Brian Casel: [00:00:00] Hey, it's Open Threads. It's my podcast. I'm Brian Casel. Welcome to it. Back on the show today is my friend, Justin Jackson, who you may know from the interwebs, he's kind of the podcast guy, the Transistor.fm guy, the marketing guy. But we didn't talk about any of that. We talked about snowboarding and the early part of Justin's life when he was really into snowboarding and then made his way into the actual snowboarding industry, Uh, into, uh, uh, snowboard manufacturing and then into snowboard and skateboarding retail.

That was actually one of his first businesses that he was in. We talked all about that story and the lessons that he learned from that and how different You know, running a retail shop and marketing like a snowboard brand is, and maybe, maybe drawing some kind of connections to our world here in the, uh, in the software industry.

So it was a good one. let's talk to [00:01:00] Justin about snowboarding.

Justin Jackson, welcome back to Open Threads.

Justin Jackson: What's up, man? I'm doing well, Brian. How are you doing?

Brian Casel: Doing good. Doing good. We were just saying offline, you know, I think on this show, I love just like hopping on the mics with like any founder friends just to talk about whatever. But I think we're going to get into a phase where we're just going to start to like cycle back around to a lot of the same people.

And you know what's A big reason I started this show was because You know, when people think about Justin Jackson these days in 2022, they're probably thinking like Transistor FM. They're thinking like podcaster podcasting in general. And of course we could do a whole episode about that SaaS and marketing and stuff like that stuff is like word association with Justin Jackson, but big.

Reason I started this show is because, as we all know, there's [00:02:00] so much more to what we're all into. Like, I know that you're a snowboarder, I know in previous life you ran a snowboard shop, I know you're a music head just like I am, so we're gonna get into this stuff.

Justin Jackson: Yeah, yeah, I think it's so cool. I mean, I think what attracted me to podcasting was getting the human story behind these people I knew on the internet anyway.

And to me, that's always been the most interesting and actually has been sometimes frustrating when I've done shows like product people and build your sass, because what most people want or say they want is like tactics and like the story of how they built their business and all that. Yeah. But all that other stuff is so interesting to me, what people are, you know, into on the side.

And

Brian Casel: totally. And you know, I think that we are incredibly lucky. To be in this industry. Like specifically, like we have such a unique opportunity here. [00:03:00] I don't think people quite realize this. I start to think about it a lot lately. All right. Like you're in Canada, you're on the other side of the continent for me.

And I have plenty of friends in completely other continents and countries and parts of the U S completely different cultures, different upbringings, different interests and hobbies, different families. And the only thing that we happen to share is that we make software for a living, but other than that, like everything is like completely different.

Justin Jackson: And it's interesting, like, just when it comes to snowboarding. Well, we have that in common, too. Oh, yeah, we have that in common. But I think what's interesting is, you know, there's a time in my life where that was kind of, One of the main things that defined my life, you know, in high school, I started snowboarding.

I think when I was in grade nine, so 14 or something, had skied before and, you know, where you live,

Brian Casel: you're, you're like closest to mountains.

Justin Jackson: So I grew up in Stony [00:04:00] Plain, which is about four hours from the Rockies, so we had a local hill that was just like a pile of garbage that had been turned into a ski hill, and then we had another one that was like in a river ravine, so really small, but then we would do big trips to Jasper or Banff, and so those were four to five hours away, and then in high school, We would get these passes that would allow us to, we wake up early, you know, like four or five in the morning and then drive to Jasper.

And snowboard all day and then come home. So the weekend trip started to be a thing. And then British Columbia is right next door. So once or twice a year, we would do these bigger trips with friends and go to Silverstar and big white and all the mountains I live around now. So, yeah,

Brian Casel: I mean, I want to get into the snowboard shop in a minute, but like, so where you [00:05:00] live now.

Uh, is it like, uh,

Justin Jackson: yeah, we moved here for snowboarding, at least I did. We moved here 10 years ago and my kids were a lot younger and I was just, I mean, you're

Brian Casel: like, like a, like a, within like a 20 minute drive

Justin Jackson: of 25 minutes from my house to the chairlift at silver star. Yeah. I'm

Brian Casel: so jealous of you guys.

Like, you know, I have a bunch of friends who I found her friends that we go snowboarding every year and most of them are like you, they live near. Ski and snowboard areas and I'm in Connecticut within an hour. There's like some pretty terrible hills But I got to go up to Vermont to get some decent stuff like three four hours from where I live And it's just yeah, it's not close enough to be like I can go whenever I want, you know I can't do like a half a day of work and a half a day on the hill It's got to be a whole weekend or

Justin Jackson: whatever it is, you know Yeah, it's pretty fun.

I mean, you end up, every year since we moved here, I've gotten a season's pass and [00:06:00] you just end up doing a lot of two hour days where you'll like drive up, go riding for a couple hours in the morning and then be back around lunchtime and then,

Brian Casel: you know, that's the other thing that work or whatever. I don't know how it is by you, maybe getting the season pass makes it a little bit not as terrible, but the price of being into snowboarding or skiing these days is just, I mean, it's insane.

And that it's been insane for a number of years now, but then once you have kids, I've got a six and an eight year old who have been taking lessons for the last, like three seasons. So you've got like rentals and then lessons for them and then for lift tickets I mean we go to a a crappy hill in the northeast for one day plus a hotel room plus driving there I mean, that's like a thousand dollar weekend at least.

Justin Jackson: Yeah, it's crazy. It's pricey. I mean and it's always been Expensive but it's gotten Like the [00:07:00] multiples of expensive gone at it's just everywhere is more expensive I think a family pass is at our Hill is Probably costs three or four thousand dollars a year I think And I've just gotten a family pass every single year even as my kids have gotten older and not been as into it when we moved here my dream was like they're all gonna be pro skiers and snowboarders that they're gonna love it so much and you know, they all learn to ski and They like it enough to do it a couple of times a year or whatever, but especially my older two, they're, they're like, definitely not as into it as me, but you know, that's cool too.

I, one thing that's interesting to me is there's not a lot that's the same from when I was in high school with me, but two things that have kind of remained constant are snowboarding and music. And I mean, I like different types of music and. My snowboarding has [00:08:00] changed, but those are the two things I've always been into that stayed the same and I just think it's so fun to be able to enjoy something for so long and have it evolve as I've gotten older.

It is

Brian Casel: a great thing to be into as a, as like a fun sport hobby. And like, for me, probably you and everyone else who does it is, I love that it's so seasonal. Like. Like, I'm already like, so I can't wait for the snow to, to get it here and get into another season and, but the thing that I love about it now as an adult and a business owner is it's one of the few things that really takes me out of the, it makes me present going down the mountain on a snowboard.

Like, you have to be present, otherwise you're gonna hit a tree or something. Right? So, like, that's 1 of the things that, like, for me is like a forcing function to like. It's relaxing. It's active, but it's, it relaxes my mind. You know, when I'm [00:09:00] going, like, I'm not thinking about what do we need to ship this quarter?

What does our MRR graph look like? What are competitors? I'm not thinking about any of that shit. I'm just thinking about like having fun today.

Justin Jackson: Yeah. I dig it that you can go. By yourself or with friends, like it's, those are very different experiences, but or with your kids, that's a totally different experience too.

But, you know, going up by myself, there's just something about that. Of being kind of out there and you get off the chairlift and you head off, you know, down through the trees or whatever. And then you can just sit down there and it's completely quiet. And yeah, it's really an amazing feeling. Oh, it's kind of unlike anything else.

I've never. I've been into surfing. I've skateboarded a little bit, but the quiet of the mountains and [00:10:00] just how big they are. And yeah, that. And also, if you're riding good snow, there's also this feeling of just floating that is. And being in a flow state that's just unlike anything else. It's just so amazing.

Brian Casel: And I grew up, uh, skiing and then I switched to snowboarding when I was like a teenager. And then I stayed on the board for my whole adult life. And then like two seasons ago, I tried skiing once and I picked it up like, it's kind of like riding a bike, but like. I was like, it's just not as fun. Like just the movement is not as fun as on a snowboard.

So,

Justin Jackson: yeah, I want to try skiing again because I was the same. I skied when I was a kid and I've just snowboarded and snowboarding is not as popular as it was like the shaped skis that came along really helped the ski industry. And so my kids all ski. My daughter snowboards, although the boys this [00:11:00] year are saying they want to learn snowboarding, so we'll see it's a hard switch when you're it's hard to learn for a beginner.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. And, and I mean, I usually still recommend people for their kids. I think it's easier for kids to learn skiing first.

Brian Casel: That's my, my daughter has been, um, they both are learning skiing and Yeah. Yeah. My older one is starting to ask, like, when can I learn snowboarding? I'm like, let's just get you solid on the skis first, you

Justin Jackson: know?

Yeah. Yeah. And there's like this, you have to learn how to get on and off lifts. And if there's rope toes or T bars, those are just so hard to navigate if you're a beginner on a snowboard, but on skis, it just makes more sense. But I would like my kids to try it out. I think. In my mind, it's just been like, Oh man, it's like another thing for them to learn now.

And they'd have to start basically right at the beginning. Although they know how to get on and off a lift and all that. I think that, that does help.

Brian Casel: Let's talk about the business [00:12:00] of the snowboarding industry. All right. So I've heard you mentioned sort of in passing a number of times that you used to run a snowboard shop.

Like give us the quick history. Like, was that like literally your first business? Did you have any jobs before that? Like what, how did you even get into that?

Justin Jackson: So in college, I did two years of business, and then I knew this guy in my town, Randy Jesperson, had a snowboard company called Olive, and, uh, he's probably four or five years older than me, but he was like, him and his brother Cory were like hometown heroes.

They were snowboarding, you know, they were in the first wave of snowboarding. We're competing with like Jeremy Jones and pros. Like they've got, you know, contest rosters where they were there and, you know, sometimes beat like really well paid pros [00:13:00] and like many of those early guys, he ended up getting knee injuries and having to have surgery on both his knees and so he went into the manufacturing side and so he had this company, all of snowboards and skateboards and I asked if I could do my practicum, my, uh, my internship for college there.

So you went to school for like a business degree? Yeah. Yeah. First my business diploma. And then after that I worked with him and you're one of like the

Brian Casel: rare founders in our industry that actually went to school

Justin Jackson: for the impressive. Yeah. Yeah. And I always kind of joke that it wasn't that helpful, but there were parts of it that were helpful.

And I think getting an excuse to. Talk to Randy and get him to hire me was you know, it's an experience. I'll never forget and so yeah I did my internship with him. And then after I graduated I continued on with him for another year, I think [00:14:00] So they are They're

Brian Casel: a manufacturer of boards or is

Justin Jackson: like a yeah shop.

Yeah Manufacturing. Yeah, so that was like my Kind of my introduction to the industry. Yeah, they're still around all of skateboards calm and By this point his whole story was so interesting because he was like a really good snowboarder And then had these injuries and had to pivot and then he started making these snowboards and because he was a snowboarder, he and he was also just kind of engineering minded.

He knew how he wanted to build these and shape them. And so he, he was doing all of this by himself and then it got popular in Japan. So he started building all these boards for Japan and was doing great. But then there were so many orders that he had to hire somebody [00:15:00] and they really messed up on an order and it almost bankrupted him as a company.

And so I was the first person he'd hired since then. And he's kind of like, he's just a really unique guy, like he's kind of, uh, grumpy and just doesn't like working with people. And so I had to really prove myself. I wanted to work in the office. Like I wanted to do business stuff like sales and marketing and you know, all that stuff.

But he was like, no, you got to start working in the shop. And I'm terrible. What year is this? This probably 2019, I'm guessing. 2020 19. Yeah, like three years ago. Oh, sorry, sorry. 2009. No, even earlier than that. No, this is 1999. 99 or 2000. Yeah. Yeah. I graduated college in 2000. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Justin

Brian Casel: quits.

Transistor to, to start

Justin Jackson: a snowboard [00:16:00] company. Yeah. Yeah. . So yeah, I'm 19 or 20 at the time, and. He gets me working in the shop and at this point, we're mostly, I mean,

Brian Casel: 99, I mean, snowboarding is already pretty big at that point. Like it's a big deal by that point

Justin Jackson: and like all that. Yeah. Snowboarding was at that point, you know, the first wave had already happened for sure.

And that was probably actually peak snowboarding. I think my generation was peak snowboarding, like 95 to 2005. Yeah. Is probably the best

Brian Casel: that's around's ever been. That's around the time. We're probably around the same age. And I, yeah, I, I picked it up in like high school and into college.

Justin Jackson: Yeah. I mean, it's hard to explain to people now, but snowboarding was a cultural phenomenon.

Every kid had a snowboarding poster on their wall, whether they snowboarded or not. It was like every kid was buying snowboarder magazine, whether they were snowboarder or not. It was like [00:17:00] everybody wanted to do it. It's, it's one of the music was like this too. These big kind of trends would sweep through my schools growing up.

I don't think it's like that anymore. It's funny. I

Brian Casel: wonder how, how people view it. Because I know exactly what you mean. When you and me are in high school, middle school and high school, probably snowboarding is the cool edgy new thing and it goes like hand in hand with like loud music and like, and just being a teenager and it's a, it's a thing for the young kids to do.

So, when you're on the mountain, it's only the youngest kids are on the boards. The older people are on skis. Right? And so now today, I mean, we're like the older people on the mountain now, but like. In a lot of the mountains, it's like half and half roughly. And like you said, like skiing has made a resurgence, I think.

But I wonder about like new people getting into skiing and snowboarding today. Does snowboarding still have that young [00:18:00] edge thing to it? Like if you're No, if you're totally new to mountain sports and you're just thinking like, well, should I be a snowboarder or a skier? Back in the day, it would have been like, well, am I cool enough to be a snowboarder?

But now it's like, yeah, anyone can

Justin Jackson: do either one. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's much more and it's lost its cultural significance. Like it just snowboarding and skateboarding and punk rock and grunge. Like they all informed the culture in a way that has just never been repeated. It was a dominant cultural force.

Like people were. Like, you would turn on MTV and there would be snowboarding. You would go to a friend's house and watch a snowboard video. I mean, and especially in Canada, it was like every ski hill, every ski resort, that, it was just packed with kids who were snowboarding. And so on the weekends, that's what we did.

We drove, you know, 45 minutes to [00:19:00] Rabbit Hill, which is this shitty little hill in a river valley. But we would just hang out in the park. All day and ride jumps and whatever, or we were out in, at our friend's house in the country making jumps and, you know, pulling each other behind a skidoo or something.

So it was just such a dominant force. And my kids, cause my kids are all in high school except for my daughter, she's in college now. So they're older and I can just, there's no like dominant cultural force like that anymore. It's like, for me and my friends, it was like everybody decided to snowboard. And then it was like, maybe my grade 12 year, a lot of my friends started skateboarding and I was a little bit late to it, but it was still like a big movement in the culture.

You know, we were all kind of doing things together. Everybody was going to punk rock shows together. It was like my whole. [00:20:00] I mean, there was kids who listened to country music and stuff, but we had a big group that were like the snowboarders, the punk rock kids, the skateboarders, like that was a defined group.

I

Brian Casel: want to get into the music side and maybe the next conversation here, but because it's true like that too played a huge role in the, in the movement. We'll get into it in a minute, but the, I don't see the same sort of thing happening in music today. No, no, but I, what I'm curious about is like how you went from, okay, you're learning the ropes in the industry, working out of snowboards too.

How do you have your own shop?

Justin Jackson: What does that look like? Yeah. So, I mean, I got introduced to the industry. I got taken to a lot of events and trade shows. We were like going to slam city jam in Vancouver and meeting all these skateboard pros, but a lot of these skateboard pros are also snowboard pros.

Olive started making snowboards again, and. I was just kind of in it, you know, once I graduated, I was [00:21:00] at the end of my business degree now. So I did my two year diploma, went back to get my full degree, bachelor's degree in business. And I had just always dreamed of owning my own shop. And honestly, in terms of business in my town, like I didn't know anybody who was an entrepreneur bigger than Main Street.

Like Main Street, having a shop on Main Street was kind of, those were the only entrepreneurs I knew. And so I thought, well, if I'm going to start a business, I just kind of looking around me, what's available, what is possible, it was like, well, I got to start a Main Street business. And. You know, I'd met all of these other shop owners through Olive.

And so I thought a handle on how it all worked and I'd been on the supply side. So I knew, you know, how pre orders worked and how, you know, you'd get exclusives with different brands [00:22:00] at the time and how you would apply for distributors and all that stuff. And so I thought, well, this would be a fun time to do it.

And I teamed up with the initially it was like I was working a full time job. And so we hired my brother to manage it, my younger brother. And I'm probably 21 at the time. And then my friend Adrian was a skateboarder and I had started my first business ever really was in grade 12 with him. We put on a rave together and actually done really well.

And so, um, another cultural force of the nineties . Yeah. Another cultural force of the nineties. And so it just seemed like, oh, this would be great, Adrian and I, you know, he's a skateboarder, I'm a snowboarder. I'd worked in the industry and it just felt like this is gonna be a great combination. And the idea, and he was actually

Brian Casel: very like, location-wise.

You want to do it in [00:23:00] your

Justin Jackson: hometown where, where you work. And, and we wanted to do it in our hometown, which is probably a mistake. Cause this was the

Brian Casel: area that that's like, not that close to big

Justin Jackson: mountains or yeah, it's, we're like, yes, Stony Plain and Spruce Grove are these bedroom communities, but that could still

Brian Casel: work too.

I mean, like, like, I grew up in, uh, in Long Island, New York, and then even up here in Connecticut, like. There's plenty of snowboard and ski shops in the suburbs for for these families who who buy stuff. Yeah, I would take road

Justin Jackson: trips, right? I think the problem was that Edmonton was still close enough. It was 30 minutes away It's a city of 1.

2 million people at the time probably and I mean I've written up quite a bit about The real deal. The shop was called the real deal. I've written about quite a bit about, you know, the mistakes we made and I think one is just ignoring people's natural momentum. So if you're a teenager in Stony Plain to Spruce Grove on the weekends, if you're going to [00:24:00] go shopping, you want to go to the big city.

You want to go to Edmonton because it's. It's exciting, right? You can hit a bunch of stores. You can go out to eat. You can cruise White Avenue and, you know, all the, the cool strips in Edmonton. And we just ignored that, that natural momentum and thought that people would care about, uh, like ideology. Like.

Shop local, but people actually don't give a shit about that stuff. You know what I mean, but it was fun I mean we yeah, so we started in 2001 I think and I think it closed in 2005 How are

Brian Casel: so like just let just like business wise like how are you even able to? So it was like a brick and mortar store, right?

Like you rented a

Justin Jackson: space. We had two locations, which was another mistake.

Brian Casel: And it's retail, right? So you got to like buy a bunch of inventory. Like, did you, what did you do? Like get a loan or

Justin Jackson: how did that work? Yeah, it was tough. It was like, cause we were young and so our initial [00:25:00] location, you know, got it, got the location.

Retail is like, especially when you think about starting a, uh, Internet business. Like I started Transistor with John. I think we each put in five grand and like retail, you have to pay. It is so many, so much startup logistics. Like you're getting a lease on a place where you're, you're usually charged per square foot and it's triple net, which means you pay.

A square footage fee, but then you also pay your gas, your electricity, your phone, all that stuff. And you're responsible for hooking all that up. So we got a location. And then you have to call up the gas company and get them to give you service. But they're like, Oh, well, we can be there in six weeks or whatever.

And then you got to call the phone company and they got to come in. And meanwhile, you're calling. And you're like designing a shop. This is like a retail shop. Yeah. And you're getting to buy. It

Brian Casel: has to look awesome. It's a, it's a

Justin Jackson: snowboard [00:26:00] shop, right? Like, yeah, you're buying fixtures, which are not cheap, you know, shelves and display cases.

And, and

Brian Casel: it's crazy just to think like how many, this is sounds so dumb, but like just stores and restaurants and retail shops there are in the world. It's like, And yeah, like my uncle ran a clothing store. My grandfather ran a supermarket. Like it just seems like the most insane business, no matter what industry you're in, it just, it's like business on hard mode, you know?

Justin Jackson: Yeah. I often say it's like the logistics. And sophistication of being like a small business owner running a retail shop, it's way harder, way more sophisticated, way more logistics than a software company. And your margins are way lower. And what you're risking is actually way more. So you're risking all these startup costs.

It's not, we did it as cheap as we could, but you know, I know people that [00:27:00] spend a hundred grand just getting their space set up, right?

Brian Casel: I mean, like say what you want about like validation or, or market research or whatever, but it is such an upfront investment, no matter which way you slice it, like you gotta be pretty damn confident that you can sell a bunch of

Justin Jackson: snowboards.

Yeah. I think we could have MVP'd it a bit, like we could have sold skateboards out of the back of a truck at the skateboard park, or there's other things we could have tried first. But at the end of the day, you've got to, eventually you got to commit and the commitment and risk is just massive. And then once you get all that done, so let's say you put tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, just getting the store set up and you're signing a lease, which puts you on the hook legally for thousands of dollars per month.

that you've got to legally pay even if it doesn't work out. And then, you know, at this time I'm 21 and I realized quickly that, well, first of all, you can't order anything [00:28:00] like there's no in stock ordering. You have to pre book everything. So six months before delivery, you are going through tons and tons of order forms for all sorts of different manufacturers.

You know, so you got your Burton order form and all these things. And you're basically trying to allocate budget. Betting your money, your cash, that whatever you order today is what a 14 year old is going to think is cool in six months. It's an insane bet. It's just such a And then you have

Brian Casel: In retrospect I mean, it must have been like the seasonal thing, right?

Like not only is seasonal for sales, but like you're saying, like pre orders, right? Like you're, you're ordering for, so like snowboard shops today are ordering for winter too. Like 24 right now, right? Like,

Justin Jackson: yeah, yeah. You're ordering way ahead of time.

I mean, just think of all the things that can happen in six months. Like these days, COVID hits, there's a recession, whatever, you know, like [00:29:00] COVID hits. And if someone booked a bunch of snowboards, but all the resorts are closed because of COVID, there's nothing you can do. And you start off with all of these manufacturers and distributors.

You start off with no payment terms. It's just, you know, you got to pay on delivery basically, and then eventually you convince them to give you 15 days and then 30 days and then 60 days and then 90 days. But all of this stuff has an expiry date, meaning you also have to get really good at knowing when to get rid of stuff.

Quick. And even to the point where I don't think people realize how many retailers are often selling things for cost or under cost just because having something sitting on your shelf too long is just death. If you have inventory that's just sitting there and you miss the window of opportunity to sell that thing, you've got to get rid of it quick because the next season's coming [00:30:00] and you've got a bunch of deliveries.

That you booked six months ago that are going to show up at your shop. And that's literally like

Brian Casel: cash you've already spent is sitting there on your shelf. So you have to, you have to like, yeah, get at least some

Justin Jackson: of it back. Yeah. And I mean, things like if you had a record shop, it's a little bit easier because That Iron Maiden record is going to be the same today as it will in six months, but snowboarding was so fashionable and skateboarding was so fashionable and plus like the

Brian Casel: snowboards are every year they come out with a, there's a 99 and then there's a 2000.

That's right. Even though like of the same board, like if you want to buy the Burton custom, like kids are not going to want to get last year's model unless

Justin Jackson: they want to deal on it. Oh, especially back then. Like now I think it's gotten a little more chill, but back then it was, It was so stylish to snowboard that, you know, if you bought a new snowboard in 99, you better hope it's a 99, right?

Because you're going to be showing up at the hill, [00:31:00] you know, rocking that gear. You don't want to be. But it's technically last year's board. And the other thing is that I think a lot of people don't realize is that the hard goods in that business, which is snowboards and skateboards and bindings and boots and all that stuff, the actual core part of the sport, you actually don't make that much money on that.

What you make money on is the clothes, the outerwear, the snowboard jackets. T shirts, jeans, skateboard shoes, hats, accessories. That's where you would make full markup. The sweet spot for a skateboard shop or a snowboard shop would be, you know, you buy a t shirt for 15 and you sell it for 30. And even then, like there's other costs, like you were paying delivery fees on that.

You were paying, you know, costs to a pricing sticker on it, to have a hanger to hang it on, to have a shelf to hang it on. But your dream was to be able to buy something for 15 and sell it for 30. And then [00:32:00] skateboards and snowboards could be like a 30 percent markup. So you might buy a board. Did you have any,

Brian Casel: uh, anything going in the summer?

Like, so you were doing skateboarding stuff too?

Justin Jackson: Yeah, it was snowboarding in the winter, skateboarding in the summer. And then clothing at the time we hit kind of the end of. Skateboard and snowboard fashion being popular in the wider culture. When I was in high school, like almost every kid was wearing Etnies or Americas or Lakai or a skateboard shoes.

And that was, you know, a massive market for a long time. DC shoes was like, that was incredibly popular. And we were at the tail end of that. And also at the same time, previously skateboarding was all about exclusives. So you'd get an exclusive for Volcom and you were the only shop that could sell Volcom in your area, which was great for retailers because if you were a kid [00:33:00] and you were just super into that brand, you would go to where wherever had that brand.

But then right when we were starting our shop, the trend was. Fulcrum was opening up their own outlet store in some strip mall somewhere and selling things direct to consumers. Internet ordering was just kind of coming online as a thing in 99 and 2000. So, the

Brian Casel: competitors are going to ask about that to sort of like wrap up this section like, so it sounds like your snowboard shop was like.

Sort of the beginning of online retail like were you guys actually did you have a website? Did you sell anything online? Oh, yeah at all.

Justin Jackson: Yeah, and I was always a nerd So I've been I mean like even

Brian Casel: if you had it like are people comfortable yet with like ordering snowboard stuff on

Justin Jackson: time Not as much. I mean you just needed more infrastructure like we couldn't do it We paid quite a bit of money for credit card processing But to get it online was way harder.

It was just so difficult. So the only [00:34:00] people that could really do it were the big manufacturing companies and the biggest snowboard shops. In Canada, in the U. S., they were able to offer What do you mean,

Brian Casel: like consumers? Like, just In the year 2000, like And consumers, it wasn't People are online, but they're not really

Justin Jackson: buying stuff.

Yeah, I remember when I started to feel it, it was like kids would come in and say, I just bought 10 blanks, so, like, blank skateboards, which were always kind of cheaper. I just bought 10 blanks on eBay. And that was when I was like, Oh my God, like, this is really going to start hurting retailers because kids were, they had a PayPal account and they could go on eBay and they could get these boards that were made in China and you know, they would order them in bulk and then they would have.

10 skateboard decks for their whole summer. Now every kid's bedroom is the local skateboard shop. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a super interesting experience. Like I said, [00:35:00] I, it ended up being quite painful because we lost quite a bit of money on the shop when it closed, but in terms of the experience and everything we learned and even like the one thing you miss with software is like we had a skateboard and a snowboard team.

We were organizing these big snowboard trips where we'd rent a coach. And kids would sign up and then we would take them all to a big resort in British Columbia. And that whole experience is not something that you get.

Brian Casel: You know, I do think that, like, marketing in general in our world today in SaaS. Has become like stale, it's not exciting anymore.

And

Justin Jackson: yeah,

Brian Casel: they're very, very few SAS companies that are doing anything. That's like, oh, wow. That's different and cool. You know, I don't just mean like ad campaigns. I mean, like, like you're talking about like snowboard companies, like they sponsor snowboard athletes, you know, I was even just [00:36:00] thinking the other day, like Apple every year does their big.

You know, show to show off the new iPhone and the new watch and iPads and stuff. And like, like everyone in the world, like every media outlet like covers it because it's like, it's news and it's cool and it's a cultural thing. And it was more so 10 years ago when the iPhone first came out, but it's still a pretty big deal today.

Like, I was just thinking about this recently, right? Like, cause they just announced the iPhone 14 and I'm just thinking like. Man, if there was like some version of this, that a bootstrap software company can, I don't know, like hold some kind of event or have like a, like an async video thing. That's just like, it doesn't have to be deceptive.

It could just be like, look, we're building this really awesome product. Look at it. Look what we're building. We think this is important. What can like make that

Justin Jackson: happen? Right. Yeah. The other thing we used to do is every time there was a new. Snowboard video that would come out and snowboard and skateboard videos were like big business because we sold a lot of those DVDs and VHS tapes Now that part of the [00:37:00] industry is just collapsed because everyone just puts it on YouTube for free but at the time it was like a full like snowboard video was a big deal and When we had our shop the forum team was like they were the biggest Deal, the biggest team, everybody was following their work and they came out with this video called video gangs.

That was just a massive deal. And we did a, a premiere for it at the local theater. And then to start, we premiered our team video. So there's like the ability to like fill a theater with people that are just really excited about snowboarding. And then to have these fun events and throw t shirts and I mean, I guess conferences kind of have that feel now.

Brian Casel: Yeah. I was just going to say, there's a few things that get close to it. Like you see companies putting on conferences. I think community is an interesting one. And we see like companies becoming media brands to like creating media content, [00:38:00] which gets to be kind of interesting. Sometimes. I mean, we're about to take a pretty big bet with a community thing with, with ZipMessage for coaches, which I think will be different and it will like live on its own domain and everything.

But like stuff like that, that's like, it's hard to come up with stuff that's like creative. Then you do look at like the snowboarding industry or some of these other hard, good industries. And it's like, it's a really different world over

Justin Jackson: there, you know? I mean, it's one reason. There's

Brian Casel: more interesting things you can do from a marketing and branding

Justin Jackson: perspective.

Yeah. But I think there's a lot you can learn and especially the gorilla marketing kind of mindset, like skateboarding and snowboarding and mixed in there. There was some other cultures like the punk rock culture and the graffiti culture. But they invented guerrilla marketing, like Shepard Fairey was a skateboarder and a graffiti artist that came up with Obey.

And it was just like something he was stenciling all over the place. And people were like, what is this Andre the Giant sticker that I see everywhere [00:39:00] and stencil I see everywhere. And eventually that became a brand because people would see it everywhere. Like every city, every subway. It just spread and I mean with Transistor, we've done, I've always done stickers and I've always done t shirts and whenever I can, I source new artwork that I think is fun and cool and we just do print on demand through printful.

I think more software companies should do that. You can have a full like swag shop, you know, I, I just give stuff away.

Brian Casel: I did, uh, some t shirt runs with, uh, not runs like on demand with, with Printful. Yeah. But I haven't really like executed like a thing where we have like a, like a distribution of, of those, like.

Justin Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. We have a little online store that I sent to people and I just tell them to like, just pick what they want and then let me know, you know, what that's going to be. But I mean, that, and I wrote about this, a lot of my, my lessons from the snowboard industry, I wrote about in this book, this little book [00:40:00] called Jolt and swag is one of the chapters.

And. In every job I've had, giving away t shirts and hats and stickers has paid back dividends multiple times because you get someone like Arvid who's wearing a Transistor hat and he'll post photos of it all the time and people will be like, Hey, that's a Transistor hat. We get so many mentions and people just talking about us because we're sending people.

T shirts and hats and stickers. And that was something I learned from the snowboard industry. That was just what every snowboard company and every snowboard shop did is we all had our own for our shop. We had our own t shirts. We had our own hoodies. We had our own hats. We had our own stickers and we had our own

Brian Casel: skateboards.

You got to like represent it. And you have like this audience that like, they start to self identify with like, like if I'm going to put on a t shirt or wear a hat of something, There's got to be something deeper than [00:41:00] just. Buy from this company. It's like, I like that. Like this company speaks to me as a person.

So I'm going to go wear it.

Justin Jackson: Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, it also taught me you have to do it tastefully and you have to do it in a way that you want to make t shirts that people actually wear. But yeah, so I learned all that through that, through snowboarding. It's, I think there's lots of, I wouldn't replace that experience for the world, even though at the time closing the shop was painful.

Brian Casel: I can imagine. Well, it was really cool to hear that story, man. Let's just kind of roll into the next one. We're going to talk about music because it's so related.