Priority Bicycles: Dave Weiner

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Now you're a full year end, the business, right? August of 2015. Yeah. And you had that really successful initial Kickstarter, but a year later, not much, not much action. Yeah. The classic bike was still doing well. So I knew that we had a win that could carry the company, though it couldn't carry me. Yeah. And now I'm

pretty deep. I have one successful product. I have one unsuccessful product. I know that the way I can grow this business is simple in theory and hard in reality. I need to have a bike that changes everything.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Dave Wiener quit his job in tech to build a bike that wouldn't rust or need a new chain, and grew priority bicycles from a Brooklyn startup into a major player in bikes.

Back in the early days of this show, we used to run a segment called How You Built That. And it was where founders of very small mom and pop businesses could tell us their story, usually in two to three minutes. Anyway, one of those companies was founded by a guy named Dave Wiener. And at the time, this is back in 2017, Dave was barely three years into founding his small bicycle company. So we heard a bit about it. Dave talked about what made the bikes different and

wheat parted ways. But six years on, priority bicycles has become a formidable brand. So today on the show, we're bringing Dave back to tell the full-blown story of how he built priority.

Now initially, the idea was to make a low maintenance bike at an affordable price. And Dave's bike would include things like disc brakes, puncture resistant tires, an internal gear hub, and most importantly, instead of a metal chain, his bikes would have a carbon fiber belt drive.

Now, normally, components like these would drive the price of a bike up to three or even $4,000. Only super high-end bikes had these features. But Dave wanted to price his bikes at under $1,000. But to do that would require a whole lot of engineering and an entirely new business model.

Dave decided to start priority after a career in computer software. It was a risky pivot because his job was steady and the money was good, and the bike industry is a hard nut to crack. Three companies tend to dominate sales, at least in the US. Giant, specialized, and track.

But over time, priority managed to carve out a place for itself. Dave would have to draw on his skills from his first career in software to handle the challenges of selling these bikes, including the chaotic rollout of his first models after an unexpectedly successful Kickstarter campaign and an explosion in demand during COVID that basically emptied his warehouse.

followed by a big fall-off in bike sales this year, which has affected the entire industry. All along though, the driving force behind priority bikes was rooted in Dave's own love of cycling, which began when he was a kid, riding around with his friends in a small town in Northern California.

I loved riding my bike. And my friends and I went riding. That's what we did after school. It was a long before there were kids playing video games, right? We were mountain biking and we loved it. And that was absolutely my passion and still very much is.

Um, so you grew up really like, like a lot of kids just into, I mean, this is the thing, the 80s. And, and all you have to do to understand the 80s is just watch ET because that's all they did. They biked around and sometimes they'd have an alien in the basket of the bike. And that's what like kids did.

It's spot on. We got home from school. Well, first off, we rode our bike to school and then rode our bikes home and then stayed in front of the house or down the street at the mountain. And not only did I like to ride my bike, I love to work on it. I like changing my bike and fixing my bike and making my bike better. And then I loved working on the neighbors bikes and doing it, everything I could to be involved in how the bike worked and how to improve it.

This wasn't just about putting like a playing card in the spokes to make the sound, which I did. Every kid seemed to have done that in the 80s. You put a rap playing cards and rubber bands in the spokes.

I think it was more, yeah, it was playing cards. Not like a baseball card, you need like a wax-coated playing card. Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's a better sound, yeah. Yeah, that was fun. And in high school, you got jobs at bike shops, right? Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to work for the local chain of bike shops. I had a wonderful owner who took me in.

Let me learn, let me extend my knowledge of how to work on bikes through their mechanics, which were all great with me. And I learned a lot more about how a bike shop ran. Yeah. So for college, I guess you studied business at UC Santa Barbara. And I guess you also got a pretty solid background in IT because

I guess all during college, you worked at a company that did like software for bike shops. That's right. And so then when you graduated, did you stay in the bike world? Like what did you wind up doing? Yeah. So I got a job opportunity from giant bicycle, which was a, you know, one of the top and still is, of course, one of the top bicycle companies in the world. And I saw myself growing in the bike industry. Yeah. So who doesn't want to go work for one of the top bike companies?

And there they were based, they were based or still are based maybe in Los Angeles. Yeah. Yeah. Newbury parks are kind of halfway between Santa Barbara and LA. And what did you do for Giant? I worked a dual role in both parts ordering and the aftermarket parts ordering and I worked in IT. And was, I mean, at that time, imagine that I, the IT part of a bike company was still very new, very small part of Giant at the time. It was tiny.

Yeah, and that's why having me who, you know, I was at, I both had this kind of database in my head of every bike for doing it for four years. You didn't need the software, you had me, I could tell you every little specific off the top of my head. And I knew a lot about software and that's why they had, they asked to put me in this joint role because they had a small IT department and they were going through a big system implementation. What kind of, what was the software doing?

So it was enterprise resource planning and that entails all aspects of the company. So it's your inventory management, your financial management, you know, everybody in accounting and down the line. Yeah. And all of a sudden I realized that Microsoft owned this software and they were going to be putting tremendous resources behind it.

And I knew it really well. Right. And so I started to look for a role in doing this new software, which was later called Microsoft Dynamics. And I found a company in New York that needed someone to head a group to take this software on. And I took that opportunity to move to New York and try something new. And plus my friend Connor Swiegel just moved to New York and he was having a good time.

And it seemed like a fun place to be in your early 20s. And did you, I mean, were you a bike commuter? Were you riding a bike to work every day? Yeah, right when I got to New York, I got a used 70s Schwinn and made sure it was properly adjusted and used it every day to get to work and get around the city. And so I've now been in New York 19 years and I rarely go anywhere that's not by bike.

And by the way, the company you were working for in New York had nothing to do with bikes. I think it was strictly like a software business called Cole Systems. And you started there as, I guess, like an IT consultant, but then you stayed for a long time. In fact, you actually rose to the ranks, you eventually became the CEO. That's right. And so how did that happen? I mean, to the founders, I don't know, I know it was a small business when you joined probably 10 or 15 people.

But did the founders kind of like mentor you into that role? Yeah, there were two founders and they mentored me extensively. And they also really encouraged me to grow my area of the business. And then at some point take over management of the business. And I liked managing, I would say I liked managing the business more than I liked managing people. You know, but we had a really nice group that were all passionate about the software.

And even more importantly, we're passionate about our customers. While you were, I mean, you would end up working there for 10 years. But I guess with your friends and people you knew in the city, you kind of had a reputation as the bike guy. People knew you as they come to you for recommendations for what to buy or ask you to help them fix their bikes. People knew you as that person.

Yeah, absolutely. Something that was different for me in New York than California. In California, we ride our bikes all year round. In New York, we don't. It gets really wet and the snow and the ice are on the ground and we stop riding bikes.

People here in New York, you know, spring comes and their bike sat in the basement all winter and, you know, if they're lucky and the basement didn't flood, the bike probably needs to tune up and needs some adjustment. And so I found a lot that every time I wanted to go ride a bike with a friend, my bike was ready to go because that was part of what I did, but their bike never was ready to go. So I always had to call a friend, get there early, tune their bike and make sure it's ready to ride.

And I guess even while you were kind of rising through the ranks at coal in this company, you still were thinking about bikes, like maybe, I mean, not even thinking about it, but you were literally sketching out ideas for like, could you create a bike company?

In 2013, I started to think about what would be next for me. I loved having entrepreneurial ideas. I loved

in software being able to twist and turn with the software company and figure out how we could evolve. We grew much larger. We had, I think, 280-something employees when I left in 2014. I think just to clarify, the company was bought. It was acquired by a bigger company.

That's correct, yeah. We wound up selling the company to a bigger company, which was the right thing to do. It's where our industry was going.

It got to the point that I felt like I wasn't using my entrepreneurial energy the way I wanted to. So I had the title of president and CEO, but I certainly didn't feel like it. And I was getting told to run the business in ways that I disagreed with. And so I felt like it was time to go. And when I stepped down,

I was used to working seven days a week, and I've never known how to relax, and so relaxing wasn't going to start then. And I had a young family, so I knew I needed to do something. In selling the company,

a year earlier, my non-compete was heavy. And I knew software at this point, I knew bikes, and all I could think about is how can I put those two together? And this idea that I'd written down a year earlier about starting a bike company kept ringing in my head as the only answer.

So I guess from what I understand, you were really landing, kept landing on this idea of like, could I make a different kind of bicycle? Could we sell like a bicycle that didn't require a whole lot of maintenance? Yeah, that's right. So I was trying to take my experience of working in a bike shop, working for a bike manufacturer. And when you're in that world,

You're most excited about the high-end bikes. You're excited about the carbon fiber, the titanium, the full suspension. And when I left the bike industry, the way I used a bike changed. I wasn't riding $5,000 bikes off-road. I was riding $300 bikes on the road. And so were my friends. And so I started to think about what do my friends need? Well, I go to their house and I have to tune their bikes every time.

before we go for a ride. And, you know, the bike needs to be reliable. So people aren't getting flat tires and they're not ruining their pants as they ride, you know, with their pants getting stuck in the chain. I started to just think about all these really simple creature comforts. And I also started to bring in my experience of software. And back then in 2014, there wasn't a lot of bicycles being sold online. And those that are were pretty low quality.

So I thought, gee, if we could bring something to market that's a bike shop quality bike, that's really reliable, really long lasting, that maybe that'll resonate with people. And you basically now, I mean, spring of 2014, you were unemployed, but you had this plan to kind of build a bike. And I think at this time, you convinced your friend, Connor Swiegel, from college,

to help out. Was there anybody around you who thought this was kind of, I'm sure there are lots of people who are excited for you, but were there anyone who is like, I don't know, maybe your parents or family who cared about you or like, you know, you're leaving this job to do this? It's really risky. There was. My parents have

always been nothing but supportive of me. And my wife, I had her full support to do this and to give it a shot. But there was other people in my life that when I told I left a high paying job CEO of a company and a very good paycheck to start a startup.

with no money, and I'm not gonna make any money, but I'm gonna make this work. There were definitely others in my life that looked at me like I was crazy. And the bike industry is an overcrowded industry. It's not an industry that is needing another brand, not 10 years ago, not today. It's not a slam dunk.

When we come back in just a moment, Dave pulls together a prototype and a Kickstarter campaign, but then has to make a decision that carries a lot more risk and costs a lot more money. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros and you're listening to How I Built This.

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Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Ros. So it's 2014 and Dave Wiener has just left his job as the CEO of a successful software company to build a new kind of bicycle.

I knew how to design everything on the bike other than the color and graphics where I needed some help, but I knew how to do all of the basics. And I wanted this bike to last a long time. You know, you still see a lot of older bikes on the road because they were made with good materials. A lot of what you buy today doesn't last like it used to. So we wanted to go back to that and really use every component with stainless steel and aluminum where we could so that the components would last

You know, we'll last. All right. So let's talk about this bike that you were designing because most bike maintenance involves the chain or the brakes or the tires, I think, right? For the most part, that probably covers like 60, 70% of why people need their bikes repaired. That's right. That's right. And so you wanted to completely overhaul those things.

Yeah, and we didn't wanna, if you will say reinvent the wheel, we wanted to use the best parts that were out there. So, simple things. I knew that when I worked in a bike shop, people got flats a lot. If they came in, I could say, hey, in addition to changing your tube, let's put a thorn resistant tire on here, or a thorn resistant tube, and let's make sure that it's less likely you'll get the next flat.

I'm out of 10 tires. Customers say, great, we want that. Other bike companies, they weren't selling bikes with things like puncture resistant tires because those cost more and most customers don't see that on the price tag. They see a bike and they want the cheapest bike that does what they need.

And if one guy says, our bike has puncture resistant tires, most people don't care. So I just tried to do things like puncture resistant tires. I tried to do the brakes. We wanted low maintenance brakes. And I always rode what's called a coaster brake bike, which is probably how you grew up riding a bike guy. We pedal forward to go and backward to stop. Right. Backward to stop. Yeah. Yeah. And called a coaster brake. So coaster brake bikes are

Rather maintenance free, you can run those for thousands of miles without ever tuning the brakes. Because they don't have any brake pads on the tires. Yeah, there's some braking components inside the hub, but they go thousands of miles without ever needing anything. So we tried to think of simple things like very high-end spokes so the wheels don't go out of true or don't rust. And to use a comfortable seat,

little things like the bike should come with a kickstand, right? Yeah. And then the final one was the belt drive. And that was, was really our differentiating feature. And I guess we should explain this for, I mean, lots of people know what it is now, but basically most bikes have a chain, which requires oil. And that chain, especially if it's a, it's a, a bike with gears, will like move from one, you know, one gear to the next as you switch the gears, right? A belt drive is literally

a belt made out of carbon fiber, and there's no, the whole gear systems in an internal hub. So it essentially replaces a metal chain. Yeah, that's right. So the belt drive that we use is made with polyurethane, and inside of it is carbon fiber cord, and the carbon fiber cords, you know, keep it together. And the belt drive lasts three times longer.

and the advantages, you don't have to oil it at all. You don't have to oil it. It's not going to eat your pants or stain your pants. You never have to grease it. It's not going to rust. All of the gearing is inside the hub. And the advantage there is it's sealed from all the elements. And so it doesn't need all the constant maintenance. And if your bike falls over, nothing bends, you can just really focus on riding your bike. Yeah.

Dave, when you went from running a company with 200 plus people to just being by yourself, and then Connor was on the West Coast giving you feedback, that must have been lonely just sitting there all day, just working on this.

No, it was great. I liked having a small company. I didn't like having no company. Connor was helping in the beginning, nights and weekends, so that moved to full-time pretty quickly. Our first employee, Lauren,

uh, was working with me. We've been in the same building on Hudson street in Tribeca ever since, since we started. So one of the founders of coal systems, a software company was the initial finance year of priority. And so he, uh, he gave us office space and, and I've only worked in that building since, uh, 2004. So you did not like you decided that you were going to go start raising money from

venture funds or whatever, probably you needed some money to start. So how much money did you need to get this off the ground?

you know i don't remember the exact number but it was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars right it was not it was not a little a little amount of money i uh... i approached john who was one of the founders of of co-systems and uh... and i i presented him what my plan was for priority by schools and he said right away that he would support it he would find out that and he did so he wrote you a check and because you needed the money to presumably to for the research and to source

the components to build the bike and then to even start a production, small production line. Yeah, that's right. Before we started the company, I of course worked on how much this bike would cost and how many we need to make to even start production of it. The first thing I did is I got on a plane and I went to Taiwan.

because Taiwan is still where most quality bicycles are made, because all of the suppliers are there from the frame welding to the seats, to the handlebars, to the grips. Everything is made in Taiwan, or at least if you want a high quality bike, it's all very much made in Taiwan. And I met with, I think, about 30 different suppliers to show my idea. And this is what, in the spring of 2014,

Yeah, it would have been in the spring of 2014. And there's a annual bike show that was coming up in Taiwan. So I made those my dates and I made sure I had all of my, all of my spec sheet and what I wanted to build with the bike ready. And I started weeks beforehand emailing many of the suppliers to set up a meeting. And when you say suppliers, like you couldn't just go to one factory and say,

Here's what I want. You guys go make it for me. You had to go to like the people who made every component of the bike separately. Yes and no. Certainly when we talk about the belt drive, that was very much on us and we had to do on our own because bike manufacturers didn't know anything about belt drives yet. But

you know, and working with the tire makers to make sure we get the tires, the right color and the right, the right type of rubber in them. That was really important. But the simple, simpler components like a handlebar, I drew what we wanted as a handlebar and I handed that over to the different bike companies and they can price out getting what I'll call the more straightforward components. So you go to this trade show with your plans. And by the way, I mean,

I have to assume that most of these factories had minimum mortars, and probably minimum mortar would have been, I don't know.

hundreds of thousands of dollars. Absolutely. Yeah. Any serious factory doesn't want to talk to you about making a couple of hundred bikes. The number used often in the industry is 300 because it used to be you could get 300 bicycles in a container. You can't anymore, but because the box has gotten bigger, but

No one will entertain an order under 300. And that said, most better factories will talk to you under 3000. So you go to this show in Taiwan in the spring of 2014 with your plans and tell me about the experience. I mean, was it, was there resistance where most of the companies like, yeah, I'm not, I don't work with such a small, you know, work with big brands or I'm not interested in such a small order?

Yeah, 80 to 90% of the companies I had tried to make appointments with would take them, but didn't want to talk to me. And the first question they ask is, you know, where's the money coming from? How many bikes are on your first order?

And my confidence was the other way around. I remember meeting with these suppliers saying, I know we're going to sell a significant number of these bikes. I need to know if you can make them and how good you can make them. And also where you can improve on our designs and our ideas. So you are looking to order, I mean,

Did you have a number of bikes that you thought you needed to make for that first run? Not quite yet, because we hadn't started selling it yet. I was confident that if we had a good quality product that we could sell some, I didn't know if we could get to the 3,000 that some of the better factories wanted. I did think I could get to 300, which some of the smaller companies wanted. There was this idea that a friend gave you to go to Kickstarter, try to put it on Kickstarter, and see what happens.

And when you made that decision, did you have a prototype already built or not yet? When we started working on the Kickstarter, we only had a prototype that I had made.

in New York. Do you weld it yourself? I didn't weld myself. I bought it off the shelf bicycle frame and I made modifications to it. I made a cut in the frame to get the belt drive on. I had a friend of a friend weld it in his kitchen.

It wasn't the prettiest, but it did work and it did start to show what we wanted to create. Leading up to the Kickstarter, I had narrowed it down to three different factories and I paid all three factories to make essentially the exact same thing. Knowing that if you ask three companies to make the same thing, you'll get three very different items. When they arrived, was there clearly

a better one, out of the three? Yeah, absolutely. There was. And also that factory, they had worked better with us in the process. I think one of the factories took our drawings and didn't ask any questions and produced what they thought it was. The other two asked questions, and certainly the one we went with asked the most questions. And because they asked the most questions, they got the best answers. And we also thought that

they had suggestions on how to make that design a little bit better, and they were right. So one of the questions I have about the chain-free bikes, the belt drives, was the reason why most bicycles at the time were not made with that was because it was more expensive? Yeah, it's significantly more expensive. Certainly the belt drive is more expensive than a chain drive. But how are you going to make a cheaper bike with these components? I sort of understand.

I mean, if internal hubs and belt drives and, you know, puncture resistant tires were just inherently more expensive and really were on high-end bikes, how are you going to sell it for, you know, I guess under a thousand bucks?

Yeah, so that's where some of my experience in working with software systems came in. I knew we had to sell the bike online. As much as I grew up working in a bike shop and I love, love, love bike shops, we wanted the bike shops to help the customer make sure it's assembled correctly and certainly be there if they have a problem, but we wanted to ship these bikes directly to consumers. You do not want to sell them through bike shops.

We couldn't because it wouldn't be cost effective. Yeah. And so, you know, we're, you know, 10 years later, we work with many bike shops and we actually sell quite a bit of bikes now through bike shops and more to come. But the back then it was we needed to have a direct relationship with the customer. It's the only way we could get to that price that they needed. And we felt the customers were looking for that product or at least I did.

All right, so you guys, so you decide to launch this Kickstarter in July of 2014. It's about four or five months after you left your job as CEO. What was the offer? You could pay what to get a bike? $350, I believe they included shipping. $350 and you would get a belt drive bike, aluminum frame,

it would be shipped to your door. And I mean, that's it. And how much were you hoping to raise for that case starter? Yeah. And at the time, I don't think you could find a belt drive bike.

hundred thousand dollars. It was a really amazing value bike. And at the time, we wanted to raise $30,000. I felt that if we raised $30,000, it would be the world showing me that this was good enough to make more and figure out how to sell them. 350 bucks. So, I mean, you're basically looking to make what, like, a hundred bikes, right? A little less than a few, about a hundred bikes for $30,000.

Yeah. Okay. And, you know, we always felt that if we got some bikes out in the field, people are going to love these and they're going to go to work the next day and say, what a cool and different and unique bike they bought. But were you going to cover your costs? I mean, 350 bucks per bike and shipping? We would cover our costs, but not anymore. Right. So you're essentially just, it was just a wash.

Yeah, we had a one part time employee and Connor and I were at the low, low price of nothing. Right. Okay. So you launched this Kickstarter and it actually, I mean, as some cool Kickstarter campaigns go, it did very well. Was it on the front page of Kickstarter?

You know, I think it did make it to the front page Kickstarter at some point, not on day one. A friend who I just met, a friend of a friend who had a watch company. I met with about maybe 60 days before our launch. And he was telling me about growing his watch company. And when I told him about priority bicycles and what I wanted to do,

His advice to me was you need to hire a PR firm today. It was 60 days to go. You need to hire him today because otherwise you're only going to, the only people that are going to support you on Kickstarter are your friends. Yeah. So you got to spend the money. You got to hire a PR firm and they need to tell your story. And then you got to help it works. And, and did you do that?

I did it the next day. I think I did the same thing as looking for a bike company. I think I called 10 of them. I set up appointments and I dropped everything I was doing and I found a PR firm. And how did you, I mean, PR companies are expensive. You presumably had to use a significant amount of your working capital to pay them.

It was the biggest risk decision we made at launch. That was our single biggest expense before we launched. But they told our story to the media and we had

It must have been a dozen articles on the day we launched on Kickstarter with major media. And I think in the first day in Kickstarter, we sold over $200,000 in bikes. Wow. Your goal was $30,000. And by the time the campaign ended, how much had you raised on Kickstarter? $5.50. So half a million more than half a million dollars. So that's a big order.

And so you get 1,500 bikes that you have to order at that point. And you promised to have them by Christmas, I think, right? That was the deal? We did. The Kickstarter ended in August. And I thought we could make them in 60 to 90 days and have them by Christmas. And so as we've experienced in the show with other companies that have started on Kickstarter, like Uni and some others,

It's a kind of a mixed blessing, right? Because you have to fulfill the orders. And I have to imagine, I mean, 1500 orders, that's 1500 different customers. And it was just the three of you at priority. Yeah. I became very good at customer support and any of our original Kickstarter backers, they've asked a question and I was generally up to 10 or 11 at night doing support. Yeah.

And you know, this is a conversation that my wife and I have. I like to say that when I started a priority, I worked less because I worked so much in software. And she says there's no chance I 100% worked more.

And so I've got to assume like most things she's right. I never felt like I was working more because I loved it. And I can talk about bicycles all day long and I can talk about customer experience all day. And I love going to Asia to work on the bikes and work with the production team. I just loved every moment of it.

How are you? So between the time that you close this Kickstarter and the time that you have to start, you know, get these bikes out, there are lots of every single day. There are at least two, three, maybe more roadblocks. You get a call or an email from a customer, a supplier can't make this part in time. Big and small challenges every day.

How did you kind of handle those mentally? Did you ever stress you out? Did they create anxiety? Or were you like, okay, let's just tackle this one thing at a time?

Well, I live on stress. I do very well under stress. I think that's kind of my happy place, unfortunately. But doing software programs, I became a project manager. So I handled this the same way I would a big software implementation. I had every step. I had every supplier. Everybody was in my database. I knew who I was contacting, which days I knew who I was following up on. And I wasn't letting anything slide.

And if you were my supplier back then, I'm sorry. I probably called you too much. I probably checked in too much. I wanted every update and I stayed on top of every detail. And I loved it. I loved that time.

But when we come back in just a moment, how Dave grows priority with some big wins, but also some stumbles. His first model has a chaotic rollout, his second one falls flat, and then the extreme whiplash of COVID. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

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Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Rise. So it's late 2014, and Dave is on the hook to deliver 1,500 bikes to his customers on Kickstarter. And he manages to deliver most of them by Christmas with just a few days to spare. Yeah, so for the most part, we got most of them out, I think, around the 22nd, and most of them got to people by the 25th.

Why so late? What happened? So it was our first time importing anything. And US Customs held all of our containers for random inspection. You just got unlucky. You just got picked.

Yeah, we got unlucky. There was nothing more to it, but that's a stressful time because we're going into Christmas. We promised everybody they'd get it at Christmas. Your bike's going to ship in two weeks, and then two weeks later, we say, we don't know when your bike's going to ship because customs held our containers, and they won't tell us anything. You just have to wait until they are inspected. You couldn't expedite it. You can make it go faster. No one you can call. You couldn't drive to the port.

I threatened some of our importing guys that I would drive to the port in Newark and be there in half hour. But they told me that wouldn't help. That would only make things worse. And we waited. And that was incredibly stressful time because customers who bought these for Christmas gifts were not happy. And so they were just eventually finally inspected and saw that there was nothing illicit in there and then released.

That's it. And you get to pay for the time that they were held to. You have to pay them for the storage fees, right? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, you're still a small company, and now once you sell a product to people, you also have to sell the customer service to them. I mean, were the bikes working? Were there issues that were cropping up? No, the bikes were great. The problem was getting the customer the bike they ordered more than anything. We had this task of eight labels, eight boxes, and somehow they got it all wrong.

And so somebody that ordered a white small got a black large and someone that ordered a black large got a white small. And that was really stressful. I was doing all but a hundred percent of the customer support at that time. And that was a really stressful time. And especially because we didn't have spare bikes yet. So, you know, if one customer got a white one that ordered a black one, we had to find out how to get that white one to the person that ordered it.

All right, so the bikes arrive to customers and in that first year, do you remember what your, I mean, you launched in July. So you're sort of the, that half year of 2014. Do you remember how much you guys brought in? You had, you brought in 550,000 from the Kickstarter, but I'm assuming you didn't sell another half a million dollars for the bikes that first year.

Yeah, that was disheartening because you do, like I said, you do have a Kickstarter where you raise half million dollars in 30 days. Yeah, we're going to be here. The next 30 days will be another half million. No, but it was more like 10,000 maybe or 20,000. Yeah. If I remember correctly, we sold about 2,000 bikes that year at 1500 in the first month and then 500 in the next six months that follows. Right. So probably about $600,000 in total.

revenue that maybe that year. Yeah, that sounds right. So 600,000 is pretty great for a year one, but assuming you had loftier goals for the first full year in business. Yeah, we did. And the first thing we realized is that while we had this amazing model, we probably need more than one.

Yeah. So the next lesson learned came in a bike. I wanted to design the next bike. And at that point, I had a two year old. And so I couldn't think of anything better than designing a bike for a kid's bike. Absolutely.

So I made him a training wheel bike. And I made it with all the features I want, a belt drive, of course, all these rust-free aluminum features. I made it with puncture resistant tires. The whole tire didn't need any air. So as a parent, you could just get the bike and go. You don't have to worry about putting air in the tire every month. It's just a solid rubber tire. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And it was an awesome bike that totally failed. So what happened? I mean, it's just kids' bikes. It didn't connect with people. Yeah, I think there were a variety of problems. One is I built a bike that I wanted. It's not a bike that our customers were telling us they wanted. And so the first lesson there was, you know, listen to your customer, because as much customer support as I was personally doing at the time, I was hearing from customers what they wanted all day.

and I didn't deliver it. I delivered something that I wanted and also to make a $300 bike for a three year old is a tall number for a lot of parents as it should be. Now you're a full year end to the business, August of 2015, and that must have been disheartening. And I wonder, I mean, the business was not far from being profitable at that point. You were not paying yourself anything.

Were you stressed out at all? I mean, you're a full year in and you had that really successful initial Kickstarter, but a year later, not much action. Yeah, the classic bike was still doing well. So I knew that we had a win that could carry the company, though it couldn't carry me. Yeah. And when you say we're doing pretty well, what do you remember about 2015?

$20,000, $30,000 a month in revenue? I would say that's about right. Okay. Yeah. And now I'm pretty deep. I have one successful product. I have one unsuccessful product. I know that the way I can grow this business is simple in theory and hard in reality. I need to have a bike that changes again, that changes everything. So basically you had this, this

challenge, which was you needed to make a new, you know, you need to make more models. And I guess sort of in 2015, you start to work on a new bike that would become a commuter bike. Yeah, that's right.

In listening to our customer, we learned that a lot of people were using the classic as a commuter because it was low maintenance. And anyone who rides their bike to work every day needs the most reliable bike they can because they get up and they've got however many minutes they have to ride their bike to the office and the bike can't let them down. And we needed to

to make this bike to turn it up, to make it more aggressive in how someone sits on the bike so the geometry needed to change. The brakes needed to change. You can't go fast on a city street, for example, with a coaster brake. You need disc brakes, just like you'd see on a motorcycle or any other high-end bicycle, you need a disc brakes, and it needed more gearing.

And it needed a belt drive system that scaled to the type of power that a everyday cyclist could put out. That bike, right? Now you had, you know, really, just many more expensive components on it. So what, I mean, what were the margins? I know what the margins on clothing is, for example. We've done a lot of clothing brands, but like, I mean, was it under 10% for you guys?

No, we were getting it up to the 30s. We were getting the margin up there, but we were also starting to buy in volume. At that point, we knew that we weren't going to make a hundred of these. We needed to make a thousand of them. And like anything else, when you buy in volume, you do get better pricing. And we also knew that if we were going to make a run at this, we had to give it our all. And at the same time, we started to go into hotels, which were really good for us. You started to go to tell me about hotels. I mean, this 2015,

How did you work with hotels? Yeah, so one of the things we started in our Kickstarter was you could buy 10 bikes and get your brand name on them. And we did that thinking that there were companies and there were. There were companies that bought 10 bikes and wanted their name on it. You know, how I built this right on a bike. Yeah, it's put on a bike. Yeah, it would not look good. So we had never thought about hotels until

The Viceroy Santa Monica was our first hotel and they called and Connor and I had actually lived together Briefly in Santa Monica. So we knew the area and that was a very cool hotel. So they contacted you and they said hey We want your bikes for our hotel. Yeah, you know, they're right there across street from the ocean and they said we have a bike program and our guests

use our bikes to ride around the beach. But the problem is we bought some six months ago and they're rust buckets. Yeah, because they're by the ocean. That's right. Yeah. They started looking online and they found our Kickstarter and they found this idea of a no rust bike. And they were really intrigued. And they were our first hotel and they were a wonderful customer that helped our brand look good. And we started to open up a

sales department in, you know, in priority that just focused on selling to hotels. And really this idea came from the hotel, not from you guys. I mean, they approached you. It turned out to be a great, like a sort of, you know, stroke of luck, because then you kind of thought, well, this is a great way to advertise our bikes.

That's it. It goes back to listening to the customer. If you pay attention, I think a lot of times your customers will tell you exactly what you need to do. Dave, I read that you guys also, one of the struggles you had was with manufacturers. You went through different manufacturers over the first three years, like three different manufacturers. This is not uncommon, but what were the issues you were having with manufacturers?

reliability was at the forefront. None of them made bad products, but they made unreliable products. And the timing wasn't always what we expected. The first three assembly factories were not meeting her.

timeline. I was going to every single one of our productions and they might have the wrong components. They didn't know how to assemble a bike the way I would expect them to and it was taking much more of my time than I could ever imagine. And we needed to do too much rework on the bikes that were coming in and it became

To the point where not only was it not sustainable for our current bikes, but we worried that we were going to add these higher end commuter bikes and how could we grow with this company. So what did you do?

I did the same thing I did before, but I did it differently, right? So I went to China and Taiwan, and I met with 10 different manufacturers. I narrowed it down to three. I asked the three to make the exact same thing and waited.

It was the exact same process I did earlier, but the difference was we were a bigger company. We now had a bank account. We now could come and say, all right, we need to order a few thousand bikes. We now have three models, not one. We actually had a website and an email address and articles that say that our bikes are good.

we were able to go to a different tier of manufacturing and found three great factories that could all do the job and wound up settling with one, I think, around 2016, 2017. So as, I mean, as you were sort of growing year over year, were you able to reach profitability within a few years or not quite yet?

Yeah, in year three, I started to take home a salary and started to realize that we had a real company. We had a handful of employees at that time. And I could take vacation both financially and physically. And in terms of growing the business, did you ever, in those first few years, did you ever think about going out and raising money? Or did you?

I didn't in those first few years because I didn't see yet how it could help us. You look at a business and you say, well, if we had more money, we could grow faster. But did we want to? Did we want to grow that fast?

And we were getting approached by VC and PE firms rather consistently. And a lot of people that run those companies ride bikes and they were hearing about us and they were reaching out. And the timing just didn't feel right. We didn't have enough staff to even think that through. We just wanted to keep growing.

slowly and happily, and slowly is probably the wrong word. We were growing at 50% to 100% year over year. And when you're that small, you should be, right? You can't grow at 10% when you're a brand new company or something's wrong. So we were growing substantially, but we didn't feel the need to bring in outside money yet. And your price point was basically that high-end, the priority rate was under $1,000, but you also had

like $400 bikes. That's right. We launched the beach cruiser at that point, too, which was really successful for us. That was a huge shower. Probably by year three or four, you were probably doing about at least five million in annual revenue. I don't know if it was five. I would say it was a little south of that, but it was a couple million dollars.

And we were cash flow positive, not by much, but we were cash flow positive every year. And I love the organic nature of growing the company. And I didn't feel any need at that point to put gas on the fire. Yeah. All right. So 2020 hits. And what happened, what happened right when the pandemic hit? What happened to your business? Yeah. So in the beginning, our business fell apart.

Nobody was thinking about buying a bike when COVID started. Everybody was thinking about buying eggs, buying milk, and what was it? I saw wipes, right? And it was really hard. Our employees didn't want to come to work. Nobody was emailing in, asking about bikes. Certainly they weren't coming to our showroom in Manhattan to look at bikes. It was really scary. I mean, you went from shipping

bikes every day, probably a hundred or so, to none. None. I mean, there would be a trickle, but it was nothing that could keep us in business. How long did that last? Probably the better part of three months. And all of a sudden, everything started to sell. And the emails, you couldn't stop them from coming in. The media was saying, you know, you can't go to the office, but you surely can ride the bikes outside with your family.

and people were doing it. And, you know, when the media started to send that message, it wasn't just us. Every single bike company had no inventory. We sold out of everything quickly. You sold out, right, because there were no shipments coming in either for a while or they would come in slowly. Our factories were shut down. Your factories were shut down. And so your website was sold out, sold out, sold out and everything. Every single model. Wow.

And our warehouse, at the time we had about a 50,000 square foot warehouse, it was empty. So 2020 turned out to be a good and bad year, a good year in the sense that your orders were way up, but bad because you couldn't actually deliver them. You couldn't fulfill those orders quickly. That's right. And when did the supply chain issues start to work themselves out by 2022?

the last half of 22. Wow. It took that long. Right around a year. And even, you know, I'll say that not on a high end components. So about a year ago, we started to get basic inner tubes and tires and things like that. But the hiring gearing system that we're using on our higher end bikes, some of them we still are six months out. Wow. And meantime, you were making, you were

producing different models, right? I mean, like this is part of your whole approach. You've got like what, 20, 25 different models? Yeah, we've got about 25 now from kids bikes to commuter bikes to adventure bikes to gravel bikes. And now we're working with cargo bikes as well.

By the way, I should mention, during COVID, you actually did take on some outside investment from a private equity group. That's right. And you were probably able to take a little bit of money off the table after presumably putting in lots of years into the business. But I also want to ask you about

about this year, because it's been a challenging year for a lot of consumer brands, consumer products. I mean, COVID was just, it was like a shot of steroids for probably every bike company. It's not, it's no secret. There's been a significant slowdown in bike sales in 2023. And even some bike companies, some well-known ones, I think it's like Venmoof, I think, have gone out of business.

The, you know, everything we read with industry data says that most bike companies are down 30 to 60%. Wow. And at the same time, a lot of these companies, and there were a lot of new companies that started.

They invested some money. They bought a lot of inventory. And now they're selling it really cheap, trying to turn that inventory into cash as quick as they can. And so there's a lot of sales going on because people need to move through their inventory. And so it's a much harder time to sell a bike than it's been in our nine years. And this will be our first year that we don't grow.

And, you know, we're not doing what we hope to do this year, but I think not losing right now is winning. And we're doing a good job of not losing. And, you know, it means while our competitors, some of them are shutting down locations, some of them are laying off staff. We're not doing that. Yeah. But we also know that the industry will rebound. We know we've got to keep our head down and keep working at it.

You also had another challenges here, challenge and understatement. You had an accident or pretty bad bike accident, which is, of course, you know, it's unfortunate for somebody who's been in this industry and devoted his life to cycling, but you got, you adored in New York City, right? Yeah, on January 11th, I was,

riding to my kid's school to volunteer at an event and I got dored. Somebody opened their door without looking, which laid me on the street. And what followed was not good. So there was a couple of incidents that followed that, but I wound up in the hospital for four weeks and over a week and I see you. Wow.

She spent four weeks in hospital and obviously had to step away from the business for some time this year. I think I stepped away from life for some time this year. Talking about the business, it was really comforting to know that

the business was doing great that Connor and my team have totally taken over and that everyone missed me on a personal level but didn't miss me in the business and they were continuing to do everything they could to run the business responsibly especially in a bad time and it showed me today how fortunate I am to have an amazing partner at work and

family at home and, uh, and great people behind me every step of the way. Yeah. Last night I was at an event in San Francisco and I was in an elevator. Somebody recognized me in the elevator and said, uh, how much she loves this question. I'm about to ask you. And it is polarizing because about 20% of our listeners hate it, but it's going to come anyway, which is when you think about your journey and, and all the things that have gone into it, where you are now almost 10 years in,

You've got a great brand that people know. You've got 20 plus different models, price points from 300, all the way to 5,000. So there's something of everybody. How much of where you are today do you think has to do with the work you put in and the time and the planning and the project management? How much do you think has to do with just getting lucky?

I think it's all hard work. We have been in the right place at the right time, but we wouldn't have been in the right place at the right time.

if we didn't work our butts off. And what I learned in doing business systems, and I think I probably was involved in implementing close to 100, what I learned is that some of the most successful businesses were just the ones that worked really hard. We work really hard at everything we do. And so we have got lucky sometimes, but I think that's because we were prepared for the situation.

and always being prepared for the situation, that means that when those opportunities come and when luck hits us, that we're able to capitalize on it. That's Dave Wiener, founder and CEO of Priority Bicycles. By the way, is there a world where we bring back the playing card?

in the spokes, like, why isn't that back? Like, why aren't we doing that anymore? You know, I've actually thought about that before, and I have taped the card to my kids' bikes, and they find it amazing. They like it.

Oh, yeah, they love it. Yeah. But then five other people on the street find them annoying. Yeah, it's sad. Maybe that's the thing. Maybe maybe we should just like, maybe it's a business. Maybe somebody listening, just just make that business a playing card that you put in the spokes of a bike. I think I think we need a guy, Ross, Dave, we are playing card that that'll go out with the series. We'll have to think about that. All right. That's a very possible. See if it sells. I love it.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show, and as always, it's free. This episode was produced by Josh Lash with Music Composed by Ramtean Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Carla Estves.

Our production staff also includes JC Howard, Casey Herman, Kerry Thompson, Alex Chung, John Isabella, Chris Messini, Sam Paulson, and Malia Agudello. Our audio engineers were Gilly Moon and Robert Rodriguez. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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