Latest / MountainWest Capital Network: Welcome to the Winners' Circle / Working Through the Hustle: Behind the Story of Bucked Up with Jeff & Ryan Gardner

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Working Through the Hustle: Behind the Story of Bucked Up with Jeff & Ryan Gardner · MountainWest Capital Network: Welcome to the Winners' Circle

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We did learn how to work hard, and that's helped
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: us get eighty ninety percent of the way. You guys
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: have the best tasting and best working pre work I
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: have ever taken. You have a home run. Somebody brought
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: in some Internet leads and we're like, what's the Internet?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: No matter where you are in your fitness journey, you're
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: welcome to Bucked Up.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Mountain West Capital Network podcast, your
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: gateway to the Winner Circle. I'm Sherry, the executive director
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: of Mountain West Capital Network.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: And I'm Jason, President of the Mountain West Capital Network
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: and managing director at Protivity. Every episode, we sit down
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: with Utah's most visionary business leaders to cover the ideas, risks,
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: and wins behind the state's fastest growing companies.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Mountain West Capital Network is best known for the Utah
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: one hundred, our flagship event that recognizes the state's fastest
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: growing businesses. But behind every number is a story. Announce
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: what this podcast is all about.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: You're not just tuning in to hear what's happened, You're
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: stepping inside the winner Circle to understand how it happened today.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: We are so thrilled to be joined by Jeff and
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Ryan Gardner the CXO and CEO of Bucked Up. Jeff
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: and Ryan are brothers who now work as managing partners
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: together for their supplement company here in Utah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: Jeff and Ryan decide to start Bucked Up together in
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: twenty sixteen. While Ryan worked on the day to day operations,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Jeff was planning behind the scenes to make Bucked Up
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: a worldwide brand. Jeff has utilized their ambassador partnerships to
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: spread news of Bucked Up, making his dreams for the
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: company come true. He has focused on ensuring that Bucked
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Up always stays ahead of the competition.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: With Jeff's help, Ryan has stayed busy to help Bucked
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Up become the number one best selling pre workout supplement,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: which is now available in over one hundred thousand stores worldwide.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Back into two thousand and one, when Ryan saw that
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: social media was helping his first business to skyrocket, he
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: dove headfirst into it and bought the website Dear Antler
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: spray dot com, which exploded their sales after a Super
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Bowl announcement. Once Bucked Up was launched, he did the
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: same and now leads the path in the supplement world.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: You can find their products at bucked up dot com.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: Jeff and Ryan, Welcome to the Winter Circle.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having us on. Appreciate it. We're excited.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: So for those just getting to know you, how would
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: you describe yourselves and tell the story behind Bucked Up
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and how it got started for the two of you.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Well, first off, we are twins, yes, so gain Tel
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: so you are. We get around twice as fast.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: People run across to you and they think they know you,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: and we always act like we are the other person,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: go with the flow. They don't even correct them, no secrets.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: And what's funny as our our father was an identical
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: twin Oho and so we were told to play every
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: trick that you can on the on the planet. And
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: we've we've taken tests for each other, we've dated the
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: same girl, graduated for each other, graduated for each other.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: It was great, we played, We played it all. So
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: but it'd be some golfing. Yeah, maybe some golfing in
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: there from different clubs. Who's better? Never know, you never know.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: We're too competitive. You're going to start a fight. Yeah
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: you're going to find out in this podcast for the table.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's really what it is. Is is. We're
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: just twins, so we're always family focused and we're we
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: we love working together. Sometimes it can be challenging, but
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: since we're twins, we don't hold back, just fight it out.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Five minutes later we're best friends again. Yeah. Yeah, so
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it's great because you could just move on and keep going. So,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but I think Jeff said it right. Family is probably
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the most important thing to us. We both have four kids,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you know, and even though we work hard and we
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: work a lot, we really it all comes back to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: hanging out with your family and going and doing fun
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: things with them.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: That's great.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Tell us about how it all started. I know there
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: are many people that understand the story, but there will
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: be listeners that will not know completely. Like you know,
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: dear Antler sprayed, I come and maybe just go go
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: into maybe the highlights of how it started.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: Well, we have somebody in the room that kind of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: influenced our story. Ryan had some missionary companions. After a mission,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: he came down and worked with one of them on
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a sales floor and we were up selling, coaching and mentoring.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: In about thirty to forty five minutes, we were selling
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: five to ten thousand dollars packages. You know, we figured
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: out that the guy who was making all the money
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: is the guy who's giving the leads to that sales floor.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And back then and they were doing it by infomercials
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: or seminars in the hotels. But somebody brought in some
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Internet leads and we're like, what's the internet. This is
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in nineteen before we even knew how to do an email,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: and it was crazy. And he goes, I really don't
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: know what I'm doing. Because Ryan said, let me come
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: work with you, and he said, well, I mean, I
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: just put these banners on this website and people have
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to choose some numbers because it was called freelatto dot
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: com and they would enter to win by clicking on
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: one of these banners and visiting no website. After one
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: hundred visitors, this guy would generate about two buyers from
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: this little ad he put together, and he would give
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the leads to the sales floor. So Ryan said, well, yeah,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: let me come down. And I didn't want to be
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on the sales floor for the rest of my life.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to be doing this,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: do you you know, can I get a job? That's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: what I said to him. But we were very good
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: at sales, and we were out going, and we were
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: very ethical, So we were very We weren't selling seventy
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: year old ladies. We were we were kind of like
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I would say that we were kind of good guys
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: selling because you could get a little off track just
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: to make a sell, and we just wouldn't ever cross
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: those lines. But Ryan figured out with this guy how
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: to produce leads on the internet through emailers. You'd have
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: people who had a list, an email list of their clients,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: and we would have them send our offer to that list.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: And there were many emailers out there that just started
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to come about. You know, when he started working, Like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: he said, he asked how to use his mouse to
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: put something on the desktop and he knows it was
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: for an attachment. I said, well, how do you make
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: an attachment? I remember all of his guys turning around
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: with you this, Okay, oh boy, who did you hire?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, I had I hadn't even used a
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: computer at that point, basically. Yeah. So Ryan basically told
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: me what he was doing and he said, Hey, Jeff,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I want to start something where we can
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: produce leads for everybody. Would you like to come and
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: come aboard. And we said, I said, yeah, I don't
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: want to be on the sales floor either. I let
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: him pave the wave and try it first, right as
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: it always has been. I'm the older one. I'm five
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: minutes older than Jeff. He's used that a good whole.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I say, respect your elders, come out. So we start
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: a little business, and and all of a sudden we
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: were producing leads for a lot of people, and that's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: really what how we started. And we were in the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: internet world before everybody was doing the internet, so we
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: were a little ahead of people. And that's kind of
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: what we pride ourselves on, like you said, is we
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: like to stay ahead and see what's coming down the
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: road and be, you know, always in front and have
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: people following or chasing us, you know. And then as
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: we were starting to produce leads and traffic and drive traffic,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: people would come into our office all the time and say, hey,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: I got this product. Will you drive traffic to our websites?
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: We said, yeah, we'll do it. Well, we got it.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Finally got sick of producing it for everybody else, and
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: we said, hey, if we can drive traffic, let's just
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: do it for our own products. A guy came in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that very next day and said, hey, I got this
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: product called l arginine and your dad uses it. And
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: he told me to come see you, said you'd put
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you on You had put me on steroids. And I
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: was like, well, not the drug steroids. But we can
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: drive a lot of traffic, but we don't do it
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: unless we own part of the company. And within thirty
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: to forty five minutes we owned fifty percent of the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: company and he was doing about six or seven hundred
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: dollars a day. Within three to four weeks, we were
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: doing about thirty five hundred dollars a day. Because we
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: took over his website. We started driving the traffic. We
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: started buying a lot of paper click you know, on Google.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And when that happened, all of a sudden, they turned
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: off this product was called l Arginine Plus. They turned
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: off all the pay per click for l arge nine plus.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And we happened to go out and buy the domain
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: name larg nine dot com about three weeks before that. Wow,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: and we were We spent twenty five grand on that
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: domain name, and we were like, that was a big decision.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: We looked at each other and said should we do this.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: It's twenty five thousand just for the name, but it
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: ranks number one because it was an exact match domain
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: with what people were going and searching.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: And so we said we got lucky. You know, we
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: were in the right place at the right time. We
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: bought the domain name. Three or four weeks later, they
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: turned off paper click and we got all the traffic.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So we were doing five six thousand dollars. We ended
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: up doing about four to five million dollars a year
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: on that one single product for years.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And that was a supplement. We were like, wow, supplements
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: is where it's at. Well, then we read an article
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in Sports Illustrated that says dear Antler Spray is banned
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball and we were like, what's dear
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Antler spray? What is it? A hunting product? What? We
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: didn't even know? And we read this article. We went
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: to Go Daddy and it was available for six dollars
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in ninety nine cents purchase and we bought it and
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: we were like and we were like, this is another
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: l argentine product. Don't run. Yeah. So and then I
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: went and found a manufacturer in Florida, that produced dear
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Antler spray, and we were like, hey, this is going
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to be just like l Argin nine. We're going to
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: rank number one. And we did. We started ranking pretty fast.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: But guess what, nobody read Sports Illustrated, So there was
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: very little traffic for somebody looking for deer Antler spray.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: They read it for the swimsuit issue. I think they
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: don't read the articles, all right, who doesn't study? But
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: so then we produced about thirty five hundred bottles. We
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: did the minimum order quantity of thirty five hundred bottles.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: We were selling like what ten to twelve a day?
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Five ten a day is all ten a day? And
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: we were like, man, we better hope we run out
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: before these expire. And then Jeff Teller like, one day
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we walk into the office and see we walk into
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: one hundred orders and we're like, are we somebody scamming
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: us or fraud and or using credit cards on our
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: website or something? What's going on? And about five or
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: ten minutes later, another one hundred orders, and a friend
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: called us on the phone and said, turn on ESPN
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: right now. And this was a Super Bowl media week
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of twenty thirteen, and at this media week, there was
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a press conference and a reporter pulled up some receipts
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and held them up and said, hey, ray Lewis, you
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: had a torn tricep three weeks ago. How did you
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: recover from this tricep? Tear self asked, and he said,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I have proof that you receipts that you bought dear
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Antler spray, and that's banned in the NFL. He couldn't
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: have done it better because he raised his hands and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: said I bought it, but I didn't take it. And
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: everybody's like, uh huh sure. And it's not banned to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the normal public, right, it's banned just in these in
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: this professional sports because the theory is it gives them
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: an unfair advantage. You can't really mess for it, and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: it helps you recover super fast because of this growth
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: hormone in it and going from zero cells to one
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: hundred cells every five minutes. We were like, market, you
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: can't mark it up. So we marked it from thirty nine.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Try to blow down the cells because we're like we're
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: going to run out. We're going to run out. Mark
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: it up to fifty nine, mark it up to seventy nine.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: We sold every bottle after the first couple hours for
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: ninety nine dollars a bottle and sold out all the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: rest of our inventory, which is like twenty six hundred bottles,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and yeah, that's that's there. Born. Then then a day
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: or two later, GNC calls this and says, hey, how
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: fast can you fulfill thirty thousand bottles? And I said, well,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: let me find out. So I called the manufacturer and
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, this is Ryan with dear Antler spray.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And he goes, I thought I'd be hearing from you.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: How many bottles do you need? I said, I need
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand, as fast as you can make them, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: he goes, I'll have him tea in three weeks. Wow.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And we were selling thousands of bottles in four weeks.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: At GNC, we were selling thousands of bottles a week.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: At GenZ they had four thousand stores at the time,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: and we were doing thousands and thousands of bottles every week.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And GNC was basically like, hey, we'll skip all the
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: red tape. It may be banned in professional sports, but
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: it's not banned for us. And everybody keeps asking for it,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: everybody coming. It's the number one search thing that the
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: people were asking for it. And then we started going
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to expos and selling just dear Antler spray at these
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: expos and these fitness expos. And then as we were
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: looking around, we were like, what is everybody doing here?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And they were all selling a pre work out and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: we were like, what's a pre workout?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: And they we went around and started taste testing, and
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: it was I mean, they tasted terrible. Sometimes you almost
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: had to plug your nose back. Then it was like,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know why they couldn't make a good tasting one,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: but they would just keep reassuring us it's because it works.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: It tastes bad because it works really good. And then
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: we would start itching and we thought we were allergic
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: to whatever. Try to free work. Keep in mind, we'd
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: never try to be worked out at this point. Yeah,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and they had like, you know, an iosin and beta alane,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and we didn't know what that was. We just thought
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: we were allergic and we were starting to itch and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and whatnot. So you know, it's actually a really good ingredient.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And nine percent of pre workouts contain beta alanine because
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: it helps buffer lactic acid, so you could you should
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: be able to push it a lot longer, a lot
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: harder during your workout. So we we said, we need
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: to come out with something more than just deer antler spray.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Not everybody's taking this spray to recover and things. So
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: we saw that pre workout was there, and we said,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: we just need to come out with the best tasting
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and best working and tell everybody what's in it. And
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: one of the guys that was walking around, his name
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: was Jose. He had a G and C store. He goes, well,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I'll help consult you and tell you everything that you
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: should put in this thing. And so we said, sounds great,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: come in and help us, help us create a line
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of good products that we can sell. And I remember
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: when they made us a first bottle of a pre workout.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: We first off, we drank like three servings. We drink
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: it all day long, and we didn't realize caffeine. We didn't.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: You can't do that.
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: I had a massive headache going I we just had
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: six hundred eight hundred MILLI drums in and says, hey,
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: you can't drink that many. It tastes so good, though, Wow,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: it tastes so good and I felt focused, but it
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: was so much caffeine I was like a thousand milligrams
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: at caffeine.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: One day, I gave it to my buddy to try
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and he goes, let me try it, because I've tried
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: fifteen different pre workouts and I worked for a supplement company.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: So I gave it to him. He took it to Vasa.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: He literally came back to my office and he came
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: in and said, Jeff, you guys have the best tasting
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and best working pre workout I have ever taken. You
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: have a home run. You just need to know how
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to market. Well, you're talking to the market, and really
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: that's all it was. When we started off, we just
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: said what should we call it? You know, this pre workout,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and since we had deer antler spray, we stuck with
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the deer theme. Somebody's actually suggested it. One of our ambassadors.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Actually we started an ambassador program by this time, and
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: one of the ambassadors had suggested it. Yeah, he said,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: why don't you call it bucked up? And we go
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: to go Daddy, that's the first thing I did. I
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: was like, and it was for self. It was for
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: sale for fifteen hundred dollars or best offer, and you know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: we had bought large nine dot com twenty five thousand.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: We were like, we're not making this offer, We're just
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: gonna pay it, and rhyme bought it right straight up
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: fifteen hundred and we got the name and that's why
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: we call it bucked Up. And my parents they hated.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Oh when we said we're going to call it bucked up,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: they were like, no way are you going to call
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it that? And to be honest, like and we're super
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: straight parents, Yeah, it is a kind of a parent
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It's kind of a sketchy name in a sense, like
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: what you would name your brand right and have everything
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: named after. But it went from being kind of a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: sketchy name to being where my parents hated the name
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to now they just love saying my boys boy's own
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: bucked up, you know, yeah, and it's right off their
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: tongue real easy now. And B, why you wouldn't let
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: us go in because of the name at first and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: now they ask us to donate all the time. Yeah,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: B why you actually said we can't do it because
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: because of the name, the name will never get approved.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Like a year later, they were back at our office saying, hey,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: we want you to sponsor, and of course, so you
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: know it's it's funny that people. We appreciate your donations.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you. It kind of turned from a sketchy kind
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: of name to start a company after to actually mainstream
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: where everybody is like accept accepting it, and then it
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: became popular and everybody wanted to be part of it. Yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: so it was it was really fun I.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Don't like the word sketchy. I think edgy, edgy.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Edgy edgy is better. Yeah, I like that too, ye
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Edgi for Utah, it was really edgy.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it really is. But like it's I mean,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: you see it everywhere.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Some of the other names that we have for some
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of our products, yeah, they're even more. We had to
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: explain to our parents several times the names and what
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: they meant, and like WOKF we told them it stands
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: for Woke American four because that's where we make.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: It. Can I mean they can yeah.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that's the story of how we how we
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: it all got started. And now, like we say, we're
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in G and c's vitamin shops, mom and pop supplement
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: shops throughout the country, Dicks Shills, all the main stores,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and now we have an energy drink that we've done
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: since twenty twenty one. Last year we sold seventy five
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: million energy drinks and this year we'll do well over
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: one hundred million. And so we're in convenience stores all
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: throughout the country. We have a one hundred percent distribution
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: network that we can go to and distribute our drinks
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: throughout the country. And we're now in hundreds of thousands
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of locations and starting to do a lot of international
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: business as well.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Right, and where's an international lokay?
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So mostly mostly international too. You know, Canada has really
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: taken off this year. They're just exploded and they can't
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: hardly keep the supplements in. But we just launched in
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: costcos with the energy drinks. They're killing it. And and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: then we introduce protein, the RTD Protein drinks and they're
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: loving it. So Kenna's killing it. Australia is doing really well.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We're we're in we now got all approval from Mexico,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: so that's about to kick off. And you know over
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: in the UK and EU, Yes, it's fantastic, and we're
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: in about thirty one countries because it's all over the place,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: so it's fun.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But speaking of you know, it's something about the brand
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I think something about this this buck, it just resonates
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: with a lot of people, and it kind of looks aggressive,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: it kind of has a little edge to it. And
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and they know Mississippi, they sell it just because it
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: has a deer logo on it. They're like, I want
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: that just because it has a buck logo on it.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But anywhere you go across the country, they seem to resonate.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So we were very fortunate to be in the right
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: spot at the right time. And sometimes we say the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: harder you work, the luckier you get. And we're just
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: truly blessed to be in the right spots at the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: right time. So I love that.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: So has the logo changed at all evolved since twenty sixteen.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: It has not evolved. It's always been this buck logo.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Before that, when we had deer Antler Spray, we did
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: have a deer logo on it, but it wasn't really
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: it was just called deer Antler Spray. And so we
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: ended up transforming that from the old logo to the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: new one, and that was this one. We had a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: designer and we said, hey, we like these logos, we
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like the way these look. Let's do one that looks
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: pretty similar except different.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: You know, so you've also so you've got the supplements
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: and energy drinks and all of that, but like you
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: also have an apparel.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Do we do have a and Jeff's actually Jeff's I'm
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: also in charge of apparel now sign has me doing
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff in the company.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Right, he's the best sales person at all.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: But like I said, the brand resonated so well that
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: we didn't even want to sell. When we first went
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: to these exposed, we said, how are we going to
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: sell this pre workout? And we are so frugal, I
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: mean from Utah. I think it's it's dread in us
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit, right, just to not go in dead
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and want a good deal and want a good deal.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: And we said, how are we going to get people
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: to buy this product? And we we went to this expo.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: We said if you buy two of these, and we
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: didn't give away any samples. We only let them taste
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: it out of a little dispenser and we said, hey,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: if you like how it tastes, wait till you see
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: how it works, you need to buy it. But if
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: you buy two today, we'll give you a free shirt.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: And at first, right, well, we are not giving away
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a free shirt five dollars a T shirt. I said, Ryan,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: these guys are going to be walking billboards for us.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It's the best five dollars we can ever best thing
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: he's ever convinced me in doing so. We ended up
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: selling one our first one thousand bottles in two days
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: at La fit Expo because of that, and everybody started
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: wearing our peril and we made the sh shirt's good
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: enough so they wanted to wear it. And we didn't
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: go cheap. We wanted a good quality shirt. Now of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: this just one flag shirt that we were given away,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: we probably buy thirty to fifty thousand shirts a month.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Wow of the one shirt.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We do funnels, so we do sell them through you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: they call them click funnels right now, but we called
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: them landing pages. And we've been doing click Somebody came
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: to us and says, yeah, a click funnel. Have you
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: ever heard of it? And I'm like, no, what is it? Oh,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: We've been doing landing pages for years. You know, they
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: just happened to coin it click click funnel. But you know,
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: we give out we give free T shirts with trying
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: our samples and products and stuff. So we do a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: lot that way, and so all these people are out
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: there wearing our brand. I was in Costa Rica on
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the beach and then here comes a guy walking through
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and he's wearing a bucked up shirt. I'm like, boys,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: we've made it. We've made it, so but now we
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: do you know how much? How many millions are we
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: going to do this year on just apparel? Eight nine
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: million this year on just apparel? And we're not an
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: apparel company, We're not in apparel. It's kind of tough
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: because you have to carry the Smalls and the double
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: x's and stuff that that may not sell as well.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: But you know, it's it's fun and it's a but
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: it's a necessary thing for RAMP and people just enjoy
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: wearing it. And we try to make good quality, just
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: like our pre workouts and things. We try to make
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it as good a quality as possible and people just
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: enjoy wearing it. That's awesome.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, I would love to understand, you know, just
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: your product innovation process. I mean obviously, yeah, you've highlighted,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: you know, kind of the the life cycle of these products.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: The Dear Antler Spray pre workout. I mean, you talked
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: about the energy drink. What's the process that you go
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: through to identify, Hey, here's here's a need in the market.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: You know, let's go after it. Obviously, you guys, you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: speed to execution is huge, maybe highlight for the listen.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Well, so you know, I'm one of the main guys
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that runs that does all the innovation and make sure
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that we come out with different categories that are doing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: really well and different gaps that are in the market.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Those are the things that I look at. We go
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: to an ingredient show every year called Supply Side West
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and we go to Vegas and that's where they hold
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: this ingredient show, and we're just trying to find diamonds
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: in the rough and find these people who have clinical
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: studies behind ingredients and what they do, and we want
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: to make sure that what we're giving people actually works.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: And so that's kind of how we've innovated at Bucked
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Up is we'll go to one of these shows and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: we'll see an ingredient that they say, hey, it increases
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: VO two max and it increases absorption of el cicrallin.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: We'll add those ingredients to our products and we'll be like, hey,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: even though we may not have the most because it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: can absorb sixty six percent better. Helps that product absorbs.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: We'll show you proof is in the pudding till you
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: try our product. And so that's kind of how we
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: go about innovating and coming up with different things. But
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you know, the bigger you get, the more complex the
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: business kids and right now they kind of slow us
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: down and put the reins because I could keep pumping
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: out products all day long. But if you have too many,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you just get saty. You're like, hey, we got to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: focus on what's really moving the needle, you know, because
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: we'd love to come up with stuff for us, you know.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: We we like certain stuff all the time and we're like, hey,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: we want to do this, and we're like, but that's
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: just for us, you know what I mean. So you know,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: we'll make you a few samples and just be good
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: with it. But we do try to be innovative. And
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: that's what's brought us here to where we are today,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: is that we've innovated and most of the people are honestly,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: most of the people are following exactly what we're doing.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: We're we do a hockey phrase and we say, hey,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we're going to skate to where the puck's going to be,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: not where it is, And so we always try to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: look for the future and say, hey, this is what
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: we want to do. Even now, we do stuff where
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: we want to be innovative and come up with new things,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and we get some pushback from our coming like AI.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: We want to be really involved in AI and help
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: their jobs become that much more efficient, and sometimes we
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: get a lot of pushback. We started a year ago,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: I said, when chat GPT first came out, I said,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: everybody gets chat GPT, your jobs will be that much easier.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I want everybody buying it, will pay for all the subscriptions,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: go get it today, and people are like, oh okay.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And we would kind of I would have meetings and
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: focus just on AI and say, hey, guys, we're all
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: going to push this direction and get on board with
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the AI movement, and we're going to start in this department.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it's pretty difficult because, for instance, we started
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it with customer support. It's taken a little bit to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: catch on. But since then we can have all of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: our customer or support answered by email or by chat.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: And there's so many rare, rare incidences that it actually
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: hands off to a human because it's gotten better and better.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: So it's been it's been real fun. But we again,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: we try to stay ahead and most people follow.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. One of the things I really haven't heard.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, you guys are out there, so there's there's
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of talking and a lot of shows that
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: you've been on. And but one of the things I
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: really want to talk about is that's all the good stuff.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: There's got to be hard stuff too.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, when we introduce ourselves, we introduce ourselves as
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the Janitors. We go around and clean up a lot
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: of mess and fires. You know, we are a fireman
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: or with a lot of stuff. But there's a lot
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of stuff that we do clean up. But sometimes it's
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: caused by us too, so you know what I mean.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So but but yeah, I mean, the bigger you get,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: the more complex it gets. We had one instant where
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: we came out with energy drinks. When we first came
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: out with energy drinks, believe it or not, it was
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen and we released them at fit Con that
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: happened in April. We produced these energy drinks. We thought
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: they were so good. Well, when we received them, they
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: actually increased two of the ingredients in there that caused
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: it to taste really, really bitter, and we didn't know
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: until we received two hundred thousand cans. Wow, and we said,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we can't do this. We took them to fit Con
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and I remember one person posting and saying, you know,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: I've enjoyed all their products, but this is the one
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: thing that it just doesn't taste that great. And at
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: that time, I said, hey, pull them all back. We're
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: going to run them over with a steamroller or whatever
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: we got to do to get rid of them, and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: we did. We want to make sure that we produce
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a product. I said, we've only got one shot at
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: energy drinks. They've got to be good. And I mean,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: even though the performance was unreal, these two ingredients caused
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: it to taste bitter on the end, and I'm like,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: no one's going to drink it again. So we quickly adjusted,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: made modifications, and now then we produced a bunch of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you get big, it's a matter of
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: getting everybody bought into that idea and then being able
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to execute. The one thing Ryan and I were good
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: at in the beginning is just going by the sea
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of our pants and getting something done, you know, and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of people to get in our way.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: And you know, some people like to have everything in
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a row, their ducks in a row. We did it.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: We started with the first step and then we figured
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: it out as we went to the second step, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: we didn't even know what we were doing. We just
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: worked and worked hard until we figured it out. But
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: that also helped us be able to be fast, you know,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like you mentioned, you have to be fast and be
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: pretty nimble today too, we're able to make adjustment. But
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: getting everybody to go with your idea and get it
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: to cross the finish line and execute, that's a real challenge.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: At times, you've both highlighted other people involved in you know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: helping and supporting your growth. I mean I've heard, you know,
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: just doing my research just seeing new hires, whether it's
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: a CFO or others, maybe highlight what impact have those
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: individuals made. Where are you at now from a headcount perspective,
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: and just give us a highlight of people and the
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: importance of the culture that you've built.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: We have two hundred and sixty seven people employee employees
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: now and looking back and if I had it all
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: over again. I'd hire people with experience right off the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: bat instead of being frugal. There's sometimes that we passed
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: opportunities to hire somebody because we are too frugal. Now
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at it. We ended up, you know, we
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: sold four million energy drinks in twenty twenty one, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: we had a group come to us and they said, hey,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: we want to invest in your company. We were like,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: we have plenty of money. We don't need your investment.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: We don't need your money, and they go, but we
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: can help you level up. We have a person that
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: would like to come in and he will work with
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: you and he'll build out your whole distribution network. He's
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the former CEO of Doctor Pepper. And at that point
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: we were like, what's a distribution network? Yeah, exactly. We
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: said what's a distributor, let's start there and they.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Were like, understood Pepper.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But even at that time we were like, what,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you know, we didn't have the experience, we didn't know
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: what we were doing.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Do we need that?
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: We yeah, And when we we ended up hiring the guy,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and now, look, we have one hundred percent distribution throughout
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the country. We're going to sell over one hundred million
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: energy drinks and that comes with experience. Looking back, I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: just wish, man, I wish we would have hired people
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: a lot sooner that had the experience. So you know,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I read. I do remember a guy coming in and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: that we were wanting to produce energy drinks and we said, hey,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: we're looking to have somebody come in and invest to
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: help us get energy drinks off the ground. And he's like, well,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I can already tell you what your problem is. You're
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: trying to do it all. You're trying to be the CFO,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the CMO, all these different departments. We were wearing multiple hats.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: All of us were wearing five hats each, and they said,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: that's your issue. And as soon as he told us that,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: we went out and hired a CFO and he came
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: in and within the first week he's like, you guys
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: have plenty of money. You don't need to raise money.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: We're like, oh wow, okay, And it helped us make
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: decisions right, And that's the thing at the very first starting. Yeah,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: it's hard work and getting something off the ground, but
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: then it's hiring the right people. Even now, I want
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: to be able to hire people who are a lot
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: smarter than me at this because I don't know what
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I'm doing basically, especially at this level, it gets way bigger.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: We've never done it before. We're just we even may
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: step back a little bit so that other day to.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Can do yuh, but it's your baby too, so that
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: takes a lot, I mean a lot of trust and
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: a lot of vulnerability and showing that Okay, yeah, you know,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: maybe we don't need to be making all those decisions.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Decisions well, that would be really hard. And to be truthful,
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: there's so many meetings now, yeah, we hate I hate meetings,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: So like, please somebody take this over, because you know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: this is just not fun anymore. You know, when you're
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: starting out and you're doing in starting in the trenches,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: working the expos. We show up at the expos still
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: and we like to see and get the beat on
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the stream, to see meet customers and see what see
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: what's going to be the next thing that we need
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to come out with. We did go to the Arnold
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and people are like, you're still coming to these I'm like, yeah,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I know, right, so, but we still go to them
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: and we love, you know, mingling with the people. I guess,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: so it's our baby.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: I love that. I think that it's great that you
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: show up and.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: You're I think we're one of the only brands that
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: do it. Most people don't even know the owners of
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: the most brands, so and they know that we show up.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah you do. I was that scheduling.
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, this last winter, I've got a heavy dose
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: of that. And it was so fun because you just
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: know when the when the Bucked Up crew shows up,
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: it's a party. And so not only do you show up,
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: but your teams show up.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: And I love it.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And you know, it does take a little trust, but
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: you have to have these people, these processes, these systems
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: in place, Otherwise you just bottleneck it and it's that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: rock in the funnel that doesn't let anything go past.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And once you have the right people, which you know,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: we've had some great people to help us get to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: where we are, and we put these crazy systems in
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: place that cost lots of money and we're like, wait,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: what what are we spending? But it then opens that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: funnel and you're like, oh, this is why we needed this.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it, but we did it.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: And then you're making decisions based off facts, not just guesses.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: You know, before we were throwing things against the wall
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: hopefully that they stick. Now we're actually going, hey, let's
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: make a calculated decision and and it tends to work
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: a lot lot better for us.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: So you're based in Utah, you Clearfield is where?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we were basically born and raised in Clearfield on
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: a farm up there, went to Clearfield High School. Falcons
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: number one. You know, we we we hated being farmer.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: We're like, this is too hard to work, Like nobody
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: wants to be a farmer. Now that we've gotten this business,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and we're guess what we're going back to? Are we
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: going back to I now have a bunch of I
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: got horses. I'm like, what am I doing? We're going
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: back to being farmers. Isn't that weird? My Dad's like, well,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: why didn't you have horse? Is sooner? I'm like I did.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I had a one hundred and ten horse side by
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: side razor. Yeah, there's razor, and I didn't have to
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: feed it every day. Now look what I'm doing.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So well, my question that goes along with that
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: is how much does your success come from being based
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: in Utah and founded in Utah and growing from here,
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: tell me, like, give us that Utah story.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: Utah is an unbelievable place to start a business. Number One,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: you usually know a lot of people because everybody knows
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: their neighbors kind of network, and you know, people talk.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: And that's what's awesome about Utah is that, you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: it's a great place to start a brand because if
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: it really starts, they tell a lot of people about it.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, at the end, at the end of
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the day, we were going, hey, it's not about these
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: big influencers. It's about these micro influencers that really get
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: behind you and really move the needle. You would rather
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: have an army of people rather than just one person.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And that's what we did with our brand. We said, hey,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: no matter where you are in your fitness journey, you're
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: welcome to Bucked Up. It doesn't matter if you're skinny, fat,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: want to put on muscle, want to lose weight, it
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: didn't matter. We got we got teased at first, actual,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: yeah we did, because when you were taking just anybody
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: on and they're like, you don't even have any bodybuilders
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: or any of these like really good fitness influencers, and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: we're like, well that's we that's us. Come on, dude,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I've been working out for a year. You know in
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Utah is so good. It also is like, if you
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: want to start a company, Utah is a great place
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to do it because you have people that speak languages
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: because they've been on missions. You can start a whole
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: sales floor in two seconds with all these return missionaries
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and you can immediately explode cells. But UTA's so great
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and the people are all respecting here. People people talk
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: to each other. I mean that's at the end of
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the day. They just everybody knows. You could I honestly,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: you can probably name someone and it's like two degrees
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: of Kevin Bacon within two people, you can find out
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: somebody that's related to them.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: As you know, we did that when you guys first
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: walked in. Yeah, instantly we already knew people that you knew.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I just loved what you've highlighted today. I
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: think one of my last things is is just we've
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: recognized you as part of the Mountain West Capitol Network,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: as part of one of the fastest companies. You know,
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: you've been recognized I think over three years. Yeah, the
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: last year was twenty twenty four.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: But what is that.
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: How does that make you feel? Like? How does that,
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: you know, motivate you? What does that mean to you
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: to be recognized not just by Mount and West Capitol Network,
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: but I mean there's a lot of others that And.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: We're super competitive. We were fighting to get out of
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: the womb here. I mean we were we were super
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: competitive all growing your wombmates.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: So there was one point in our lives so that
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: we were so competitive that they sent me to Alaska.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: They shipped me off my parents ship.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: You are the one.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: We were somehow. I had a guy who okay, now
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you know, but we we ended up separating because we
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: were so competitive. It was just a battle every day.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: And we would fight three or four times a day
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: because we were going out playing basketball on the driveway.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: Next thing you know, we're fighting. Five minutes later, we're
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: fine and we go play again. My parents are like,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: we're done doing this. We're done. You guys are physically
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: hurting each other. We're done doing this. So I got
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: sent up to Alaska for about three months and came
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: back and everything seemed to kind of chill out a
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: little bit and realized we're better together than we are apart.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: But we are super competitive. So when we see these numbers, right,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and we see these, we're like, how are we not higher?
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: You know, like, you know, we we are doing some
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: I mean we're going to probably hit three hundred million
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: this year in revenue, and we're still like, hey, we
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: still are so competitive about what we got to just
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: work hard. We still think we're the little guys, which
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: we are in the big scheme. I mean, look who
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: we're going up against. We're going up against red bulls
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: and monsters and and different things. But yeah, we're we're
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: the little guys. And we did learn how to work hard,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and that's helped us get I would say probably eighty
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: ninety percent of the way because sometimes even though we
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: didn't know what we were doing and we just kind
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: of outworked people, so that that helped us a lot.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: I love that's that's a key to your story. I
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: think that just the work ethic and your you know,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: speed and execution.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: And really we just think we're hustlers. You know, we
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: still think we're twenty five, but our bodies tell us different.
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: But you know, we are hustlers. You enjoy the hustle, yeah,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: we do, and we like starting one of our straits
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: is starting things, you know, and then hiring the people
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: to help us finish, you know. So it's great, that's
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that's what we like to do. Well, we hope you apply.
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: We're applications are open right now, so we'll love to
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: recognize this, this great company that you've built.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: It's just amazing. It's funny because we'll get people that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: we haven't met. They'll come up and say, I'm so
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: proud of you. We're like, we don't even know these people,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: and so it's fun. That's great. Yeah, it's fun and
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: it's fun to be you know, you go to different
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: places and you see your brand and you see someone
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: wearing it. We'll go to like a UFC fight down
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: in Vegas and there's a couple of people in the
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: audience that are wearing your your flying shirt and you're like, yeah,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: this is awesome. So it's just it's just fun to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: see and and and recognize that it's gotten this big.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: The first actually the really biggest first time that I
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: was like, wow, this is actually we're onto something. We
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: went with our kids to California, the Disneyland. We stopped
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: at a subway. My little daughter was wearing a buck
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: up shirt and the guy behind the counter was like, hey,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: do you know bucked up? How are you wearing a
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: bucked up T shirt? And they were She was like, Dad,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: tell them who you are. And I'm like, no, fuddy,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: I'm really I'm the janitor and I worked there. No,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: But that's when I was like, Wow, we were really onto.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: We actually have a brand, yeah, and let's just make
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it really grow. And that's where we are today. So
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: it's been awesome. It's been a fun ride. It's crazy fun.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: You've got a.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Ton of people just cheering you on and supporting you
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: from all walks actually, and just really quick, what's next?
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: So we've talked about we talked about that, like what where,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: what should we be looking for down the road? Can
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: you even share that?
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think I think Ryan. Then in July,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: we're trying to take a little step back from the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: day to day. We sometimes feel like we're getting in
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: the way now and it's just not what we're good at.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: We would want to focus on stuff that, you know,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: like founder led you know, events and different things where
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: we can go out and associate and network and do
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: what we're good at. But that's kind of we're trying
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: to take it's been ten years of hard going and
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: we have even family members that are there. We told
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: them they still have ten years to catch up to us,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: but you know, and they're really good in the in
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: the company. So we appreciate our family being there along
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the way. We used to feel all the orders at
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: first with our families and it was it's it's really
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: been a good family focused business. But yeah, we're we're
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: kind of taking a little we want to take a
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: little step back from the day to day roles and
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: we like to see the future, right like, we like
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: to do things that are different than everybody else. We
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: think longevity. We've invested in a stem cell company that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: we're going to help push here in the future. And
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: there's just some things that we have and we also
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: believe AI is really big and we feel like that
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: is going to be whether people like it or not,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that's going to be a big part of the future
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: of our life. And so we're kind of on you
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: know where we're maybe even thinking about consulting companies on
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: how to implement AI into their businesses like we're doing
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: with ours. And so those are some of the things.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Some ideas that we have, but we'll see what happens
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: when we actually, you know, step away from the day
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to day operations. I guess it's awesome. We'll see what
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: happens here in the future. We're cheering for you. Well,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: we appreciate it, and you know, we want to thank
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: everyone that's supported our brand over the years. It's been
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: ten years and we've seen amazing growth and we couldn't
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: do it without the people here in Utah and everywhere
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: else that support our brand. It's just awesome. We had
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: a warehouse cell two weeks ago and is the turnout
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: is crazy? They were lined up around. Yeah, it was wild.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: We just can't thank people. We almost did five hundred
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars in one day and these are selling five
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: dollars T shirts. Yeah, I mean it was crazy. People
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: were walking out with piles of clothes and we put
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: them in trash bags because they needed a trash bag
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: to carry stuff out. Yeah, just crazy. What's fun? Awesome? Wow,
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I love that. But thanks for having us on. We
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: appreciate it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: No, we're grateful that you could share your story with us.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Been a fan for a while, and we're excited to
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: see our golf tournament in July. You guys are just
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: really great at like giving back and supporting, and so
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: thank you.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: We feel that's a big part of it, you know.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: And we do have people that come to our warehouse,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: like teams have us hit us up all the time.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: We say, come into our warehouse and you can earn
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: as much as you want. We had one team earned
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: thirty something thousand dollars traveled over to Europe to play soccer.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: One high school team because they were able to come
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: in and we'll say, hey, do whatever you want, well
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: we'll help. We gave them stuff to do to help
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: support their team as well an opportunity to make money.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: So cool, and it's just a great example I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: of giving back and supporting the community. So I think
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that that just is awesome. We are so thankful for
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: you to join us today. It has been just amazing
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: to hear the story and to get to know you
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: both a little more individually.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Together together.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: Your story of hard work and passion is an example
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: to all of us who chase what matters most and
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: shoot for the stars. We are proud to highlight your
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: work here at Mountain West Capital Network.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: And for our listeners who want to learn more, how
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: do they find you?
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: Really, they just go to bucked up dot com and
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: they can see basically what we have as far as
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: products and things that we sell, and then they can
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram as well. Mine's Bucked Up CEO
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and mine is j Way ninety nine, but Jeff Gardner
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: if you look up yea.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: And to everyone, thank you for joining us. A special
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: thanks to the launch Pod team, Johnny and Christine for
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: producing our show, Zachary Reid for his vision and direction
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: as producer, Katie Brown, Operations Specialist for keeping us in
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: line and on track, and Garrett Lawson and Kevin Jessup
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: for serving as our Mountain West Capital Network podcast chairs.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: And don't forget to leave us a five star review
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: and subscribe to stay updated on Utah's fastest growing companies
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: and the leaders shaping our business future. There's nothing we
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: appreciate more than hearing from our listeners, rate, review, and share.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Warnes Circle.