough, just enough to get by, just enough to survive. Every other dollar outside of what we were paying ourselves was going back into the business. I look back and I could not have done it without those two.

Without Preston and Joe, could not have gotten to where we are today without those two. Because while I was focused on creating content and driving brand awareness and building the brand, Preston and Joe were keeping the business alive. They were packing orders. They were working with manufacturers alongside me. They were doing customer service tickets. I mean, there were days where we launched new products or launched a sale and thousands of orders would come in.

and they would work around the clock to get those orders out. Just the two of them. All manual. Zero automation. And over the course of your lifetime, you're going to have people that are in your life for periods or seasons, and there's people who are in your life forever. Preston and Joe will be people who are in my life forever.

I mean, Preston's my brother. Joe is essentially a brother as well. And there's no way I could get to where we are today without the two of them. 2017 ended up being a really big year for us. That was the first year we did seven figures in revenue. And that was organic.

Without paid advertising. That was mainly just from building a brand online. And when I say online, primarily YouTube, I believe YouTube is still one of the best places to build a brand and build a business. It's the second biggest search engine after Google. Content there is evergreen. You can build a community. You can build an audience. You can share stories.

It favors long format content, which is hard. and it was so powerful for us building a brand from 2014 when I picked up that camera and I spent my last $500 to 2017 and beyond. We did a million dollars in revenue by building a brand on YouTube with zero paid advertising. And even when we started doing paid advertising for our first time and working with an agency,

it was complete sunk cost. It was this agency that took all this money from us and delivered very few results based off these horrible ads they were running with no strategy or direction or thought. It was a painful experience and learning process. But 2017, we did seven figures. I remember crossing that $1 million.

revenue mark being completely mindblown. Completely mindblown. And my dad called me shortly after we did that. My dad was really, I don't say pessimistic, but he was very cautious of what kind of success we expected to experience in building BPN. And when we crossed the seven-figure revenue mark, he said, you know what? this might actually turn into something someday. And hearing those words come out of my dad's mouth,

it felt really good. I don't want to say my dad doubted me as we were building BPN, but he definitely had doubt in what it could potentially do for our lives. And I think once we crossed that seven-figure revenue mark, he realized we were onto something. And I think he also realized,

we were owned something because we had the whatever it takes mindset and attitude. We were willing to work and work and work to build this thing into its full and true potential. Now, what made 2017 the hardest year of my life is that cash flow was an absolute nightmare. And just because we're doing seven figures in revenue does not mean seven figures in profit. You know, profit is your revenue minus cost of goods sold, expenses, overhead, everything you spend to keep the business building, maintaining, operating. And what made cash flow so hard for us in 2017 was, one, we had no finance person in the business.

The way that I viewed the health of BPN at that point as a young, inexperienced entrepreneur, is I would log into our bank account. And if it was positive, we were good. If it was close to negative, we weren't good and we had to do something very quick, very fast to make a change. I mean, I remember vividly logging into our business bank account and I'd close my eyes and I'd slowly open one eye because I didn't want to see. Sometimes I was like, all right, we're good for another couple days. then there were other times I'd log in, I open a little bit of one eye, and I yell to Preston, where's our money? We had no finance function of the business. Eventually, we outsourced bookkeeping

to a remote contractor, then eventually brought on a fractional CFO, and then eventually, which I'll get to in a future episode, we hired our CFO, Josh Holly, who's now CFO and C.O. Which was a life-changing hire for the business. By those early days, we determined the health, the financial health and success of BPN based off our bank account. Was it positive or was it negative? And we had one manufacturing partner at the time for all the products we were creating. And the products at the time that we had in 2017,

flight is our first product, our pre-workout, endopump, our muscle pump enhancer, creatine monohydrate, intraflate, which was our branch chain amino acid product, which has since been reformulated and renamed to recover, and then way protein, which was one of the later skews that we launched in 2017. And we had one manufacturer, that we were working with and we didn't have terms without manufacturer.

So what do I mean by terms? Sometimes you'll get net 30, net 60, net 90 terms. So that could mean a few things. One, you might have to put a deposit down on inventory when you put it in production. And then if it's net 30, you pay that inventory off 30 days after you receive it.

If it's net 60, you pay that inventory off 60 days after you receive it. If it's net 90, you pay that inventory off 90 days after you receive it. So you can make some money selling the product after you receive it to pay off the inventory. That helps offset some of your cash flow potential issues. Or you can finance inventory, you can use lines of credit, all these things that we didn't know how to do.

And we didn't know we're options. We just thought, hey, the money in the bank is the money you have. that's how you operate the business. We knew nothing about finances and starting a business. And where it got tricky is 2017, we really started growing quickly. The brand started growing faster, demand started growing faster, and we couldn't keep up with it. We kept running out of inventory for certain products. So we placed the inventory, or sorry, we placed a production order for a product.

and we had 12-week lead times. So we'd place that order about 12 weeks later. It would be done and it would ship to us. We could sell it. Well, the way that our contract was set up then was when we placed that production order, we'd have to put 50% down. And then before it shipped to us, we'd have to pay the remaining 50%. We had no terms with our manufacturer.

and we didn't even know that was an option to negotiate. So before we received the inventory, we had to pay all of it off, which put us in a hole. And that worked for a period of time, but it stopped working when we started selling product too quickly, where we'd get it in and then we'd sell out. We'd get it in and we'd sell out.

So we had to start stacking production orders. So I had stacked a production order 12 weeks out, and then 10 weeks out, and eight weeks out and then four weeks out so we could try to time up when we were receiving inventory to pay off these invoices and bridge the gap between how much we had and how fast we were selling it.

So cash flow got super, super tight. I mean, tight, tight, tight, where all of our money would be tied up in production before it shipped because we were having to stack all these production orders. So our manufacturer had all of our money and we were waiting for the product.

And there are many times where we get our rent that was due, $9,000 a month. I'd log into the business bank account. There'd be $6,000 in the account. So we had to get creative on how we bridge that gap to pay the rent, you know, in a few days.

So if you were following the brand closely in 2017, there are a few things we did to bridge those gaps. One, we would often do a 50% off flash sale. It was either 50% or 20%. We would do anywhere from 20 to 50%. But we did these flash sales where it'd be like two hours. And we'd send out an email to our email list. And say, you know, for two hours, you can save X amount on product shop now.

And that would drive a lot of traffic to our website and a lot of purchases. And we would make just enough money during these flash sales to cover the rent for the next week, for example. So if you ever saw flash sales come from BPN in 2017, just know we were doing those because we needed money to pay for rent. or upcoming invoices for inventory. The second thing we did a few times, and because we had a social following and presence, we would make an announcement either on social media or through email campaigns,

because from the beginning we were building out an email list that we could then market to. We would say, hey, every customer who purchased an order between this time and this day and this time and this day we'll get an order from Nick directly or a call from Nick directly. So people would place orders during that time frame and orders would flood in. I mean hundreds of orders would flood in. And then I would spend the next week from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. making phone calls all day

to the people who ordered during that promo. So it's like, I called every customer who placed an order during that promo because that was our promise. If you placed an order then, you would get a call. And if you didn't pick up, I left you a voicemail. Sometimes those calls lasted 30 seconds. Sometimes they lasted 16 minutes. I'm not joking. But those were our two strategies for bridging the gap between.

moments of tight cash flow in 2017. And I'll tell you, it was the hardest, most stressful season of BPN. I would lay in bed at night, not being able to fall asleep, no matter how tired I was, trying to figure out how we were going to keep the business alive for one more month. not because we weren't selling product. That wasn't the issue and I'm fortunate for that reason. But we were just having such a hard time managed cash flow because all of our money was tied up in inventory. And for any young entrepreneurs listening,

I just want you to know there are options. We had so many options that we didn't know were available or accessible at the time. You can establish a line of credit with your bank. You can finance inventory. You can do a lot of things. You can take on these small loans. But I and we didn't know those options existed.

So we just kept thinking, if that money isn't in the bank, we don't have it. Which taught us to be very disciplined with our spending. It instilled some really strong principles and values around money. and overhead and reducing costs. I mean, that was a huge benefit for us. It taught us out of necessity how to be disciplined with cash and expenses. But at the same time, we potentially made things a lot harder on ourselves than we potentially needed to. As hard as 2017 was and as busy as it can,

kept me, Preston, and Joe. I also happened to meet Steph, my now wife, in 2017. And the way we met is that she was working for a military news network called Rated Red in Nashville at the time. And I was living in Texas. And shortly after Hurricane Harvey came and went through the Houston area, I decided to ruckmarch from Austin to Houston to raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims. So I announced this ruck march that I was doing that we were raising money. And at the time, Rated Red picked up the story.

And Steph picked up the story. And we had to connect and hop on a call to talk about them covering the story and support. And that's how me and Steph first started talking is through that experience in 2017. And just like I decided to go all in on BPN. I had the opportunity to go all in on BPN when I left the military. After meeting Steph, I went all in on that relationship. I knew early on after meeting Steph, I was going to marry her and went all in in pursuing a relationship with her just after meeting her briefly and then connecting and spending time together.

And then about a year later, she ended up moving down to Texas. And she was a big part of building BPN alongside of us. and supporting the mission and everything we did. But I have to include that in the hardest, most fun, passionate year of my life of going all in and building BPN, it's also the same year that I met my now wife, who is the mother to my two children, my daughter, Charlie, who was just over two years old,

and my son Nico, who was just over two months old. So we wrapped up 2017 with a big win. We finished crossing the seven-figure revenue mark. Just the three of us. Me, Preston, and Joe. And then shortly after our next employee, John, joined. John Byers was originally one of our members of the Bear Performance Gym, the gym that we had in the warehouse.

And John and his friend Eddie would train in that gym every single day. And when we closed the gym down, we stayed connected with John. And when we needed more help fulfilling orders and packing the warehouse, John was the first person or the next person who joined the team. And it's still with BPN today. And again, John is one of those people that, like, I could not have, we could not have built this business without him. Truly, you know, to fast forward to the next chapter, which I'll talk about in 2019, when me and Preston's mom got sick with ovarian cancer and she was going through treatment and unfortunately passed away from, after my mom passed.

passed away, Preston and I had to go back to Pennsylvania to spend time with family about two weeks. And Joe was working on some other stuff at the time. John was the only person down here managing and keeping BPN alive. He was packing all the orders. He was using all the customer service. He was running the entire business while me and Preston spent two weeks in Pennsylvania at my mom's funeral and spending time with family, could not have done that.

We could not have done that if John wasn't a part of the team. Then and still today, you'll have people who join you on the journey who are so committed to the mission and they have the whatever it takes attitude that once you find those people, you never want to lose them.

They are unique. They are special. They are so, valuable and important. And there's not many people out there like that. I promise you, there's not many. And when you find them, do not lose them. Do not let them go.

John's one of those people. Joe's one of those people. Wrapping up 2017 and going to 2018, we were coming off a high, but we knew we were just getting started. And the foundation of building BPN was and still is content. Content, content, content.

It's sharing, living, and breathing the brand and the mission and what we're all about. And I recently heard a podcast with Alex Hermosie and he was talking about how content compounds. And he used to view content as a brand completely different than he does today. And he used to look at branded content as something that is created,

lives briefly and then dies off because there's a sea of new content that overtakes that old content. But the reality is that content compounds and it's evergreen. YouTube, for example, there's content we created five years ago that people are still coming across. And that's our first touch point. That's our first introduction into the brand. I believe, in creating content and storytelling, authentic, real storytelling since I got started in 2014. That is still the foundation of BPN.

There's a difference between creating entertainment online, fun, engaging, skits, scenes, narrations. There's a difference between that and creating strong storytelling pieces that are inspirational, that are real, that are authentic to you. That has been the foundation of our content strategy from the beginning and it's worked for us. It's been authentic to us. Our brand, our business has evolved.

In 2012, when I started it, the thought process was we were going to build. be a bodybuilding and strength supplement company. One of those supplement companies you see at the Arnold Expo exclusively on GNC shelves just used for the gym. And in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2015, 2016, and 2017, and 2017, that was the vision of the company. But things changed in 2018 because the things that I was interested in, the things that we were interested in personally evolved and changed. And when I said in 2017 that I would never run a day in my life again, well, that changed in 2018 when I ran my first marathon, the Austin Marathon February of 2018.

And during that year, our training philosophies changed, our lifestyle changed, our values changed. And as our lives and interests and curiosities evolved, so did our brands as well. Because BPN was just an extension of the lifestyle that we wanted to live and promote and be a part of. So in 2018, coming from strictly a bodybuilding and powerlifting background, we started getting more into health and wellness. It wasn't just how much can we lift, how big can we be, how strong can we get, how many calories can we consume, quantity of calories. In 2018, the focus shifted a little bit more towards, well, what's more sustainable? How can we incorporate more cardiovascular conditioning into our training to be a more well-rounded athlete?

How can running and endurance training support strength training? How can we put more of an emphasis on quality of nutrition in food as opposed to quantity of food in calories? And that shift, that evolution in, like I said, our lifestyle, our values, our training philosophies also was reflected in our product offering. So in 2018, we developed and launched strong greens, which was and still is our greens superfood supplement. It was the first supplement we introduced that was part of our health and wellness line,

a greens powder, wheat grass based. We wanted to provide not only ourselves. I mean, we create a lot of these products, if not all of the products, selfishly because we want to use them ourselves. And we know we want to use them and we will use them. Then there's other people out there that want and need them as well. So the thought behind creating strong greens was that we wanted to create a product that would supplement a diet that was extremely nutrient dense with vitamins, minerals, adaptogens, to help with natural energy levels, boosted immune system, digestive support, gut health.

We wanted to create a product that we would use with those benefits that we then could offer to our customers, the consumers. And we just assumed it would be something that people would, occasionally would add on at checkout. We never thought that people would come to BPN's website and buy strong greens first and then maybe flight and protein second. Now, we thought that people would come to BPN's website.

They buy their pre-workout flight. They buy their protein. They buy their creatine. And as they're checking out, they're like, you know what? I'll also add on strong greens. That was our expectation because we thought we knew our consumer. We thought we knew our audience.

We thought they were the gym rat, the meathead. But what we realized is that as our training in lifestyle and value philosophies evolved over time, so did our consumers with us. And as soon as we launched strong greens, It quickly became our best selling product almost overnight. It was wild. We could not keep this product in stock. It sold more than our weight protein did.

It sold more than flight did. We were mind-blown. So from there, we realized there was an opportunity to expand on the health and wellness offering of products that we created for the BPN consumer. and that completely shifted where we thought we were going with BPN for the next decade. If you were to ask me in 2017, where is BPN going to be 10 years from now?

We would have been the number one bodybuilding, powerlifting supplement company of the world. But then in 2018, when we launched Strong Greens, I didn't know if I thought that was the feature any longer because we now had this pretty even split between people wanting health and wellness products and people wanting strength and performance supplements.

So we doubled down. And we used that research and that insight to create more products around health and wellness. From strong greens, we launched strong reds, strong multivitamin, strong joints, eventually strong omega and collagen protein powder and 2018 2019 the health and wellness

category of supplements matched if not surpassed our strength and performance supplements now is a huge turning point for BPN you know I'm a big fan

and believer that you have to force growth from time to time and sometimes forcing growth feels unnatural and it feels risky and it can be but it works forcing growth can work and it continues to allow you and force you to go all in it's a burn the boat's mentality, whatever it takes mindset. In 2018, even as the brand and the business was growing, and we were making more money and we were selling more product, we were gaining more recognition,

we easily could have comfortably operated out of that first warehouse, 6,000 square feet. It worked for what we needed and what we had. But part of me felt like we were getting a little comfortable in that space. And I wanted something that made us feel really uncomfortable. And that scared us and forced growth. So we began exploring options for new warehouses. And at a time, our landlord just built.

out in these new buildings, these brand new buildings. They are beautiful. On 3161, Eagles Nest Street, Round Rock, Texas, 7-8665, about three-quarters of a mile from the warehouse we are currently operating out of. And these new spaces had 10,000 square foot suites, and they were beautiful. They were dock high, so 18-wheelers could back right in, unload pallets and inventory right in your warehouse. Our first warehouse was not dock high.

It was ground level, so sometimes it was an issue getting pallets and inventory off of the trucks into our warehouse. And I went and toward these warehouses. and they were spectacular. They were brand new. They were beautiful. Just being finished up. And I opened up the conversation with our landlord and he agreed that he would end our lease in our current warehouse and allow us to move into one of these new spaces. And in my head, I was thinking, you know, it'd be nice, but do we need it? Do we need an additional 4,000 square feet? Do we need

the additional liability and expenses that come with this new office and warehouse. Do we need it? No. Do we need it to force growth? Yes. Yes. And I believe that. And so many people, in retrospect, probably would have seen me making that decision

and say, that was stupid. That was dumb. But I know the way my mind works. and that I want to put myself in uncomfortable situations. I want to seek discomfort because I have the whatever it takes mindset and attitude and I will burn the boats and I will make it work. I will create solutions to solve those problems to make it work. Also, for me, a new warehouse was more than warehouse.

It was our headquarters. It was now an HQ. It was a fresh start to refined focus. We are no longer trying to be half gym, half supplement company. Now, this new space was a fresh start, refined focus to say, we are BPN. We offer effective health and performance supplements you can trust. We're not trying to be anything outside of that. Yes, it was risky.

Yes, it was more money. But I knew we would make decisions now that forced us to grow from 6,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. And to put it in a context, we now operate out of multiple buildings in the same business park and 50,000 square feet. And next April or May, next spring, we'll be moving into our future HQ, which is 76,000 square feet that we're currently building out. 6,000 square feet intimidated me. 10,000 square feet really intimidated me. 76,000 square feet does not intimidate me anymore. That comes with experience, that comes with repetition,

and that comes with knowing how to force growth, especially when you have the whatever it takes mindset and attitude to get it done. When we first moved into that 10,000 square foot warehouse, we could not even fill the bottom level of racks with inventory. And I remember looking at Preston thinking and saying, we're never going to fill this space. But a year later, we out and grew it. And we signed a lease for an additional 10,000 square feet

because we are forced to grow into it. and then we were forced to outgrow it. We were forced to grow out of it. What was funny, though, is when we moved in, the landlord gave us the go ahead. So me, Preston, John, Joe, Steph at the time, too. We loaded things up in vans and trucks,

and we moved everything over. from the old warehouse to the new warehouse. And we moved in. We got everything set up that same day. I went to connect the internet. Couldn't find it. Called AT&T, who we were told was the provider in that business park.

And AT&T said, you know, we plan on pulling fiber lines out there, but no one's actually pulled internet to that business park yet. we were the first business to move into that business park. It was just finished. And there was no fiber cable pulled into the entire business park yet.

We operated BPN in 2019 for those first couple months off of a Verizon hotspot. We packed all of our orders, uploaded all of our videos. everything we did online at BPNHQ, 2019 was done on a hotspot. And I would carry and move that hotspot around that 10,000 square foot warehouse and footprint based off where we needed the service most for what we were working on. Never a dull moment. Always a learning experience.

But we were all in. We were all in for that next. chapter. And that's where chapter four of building the brand ends. We just moved into our second warehouse, April 2019. That's where things really changed. We'll talk about it in the next chapter. But from 2019 to 2020, the business grew 400%. We'll see you in the next episode. Thank you.