In this episode of CEOAFTERDARK, host George Kapernaros sits down with John Roman, the mastermind behind BattlBox, the outdoor subscription brand that became a media machine. John shares how he:
Scaled BattlBox into a DTC powerhouse
Sold it (at peak market conditions)
Built a Netflix show around the brand
Created a content engine where 60% of revenue comes from organic
From leveraging YouTube reviews in 2015 before influencer seeding was even a term, to scaling a full-time creator team and managing post-exit pitfalls—John breaks down what it really takes to build community, turn creators into cashflow, and why content is the real moat in DTC today.
Whether you’re a brand founder, marketer, or creator—this episode is a masterclass in strategic content and brand building.
Transcript from video:
Introduction to John Roman and BattlBox
0:00 what is the type of content that gets the most results one of the biggest lessons was you got to have audited
0:07 financials if you get to a certain size the skill set and the the oh moment
0:12 of being careful is when you scale right making sure you either yourself or you
0:17 quickly align a team that has all the needed core competencies right like you don't want to do it wrong and you know
0:23 you're out of business because you couldn't manage cash flow correctly the effectiveness of genuine content on the
0:29 direct to consumer side and and the reason why UGC performs so well for most
0:34 brands is the same reason adding those those other harder variables to the mixup in person spending time on the
0:41 script the reality is it it transfers over through the video to the person
0:46 ingesting it and they can see hey guys and welcome to the Se after dark show i have John Roman with me who built
0:53 BattlBox into a subscription powerhouse um he scaled it he sold it he bought it
0:59 back u which is interesting and he's basically super deep into the
1:04 subscription uh space he's deep in content marketing and he's also the
1:10 co-host of the awesome podcast uh which means that he has also like a
1:16 media company running on the side which is sounding like a lot to me and hopefully he's going to tell us how he
1:21 does all of this at the same time john thank you for uh joining me hey George thanks for having me excited to be here
1:29 what are you working on these days you're you're doing obviously quite a lot so like what's your main focus
1:35 um so so main f main focus probably across the board is is doubling down on
1:41 on content so for the BattlBox side you know we're started in 2015
1:48 um outdoor adventure brand the the flagship product is the membership which
1:54 includes a physical box every month and uh you know
1:59 that's 80 85% of our revenue um so it's substantial um but a lot of the secret
2:06 sauce with BattlBox through the years is the content piece so content and community are these two pillars we lead the business by and you know every every
2:14 year we we look at how do we tweak how do we make it better and with the with the consistent rise in costs in in
2:23 customer acquisition across AC across the board right it's you know for us it's twofold it's the traditional rising
2:31 cs of of the metas of the world just because that's what's going on non-stop
2:36 and then you know we're I don't want to say a saturated brand but you know there's estab we're
2:44 established there is some saturation because you know we've been advertising now for 10 years right um so I think you
The Power of Content!
2:51 put both of those together and you're obviously going to have um CAC challenges at a certain point especially
2:56 when you're in niche so the the working theory is we have all this great content
3:02 it's it's a little untraditional in the sense that you know probably about 60%
3:07 of our uh customers come from organic content as the top of funnel and then we
3:13 move them through the normal process but you know so so the working theory is we're we're doubling down on our on our
3:20 uh frequency of content so typically we're at about 1.3 posts a day on
3:26 average uh per platform and and we're going to get that you know north of of
3:31 2.4 this year with with the play being purely uh top of funnel for for the TTOC
3:38 business and then on the awesome side it's it's the same thing it's it's content right so um it's how do we
3:46 continue to grow grow that the all all all channels you know YouTube is is our
3:53 is our flagship channel with certainty but we need to figure out how to how to how to do better on Spotify and even
4:00 grow you know YouTube to to a substantial number i want another I want two more of these this year and Awesome
4:07 is going to hopefully uh get me one of them that's super interesting i mean
4:12 like I I speak to a lot of people in the ecom space and like to me it seems that
4:18 most of them are addicted to paid content like advertising basically so it's super interesting how you guys are
4:24 focusing so much on organic like first of all did you start like this or is this a new thing yeah so you know I I
4:31 can sit on a high horse and talk about how how great organic is but I do have a a sacred addiction to paint as well um
4:39 you know it's still it's still a bad addiction it's uh but no so we we we
4:44 didn't start like this we but we got there pretty quickly so we launched in 2015 um
4:52 and you know 2015 playbook for us we sent out um you know month one we sent
5:00 out about 30 of our boxes to YouTubers um and we wanted organic reviews
5:06 unbiased just shoot us straight and obviously we selected you know YouTubers with with decent following and that was
5:13 part of our playbook you know that's probably pretty standard now to to I
5:18 mean it's a that's just a different flavor of influencer seating right it's you're getting the product out there
5:23 organically so it to be fair though not a lot of people were doing it in 2015
5:28 right it wasn't it wasn't the standard part of everyone's playbook so we we had a lot of success with that to also you
5:35 know predate us in in 2015 prior to checkout we had a post-purchase survey
5:41 where we were asked you how you found out about us that had all the usual all the usual suspects you know Facebook
5:46 Instagram Twitter Pinterest um etc and there was another option and you
5:54 know in the first couple months we were seeing about at times 20 30% of people
6:00 um and you know we're getting we're on boarding I think month one we onboarded 300 new customers month two month three
6:07 2400 so it was getting of significant um subscriber base but they were all
Organic Growth vs Paid Advertising Strategies
6:13 clicking other they were putting current 1776 in we're like "Okay what is that?"
6:19 We find his YouTube page he's doing reviews we go to our Google sheet where we're sending all of our comp boxes he's
6:25 not on there he's he's a paid he's a customer in our top box paying and every
6:31 month just doing a review but man his his YouTube channel was growing people
6:37 are tuning in every month to see this video and we quickly realized hey you know step one was you don't have to buy
6:43 a box anymore we're going to keep sending this to you um a couple months went by and it was step two was "Hey
6:50 we're continuing to see this growth we're gonna you know write your check for $500 every month keep doing it but you know also if you have a problem with
6:57 a product let us know and we need you to post it on this day every month." And then the next conversation was "Hey um
7:05 do you want to quit your day job and just do this full-time and move down here and just we're going to we're going
7:11 to you know quadruple down on content." So you're doing one video of the the review each month but like I'm
7:18 envisioning this is your full-time job this is your career now career change and you're just going to push out as
7:24 much content as possible and uh you know that he he he moved his
7:31 family and wife and three kids and quit his uh 20 plus year career um and came
7:39 down and and and we started shooting content and you know that scaled too
7:45 when day one he was the guy in front of the camera he was the camera guy he was the video editor he was the guy posting
7:51 it he was farm the table and you know now he has you know three full-time video editors supporting his content and
7:59 you know a social media coordinator and a social media manager and um it's
8:04 changed a lot but it's always been since 2016 this push on content we obviously
8:10 had our our Netflix show um in 2020 which was just a just more of what we
8:17 were doing so it's always been a piece
8:22 and it's always made scaling on you know the metas of the world easier because we
8:30 can be prospecting on there we can run the entire all of our campaigns on reprospecting we don't even have to
8:36 necessarily even carve out a percentage for reprospecting uh we often do but we
8:41 can just do fully prospecting on there and the reality is probably about 30% of it is true prospecting but about 70% of
8:49 it is is more of a already in funnel and we just don't know because you know I
8:56 can't get a pixel on a guy that just is watching our Tik Tok videos right that's not engaging besides liking and
The Importance of Authentic Content
9:03 commenting and sharing they're not going to our website so it's cool because oftentimes prospecting is is also really
9:11 midfunnel for us so it's a super bizarre thing you know uh 40% of our base take
9:17 greater than six they know about us greater than six months before making that first purchase um which is a long
9:24 time right we have about 20% that come in the traditional you know week week and a half but but for 40% to know about
9:32 us for greater than six months it's just very unusual DTOC behavior um because
9:38 we've leaned so hard into the content and the community piece i want to talk
9:44 about the Netflix show that you've done because I'm I'm super curious and I mean it's quite rare that somebody has a
9:50 Netflix show but before I get into this do you mind like telling us in your view in your experience what is the type of
9:57 content that gets the most results i'm assuming it is feeling authentic it is
10:03 like user generated like that that type of thing is the narrative at least that I see but what's your take on that from
10:10 the trenches yeah and so so it's that right so it's it's it's genuiness it's authentic uh being authentic it's
10:17 educational it's funny it's it's real right it's it's humanized um we don't
10:24 sell we don't we don't very very very rarely I won't say never but you know 90
10:31 95% of our content we're not even selling we're either educating showing a
10:36 product that we're reviewing to determine if it's going to go in a box behind the scenes stuff we're we're not
10:42 saying "Hey sign up for a subscription." Right yeah that that's never it's never it's never a pitch um and I think I
10:49 think that's that's key right people don't want to be sold to um and when people get sold to it it just doesn't
10:58 you you you don't like it right it just needs to be natural organic in their feed they're like "Oh that's cool the
11:05 this you know these guys are showing me how to how to get out of you know um masking tape." uh if you're stuck or how
11:12 to break a window or stuff like that so it's just fun educational and just genuine humanized
11:18 and like would you say that what you did is like a playbook that others can follow like basically like made make a
11:24 seed list really of people that you send the product to and then you pick the people that get traction and then kind
11:30 of like try to incentivize them in a way to produce more like how like I I guess
11:35 my question is if I'm a new brand owner and I want to get into creating organic content that kind of gets me business
11:42 results what would you suggest I do yeah so so going our our exact playbook is is
11:50 a pretty difficult one because not often are you going to be able to find an upandcoming creator
11:57 um so much of it was timing and you know they were a paying customer and then to
Building Community with Creators
12:02 be able to have the resources to say "Hey quit your job you know we're going to pay you more money come full-time
12:08 onto us." Full-time creator is an aggressive move um that I don't know
12:13 that you know I I it's tough to replicate and I don't even know if it's the necessarily the right playbook
12:19 clearly worked out for us but um if if I'm going traditional playbook it's it's
12:26 it's just building building so people say building community and I think there's a bunch of different ways to do
12:32 it and you should be doing multiple ways there's there's building community on the the actual consumer right your
12:38 customer side but let's talk about building community on on the creator
12:43 influencer side so you know we have a Discord group that um you know our
12:48 marketing coordinator set up um so he's reaching out to creators on Tik Tok
12:53 creators on YouTube um and he's just creating this community right and we'll
12:59 have contests you know we're having um a Tik Tok shop contest right now for all of our creators and the uh it's running
13:08 for all of Q1 and whoever gets the most sales we're just giving them $2,500 in cash um and every week we're showing the
13:16 standings we're showing who's winning who's who went up and down the rankings and just building community we're also
13:24 you know sharing best practices it's it's bigger than just us right like we're just talking about you know what's
13:31 working what's not working you have a random creator sharing something that's working for him to another creator so
13:37 when you create community like that and you get people engaged and it's mutually beneficial
13:43 um you you can accomplish great things and I think I think that making it less
13:49 transactional you know it's not just yes yes yes you're you're you're going to send this influencer or creator this
13:56 product and you know you're going to have them sign something and yes they're they're going to then um post a video or
14:02 whatever the agreement is but that's so transactional like make it a relationship right like yeah it can have
14:09 a transactional core to it but like build on it right work with people you like work with people that are
14:16 passionate it kind of takes care of itself right you just you you can't look at it in a
14:21 in a with blinders on and it it Yeah it's just you you've got to be a little
14:28 bit more open um I compare it to when I was finally able I was such a lagger in
14:33 being able to uh you know I'm talking post iOS world when when you know there
14:39 was this shift where you have to look at everything kind of in a blended CAC world a lot of times and I was just so
14:46 stuck in no I need to know what the CAC is on on this platform and this platform
14:51 and I don't I don't care about this platform if I'm looking at this platform but I finally like understood oh wow
14:59 blended K actually works because my increase in connected TV over here is actually driving down my meta cost over
15:06 here and little things like that it's the same thing you just got to kind of look at the big picture sometimes and
The Journey to a Netflix Show
15:12 and and act accordingly how did it go with a Netflix show i mean how did this happen even in the first
15:19 place man it so in in 20
15:26 17 so three three and a half years before we premiered the show the show
15:31 premiered July 4th weekend on Netflix and it's a Netflix original series um
15:38 and they uh we had a a studio High Noon Entertainment so they're known the two
15:45 feathers in their cap uh fixer upper and uh Cake Boss are their two like big big
15:52 brand shows that they have so they reached out to us they had seen our content um they want they had received
15:59 some money from the History Channel to shoot a sizzle reel which I didn't know
16:04 at the time and I don't even know if they really exist to the full extent that they do now but you know you shop
16:10 the sizzle reel to try to get money for a pilot episode and then if the pilot gets well you try to get money for a
16:16 full season so they reached out they wanted to shoot a sizzle reel we shot the sizzle reel um we were excited
16:24 history Channel sat on it for six seven months finally told us no they took it
16:29 to the Discovery Network again six seven months told us no um it it there were
16:37 some in between on that and you know fast forward it's 20
16:46 um it's 2019 the start of 2019 so it's been it's been you know two two years of
16:53 us trying to figure this out and we can't the production studio tells us "Hey we're meeting with a couple people
16:59 this January two of them one Walmart's uh streaming platform I think it was called Voodoo i don't know if it's
17:05 around anymore and Netflix and uh they met with Netflix and Netflix literally
17:11 in the meeting is like well we're not going to we don't do sizzle reels or pilots like we'll we'll we'll give you
17:17 money for one one season and we want you know the right uh of of refusal in the
17:23 next seven and that's just it's just go time and uh they came back to us and there's
17:31 uh several weeks of of back and forth and us trying to figure out this world
17:37 and we ended up agreeing to it and uh you know Netflix paid for the whole
17:43 thing they they came in the second half of 2019 filmed for 5 months came back
17:51 again in January just to get some re-shotss of of stuff for continuity and
17:56 then uh it went live July 4th weekend in 2020 it was uh not fun to work with if
18:03 I'm being honest they um they so so I wasn't on the uh the show right i wasn't
18:10 part of the talent um there there was a initially when we were going through the
18:16 concepts and the sizzle room I I was comfortable being on the show um the Netflix ass of their talent uh it was a
18:24 bit much and not something I I was comfortable with um you know 24hour
18:30 notice you have to be anywhere uh domestically n in the US for promotion
18:36 like just like strange ass um clearly like like your talent and uh so I wasn't
18:43 on the show but the Netflix team that was our point of contact the entire time
18:49 they were a talent management team so they wouldn't talk to me like at all
18:56 like like the people on the show would they'd get an email from Netflix hey let's meet Friday at 10 o'clock they'd
The Impact of the Netflix Show on Business
19:03 reply back and say hey we're adding in in John to the email so he can come to the call they'd reply back remove me
19:09 from it and say no John is on on the show and and these are like very important conversations
19:16 because we have to prepare as a business for this like you're already taking four of our employees off that we're having
19:22 to backfill you're already um you know we're having to go to production and and and try to make a guess that when a
19:29 Netflix show what does that do to traffic like they can't tell us that information we're we're we're making
19:34 million-dollar decisions on cost of product to be ready for the show to drop
19:40 and they won't even have a comp they won't even talk to us uh so it just it wasn't a great experience if I'm being
19:46 honest the sounds really messed up to be and I mean when it went live did it actually
19:52 move the needle like was it helpful for like in a business so we somehow forecasted it correctly uh pure luck
19:59 pure luck that we that that we nailed it but um we were prior to Netflix we were
20:05 getting about 150,000 unique visitors a month on our site um in July 2020 the
20:14 month that Netflix went live uh we got 1.2 million unique visitors
20:22 now George they didn't convert and behave in the same manner i can imagine
20:27 yeah you know it's not it's not highly targeted people but uh you know we we knew we knew that that was going to be
20:34 the case so you know we we had um you know traditionally we just had
20:39 the above fold CDA and we're pushing the membership subscription box but um in
20:44 preparation for the show we had two CTAs above the fold one was shop products
20:50 from the show and it was literally by episode all the products we tested on
20:55 the show to purchase in addition to the membership so you know the membership grew exponentially with with that much
21:02 traffic um but we also made a lot of onetime sales so it was it was big i mean it you know the the second for for
21:10 several months afterwards our our organ our or our uh monthly visitors was still
21:17 elevated on a 2 to 3x and even even to this day like uh you look at our
21:22 post-purchase survey where did you first hear about us and to this day if I look right now last 30 days four or five% of
21:30 people are saying the Netflix show so it was very long in the tooth which was surprising because and we're we're four
21:36 and a half years later overall like would you recommend it or not really
21:44 yeah i I I would I would I would recommend it um but it just was not fun to to manage
21:52 right um I think there's a lot of learning lessons um along the way mistakes that we made out of pure
Lessons Learned from Business Experiences
21:59 naivity the first time um and with certainty we wouldn't again like I think
22:05 we were so so excited about it we and we knew it was going to be a
22:13 good opportunity which it was but we we probably weren't we we probably allowed people to
22:19 run us over a little bit too much like like the fact that that other people of
22:25 leadership can't have a call about a show that's literally about our business and like this is missionritical like
22:32 that's just unacceptable right like sorry like we should have just at that
22:37 point know like but guess what if you're not going to talk to me then the talents not showing up tomorrow like like we we
22:45 should have probably been a little bit more um yeah less less pushover than we
22:52 probably were i can relate to that like from the agency standpoint when you have like a project that you're really
22:58 excited for you start like kind of like excusing things and then like suddenly
23:04 go out like I I get the feeling very well what you're saying yeah yeah because like it's it's exciting and it's
23:10 it's pretty and yeah you you you come up with excuses there's excuses
23:16 but you spoke about learnings and lessons learned so when you look back into not not just this particular
23:22 instance but overall like running the business selling rebying the business like you've been through a lot like what
23:27 are like some top um lessons that you that come to mind
23:33 and again like think about this in the following sense i'm a guy that wants to start a business like what would you
23:40 suggest that I keep in my mind as I'm like getting into entrepreneurship sure
23:46 um so so I'll hit the first part first um man it's a boring answer but it's the
23:53 first takeaway that that came to mind was if you're if you know there's a lot
23:59 of reasons to start a business right some of if you wanted a lifestyle business just cash just uh a lifestyle
24:06 that's one thing um you know if you want if it's if if you're wanting to start a
24:11 business because you want to build it to something and then sell it um it's uh it's an interesting approach
24:19 with the ladder and the one of the biggest lessons was um you got to have
24:25 audited financials if you get to a certain size and you want to be acquired um we did not so you know we knock on
24:33 wood we we somehow timed the market when we sold the business October 2021 when
24:39 it sold you know was arguably at or near the peak uh valuations for direct to
24:44 consumer brands but um would have closed sooner we had a letter of intent
24:51 um in in Q1 of of that year and it took us roughly I think eight nine months to
24:59 get the deal closed and the reason it took so long was um part of due diligence we needed audited financials
25:05 and we didn't have those and it was such a heavy lift uh I you know our our CFO
25:13 our controller I they they probably just wanted to lay in bed and not come to work at times like it was bad it was it
25:20 was a very aggressive um uh proctologology exam and it's uh
25:28 but you know we did it and you know after we were acquired we were acquired by a spa so we were publicly traded so
25:34 we we obviously had to continue and and honestly it got to a new level uh of of
25:40 what expectations were with our financials but when we bought the business back that was one of the things we said we're going to continue doing
25:47 audits and um audits and audited financials you know we we at the end of
25:53 the year we and we do we do inventory audits uh with a third party we do
Starting a Business in Today's Market
25:58 financial um audits and it's just it's such a best practice it sucks when
26:04 you're not doing it and that the thought process of having to do it is a little bit of uh has a little anxiety in it but
26:12 doing it is like such a game changer and when you know we get to that next chapter when we sell the business again
26:18 in a couple of years few years um it's just going to make the process that much easier here are our audited financials
26:25 like we're not going to argue back and forth on IBIDA at this point like this is the IBIDA this is the adjusted IBIDA
26:32 and if we're using that as the valuation this is the price um I think it'll just it'll streamline a lot of stuff if I'm
26:39 going to your second question I'm starting today it's a it's an
26:45 interesting approach but if I I think if I'm starting a
26:50 business today I'm getting myself out there with
26:55 content and building a community with content before the product
27:02 okay so so I'm trying to find some kind of content piece that I think people
27:08 will identify with that I can um be passionate about as well and I think if
27:15 you can build the audience they're going to tell you the product that they need um you know it's a very unusual approach
27:22 it's it's what it's this Mr beast Nelk Boys approach right where it's not like it was in their
27:28 original playbook that wasn't their playbook they just got big with content and audience and community and then they
27:35 were able to drop these businesses um in into them and they were instantly
27:40 successful right like you know how many brands on day one of launch can be in
27:47 every Walmart nationwide like no you can't do that right um so it
27:54 it's an interesting approach um that that would likely be the approach
28:00 um you know if I'm starting at this point I I I have an audience a couple different audiences so I would I would
28:07 lean lean in on that but yeah I I like the idea of creating enjoyable content
28:13 that you're passionate about finding your your tribe your community and then creating a product for them that Do do
28:20 you think this is something that anybody can do like for example you are obviously well spoken like you you are
28:26 like good uh a storyteller like can can anybody do this or is it like a learned
28:33 trait or is it just like being a natural I guess when it comes to Yeah I I think
28:38 I think you can learn it i think Yeah I think anybody can can do that anybody can learn it i think the the the skill
28:45 set and the the the oh moment of being careful is when you scale right
28:52 making sure you either yourself or you quickly um align a team that that has
28:58 all the needed core competencies right like you don't want to do it wrong and you know you're out of business because
29:04 you couldn't manage cash flow correctly or you didn't understand margins um or you didn't understand customer
29:10 experience so I I think anybody can do it but the the the rubber hits the road
29:15 when you get success and and how you manage manage the business at that point
29:21 um which is why you see a lot of creators uh where they they it's all
29:28 um you know they're just marketing companies right like like you look at Prime Energy uh or Prime Hydration right
29:37 i mean that they're just licensing I mean they're they're putting their name on something and then there's an actual
29:45 uh there's there's a different company producing it a different company running the business management right like um so
The Role of Podcasts in Business
29:52 I think a lot you know Mr beast was doing that i think he the guy he had that was running a lot of it I think
29:58 they split ways so I don't know how it's all being managed i also know he's having a lot of trouble um with with all
30:05 of the businesses so I think you can again look at them and the ones that were smart and found
30:13 the team right they knew they didn't have the core competency so I think I think self-realization of knowing what
30:20 your what your core strengths are and and what your weaknesses are and and and get a team or get get business partners
30:26 or get partners that that can kind of be your ying to your yang what's your take
30:32 on podcasts specifically like my I mean I'm not living in the US but as far as I can tell Putas like largely determined
30:39 the recent elections uh like more so that the the mainstream news did at least like that that's my understanding
30:45 of it so what's your take on that is this um a play you'd recommend or is it
30:52 like more about video content like how do you think about this um yeah so I mean I think it depends on on what
30:58 you're trying to accomplish i think I think B2B you know B2B I think podcasts
31:04 if you're putting together a good podcast you're you're getting good guests you're bringing good value good topics um I think it's great uh business
31:14 development uh lead lead genen um for for the the business for the same
31:21 reasons that as a direct to consumer brand we're talking about that organic content that isn't selling right so it's
31:27 it's the same theory on both sides it works um people want value added for
31:33 free they want to identify like um connect with with our DTOC with our
31:41 organic content with your podcasts and then it's just naturally in their mind when hey you know oh I want some outdoor
31:48 gear or hey I need an agency to help me figure out Facebook right and you're you're there front and center because
31:55 because you've you've you've injected yourself into the ecosystem with with quality content um so on the on the B2B
32:03 side I still think that that's the value of it um on the on the DTOC
32:08 side yeah not not as much but it's it's there too right um to your point on on
32:16 elections it you know supposedly I don't know if I fully buy in to that but the
32:22 reality is consumers are ingesting podcasts more and more and more um you
32:29 know podcasts are you you can watch it on your computer you can have it on in your car um you there's a there's a
32:36 couple podcasts that I I listen to regularly and it's it's part of my routine when I get in the car I put on
32:41 this podcast so it'll be interesting it's just another it's just another way to ingest right um the the value of of a
32:49 podcast is you know you don't have to be fully engaged with your with your device
32:55 to listen to it while you know short short form vertical content TikTok uh
33:00 YouTube reels or Instagram reels YouTube shorts you have to be engaged in and
The Value of In-Person Content Creation
33:06 looking and and swiping so I I I think uh there's a lot of podcasts currently
33:14 um it seems just to be the thing to do but I I think there is value if you can be a signal in the noise I have I have
33:21 this theory and I want to hear your take on it that the harder it is to do what you're currently doing the more likely
33:27 it is to succeed in a way so like the ocean awesome podcast for example that you guys are doing it's recorded live in
33:33 person like you have to like actually meet which means you need to travel which means you need to pay for an Airbnb like all of those things which
33:39 automatically makes it hard for somebody that doesn't want to invest all of this
33:45 effort and money to kind of like replicate and I I think this is obviously the content is good also but I
33:51 think this also adds to why it is so successful like what's what's your take
33:56 on that 100 100% right um it's uh yeah it's it's definitely a variable i I
34:03 think you know it's unusual people are like "Oh wow these people are actually
34:08 they're truly putting in putting in the work right?" And I think um you know for the same same reason we
34:18 talk about the effectiveness of genuine content on the direct to consumer side
34:23 and and the reason why UGC um performs so well for for most brands is is the
34:31 same reason you know adding those those other harder variables to the mix of in person um spending time on the script
34:39 the the reality is it it transfers over through the video to
34:44 the to the person ingesting it and they can see and I think that's that it's the
34:50 the same theory and the same reason what's the flywheel for you like as an
34:55 individual as a personal brand like how how do you think about media because you're doing a lot of media appearances
35:01 right so like how does it work yeah so so I mean there's there's two buckets right so like uh you know for for the
35:08 BattllBox brand um I'm engaged with our customers they'll they'll see messages from me in our private membersonly group
35:15 that's for only it's a payw wall group so it's only active members are allowed in there i'll drop messages giveaways
35:21 i'm I'm engaged in there but for the most part for the BattlBox brand um I
35:26 am I am not the face brandon Curran um is our main face we have Austin uh
35:32 Martin who is also a face of the brand um so they're they're the front and
35:37 center um in front of the in front of the logo in front of the brand people um
35:43 so on the content side you know that's that's one thing on the the awesome side
Personal Brand and Future Plans
35:49 um you know there's there's a few different things one if if I'm looking at you know the three reasons why
35:57 why I do it um and the last one is a little uh a little uh it can go in a
36:04 couple different directions but you know first one and you and I were chatting about this before um it keeps me sharp
36:09 right which is which is good for me uh as I get older it's also though good for
36:15 the business so you know we're coming up with topics and diving into them and
36:20 doing research way before we record um and in part of my exercise like I'll
36:26 I'll go deep on a topic and from that I'll get ideas for how to apply that in
36:32 the business um it'll bring up points where you know next thing I know I'm
36:38 sitting with with Walter and his marketing team because of this topic I was doing on the podcast and then we're
36:44 you know peeling the onion back and we're finding hey oh my gosh we should you know we're not going to do that but
36:49 this is the way to go and we can test this so it's constant improvement both
36:54 for me professionally personally but also it keeps me kind of uh a finger on
37:00 the pulse of all departments of of the business so that's the that's the keeps
37:05 me sharp um second piece uh it's it's expensive to do the inerson
37:11 travel the Airbnb the the the professional film crew we typically um
37:17 you know there's typically at least three people there one's uh managing sound one's managing the three cameras
37:24 and sound art equipment as their equipment one's um doing a live edit of of the different cameras as we're
37:30 talking so you know that's expensive so the monetization the sponsorships um you
37:35 know there's not a lot of meat on the bone after after uh the dust settles but
37:42 it's you know there there is money there because we have to pay for all this stuff and you know we're not just um
37:49 donating our time and money so there's that you know the the last piece is is
37:55 the personal brand piece um which is probably
38:00 the you know it's definitely one of the one of the important factors um I think
38:05 it's up there with keeping me sharp and there's there's a few different ways I look at the personal
38:11 brand piece on the personal brand piece I don't think there's a clear direct
38:18 correlation uh that's of of size on getting me more
38:24 BattlBox members and customers there's just not now what I what I do and what I
38:29 try to weave in at any point possible is is the normalization of BattlBox i
38:35 think uh preparedness in general being ready for a situation and and that could be as simple as having some solar lights
38:42 and some power banks in case your power goes out right i think having that
38:48 mindset I have this this Hail Mary concept that if I can keep spreading the gospel of just general preparedness I
38:55 can I can change behavior and and that just makes BattlBox from this small niche lake to what could be an ocean but
39:02 I think that's a hailmary right i don't think I'm going to get as a big enough audience ever to to accomplish that so
39:09 that's a nice pie in the sky back to the actual tangible personal brand stuff um
39:16 it's it's really twofold one um selfishly there will be life after
39:21 BattlBox right um and I need to figure that out because no matter what BattlBox sells for in a few years I'm
39:28 not retiring there's no amount of money that I would take where I would ever retire i enjoy I enjoy building um so I
39:37 have to know what's next and it'll be a lot easier to figure out what's next
39:42 when when I already have an audience um and it's it's it's you know it's a a a
39:48 large additional um network if you will now the the other piece of it is there's
39:55 a lot of topics that I'm I'm I'm I can I can talk pretty deep on and I I view
40:02 myself as is pretty high level on those topics and you know we talk about those
40:08 topics by design a lot in general in my content online but also on the podcast
40:14 and I think there's value there because it's confirming to the audience to the
40:19 masses that Yeah that I know what I'm talking about but also selfishly um you
40:25 know in three three and a half years whenever the the exact time is right to depart from BattlBox um and find find
40:33 the new suitor you know having that out there
40:38 there's going to be instant funnel for the the larger companies the private equity companies they're we're going to
40:45 be on their radar before we even need to be and I think I think that's a a big
40:50 big big big big piece that's super smart i I I meant to ask
40:57 you what's next for you but I guess you kind of answered it already in a very interesting way yeah so you know we got
41:04 BattlBox the plan was never to buy BattlBox back that was not ever part of the playbook we sold the business we got
41:10 paid you know we're going to we're going to work there for three years uh due to this this earnout and bonus and um then
41:18 you know uh in in October 2024 we will we will leave and we will
41:25 be done and then we'll figure out our next chapter and once we got in there uh
41:30 you know they were publicly traded they were a spa um the markets were not very kind to spaxs around that time so they
41:37 lost a lot of their market value and there was just an opportunity they needed cash um and we we we saw the
41:45 opportunity to give them what they need and get our business back at a at a heavy discount so we bought it back in
41:51 in April 2023 that was not part of the playbook but it was just such a good arbitrage opportunity we we we had to do
41:59 it um so with that being said uh yeah the the the the plan when we bought it
42:06 back is a five-year plan um so you know next month will be two years a five-year
42:11 plan at minimum and um you know it might change you know who knows but but it's
42:19 definitely several more years i'm I'm definitely we're definitely going to keep improving BattlBox and make it
42:25 better um you know for the foreseeable future the next the next few years with certainty before we're even looking at
42:31 that thank you for taking the time man i I learned a lot in this conversation this
42:36 was fun i enjoyed this thank you for taking the time