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I’ve interviewed 500+ founders over the last decade and John Roman's story is one of the most fascinating.
He sold to a SPAC in 2021 then bought the business back in 2023 for a fraction of the price. 💰
His niche is restricted on FB, so he has to get creative with ads. Anyone interested in blowing up stuff with tanks for eyeballs? 🧨
Perhaps most surprising is his business model.
He’s in eComm so you’d think his offering is a physical product. But that’s not what keeps people subscribed.
The physical product is a loss-leader for information and connection through the community he’s built. We go deep on this in the episode, and it’s a model I’ve never quite seen before.
Hope you enjoy the wildly unorthodox story of how John built BattlBox into an 8-figure business in just a few short years.
(With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and John Roman of BattlBox.com)
Transcript from video:
Trailer
0:00 what are the key lessons you learned from having multiple business partners over the last almost 10 years oh man
0:05 it's not good it's we started hitting major turmoil different direction amount
0:10 of work being put in was not equal all The Usual Suspects of a bad partnership
0:16 business partners are tough and picking the right ones are tough we were able to sell for a 6X evida the business didn't
0:22 fundamentally change it had maybe a 10% drop in everything and we were able to get it back at a 1x more than 90% it's a
0:30 big big drop that's a crazy story never heard of anyone who sold to a spack and then then rebot it that's wild we lead
0:37 everything with two pillars content and community and they kind of go hand in hand surface level we are a subscription
0:43 box how we view in that it's we are a membership we're we're a community that's very content driven it's almost
0:49 like a hybrid between what a lot of businesses do and then you look at creators right like the Mr. Beast of the
0:55 world that took the approach of content community and then dump a brand even
1:00 though the brand was here first hey it's Andrew here and welcome to the e-commerce fuel podcast the show dedicated to helping seven and eight
Intro
1:07 figure brand owners build incredible businesses and amazing lives and today
1:12 joining me is John Roman uh he's one of the founders of battlbox.com which is a subscription
1:18 site in the survival outdoor camping space and man fascinating story got
1:24 introduced to him by a a mutual friend and one of the most unusual stor stories
1:30 uh of how they he started the business but also how uh he's grown it and and
1:36 also is able to buy back his business uh at an insanely I think he sold it uh for
1:42 various reasons which we get into for 6X uh multiple of eada bought it back for onx multiple there was partnership drama
1:50 involved uh there was a spack involved it just crazy story but uh some pretty
1:56 impressive lessons uh came out of it so we talk about yeah the lessons he learned from from you know how hard it
2:03 is to have have business partners uh operating agreements uh we talk about how to advertise restricted products
2:10 because he sells and they sell knives and other things and how that's difficult but also there's some Silver Linings there um also talk about man I
2:17 came into this thinking he he had a product based subscription business and what I realized is he uses the products
2:24 really is I don't know decoy is the wrong word but they are not the emphasis of what's allowed him to build a pretty impressive business um which we get into
2:31 and it's kind of a mental shift that I think you can apply to a lot of different business models anyway really interesting story he's a super smart guy
2:38 and and I hope you enjoy this one uh because I did too and we'll get into it right after this how how do you get into
John Roman backstory
2:44 this I mean it's such an interesting Niche um I mean were you in like survival did you do outdoor guiding um
2:50 what's the backstory about how this got started because I imagine it has to be some tie into your personal past or
2:56 interests or something um I was a career building uh B2B uh Tech sales
3:03 teams so no connection whatsoever no conne at all um I was
3:11 uh I was investing in in in in small small businesses and and writing checks
3:17 and not like not like private Equity or VC checks I'm talking Small Small Checks
3:23 um typically very very rarely five fig like
3:28 Sub sub five figure checks and um in this little six-month window I was doing
3:34 that battle box was was something that hit my radar so the guy that had come up
3:40 with the idea um I went to went to college with his um he had found two people that were
3:48 going to be his business partners I knew both of them um he had come to my Christmas party a month before the idea
3:56 and it uh had pitched me on a different idea and nothing nothing came came from that
4:04 so when when I heard about battlbox launching I I wanted to be involved so I
4:09 I I wrote a check um bought bought some Equity the the concept idea was very
4:15 limited capacity you know I'm giving a couple hours a month um board seat just
4:22 not not a whole lot and it just it just quickly quickly grew into something much bigger and uh yeah
4:31 within a 12 months after launch I had to make the decision to leave my my career
4:37 and just jumping this full time I was curious man like I was I was digging through your business and looking at the
John's business model
4:43 model um and I'm curious like At first blush it seems like it would be a a
4:49 challenging model to make work just because like you've got survival like you think about like protein powder or something obviously people are consuming
4:55 it and this is something that people have an interest in but they're not necessarily consuming it per se uh and
5:02 so that seems a little harder on the subscription side and then also with on a margin basis right like you know a lot
5:08 of the stuff I'm guessing most of it is you're reselling because it would just be insane to try to have to come up with your own private line of stuff for
5:14 everything in a subscription box that varies so I I'm curious like obviously you've done a really good job of making
5:20 that work but how have you like how have you done it with those two headwinds in place yeah and Greg call out because
5:28 both of those are are are factual right so you look at the number one reason why
5:33 people leave yeah and they're they're they're out of space they they don't
5:38 have anywhere to put the stuff right because the reality is we have some customers that use it all pretty
5:43 regularly but even if you're you're using you're not going to go through all
5:49 this stuff um so yeah that's that's a huge piece so on on that front it's
5:55 really just making it more about the experience more about the
6:01 community um more about the membership and there being so many additional
6:07 values outside of just the the items in the box right um and then and then
6:12 giving them you know on Thursdays we do a bell trade so we'll have thousands of
6:17 our customers whether they got the gear on Battle box or they got it somewhere else um just trading trading stuff
6:24 selling stuff to each other um so that's almost and that was one of the rain reasons we we we created that day
6:32 because people sometimes need they need some space um so we wanted to kind of facilitate better us facilitate than
6:40 than than somewhere else or someone else what do you you mentioned like experiences or you mentioned benefits of
Benefits of membership and community and how that works
6:47 the membership and then also the community can you talk about those two a little bit because I'm I'm I'm a community guy I'm kind of biased towards
6:53 community and I always think it's interesting to hear how other people work at their business especially physically product based businesses yeah
6:59 so so so we're not a product based business I mean we are but we aren't right we don't we don't view the
7:06 business in that lens so we lead everything with with two pillars content
7:13 and community and they kind of go hand in and so if you if you look at the amount of content we're putting out
7:18 educational not your traditional like direct to Consumer byy Bye by we're not
7:24 we're not hard selling we're just educating on the space whether it's hiking camping Great Outdoors being
7:31 prepared Etc we're we're touching it all and that's that's kind of the approach
7:38 the community piece we started from the beginning so the like at launch we
7:44 launched it's not the same version it used to be but um we had a we were using
7:50 prob boards for like almost like a Reddit style uh private label bulletin
7:56 board esque um and it was bbox forum.com and that's um initially that's what we
8:03 used and it was open to everybody um so if you cared about any of the topics
8:10 hiking camping survival Etc um you could come there and just meet like-minded
8:16 people make friends find people that are local to you um and that's kind of morphed through the years it uh it pains
8:24 me to admit that we decided that the best move for was to put it into a Facebook group um which which is still
8:34 the best solution we found it bothers me because like there's so many hurdles
8:39 there right you have to be on Facebook you have to um abide by the you know
8:45 rules of Facebook and and stuff like that but it's it's it's where it currently is and then the other shift we
8:50 CH we did is um it's pay wall you have to be an active member to to have access
8:56 um you don't you can't just come otherwise when it when you say paywall do you mean like you have to be a customer or you actually have to pay monthly you
9:03 have to pay monthly for the battle box membership um which includes the box it
9:10 includes it includes the the access to the community uh it includes um access
9:18 we have something called the battle Vault so we have thousands of SKS that are unavailable to the public only
9:25 available to active members um at prices that you're not going to find anywhere it's
9:32 it's a it's us using our buying power to to procure these items and us not
9:38 treating those items as a profit Center interesting so when you look at like your subscription box you've got a bunch
9:44 of different tiers you've got like basic intermediate you know you know Tarzan Hunter of the Jungle I'm making this up
9:49 but uh the advanced expensive type so do you think about it like when I think about the business model e-commerce fuel
9:56 like we do events and we event like when they are not I look at those as a
10:01 complete investment 100% into the community and the only the way we Finance the community is through the membership fees do you look at the fees
10:09 that you charge your monthly fees because from an outsider coming in I was like okay well you're paying for just the products but do you look as the
10:16 products as just kind of like you're not really making money on the products you're actually just making money you're
10:21 maybe selling those at a loss but you're you're making money on the the subscription fee uh which comes with all
10:28 the other benefits I mean I'm guessing you are because you already said you don't look at yourself as a product based business it's just an interesting
10:34 switch of me mental yeah very I mean at the end surface level we are a
10:39 subscription box um how we View and the decisions we make we are not a subscription box we are a a membership
10:45 we're we're a community that's very content driven so it's a very very unusual approach it's almost
10:52 like a hybrid between what a lot of businesses do and then you look at
10:58 creators right like the Mr Beast of the world that took the took the approach of
11:04 content community and then dump a brand even the the brand was here first just a
11:09 very different different lens that's super cool is it for
How the customers becomes members
11:15 customers coming in and again I'm thinking about this from a having to reim my mental bottle here as a customer
11:22 is looking at a just from the product Le business before I signed up and that was part of the hard part for me thinking about your business model was like well
11:28 what am I get if I drop $80 a month on you know what kind of products who are they from etc etc do most of you what do
11:34 you have a massive number and percentage of new members coming from word of mouth or do you from Members inside the
11:41 community or do you do a lot of work to educate people on all the benefits they get when they sign up so it's it's it's
11:46 all it's all of the above it's the word of mouth referral um you know we have an
11:52 aggressive aggressive rewards and loyalty program to try to drum up that
11:57 behavior and it with certainly comes organically as well but it's not it's
12:02 not a a number you would be shocked at it's not a super high number it's it's probably in line with most direct to
12:09 Consumer Brands if I had to guess um no the majority of of are like if you're
12:16 looking at attribution um it's advertising that's that's bringing it to
12:22 the end of the funnel um you know we spend a a a relatively large amount on
12:28 all the US ual suspects right um you know meta alphabet fight dance and uh
12:35 the re the funny thing though is there is an educational piece so while there's some top of funnel that's on social a
12:43 lot of it is top of funnel organic through our content and um kind of a and
12:50 this is so wild to think of a of you know at the end of the day we are a
12:56 direct consumer business to look at a direct to Consumer Ecom business what's
13:01 Wild to look at is our post-p purchase survey question about how long you knew about us before making that first
13:07 purchase and 40% are greater than six months wow so it's like but you got to
13:14 think too are our um so you saw the four tiers right the top tier Pro Plus it's
13:19 170 plus sales tax plus shipping um so it's roughly you know depending on your
13:25 state call it about $200 um50 % of our base is in that wow
13:32 that's like our site you know some people say oh put the one you want to sell is the most popular no that that
13:37 really is our most popular that that is the business um so it's it's it's
13:43 interesting because it's a big it's a big commitment right it's it's call it $2,500 a year yeah it's very not
What are the most effective content types that are working best for him
13:52 inexpensive when you talk about content what are the what are the things that are working
13:58 best for you because educational content is a huge part of it are you doing I'm sure you're doing a lot of different
14:03 things but the one or two things that are your bread and butter or or most effective for you in terms of content
14:09 type and also platform and channel what do those look like so it's constantly shifting and changing um you know the
14:17 current current hot thing for us is is TikTok so we went from zero to we'll
14:24 hit a million followers on TikTok I I hope
14:29 this month probably not this month probably August um maybe September we'll hit it this year with Cy um and we went
14:37 zeroed to that um we we launched hard on TikTok in in the beginning of
14:43 2021 and um you know YouTube YouTube's been pretty consistent for us um through
14:51 time we do even when we launched in 2015 part of our initial strategy was we sent
14:58 out 30 boxes to YouTube reviewers um and still to this day we send out anywhere between
15:04 30 to 50 it's like constantly changing list um just out to YouTubers to to talk
15:10 about our product so YouTube's been pretty consistent but content has
15:16 changed you know when we saw the success on TikTok and uh YouTube's algorithm
15:22 all of a sudden was super hungry for short form content um we did a a massive
15:28 resource shift and we started just hammering YouTube shorts and we went
15:33 from 50,000 subscribers to to a few hundred thousand to I think we're at
15:39 700,000 now um in in relative short short order um so it it's a constant
15:46 piece uh when you talk about the type of content um a lot of educational a lot of
15:53 situational um talking about scenarios a lot of product testing so you we have a
15:59 a massively large funnel of people that want to be in the Box um they want their product in the box and then we have a
16:06 team that job is procuring products from the box that are doing Outreach as well so we have this massive funnel of of
16:13 items and the easiest most effective content is we get a sample in the mail
16:19 let's film it and look at it and test it and it's just this constant new content we don't have to overthink what the
16:26 strategy is content comes in there's a lot of product testing and ultimately
16:31 they get to see in real time us testing a product if it if it passes it moves along the very rigorous procurement
16:39 process to be featured in the Box um so
16:44 yeah so the the content's all over the we'll do funny stuff sometimes like definitely like a comedic um approach if
16:52 you if you um if you've seen any of our videos Brandon Kerr and he's the the face of our brand he will um he has just
17:00 a very has a great energy um and it's a serious but not too serious kind of
17:06 demeanor which which works is this the guy with the big beard that was on the uh the battle games video yeah yeah yeah
17:13 um so so yeah so you know we definitely lean into the comedy piece a little bit
17:19 we did it with the um I I don't know if you saw I posted about it we all battle
17:25 box did to uh Sunday uh President Biden called The Ballot Box the battle box um
17:33 so we had we had some fun with the president you know telling America that
17:39 uh all differences are settled at the Battle box um just like fun comedic um
17:45 politically neutral approach so yeah and then the last piece of content would be
17:52 you know you just hinted to a battle games so you know battle games is coming up last year we did uh we were were
17:58 sending our H 100th box we call our boxes missions every every month is the new Mission and we were sending out our
18:05 100th Mission so complete surprise and Delight we put five golden tickets in
18:11 five boxes randomly and if they got the golden ticket uh we flew them to Texas
18:17 we met them out there hung out with them for the night in the morning we put we all got on a coach boss 50 of us went
18:23 out to Ral Texas and we put each of the five contestants battlbox members in a
18:29 World War II tank and they shot target yeah uh down range and if they hit the
18:36 target we were going to give them $100,000 and uh we wanted to give them 100,000 it was a uh if you've ever seen
18:43 like uh half court shots or make the hole in one wi car it was an insurance
18:48 policy that we had um drafted so we had already paid a a premium so we wanted
18:55 them to hit it at that point so it was really really fun unfortunately nobody hit it what is it as a as a uh a man who loves
Insuring Against World War II Tanks: How Much Does It Cost?
19:03 odds and betting and finance I have to ask what does it cost what do you how much does it cost to buy an insurance
19:10 policy that'll pay out 100K if somebody hits uh you know a target with a World War Two tank like is it like $55,000
19:17 like that that seemed like such a crazy underwriting thing to even yeah so so it was funny I would have been I would have
19:23 loved to been a fly on the wall of our our insurance sales guy that was selling it in his like weekly sales meetings
19:30 they're talking about a hole inone this guy's talking basketball and he's talking shooting a tank so lots of phone
19:36 calls um measurements trajectory speed velocity size of Target um the the the
19:45 end result was they they proposed two options they said you can have one
19:50 person fire the tank if they hit it we'll give 100K for
19:56 $88,000 um or you can have have all five people shoot at the tank um they can't
20:03 help each other we have to after each one shoots they can't give tips you have to move them away they can't have any
20:09 conversation with people that haven't uh for I think it was 177,000 um so we
20:14 opted for that one too we didn't we also had five golden tickets we didn't want to like get them there and say okay only
20:20 one of you are going to get to do this yeah um so yeah so roughly you know close to 20% of the actual prize value
20:27 did anyone hit it Oh shoot that's too bad yeah which was a huge they a couple of them came like so
20:34 close but that was a Learning lesson so battle games this time around this event um someone's winning 25k there's there's
20:42 no an ifs or butts about it like you have to you have to have a winner it it
20:48 wasn't it it wasn't fun for nobody to win and Sean I want to hold up just for
20:53 a second we're going to go ahead and play the audio from your battle games uh clip because I want to talk about about
20:58 that here in a minute but uh here's here's the [Music]
BattlGames 2024 video
21:04 video what's up internet Cur 1776 here with an awesome announcement for you so
21:09 in September 2024 just a few months away we are hosting the very first battle
21:16 games 10 contestants are going to compete using their survival skills for
21:22 $25,000 cash now at this event we're going to have tons of cool Brands here
21:27 survival experts Big Time personalities they may or may not help us along the way so how exactly do you become a
21:34 contestant for the battle games well all you got to do is go to battle games.com fill out a little bit of information you
21:40 can become an eligible contestant for absolutely free you also are now eligible to potentially win cool outdoor
21:46 and survival gear so even if you don't get selected for the battle games you might Win $5,000 worth of gear from
21:51 Brands like Fox knives my medic pury bag and tons of other brands as well once we
21:57 select the 10 contestants we're going to fly you guys out here all expense paay we're going to have a great time and 10
22:03 contestants are going to compete that 25 Grand it's a win-win don't wait time's
22:08 ticking hopefully I'll see you at the 2024 battle
22:14 game so you know you're doing these cool battle games people have a sense for it
Main goals for doing the BattlGames
22:19 now is the goal uh to build awareness create content and also use it as a Le
22:25 gen tool because I know like one of the ways people can can potentially try to enter as a contestant is you know they
22:31 have to enter their email address and there's kind of a contestant box are those the two goals for it primarily awareness and Legion um the the primary
22:38 goal is surprise and Delight um the the existing customer base um just with a
22:44 community event there were a lot of learnings from from the last event last
22:49 year the mission 100 because it was a you got to see true like farm to table so you had battle box in the middle you
22:55 had the end user consumers here but on the flip side we had all of our vendors that are typically in the Box pretty
23:02 normally um as sponsors that were there so it's kind of cool for everybody to get to meet each other um and then
23:09 obviously you know the the whole battle box team being there too on both sides
23:16 so surprise and Delight elements big um we went way larger this year with budget
23:24 um and the the way we we ensure that we're
23:30 not losing money we're playing almost a let's played a break even on the event
23:36 is find sponsorships and find sponsors for the event um so that we can you know
23:42 not have that at risk so part of the the sponsorship package was this this 5K
23:50 giveaway where we're putting this all All Brands but giveaway and if you look
23:55 at the landing page when you opt into that giveaway you're opting into all of the sponsor's email address so it's it's
24:02 lead gen for all of them um not necessarily lead gen for us interesting for us it's it's it's brand
24:09 awareness surprise and delight and then selfishly um if we can produce a good
24:17 show with certainty we're we're pitching it so you know we had a Netflix TV show
24:22 um a Netflix original series and it didn't it didn't get renewed so we're
24:28 technically on the market um so we'll we'll probably pitch this in some capacity to I don't know if we'll pitch
24:35 it to Netflix again but we'll pitch it to Amazon with certainty and then you know all the secondary streaming
24:41 services as well the the peacocks and the the Paramount are are you GNA uh
How is the production of the BattlGames
24:46 pitch it and then if it's sold they come out and film it because I think about trying to film this the from a
24:52 production level standpoint and I mean the budget for that has got to be six figures just to film something plus you
24:58 know to film something in decent quality over the course of multiple days and edit it and do all that stuff that's just a ton of work so how are you how
25:05 are you thinking about uh putting this thing together on the so we we we won't film it and and
25:12 they won't film it either we'll um uh Super Lucky super fortunate very good
25:19 friend of mine name his name is Jeremy Miller he is um he has a bunch of he's
25:26 he's a he's a he's a filmographer right he's a video guy um he's shot some pretty pretty big things and he has a
25:33 lot of red cameras and just you know topnotch stuff and he he's doing it he's
25:40 he's hiring a crew of I think five or six guys uh I'll go him and I will drive
25:46 down to the site in the next couple weeks take a look at it and he's doing it at uh probably less than Market um R and uh
25:57 he's he's is a good friend that's cool and then and then to be fair though you know that's a big chunk of it that's
26:04 hard the editing piece is is difficult to we we have a team we have three full-time video editors um and and
26:12 they're they're going to be ready and it's go time as soon as we start getting the getting the content yeah yeah what
How is his media team composed
26:18 is your media team I media is such a huge media and content is such a huge part of what you do what does your media
26:24 and content team look like in terms of you you know roles number of people in those rol also like where they are in the world
26:30 State Side versus other places I'd love to hear more about that sure so so it's
26:36 it's I think it's a it's it's a rather small team but the reality is the you
26:41 know most DDC Brands don't have three full-time video editors that's probably the most most unusual piece so we on the
26:48 marketing side we have three full-time video editors we have two um uh graphic
26:54 artists that that do more more still less video um we have our our head of marketing
27:02 that leads marketing Walter we have uh Brandon who's head of content so he's
27:08 face of the brand uh we have Austin who he's been in some of the videos he's um
27:15 he's leading battle games but he's he's our director of content the social media
27:21 manager um we have a marketing coordinator that's pretty much it so I
27:28 guess it is kind of it is a beefy beefy team you look at um yeah you yeah I guess it is a beefy
27:35 team um in retro you know relative to to our size and what we do um we're we're
27:42 remote so so you know we're everywhere from Georgia to Tennessee um Curtis on
27:51 her team he's in Toronto uh we're we're pretty pretty well um spread and our our
27:57 head video editor um is Jay and and and his team um are all offsh they're
28:05 they're they're battlbox team members but um they're in the Philippines Philippines okay man when when was that
How has his revenue grown to now
28:12 and kind of what rough level of Revenue have you grown to now so we we really hit um we were we we moved fast and it
28:20 was pure timing and and luck we didn't know what we were doing it was 2015 and
28:26 we're acquiring customers for $5 and is that good I don't know um a lot
28:31 different than than today and you know we were exclusively advertising on Facebook and that was it um so in 2015
28:39 we La so we launched in February right before Valentine's Day I was fully on
28:46 board and part of the team in the month of February so about two weeks after launch
28:52 um and in 2015 we finished the year with think four and a half million in Revenue
28:58 um in 2016 there was
29:04 clear in in April there was a clear path our run rate we were going to do eight
29:09 figures in Revenue that year and that that allowed for me to make the
29:17 transition and and not take a wild haircut with sales in comp um so at that
29:24 point it it made sense so that to uh I guess there were there were four of us
29:30 that were Partners at the time so when I I came on in April and then we treed up
29:37 two of the partners um so they were making the same amount as as as I had
29:42 requested um and then as soon as I came on my first task
29:48 was buying out uh the fourth partner which which was fun um not fun and uh so
29:55 they were quickly down to three of us and and yeah we were off to the races at that point man and so guessing safe to
30:03 say probably grown past the you know 10 million Mark here in
30:08 2024 um what what have you learned about you know you mentioned I don't know if there's still three Partners in the
Lessons Learned About Partnerships
30:14 business H what have you learned about yes but no the whole another wild story
30:19 there yeah I guess question is you know I got a little bit of a taste for putting the last three four years first
30:26 time ever putting together and you know either operational companies or Investments with lots of Partners and
30:32 it's a totally different ball game completely different and so fraught with potential issues what did you uh what
30:40 are couple one or two of the key lessons you learned from having multiple business partners over the last you know almost 10
30:46 years oh man it was it's not good it's here here's the deal um it's when
30:54 it's good it can be great when it's not good it's really bad
31:00 um fortunately now knock on wood I have I have two business there's three of us now um we are not the same three as
31:09 before and the three of us myself um Patrick and Richard we work so well
31:15 together we're almost like a three-way yin-yang and we know each other so well
31:21 on on where my core competency where Richard's is where Patrick's is we help
31:26 each other but we we empower each other to stay in our proper Lanes there's full trust it's it's an amazing experience um
31:34 we didn't have that and that caused major major major issues it was it was a
31:40 nightmare so when we got to a certain size we just started running into problems and uh man it's tough business
31:49 partners are tough and picking the right ones are tough and it's uh I will tell
31:54 you when you find the right ones though it's you you hold on to them right and hopefully they're they're they whether
32:01 they were or they become friends that makes that makes it it great um so yeah
32:09 so there were three of us there were four then there were three and then we started hitting major turmoil animosity
32:17 issues with the three of us um different direction amount of work being put in
32:23 was not equal um all The Usual Suspects of of a bad partnership and we got to a
Crazy story of how they sold to a SPAC, it declined by 90% and they bought the company back on the cheap
32:30 point one of us um wanted to be done and
32:36 retire and they hadn't really been working much in the in the last couple of years so we were like okay we don't
32:43 want to give up and quit we want to continue we think we can make this bigger and better and cooler um so we
32:50 had a weird spot where we all agreed that um a 6X iida was a fair valuation
32:59 but there's no world where I'm as a as a just a guy um going to be able to
33:04 justify a 6xa which doesn't make sense I'm not some large company like even if
33:10 we are continuing to grow like six-year payback or five year payback if we're
33:16 growing slightly is just not reasonable realistic so we knew we had to find a buyer um or a partner and we found one
33:24 we found one in 2021 and uh
33:29 they they spoke the language and they spoke kind of what we what we were chatting about and and we seemed aligned
33:36 and um we we we we did the deal so we got acquired in October 2021 by uh Spa so
33:45 publicly traded um out of Toronto and um if you if you follow the markets at all
33:52 um spaxx the story of spaxs in 2021 and 2022 is not a very good story um so you
34:01 know we got acquired go ahead SE just quick thing for people who aren't familiar if you've heard that term a spack is it's almost like a shell
34:07 company that trades publicly and then has money to go out and and acquire
34:12 another company so it's an easy way for companies to go public it's also they also call them blank check companies sometimes so just little little Back
34:19 Back info for folks listening no that's well well done that's spot on so you
34:25 know we we went from the acquisition two of us stayed on um one of our
34:30 partners Daniel was able to retire and be done and and and go live his life Patrick and I stayed on um a few years
34:39 prior we had um brought on gentleman named Richard and Richard ended up being
34:45 our he came on as our CFO um and just a godsend to us right we did not know what
34:52 we were doing on the you know the financial efficiency side we were not
34:57 not making wise smart decisions he got our house in order and when when we got
35:03 acquired he he wanted to stay on as well um so you know even when he came on in a
35:10 very short order when we still own the business he came on and uh he he had a
35:16 he had a a seat at the table right we we trusted him like like he was a principal
35:22 so he stayed on the three of us stayed on um into the acquisition market cap takes us back
35:29 from 160 million down to just a free a freef fall um I think today
35:35 it's trading at a market cap of maybe six million Canadian um so you know more than
35:43 90% like it's a big big drop um we saw an opportunity so they they needed cash um
35:51 there was a debt facility and um that they needed to make payments on and we came up to an
35:58 agreement and in a was mutually beneficial in April of last year we we
36:03 bought bought the business back Richard Patrick and myself no kidding what is that's a crazy
36:09 story I have never I've talked to a lot of people I've never heard of anyone who sold your back and then then rebot it
36:15 that's wild yeah it's not you know we we sold the business we got paid it was uh
36:20 60% upfront cash um like we we we did it and there was obviously the 40% was
36:26 earnout so we were sticking around for that but like we had the exit that that was the end of the chapter and
36:33 uh um it ended up not being the end of the chapter it was just it was simple
36:39 you know we weren't done we're obviously emotionally attached to this brand we obviously love battle box so you know
36:46 emotions um were a part of it but at a simplistic business view was Arbitrage
36:53 we were able we were able to sell for a 6xe the business didn't fundamentally
36:59 change it had maybe a 10% drop in everything um and we were able to get it
37:05 back at a 1x oh I mean that worked out I mean obviously not maybe the route you
37:10 would have chosen but financially worked out incredibly well for you oh it it it was you know we we timed it perfectly
37:17 you can't time those things but we sold it the absolute high of direct consumer valuations and then we bought it
37:23 arguably the low so for people listening who prob aren't going to have luck
37:28 replicating you're pretty incredible story here in terms of the sell sell High by low uh spack spack at roller
37:34 coaster ride what would you have changed what would you go back and tell assume that didn't happen it wasn't
37:40 financially profitable for you and you just had all the suffering with that the payday what would you go back and tell you know John from 10 years ago when
37:47 you're getting when you're writing that check when you're writing that operating agreement to put in place as safeguards
37:52 when you have multiple part Partners would it be some kind of opt out for buying or some kind of what what
Restructuring Agreements for Smoother Sailing
37:58 how would you change the structure of the agreement to try to prevent some of that pain that you had to endure so it's
38:04 it's really interesting because um when I when I came on my uh first not
38:12 full-time as an employee 14 months later but in the beginning in February when I wrote the check um I had a a
38:19 small uh list of items that had to be done in very short order and I was going
38:24 to rento on those and number one was operating agreement and the operating agreement was actually written um how I
38:31 would write it today it called this stuff out very very well um very crystal
38:38 clear it was um very minority shareholder friendly um so me coming in
38:46 not having as as as much initially as everyone else um it it it called that
38:53 out and protected protected my interests and it was very very written fairly but
38:58 the reality is while it was written fairly while it allowed for us to do
39:04 what we needed to do those were launch codes those were nuclear missile it was
39:10 it was the the button you know that that you don't want to hit when you hit it there's no coming back from it and there
39:16 were um there were years of friendship intertwined in this and nobody was
39:23 willing to hit the nuke button and so I I I wouldn't have changed anything
39:31 with the operating agreement calling out it was all done how it should have been done the reality
39:37 is jumping into business when you're friends first um just adds a a layer
39:45 of of trouble and and variance and it's
39:50 it's difficult and it's not that what I'm saying isn't unique right I I have a friend um she started a business
39:58 a subscription business too with a friend and uh 5050 and it's they're
40:04 going through the same thing right like people change you don't really know people um a specific way until you're
40:11 doing business together so it's I I would almost caution if your friends first looking at
40:19 business I would just really caution it and and have the conversation the awkward conversation of
40:26 hey we're putting these things in there like we put them in there but we never talked about them and talking about them
40:32 probably I'd say they would have been healthy and maybe help they wouldn't have we were it was so toxic it wouldn't
40:38 have mattered but just having the awkward conversations and calling out hey you
40:44 know we're putting this in here and this is why and I think while it might not have worked out for us I think it would
40:50 have still still probably a best practice just to just to try to plan plan for hope for the best plan for the
40:56 worst yeah I think the real reality what I'm taking away is having the language in there is one
41:02 thing but being willing to act on it at the cost of the relationship is a totally another thing so and we weren't
41:09 and we we were not willing to do that yeah that makes a ton of sense how
41:16 um yeah when you think about like the stuff that you sell I'm sure you know so
Marketing Challenges in Survival Products
41:22 a lot of uh some weapons some survival stuff some stuff I'm sure is not problematic at all others I'm imagining
41:28 probably like knives are have are difficult to advertise on for platforms do you do have what have you learned
41:34 about trying to to advertise with some of these more restricted product categories um is it something that
41:40 you've tried to work around and try to like uh you know figured out some workarounds for on the platforms or do
41:46 you just pretty much kind of assume that hey for that stuff we've got to use organic content and we're not going to
41:52 be able to use paid ads to to magnify and drive traffic for those type of product categories it's it's it's really
41:58 difficult so our you know we talked about our four tiers basic Advance pro pro plus Pro Plus 50% of our base in is
42:07 in um the boxes stack so the Pro Plus is everything from the basic the advance and the pro and one additional item that
42:14 additional item that's 50% of our base is the knife of the month very very difficult um to talk
42:22 about so you know we've we've gone through so many iterations got um we got
42:29 kicked off of Facebook for a couple of years um 20 it actually the end of 2015
42:37 we got kicked off for a week but in uh 2017 we were kicked off um arguably
42:45 indefinitely um from advertising with the battlbox brand and and still the
42:50 battlbox brand on Facebook does not advertise um we we spun up um add
42:57 Facebook pages micro sites just headless before headless was cool um and we
43:04 literally created a process where new ad account new Facebook page um new new
43:10 headless landing page uh when they hit checkout it redirected them to the
43:15 battlbox Shopify instance um we did that for a while we had some crazy
43:21 coding on our site where if um there were UTM parameters in the traffic
43:27 um which all of our Facebook ads had um it would see those parameters and it
43:34 would just completely changed the site and the site was way different than if you just went to it directly it would
43:40 hide stuff swap out pictures um it basically would make it a a Disney rated
43:46 G for everyone experience um we've yeah we've gone through so many
43:55 so many iterations and and also gotten stuff that just doesn't make sense like
44:01 we got in trouble on Facebook for organic for an organic picture of a
44:07 knife not running an ad um so it's it's challenging we run
44:12 very PG um PG ads PG landing pages um we
44:20 when we can avoid a knife we we do and we'll we'll even have fun at it like
44:25 we'll show we'll show it and then put a massive like censored for Facebook like almost ComEd comedic approach towards it
44:33 um Facebook sorry to interrupt it is Facebook's official policy obviously they're not going to let you show
44:39 imagery of knives or things like that but will they go do they go as far to say like hey you know um your company
44:45 sells knives therefore you can't do any advertising on Facebook even if you're just selling like let's say you're running an ad for a first aid kit um is
44:52 it that Draconian Draconian or is it is it is it only if you're showing the explicit prohibitor item
44:59 so it it depends on who you ask um you look at and in our relationship with
45:05 meta right now is the best it's ever been we have um actually two weeks ago we had no last week we had a call with
45:13 uh we've been assigned this special special team and and these aren't like the usual hey I'm your new Facebook rep
45:21 um I just graduated and I'm only going to be rep for 90 days and then you'll meet a new one um these are like season
45:28 bats like like we were our Ad Agency was on we were talking about people we both
45:34 knew in Austin and like these guys have have been there a while so we're we're
45:40 in the best shape we've ever been in with Med and we're excited about it but um no it it it depends on who you ask
45:48 because you look at their largest advertisers the Walmarts of the world that with certainty sell weapons yeahh
45:55 there's advertisers that sell guns um but they're not promoting it so at
46:00 times it almost feels like a double double standard and if you're not spending you know what that magic number
46:06 is is it is it is it over a million a month to get their attention and make it okay we've never spent that much um and
46:14 we we haven't gotten close to spending a million in a month with them so I don't
46:20 know it's it's you don't get a very straightforward answer um technically
46:27 the guidance is is don't don't advertise it don't show it um and you know make it where
46:34 it's at least three clicks away from from the landing page and that's kind of
46:40 the best practice so don't you know just don't have it there three clicks that's
46:45 a lot I mean you can get a lot of places with three clicks that's that's tough it seems like
46:52 it also though as much of a pain as it is it also seems like it would create a
46:57 bit of a mo where if you're good at organic content if you're good at creating awareness if you're good at
47:02 understanding how those games work to get into a category because there's complexity right anytime there's complexity there's opportunity to to be
47:08 able to figure it out and and it's going to keep it's going to be a mode to keep other people out spot on and and and and there is a
47:16 mode um and you know I think that's part of you know I'd like to think there's a
47:21 lot of reasons content Community being one of them too but the the barrier to entry to figure F that out is is what
47:28 certainly another one of the reasons why you know we have the The Lion Share of
47:33 this little niche we in um Market spend so it's definitely a piece of it John I
How does he invest time outside of business
47:41 got a complete non- business related question for you a big part of the mission that that I have like with
47:47 Ecommerce field is to help uh encourage entrepreneurs to be successful at
47:52 business and life right like a lot of times people it's you know one of the other but I like the and there for you
47:58 like you've obviously had a ton of success in business uh a great exit a great Reby at a great rate you know
48:03 you've built something meaningful over a decade um you've done well there what areas like how are you trying to win at
48:10 life as well like what are an what's an area or two that you're super passionate about that you try to invest time in um
48:16 outside of business that uh you think makes like a really rich life for you um
48:21 so I uh this year uh birth of of my first child my uh son in January and
48:30 that's I I don't have multiple things if outside of business that's that's all I
48:36 care about that's that's my concern obviously everything that goes with that my wife you know my parents um Family F
48:44 family is the number one number one thing I care about outside of business man well congrats on your son
48:51 he's uh so he's six months old now yeah six months um yeah he born January 24th
48:58 so 6 months tomorrow but he came really he came two months early so he's technically effective 4 months that was
49:06 uh 36 Days in the in the NICU was was a challenge oh my gosh that sounds insane
49:13 super super healthy now you would have never known he's on the chart for normal normal size six-month-old so oh yeah
49:20 that must have been the most intense month of your life I'm guessing probab istically yeah came came early I was um
49:27 out of town too man well so glad he's healthy and
49:32 and doing great yeah that's awesome um yeah that's all my all my focus if it's
49:38 not on business is on family and it's very I know a lot of people have other things but so I can so I can handle
49:45 right now it's a good good priority um well battle uh you know in terms of well
What is ASOM and how do they work on the podcast
49:52 before we talk about that awesome pod you've got a podcast that you've launched with some some other folks and awesome is
49:58 Asom Asom pod.com can you talk a little bit about that podcast what it is and what you
50:04 talk about and who might uh want to go check that out after they finish this episode we use a a development agency
50:10 and we'd have a weekly call so we started recording just our our our weekly call and then throw it to a video
50:17 editor have him find three to four you know couple minute video shorts from it
50:22 so awesome stands for agency software is a service operator and marketer so it's
50:28 just four unique perspectives and we we talk about e-commerce topics so
50:33 everything from from AI to planning for Black Friday Cyber Monday to um scaling
50:39 to um just just about everything business and Ecom related and uh the
50:46 last thing about it the weird unusual piece is we we film it in person which
50:52 is great when I live in Atlanta Jimmy lives in Texas Texas Amir lives in
50:58 Illinois and uh Brian lives in Connecticut so we're geographically really close to each other so do you do
51:07 you record it I'm guessing not weekly is it every month you record an episode so
51:12 uh new episode every Thursday um we film in
51:17 batches so um so this Friday I'm flying
51:23 up to Connecticut for the day and we'll we'll do five EP epod so we'll sit down
51:28 we have a studio for six hours and we'll just knock out Knock Out you know a little over a month man
51:36 that's I think that's such a good the energy in person is so much better it's so much easier to talk conversations are
51:42 better I've thought about that too at this podcast like even if you just invited people on the podcast had a
51:47 great Studio flew them in and put them up even if it's a even if it's $1,500 a guest you know I think the the level of
51:53 Rapport that you have the final discussion out put like it's all better and I've I've thought seriously about
51:59 trying to do that and I'm guessing that's the experience you've had as well doing it live yeah 100 100% it's um so
52:06 we'll go you know we're not at the point where we're having guests yet um and I don't think we'll ever have guests
52:11 regularly but we'll at some point have have a guest or two but we'll get so we typically come in the night before and
52:17 we all have dinner we didn't know each other before this so we're still kind of getting to know each other but having
52:23 you know breaking bread and having dinner with with the individuals and just getting to know each other on a
52:28 more personal level and then it just it makes the next day and in person just so
52:34 much um it's just it it's it's tough to replicate yeah that's that's I'm gonna
Conclusions and Final Thoughts
52:41 keep that in mind well John thank you so much if you're listening to this uh battlbox.com that's battle without an e
52:47 so B A TL box.com check it out very cool business and like we talked about
52:53 earlier um it's such an interesting model where it is a physical products business but
52:58 not really it's really a membership it's really content driven and and that the products just kind of uh help make it
53:05 all possible but uh such a cool cool model you've built congrats on the success congrats on the timing glad you
53:11 had some partnership issues that actually ended up helping out you know benefit you in the long run and uh yeah man loved hearing about what you've done
53:18 and and uh and built so thanks for coming on and Sharon this has been a lot of fun Andrew thanks so much for having
53:23 me this is fun