The Nick Bare Podcast - 098: Building the Brand: Part 5 "The Hybrid Athlete"

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

In this fifth installment of the 'Building the Brand' series, I'm taking us through Chapter Five, titled 'The Hybrid Athlete,' covering pivotal moments from April 2019 to 2020. Highlighting my transition from bodybuilding to endurance training, I discuss the profound impact of discovering 'Go One More' and the growth of BPN. We'll cover personal stories, from marathon training to my mother’s battle with cancer.Also covered are key learnings on branding, team building, and the explosive growth of BPN during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, I introduce the concept of the hybrid athlete, balancing strength training with endurance running, and how this approach has shaped both my life and BPN's future.Chapters00:00 Introduction to Chapter Five: The Hybrid Athlete01:24 The Power of Brand: Finding Our Voice03:04 Lessons Learned in Chapter Five03:49 The Story of 'Go One More'13:09 The Birth of a Brand: BPN's Evolution13:33 Building the Creative Team22:13 Embracing Endurance: From Bodybuilding to Ironman27:13 Committing to Ironman Florida28:09 A Personal Tragedy and Its Impact35:36 The Growth of BPN During the Pandemic41:42 Creating G1M Sport: Solving Real Problems48:49 The Journey to a Sub-Three-Hour Marathon53:00 Embracing the Hybrid Athlete Lifestyle57:03 Conclusion and Future PlansWatch or share the full Building the Brand series nowhttps://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLldAMepUaYU6vWd_yEkg7D4Y7fQMowyoZStrength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps:https://bit.ly/nickbare10audioFollow:IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Previously on building the brand. October of 2016, I get back from South Korea. I go see this warehouse that we really didn't know if we were going to be able to afford. And I realized in that moment, I'm in the driver's seat. And I have to be accountable for the outcomes we experience, the wins, the losses, the successes, the failures. There was me, Preston, and Joe. And for a few months, it was that same routine. Work, work, work.

And it was all fun until things started to get really hard. In this game plan that we created earlier on of building a gym to cover some of the expenses and the warehouse lease so that 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. We closed the gym. But from the outside looking in, all these people who were kind of watching the journey, thought we were failing. That was not it. I was just sharpening my axe.

It's his transition period, which feels like a lull, but really it's when you are sharpening your axe and you're preparing to go into that next season of battle. 2017 ended up being a really big year for us. That was the first year we did seven figures in revenue. And we documented and shared everything on YouTube, the entire journey, entire process.

I also happened to meet Steph, my now wife in 2017. After meeting Steph, I went all in on that relationship. I knew early on after meeting Steph, I was going to marry her. And she was a big part of building BPN alongside of us. Now, 2017 was easily the hardest year my entire life. Cash flow was an absolute nightmare. And just because we were doing seven figures in revenue does not mean seven figures in profit.

We started getting more into health and wellness. How can running and endurance training support strength training? So in 2018, we developed and launched strong greens. And as soon as we launched strong greens, it quickly became our best selling product. And that completely shifted where we thought we were going with BPN for the next decade. 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.

We are BPN. We offer effective health and performance supplements you can trust. Welcome back to another episode of the multi-part series on Building the Brand. This is Chapter 5. And I'm calling Chapter 5 the hybrid athlete. If this is the first episode of the building the brand multi-part series that you're coming across, I highly recommend you go back and listen to chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four, and then come back to chapter five.

Because what I've been doing in this series is telling the story of BPN from the start, which was in 2012, up and to where we're at today. Now, chapter five is not where we're at today, but eventually in a future episode, I will get there. Now, where this chapter starts and where it ends, chapter five, the next chapter. It starts where chapter four ended, moving into our second warehouse, April of 2019, and it ends with the introduction of the hybrid athlete in 2020. this was a very meaningful chapter. It was an evolutionary chapter.

And this is a chapter where we truly started building a brand. And I would argue that up until this point, seven years in, we were building a company and we were offering a product, but we didn't understand or I didn't understand. I didn't understand the power of brand up until this point. This is where we found our voice. This is where we established our true mission that we're living out today. This was pivotal. This chapter was truly pivotal that shifted the trajectory of where we are right now.

You see, brand has a heartbeat. Brand is alive. brand has DNA. Brand in business are two different things. You can't use the word brand to describe company or organization. Brand is of motion. Brand creates real connection. Brand speaks to people. Brand can't be bought. Brand has to be built. And you build it. And you build it drop by drop. One of my favorite quotes is that you build a brand in drops,

but you lose it in buckets. It is very fragile. You have to be very intentional with the way you build brand because it has a heartbeat, because it's living because it has DNA. It is a real thing. The lessons I learned in this chapter,

one, who joins your team will directly influence your future success or failure. Two, don't be afraid to change directions. Three, nothing is unbelievable. Four, go one more. Five, fight to survive. Will you sink or swim?

Six, create with the intent to solve real problems. Number seven, like I previously mentioned, brand can't be bought. It must be built. drop by drop. Those are lessons I learned in chapter five. And I want to kick this off with a story of Go on More. Because this chapter kicks off the foundation of who we are today. The founding story of those three words, go on more.

Those words that are tattooed on my arm now that thousands of other people have tattooed on their body as well. Go and Moore has shaped my perception of my mission. It has shaped my perception of life and how I want to live, why I want to live, my what, my why, my how, my everything. So here's the story. I've told this many times before, but it fits into this chapter. And I wouldn't be doing this chapter, the justice it deserves. if I didn't tell this story.

So I was on a training run in 2019 for the Austin Marathon. And at the time, my wife now, but my girlfriend, fiance, then, we lived downtown Austin. Steph and I did. We had this beautiful duplex home that we rented that was about half a mile from Barton Springs, which is this year-round natural spring that's it at 60 degrees temperature all year long. It's a swimming hole. It's really popular. It's close to Zilker Park.

It's close to the running trail. It's close to all these restaurants. It's like great location. Primetime location. And that's where we're living in this year. We were living together. And like I said, it was really close to the running trail. There's this 10-mile loop downtown Austin called the Lady Bird Lake Loop.

also known as town lake to local Austin nights. And I would go do all my runs here. It is one of my favorite places still to this day to run. That and 30A in Florida. So I'm on a training run and I had 18 miles scheduled for that day for this marathon prep. And at this point in my life, I'm not much of a runner. I would run. I had a running background in the military.

But after getting out of the military, I just wanted to get as big and strong as possible. And running wasn't a priority to me any longer. But I was still doing the Austin Marathon because I love the Austin Marathon, which is full circle because this year we are the gel and hydration sponsor for the Austin Marathon series. So our products will be on course at the Austin Marathon. So I'm on this 18-mile training run. And I'm 10 miles in.

And when I'm 10 miles in, my legs hurt. I'm tired. I'm fatigued. I'm just burnt. I just stop. I just stop running, 10 miles in. And I say, I'm done for the day. Like, F this.

So I start walking back to our house. And as I'm walking back to the house, I'm thinking in my head, man, if I quit on this run, like I just did, what does that say about my character? What else will I quit on in my life? The way you do one thing is the way you do everything. will I quit on my business? Will I quit on my relationship? Will I quit on all of my future commitments and endeavors and goals? Because I'm creating this habit of being a quitter.

And I was consciously battling this in my head as I'm walking back to our house. I stopped walking. I turned around. I started walking back to the trail. It's like, nope, I'm finishing this run. I will feel much better if I just finish this run. So I go back to where I stopped and I pick up and I get to mile 18. I run eight more miles and then I go one more.

I run 19 miles that day. One more mile than I was supposed to just to prove myself that I could. And I go back to our house afterwards and I take my hat off because I'm always wearing a hat. And I take it off. I flip it over. I take a sharpie marker and I wrote one more under the bill. And I take a photo of it, and I posted on social media, and the response was wild. All of these people started taking their hats off, writing one more under the bill,

taking a photo of it. Some posted it. Many sent a message to me with that photo. And I realized in that moment, I struck a chord. That connected with so many people, the story of go one more. And I didn't add much context to that photo. but one more meant so much to so many people. So then one more evolved to go one more.

And go one more became our company mission, our messaging, our foundation. And then I got a tattooed on my left arm right up by my watch, set whenever I'm running. And I want to stop. I want to quit like I did on that 10 mile. when I 18 mile run 10 miles in and when I have to go look at my watch

because I wear my watch on my left arm too took it pace or distance I see go on more and I knew that if I tattooed that on my body there is no way I could not go on more in the future when I cross these types of

obstacles or resistance there's no way I could get go on more tattoo to my body and not go one more when I didn't want to. So it was a commitment to always go one more when things get hard and they get tough and there's resistance and obstacles. Do you want to hold yourself accountable? Tattoo it on your body.

That will hold you accountable. That was for me stake in the sand saying there's no turning back. That was the burn the boats moment for me. tattoo these three words of my body and I promise you, I will change my life to never quit again. That's what that meant to me. And I will tell you right now, like when I got those words tattooed to my body, my life changed forever. I experienced growth in all aspects of my life because I burned the boats. because I refused to stop, to quit,

to follow temptation of resistance in the easy, comfortable pursuit. It was lean in to the hardship, lean in to the challenge from that moment on. Go on more initially was just an action. It was just doing more of anything. It was one more mile. It was one more rep.

It was one more hour, on your business. Go on more over these last couple years has evolved for me. And I feel like I have to tell this part of the story here, which I will then also tell in the future in one of these follow-up episodes as well. But go on more evolved for me at one point where, yes, it is an action. There's an action applied to doing more of something. But really, what go on more is, it's an outcome. And you achieve the outcome of going more, which is success and unlock and potential when you do more of the right things, when you are very intentional what you're doing more with. You're not just doing more to do more. There's no strategy in that. There are a strategy, though,

of doing more of the things that move you closer to your goals, doing more things that move the needle in your life in a way that you want to move the needle. If you are spending more time working out, but you are neglecting your family in the process, that is not achieving go on more. That is being irresponsible. It's knowing where to apply that stimulus or to apply that pressure to experience the outcomes of go on more. there's still a foundation of having to do the things you don't want to do.

There's still the foundation and principle of leaning into resistance and obstacles and hardship, even when you don't want to to achieve success in life. But it's making sure you're doing more of the right things. But that day on that run in Austin, Texas, where I ran 19 miles, when I plan on running 18, after I quit, when I reached 10, that changed BPN forever. That is where BPN was reborn. That is where we started building a brand, truly building a brand. Now, 2019 was a really pivotal year for the brand because we started building the team.

truly building the team at this point. Up until this moment in time, we probably had five employees, myself, Preston, Joe, John Byers, Ryan Kerman, and Steph, my now wife, was helping out as well.

This is seven years into building BPN. And, we were doing about $4 million in revenue in 2019. And up until this point, I'm still filming, editing, and producing most of my content and BPN's content as well. I mean, what grew our business, what grew BPN in our brand was content.

It was videos, primarily videos on YouTube. We documented everything, everything. And over those first seven years, there were time periods where I would hire videographers to help out on a project to project basis and contractors that we would bring on for certain shoots just to help out. But we didn't have a full-time creative outside of myself on the team. I would film all day. I would edit all night. and I would turn around the project the next morning. And from the time I get out of the Army in 2017 to middle, late 2019,

that was my primary responsibility and job. Film, edit, produce, share, storytelling. Film, edit, produce, share, storytelling. Seven days a week. Non-stop. And I'm not here to say, I hated it. because I didn't. I loved it. I still do love creating. I loved that part of the business. But I was also aware that in order to grow and scale the business, the brand, the company,

revenue, the team, I couldn't be filming, editing, producing, sharing, and storytelling, moving forward, on my own at least. I needed help. So over the course of about a year, We hired, we didn't hire. We started a hiring process for a creative lead. Someone who could truly own the filming and editing process, storytelling, content creation. And I interviewed dozens of people. We would fly people in, test them out.

They would stay in my home with me and Steph for a few. few days, people I didn't even know, never met before. We didn't want to spend money on hotels, so we just put them in a room in our house, which looking back was potentially crazy. This is for about a year. Would fly people in, give them a room to stay in for a few days, film some projects, take them to dinners, get to know these people. And there were some people who were truly creative talents, but they didn't fit the brand. They didn't. They didn't fit our values or our beliefs. I couldn't see myself spending a lot of time with them.

So it just didn't work out. And then on the flip side, there were people who they were BPN from a value, belief, mission, brotherhood perspective, but they didn't have the skill to create the content that we wanted or needed. And I started becoming really hopeless. in this process thinking after a year in, we weren't going to find someone to fill this role. And I was going to have to keep creating content

for this foreseeable future. And then this one day, I ended up doing a collaboration with another fitness YouTuber at the time. And he brought a videographer with him. And now was Jordan Utter. And I spent just a few hours with him and Jordan filming a video.

And Jordan was talented. He had the eye for the work. He understood brand, culturally. It was a great fit. Got along with them. Values were aligned. So I reached out shortly after he was down here for that shoot. And I just kicked off a conversation of pretty much, would you be interested at ever working for BPN? And at a time in Jordan's life, he was living in Ohio with his fiance, Michaela. They were just about to get married, like literally weeks away from getting married, and starting this next chapter of their life. So I convinced Jordan to come back down to Texas to do a video with me and to spend some time. And I cast the vision of what we were building here at BPN, me and the four

other team members, and where we were going to go with it one day. And Jordan was bought in from the beginning. He went home. He talked to McKaylor. they got married and right after getting married, they moved down to Texas and they started building with us. We built together. Jordan took, just like every other employee here at BPN, Jordan took a huge risk, not just for himself, but for now his family, him and his wife, to pick up their lives in Ohio and move to Texas to build a business, build a brand, with someone he didn't even know for more than a few hours, but believed in what we were building. Those are the type of people that I've searched for over these last couple years to help build

this business. And I found a lot of them. Now, I'd be lying to say that there weren't times when I've made wrong decisions and wrong choices, and I allow the wrong people to join the team. I'm not batten perfect, but I found a lot of really good people. And a lot of really good people, the people here at BPN right now, have uplifted their lives and their family's lives, and they've moved across the country, and they've quit previous jobs to work here at BPN to come alongside me and build this business, build this brand. And I'm forever grateful. for a lot of people. But Jordan being the first creative hire,

after seven years of really doing all of it myself, for the most part, from a creative perspective, Jordan took a huge leap of faith on me. And I'm very, very grateful for that. Not just Jordan, but Jordan and Michaela. That was another shift. in the brand's trajectory of leveling up our content and leveling up our storytelling and building out a full creative team that shifted BPN in another direction.

And we were all in the boat ready to go in whatever direction BPN was going to take us. We were ready to pivot and adapt to wherever this brand needed to go to reach people, create impact and become what it is today. Shortly after Jordan started, I had this itch to do something new, do something different. And up until this point, we were a bodybuilding and powerlifting brand. When I started it in 2012, it was the height of the Arnold Fitness Expo and YouTube Fitness and bodybuilding and strength training and the traditional sports nutrition intimidating space industry. That's when I got into it and that's what I thought BPN would be forever.

But things changed in 2019, shortly after Jordan started. And it was a few years after transitioning out of the military. When I got out of the Army, I said I would never run a day in my life again. And I was pretty committed to that. Luckily, I didn't get that tattoo in my body because I would have had to stick to it. But when I got out of the Army, I was tired of running. I was tired of running because the only time I ever ran is when people told me to run. And I was forced to run a certain way at a certain pace.

I never learned how to do it right or why to do it, right. But I did love the physical and mental challenge that running was when I was in the Army. there was something that that pulled me back towards it when I stopped doing it for an extended period of time because of the clarity you get from it, the endorphins that are released, how good you feel afterwards. But when I left the military, I said, I'm never running a day in my life again. And I meant it. And then about a year later, I decided to sign up for the Austin Marathon for my first time

and test myself. It crushed me. I ran three hours, 57 minutes. Then the following year, I signed up for the Austin Marathon again, didn't train any differently, ran slower, ran about four hours, 15 minutes. And then after that, which is shortly after Jordan started, I was watching YouTube videos and I came across this YouTube video of the 1982 Iron Man World Championships with Julie Moss. and there's this really famous video clip of Julie Moss getting close to the finish line of this Iron Man race, this Iron Man Triathlon race.

And she was so fatigued and tired towards the end of this effort that her body was collapsing a very short distance from the finish line. I mean, people were standing at the finish line filming Julie coming in and her full body was seizing up and collapsing and falling to the ground. Then she would stand up, she'd stumble a few more steps, and she'd fall to the ground. She'd stand up, she stumble a few more steps, and she'd fall to the ground. And with every part of her body, she was just trying to get to the finish line. She was just trying to finish the race. She knew she wasn't going to finish strong, but she could finish well. And there was so much determination in her eyes that she was just going to finish what

she started. And I saw this clip on YouTube. You should go go search us on YouTube. Julie Moss 1982 Iron Man World Championship finish line. It is truly inspiring. The story in itself is inspiring. I saw this clip and I said, I want to experience that. I want that pain. I want that determination. I want that commitment. I want to train for something like that. So I sign a up for my first Ironman. And this was me pursuing endurance training in a full effort. I was going to put an actual prep in. In my previous marathons before this, I would go log miles. I didn't really track mileage. I didn't track pace. I didn't do speed workouts. I didn't do any of that stuff. I didn't know how to train. I would just go run in the evening for 30 to 45 minutes a couple times a week.

This was the first time I was actually going to do a prep. Now, little did I know that this prep in itself would be another pivotal point in not only my life, but the brand's trajectory. Right off the heels will go on more. After establishing going more than seeing Julie Moss cross the finish line at the Iron Man World Championships in 1982, I was like, this is going more. That's what it means. I need to experience this. I need to train for this.

So that's what I did. I committed to Iron Man, Florida, which was 2019. And I trained for that. And I learned so much about endurance training, things that I never knew existed before. I was humbled by swimming and cycling and running the right way. I followed a real training program this time. And after that, I was, I was addicted to endurance training, not just the physical component in the chase to pursue greatness and to find out where my full

potential is, but just the mental clarity, the emotional clarity I got from that entire prep in that race. And one of the reasons that prep was so significant and impactful for me is because right after I announced I was doing Iron Man, Florida, and right before I went into the actual prep, my mom passed away from ovarian cancer. So she was diagnosed in January of 2019 with stage four ovarian cancer. she passed away in June of 2019 from cancer.

It was very fast. It was very aggressive. And when I found out my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I thought it was going to be one of those things where she gets diagnosed. She goes on chemo and radiation. Maybe she gets surgery. And then a few months later, we forgot it even happened. And she was down here living in Texas.

being a part of what me and my brother were building with BPN. But it didn't work out that way. This cancer was extremely aggressive. They did surgery. They removed 90% of the tumors in her body. Within a matter of weeks, they all grew back. It took her over. And she passed away in June of 2019 in the house we grew up in on hospice.

and me and my brother were there next to her when she passed away. So when we came back to Texas, life looked really different for us. And when we spent two years, not two years, sorry, when we spent two weeks up in Pennsylvania, where we were with my mom in the ICU for a few days and then she came home on hospice before passing away. and we had all the funeral arrangements and everything around her passing. John Byers was the main one down here in Texas that kept this whole operation alive. From customer service and experience to shipping out orders to moving pallets around, John Byers was a rock for me and my family and BPN and this brand.

we couldn't have done it without John. Like John is someone, again, that I am so grateful for. So many of these team members here at BPN have been a part of my life for very significant changes in transitions. And this was one of those. John held this business together while me and my brother had to go back to Pennsylvania and be there with and for our family. And then when we came back to Texas after my mom passed away,

I sunk a lot of my emotions and feelings into this prep. I spent a lot of time on myself on the bike for hours, on runs for hours, swimming for hours. For me, it was this outlet that I really needed at this chapter and point of my life where I just lost my mom. I was building a fast growing business. I was trying to manage a team and learn how to lead this team. and this Iron Man prep allowed me or provided me this outlet, almost an escape of solitude and clarity and depth of thought, allowed me to funnel some of these emotions into a physical space. So it came into my life at a really good time for me personally, but it also opened up these new opportunities for the business.

And to shift kind of the thought process a little bit, and if I look back at some of the things that have happened along the way in this journey since starting in 2012, now 12 years in, I think too many people try to over control the trajectory of what they're building, whether that's a business, a brand, a team, a family. So many people know where they're at today, and they know where they want to be five, ten, 15 years from now, and they will white-knuckle grip that path,

and they don't want anything to take them off that path because they know exactly or they think they know exactly where they're going and how they're going to get there. But the reality is that when we're all, on this journey and we're on this path, new opportunities will present themselves. There will be something that happens along the way that we'll try to change our direction or shift our trajectory towards where we think we're supposed to go. And if you try to white knuckle and control and not at least listen to some of these new ideas

or acknowledge some of these new perspectives and opportunities, you might never get to where you want to be. Because where you want to be is not where you're supposed to be. A lot of things that have happened to BPN along the way has been us watching, observing, listening, adapting, being open to change, listening to new perspectives, In 2012, when I started the business, if I would have white knuckle gripped that control and said, we're going to be a bodybuilding strength brand forever, no matter what, and I ignored all these different opportunities,

I don't think we'd be a brand today. I don't think we would exist today. But we listened, we observed, we became adaptable, and we were willing to pivot when change and opportunity presented. itself in front of us. This moment in time where I signed up for an Ironman, fell in love with endurance training, saw an opportunity for one, yes,

but my personal interest, my personal passions, my personal desires were also changing and shifting. I didn't want to white knuckle the trajectory of BPN. I wanted it to be instilled do an extension of what I believe in, what I'm interested in, and what I'm passionate about.

And it wasn't necessarily just strength training and bodybuilding anymore, is now was becoming endurance training. And that was a shift in BPN's mission, a pivotal shift that we now are experiencing in a very meaningful way. Now, between 2019 and 2020, we, we, we've been a very meaningful way. we grew 400% it was it was nuts there's no other way to explain it we went from about 4 million in revenue

to 22 million in revenue in one year and this was during the pandemic COVID-19 a few things happened during that time one people started prioritized their health more. So us being a sports nutrition health company, there were a lot more eyeballs

on our products. There was a lot more demand for our products. Also at that time, gyms closed down, public training facilities closed down. So a lot of people started running. And for about a year, year and a half, up until the pandemic, we were creating a lot of running content. So we had a lot of running content online, Ironman prep series, marathon prep series. So when lockdown happened and people couldn't go to gyms any longer and they started running, they started searching on Google and YouTube, which YouTube is the second biggest search engine online after Google. They were finding a lot of my content and BPN's content, which drew a lot of eyeballs and traction to the brand.

And we were also seven, eight years in, and a lot of the work we were doing for the seven to eight years leading up to that point just compounded to put us in a really good position to grow at a significant rate and go on more. The foundation now of BPN's mission connected with a whole lot of people, especially during the pandemic. So during that year, we grew a lot. were 400 percent. But what was really challenging about that year was, again, supply chain issues.

We didn't have a lot of experience in the business. We didn't have a lot of formal, experienced employees. The people that worked for BPN up until that point were people we loved and cared about and they were friends. And we knew they had good values and beliefs. So we found a role for them. We had a fractional CFO at time, but no one full-time who was really, truly managing inventory forecasting and production orders. And we also just could not in any way predict that we were going to grow 400% from 2019 and 2020.

So supply chain issues were a huge problem during that year. At some points in time, we were sold out of half of our products. Just because we were growing, we're selling it so fast, we could not keep it in stock. Our manufacturers couldn't make it fast enough for us, and we couldn't afford to place bigger production orders than we were already placing. That was a really stressful time. And during those stressful times, you have to decide how committed are you, and are you going to sink or are you going to swim? we could have sank and just gave up and realized how hard that year was going to be because it was a hard year.

But we decided to swim and keep our head above water. And we lean into work and we worked and we worked and we worked harder than ever before to keep up with supply chain issues, to keep up with the growth, to keep up with demand and getting orders down as fast as possible. Because we saw this massive opportunity where we are growing. So fast. Going from $4 million in revenue to $22 million in revenue in a year is insane growth with a small inexperienced team. We couldn't believe it. And we're lucky that we moved into the new warehouse before we really needed to. It was almost like it was a blessing from God saying, Nick, you better

go sign a new warehouse lease because you're about to grow 400%. If we would have experienced that 400% growth that we did in our old warehouse that was 6,000 square feet, there's no way. We would have made it. I don't know where we would have put product. Because when we moved into this new business park, we took over 10,000 square feet. There were no other businesses in this entire business park. So as we needed more space, it was really easy to grab an additional 10,000 square feet here and 10,000 square feet there. we're right now in roughly 50,000 square feet.

But during this year and this massive growth, we would go to our landlord and say, hey, can we have the suite next door to us to our left? Done. No one's in there. Hey, can we grab this 10,000 square feet that's in the building behind us? Done, there's no one in there.

And we would just pick up more space as we needed it and added onto our lease during this year. Luckily, luckily, luckily, we, We moved into this new business park when we did because it was right before things took off. So coming off of just explosive growth from 2019 to 2020. And as some of our sales and revenue became more steady and predictable, we started planning for the next evolution of BPN and where we were heading and the mission that we wanted to serve.

And in the beginning, I shared that one of the lessons was to create with the intent to solve real problems. One of the real problems that I experienced when I was in my Iron Man prep is that I couldn't find a fuel source that wouldn't destroy my stomach, destroy my gut. And when you're on the bike for four to six hours and you're training for 20 hours a week,

you have to fuel your training. You have to fuel your performance with carbohydrates and electrolytes, especially because I was training in the spring and summer, an early fall for my Iron Man. And all of the products on the market at the time used multidextrin or dextrose or other cheap carbohydrate sources as their primary carb source, as their primary fuel source for their athletes. And the problem with this is that it has a low molecular weight, which means it digest very slowly.

And for an endurance athlete who's training, running, swimming, cycling, and you're trying to get 60 to 90 grams of carbs in your body per hour, if it's digesting very slow, you will start getting gut rot, stomach discomfort, bloating, gas, cramping. which I was experiencing on my first Ironman prep all the time because I could not find a fuel source that wasn't solving any of these problems. Yes, it was supplying me with the carbs and the electrolytes that I needed, but with all these negative side effects and consequences. So going into 2020, planning to do more marathons and more Ironmans,

the first thing I thought of was we need to create an endurance fuel product. Yes, for endurance athletes to use, but to be honest, selfishly for myself to use for these future preps and these future races. So we started working on an endurance product. The intent being carbohydrates and electrolytes, but carbohydrates that were fast, gastric emptying,

and dint calls stomach discomfort, gas, bloating, gut rot, all of those negative issues. And we tested dozens of carb sources. Over weeks and months, we tried everything in so many calls the same problems. After consuming an excess of them while training, it would just wreck your stomach. It would wreck your gut.

And then we finally found the carb source that I fell in love with that we use today. It's called cluster dextrin. Cluster dextrin has a high molecular weight, meaning it is very fast, gastric emptying. It digest very quickly, very easily. You don't get gas, bloating, stomach discomfort, GI issues, cramping, none of that. So we created G1M Sport, 20 grams of carbohydrates per serving in the form of Cluster Dextrin, 350 milligrams of sodium per serving. and created this primarily to fuel endurance athletes,

runners, triathletes, ultra runners. And when we first launched this product, it did well, but we never thought it would be a hero product. We never thought it would be a bestseller. It was just serving in this small niche of what was then endurance athletes and what is now huge. And we were selling a few hundred bags then, which we then evolved into bottles of GOM Sport per month.

G1M Sport today is our hero product. It is our number one selling product. In January of 2023, we were selling about 2,000 units of G1M Sport per month. So it grew from the time we launched in 2020 to 2023. But today we are selling over 25,000. thousand units of G1M sport per month. Why? We created a product that solves real problems for real people, real athletes, who want to

accomplish real results. That's what we did. We solved the problem. People initially figured out that it worked. But then when word of mouth spread the usability and the effectiveness of the this product, it went nuts. G1M Sport is now our best-selling product under the entire BPN line. One of the key takeaways from this chapter that I wrote down here that I think it's very

important to share for business owners, brand builders, just people to be aware of. During this chapter, we launched a lot of new products, endurance products, health and wellness products. We launched strong reds. We launched strong multivitamin, strong joints, strong omega, G1M sport, like I talked about. We hired more employees. We acquired more warehouse and office space within the business park. We didn't have all the formal processes in a business like we do now. we didn't have a full-time CFO like we do now. But Preston and I, we didn't know everything, obviously. But we knew how to work, and we knew how to stay lean.

And when you know how to work, and you know how to be resourceful with resources, time and money, you can make very little go very far. We didn't spend a lot. We didn't pay ourselves much. We did what we had to do to keep the business alive. We knew how to work. That's something that we were taught from an early age.

We had work ethic and we knew how to apply it. And we knew how to be resourceful and lean. And that kept us afloat. That is one of the only things that allowed us to make it through those tough years. when cash was tight and money was tied up in inventory. And we didn't have all the formal processes and we were running out of inventory and supply. But we could work and we could stay lean

and that kept us afloat. Now, after my first Iron Man, I ran my marathon in that Iron Man, I believe in four hours and four minutes. And I thought back to my first two marathons after that. I ran my first marathon. like I said, around three hours, 57 minutes. My second marathon, four hours, 15 minutes.

And then I did a full Iron Man, and my marathon to the end of the Iron Man was four hours and four minutes. I was like, something doesn't add up. I'm getting fitter. I'm getting faster. How fast can I get? So that's when I went all in on endurance training.

That's when I became fully committed to finding out where my full, potential exists. This moment in time changed my life, again, pivotal, and changed the success and growth of BPN forever. I committed to running a sub three-hour marathon. And when I put that out into the world, into existence, there was so much doubt. There's no way this guy is going to run a sub-three-hour marathon. There were articles written.

saying Nick Bear will never run a sub three hour marathon. Two things I want to share with you. One, doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. Everyone in this world, everyone in the room, friends, family, people who are closest to you can tell you that you can't do something. But until you actually believe that yourself, doesn't matter. Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. Number two, nothing is unbelievable.

nothing. You could say you're going to go run a two-hour marathon and everyone will say impossible. No way. Who knows? Maybe you could. Nothing is unbelievable. Nothing.

You just got put in the work to find out. When I said I wanted to run a sub three-hour marathon, everyone said, no way. I said, I'm going to prove you wrong. So I went and I trained and I towed the line at the Austin Marathon in 2020 and I ran three hours, 24 minutes, 24 minutes off of my goal. Huge swing and a miss. And all the doubters loved it. They loved every one of those 24 minutes over three hours that I missed.

So I recommitted. I said, I'm still going to run a sub three hour marathon. I trained for another year, whole year. And I ran two hours, 56 minutes, 27 seconds. Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. This was an unlock for me. This is where I realized the power of intentional choices and commitment, true commitment. I spent a whole year training to run sub three,

hours in the marathon. And I did it. I did it because of commitment. And after that, it was what's next? What else can I accomplish? And these future episodes will share the races I've done after that, but there's 100 mile ultra races, marathons, my current PR is two hours and 39 minutes, pushing the mind and body to full extremes. But as an athlete myself, who has this background and strength in bodybuilding, but now falling in love with endurance training, which is almost like cheating on an old girlfriend.

You know, like a few years ago, if you were a bodybuilder or a power lifter, you didn't even associate with endurance athletes. And if you were an endurance athlete, you didn't even associate or talk to or look at strength athletes or bodybuilders. Like, don't cross that line. Don't intermingle. But coming from a strength and bodybuilding background and then falling in love with endurance

training, for me, I wanted to be able to do both. I didn't want to have to pick one or the other. And everyone wanted me to pick one or the other. Well, now are you going to be a strength athlete or are you going to be a runner? What do you want to be? choose, tell us, which side are you committing to? And I wanted to stay right there in the middle. I wanted to do both.

So I was still strength training and bodybuilding. And I loved being in the gym. But then I was running. And my daily routine eventually evolved to where I started running every morning and lifting in the evening. And it was in the fall of 2020 where I started writing training programs and sharing these training programs with the people who followed me on social media. And everyone was asking for a training program that followed a structure that I was following

at the moment where I would run in the morning and I would lift in the evenings. So I wrote this training program and when I finished writing it, I couldn't figure out what to title it. So I just titled it the hybrid athlete training program. Now, I will make this very clear right now. I by no means founded the hybrid athlete or created the hybrid athlete. I have since then learned that there were books written about the hybrid athlete before I started using the term. Books that I haven't read or heard of.

But I just thought, what is this cross between these two things? it's hybrid. It's running and lifting. So I'll just call it the hybrid athlete training model, training program. And I launched it. And just like when I got going more tattooed to my arm and I took that photo of my hat and I posted on social media and the response was wild. Initially, the same thing happened with the hybrid athlete,

running and lifting. It was these two things that, like mixing oil and water. People just could not understand how those two go together. And that was the way I was training. It's the way I loved training. And the hybrid athlete became my thing in 2020. There were so many questions coming in, how do you balance running and strength training? So a lot of my content was about how to balance running and strength training, how to run far, how to run fast, how to lift heavy and be strong and look strong. And little did I know in 2020 that just launching a YouTube video and a training program called the hybrid athlete would again be this pivotal shift in the trajectory of my life and my work and BPN as a whole.

But it did. I would have never guessed that the hybrid athlete was going to become such a big thing like it is today. But it did. And the hybrid athlete became my thing in 2020 and still is for almost five years later. And that's where chapter five is going to end us. So until the next episode, guys, thanks for tuning in. This was a pivotal chapter in my life and BPN story. A very exciting one.

But without this chapter, there's no way we be. where we're at today. So thanks for all the love and support. Appreciate you guys, and we'll see you in the next one.