December 25, 2025 • 17 mins
Brian Riley Co-Founder & CEO of Guardian Bikes |CEO's You Should Know
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to another edition of CEOs You Should Know, powered
by iHeartMedia. This morning, we're here with Brian Riley, co
founder CEO of Guardian Bikes. Welcome Brian. Thanks made the
trek all the way in from from Indiana from Indiana,
so welcome to How long are you in New York?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
For got in last night leaving today, So.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a pleasure to have you. We're catching up offline
a little bit just in terms of what you do
with your company and how you're impacting consumers across the country.
We're thrilled to have you. You know, I want to know,
you know, kind of just to open things up. What
inspired you to start Guardian Bikes and how did you
make that initial spark to evolve your company and your
(00:40):
mission with the company.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, it's been an interesting entrepreneurial journey. I started the
company a little over fifteen years ago and actually started
it not as a bike company, started with a new
type of innovation for a bicycle break and the inspiration
behind that was I had a family member getting really
serious head over handlebar accident. That's where you kind of
(01:02):
grab your front brake too hard and you flip yourself
over the handlebars, and so he ended up breaking his
neck and it was kind of this traumatic experience that
my family went through. So I wanted to work on
a new type of bicycle braking system that would prevent that,
and ultimately, you know, got involved in creating something that's
almost like an anti lock braking system but for bikes,
(01:23):
and it's kind of a simple mechanical way to do it.
So initially I was trying to sell that braking system
we called it Sure Stop, trying to sell that braking
system into existing bike companies, did that for the first
four or five years of the business, and then eventually
evolved the business into just deciding, you know, we just
want to do our own bikes and really control everything
and make an overall safer bike, and that's how Guardian
(01:44):
Bikes was born. So today all of our Guardian bikes
feature this Surestop brake technology. But we've kind of built
a different type of bike company and kind of control
a lot of the product aspects to it all direct consumer,
and we've built a factory in the US, and we
just kind of have built a bike company to compete
in a whole different way.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's great Brian, what was that aha moment in creating
the sure stop braking system?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Where did Where were you when you thought about it?
And you talked a lot about the accident, which of
course gave you the confidence to go out and do something,
But when was that moment for you?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, so it was. It was interesting. I started this
also young. I was still in college.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I was actually studying finance and entrepreneurship, so like I
wasn't I knew I wanted to eventually do something entrepreneurial,
and I was constantly kind of thinking about what problem
I could help solve, and I kept coming back to
this accident and thinking like, so there's analog brake systems
for you know, motorcycles, for cars, Like why why hasn't
(02:45):
somebody solved this for bikes? And ultimately got involved in
just started with a prototype, you know, got a prototype working,
made more prototypes, kind of refine the system over time.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And this is all while I was in college.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So I'd say the aha moment was just reflecting on,
you know, how I could add value to the world
in some way, and wanting to do something entrepreneurial and
having this problem be something that was fresh on my mind.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Wow, ambition, innovation. It sounds like you're chuck full of
it starting as early as college and now you said
fifteen years. I think with Guardian, how do you foster
that culture within your team and challenge people to be
ambitious and sharing that same vision of like safety, wild
manufacturing and you know, competing with with with you know,
(03:32):
large companies that are out there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, I think it does start from the top down
and just kind of setting cultural expectations of saying like, hey,
we're not afraid to try new things and think outside
of the box. And that's that's often kind of a
big picture idea. But when you take that down to
the ground level, what does that mean? That means like
it's okay to try something that breaking systems a perfect
(03:56):
idea are perfect example of it just all starts with
a pro type like you have an idea, make a prototype,
see if you can get the prototypes to work. Start somewhere,
and then the first prototypes never right, then you go
to the second and the third that sure stop breaking
systems probably on its fiftieth version, you know. So everything
kind of starts in bite sized pieces. That's just kind
of how innovation works.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yep. But just being having a culture willing.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
To take that first step and not be afraid to
try something new and not be afraid to have those
early failures is a huge part of the expectation of
just being a part of Guardian Bikes and being willing
to you know, try new things and being willing to
have some failures along the way.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's great. We're here with Brian Riley, co founder CEO
of Guardian Bikes CEOs you should know powered by iHeartMedia. Brian,
you talked a lot about innovation, ambition, trial and error,
not being afraid to make a mistake and whatnot. You know,
what are some big challenges within the industry and you
(04:54):
know manufacturing bicycles and how you're competing in the US
but really globally now as well.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, So, like I said that, the journey started with
trying to sell a brake system into existing bike companies.
So I got to learn a lot about the industry
and how it works and how everything's set up from
the from the channels of distribution to how the whole
supply chain works. And so one of the really interesting
things is it's a supply chain that's kind of completely
(05:22):
dominated by China at this point. So the whole entire
supply chain for parts and bikes and everything, it's all
sort of based in China. And the standard model is
to partner with a big Chinese oem right, and you
spec a bike and you design a bike, but you
have them build it for you, and you import that
bike in a box, you know, into the United States
and you sell it. So with that model, there's issues
(05:44):
that happened with just the products themselves and just the
way that these businesses work. There's not a lot of
innovation that really takes place because they're so far from
the making of the thing. They also don't have a
lot of control over just the setup and the safety
and the quality of every single bike because they don't
control the manufacturing. So for us, a big part of
trying to be disruptive was to say, can we build
(06:06):
a truly vertically integrated company where we control everything from
our own factory floor all the way to the customer's door.
And that's really allowed us to deliver on, you know,
an overall better, safer quality bike at a great price
point that's made in the USA. And we're the only
US bike factory that's turning out bikes in the USA.
(06:27):
So it's a really interesting model when you can kind
of combine a direct consumer model with vertical integration and
controlling the factory. But that's a big part of how
we deliver the experience that we do to consumers.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So the only US bike company manufactured in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, I mean there are you know, very small kind
of mom and pops, right, you know, high end frame
makers and stuff like that, but Guardian turns out hundreds
of thousands of bikes out of its factory in Indiana.
We're the only scaled manufacturer.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Incredible, And how many employees are part of the company
about four hundred, four hundred.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
What's the long term vision for Guardian keeping it here
in the US? And you know, how are like, what's
the next step for the company?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
A lot of how I think about Guardian is we
have the product itself, which is our bikes, and then
we kind of have the product that builds the product,
which is our factory. And right now a lot of
the focus is just continuous innovation and the product that
builds the product. So making this factory you know, more advanced,
more automation, you know, doing things better and better so
(07:33):
that we can just churn out affordable, safe, quality bikes
that people love, you know, at greater and greater levels
of scale. The neat thing about the market that we're
in is, you know, nearly every family buys a kid's
bike or multiple kids bikes, you know, along the journey
of their family growing. So there's a lot of volume
to it, and we're still a pretty small part of
the overall market. So the vision for Guardian is just
(07:55):
you know, continuing to take market share and and you know,
grow into millions of bikes over time, you know, all
coming out of Indiana and serving families all over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
How do how does the American family learn about you?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah? We we It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A huge part of our art, of our business is
actually driven through word of mouth. So we get uh
and we deliver on a great product experience. People have
a great experience with it. It's used out in neighborhoods,
so people, you know, one kid has one, his friend
sees one and likes it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Our parents talk to each other at the park, so
it's a product that's used out in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
A lot of word of mouth, and then of course
we do kind of the full menu of kind of
direct consumer style advertising, so a lot on Facebook and Google,
you know, Instagram, podcasts, connect to TV, direct mail. So
we we do do a lot of advertising, and we
have to because we're not in store. So one hundred
percent of our product is sold through Guarding Bikes dot com,
(08:50):
and so to do that, you've got to be really
good at the advertising, but you also have to have
a great product that just kind of yeah, and it
has that word of mouth tailwind.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is there a plan to bring it to retail?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
We're thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
We're contemplating whether we want to do owned retail or
pop up shops and that sort of thing, or have
some kind of model where we partner with some existing retailers.
The interesting thing is we've built the whole entire business
to deliver on a perfectly ninety nine percent assembled, perfectly
set up bike direct to your door, and we deliver
anywhere in one to two days. So the whole entire
(09:23):
model has been built off of this direct to your
door kind of model. So I think there's really interesting
opportunities to partner in the physical world in a way
where you have more of a showroom type of experience,
and you can test ride a bike and then you
can transact in the story and just get one delivered
to your door the next day.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Maybe we'll see you here in New York City at
some point.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
You know, as I'm listening to you, Brian, you got
a lot of passion, and I'm sure emphatically instill passion
in the folks that work with you, the four hundred
folks that are your employees. Thinking about other founders and
other aspiring entrepreneur ers, you know, what kind of advice
would you give to them, maybe in their early stages
(10:05):
of their concept of their idea. Maybe even folks that
are listening that are in college thinking about a prototype.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, I think, as you can kind of tell from
my story, it's it's not like a direct line of
like exactly how you think you know things will turn
out and when you when you think they'll turn out
that way. So in my case, you know, started with
this breaking system totally thinking that the business would evolve
into selling that breaking system into lots of bike companies
and getting on millions of bikes with the braking system,
(10:32):
but not doing our own bikes.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And so you know, I think the.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Biggest advice is you've got to start with something that
you actually care about, because you're going to run into
bumps in the road all along the way. And if
you really care about what you're trying to bring into
the world, you're going to be willing to kind of
just find the way eventually. And you also got to
be willing to kind of evolve and pivot, but also
balance that with like holding some kind of vision of
(10:57):
like what you actually want to create. So like the
Guardian Bike's pivot for us was, you know, in retrospect
was great, but when I started, I would have never
imagined Guardian Bikes and being a bike company and having
a bike.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Factory and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So I think it just, you know, for entrepreneurs, perseverance,
having something you care about so that you can kind
of carry through that perseverance and being willing to just
try new things and pivot and kind of find your
way along the journey because it's it's, uh, it's always
going to be different than you think.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, you talked
about I think you said in college you were studying
finance and entrepreneur, entrepreneur, what was what's what would have
been the other path for you, Brian, Have you ever
thought about that?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean I I uh I.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
When I was going to college, I was going to
study mechanical engineering, and I always liked I liked kind
of physics and engineering stuff in high school, and I
actually went to like a pretty engineering focused college, but
I ended up doing finance and entrepreneership because I also
really liked the business side. Well, that's like an interesting
mix of interest because a lot of like what I
(12:06):
do today, I didn't study engineering, but I also feel
like I'm an engineer at this point, Like I've gotten
so involved in product development and factory development and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So I think, yeah, the other path might have been some.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Kind of engineering thing, right, But I think the biggest
thing with with entrepreneurship generally is like you kind of
find the mix of things that you're naturally good at and.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Apply those to trying to create value. And that's that's
what I've done with Guardian.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's fantastic. Again, we're here with Brian Riley, co founder
and CEO of Guardian Bikes on CEOs. You should know
it's been a pleasure chatting and learning about the business
and about you, Brian, what's next for Guardian Bikes. Anything
we're going to see that you could share with us
today for the holiday season or as we move into
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the holiday season is always
big for us, so I you know, we've got a
lot of great offerings for the holiday. We've got to
actually our Black Friday deals already kind of running on
the site, and then it you know, as we get
into next year and years following, we're just we're going
to be expanding the product line. We're going to be
(13:10):
coming out with new accessories and new things that kind
of complement the whole Guardian experience. So yeah, excited for
anybody that hasn't heard about us to check us out
and be a part of the brand family, and we're
looking forward to you know, serving them along the way.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, Brian, since you mentioned it, you know, how can
we find you? Can you just share maybe your website
and your socials for our folks that are.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Listening, yep, Guardian Bikes dot com, So how you find
us online and then Guardian Bikes across all the socials
you know, really active on Instagram, TikTok, really every social channel,
So just searching Guardian Bikes and finding us there and.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
All purchases are direct to consumer right through the website. Yep, okay, wonderful.
You know what's one thing that you might want to
leave our audience that's tuning in with about your mission
and thinking about your team and the vision that you
have that you share with your team for Guardian.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah. I mean, I think.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
For people watching and kind of understanding this journey. We've
done a lot of things that everybody told me and
told the team that was, you know, impossible, Like when
it started with the breaking system, everybody thought like, well, like,
you know, this would have been created before if it
was a it's going to be a thing or you know,
and we kind of broke through that. I can't tell
(14:24):
you how many people say that it's impossible to make
things in the United States and do it competitively. We've
really proven that you can do that with the US
factory and applying the right technology and the right kind
of innovation to it. So I think, you know, just
don't be afraid to challenge the status quo, and I
think Guardian Bikes is an example that you can sure
is you can really challenge the status quo and you
(14:45):
can do it well.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, before we started and we went on tape here,
I was telling you I'm a father of three eleven,
nine and seven, and my wife and I are really
we just we have no intelligence. I feel like when
we're making that process of using a bike, we're kind
of on a shopper site where like, hey, that looks
cool or you know, shll like that basket or that color.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
School.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
What are some defining things that a parent should be
looking into when thinking about purchasing a bike for their child.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A big part of it is when a kids first
learning to ride. That's a lot of times when parents
have the most questions like Okay, I need to teach
my child how to ride, how do I do that?
Do I use training wheels? Is there like a better
way or to do it? Or things like that. So
a big thing that Guardian promotes is learned to ride
in one day. So our bikes we lead with safety,
but they're they're so safe and so quality. They're also
(15:38):
easy to ride, easy to learn on, their lightweight, the
geometries right, and so in that learning to ride phase,
I think you know, looking for a brand that's going
to be really easy to learn how to ride on,
which Guardian specializes in that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then looking at.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Ways a lot of kids learn to ride with training wheels,
still yep, a better way is just to basically take
the pedals off, put the seat all the way down,
and start using it as a balance bike first, So
just kind of kick around and learn how to balance.
That really teaches you the right balance really quick, and
then you can put the pedals on and a lot
of kids just take off right away. So that's a
(16:13):
major shortcut that a lot of parents don't yet understand,
is that there's actually a better way to learn than
the standard training wheel method. With Guardian, we you know,
we have bikes with training wheels too, so you can
do either way. But I always like to tell parents
that because it's something that most people don't know, and.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The website, the socials are you're putting out content that, yeah,
is helpful for parents.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
A lot of content.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So in that example, you can search like how to
learn to ride with guarding bikes, and you can find
YouTube videos and you can find videos on our site
that teach you methods how to teach your kid how
to learn how to ride a bike.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
That is so helpful, and I'm sure you challenge your
team to think thoughtfully about the content that they're putting
out there that could really impact and help parents today
because there's no handbook on you know, trying to teach
a kid how to ride a bike especially Yep, and
it's been a pleasure. Again, could you just kind of
let us know where we can find.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
You, Yeah, Guardianbikes dot com is where you find Guardian
Bikes Guardian Bikes across all the socials and then if
you also want to find me personally, it's the Brian
Riley on x or just Brian Michael Riley on Instagram
or LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
LinkedIn as well. Great Brian, it's been a pleasure. Thanks
for joining us on CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Thanks for having me. Thank you
Welcome to another edition of CEOs You Should Know, powered
by iHeartMedia. This morning, we're here with Brian Riley, co
founder CEO of Guardian Bikes. Welcome Brian. Thanks made the
trek all the way in from from Indiana from Indiana,
so welcome to How long are you in New York?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
For got in last night leaving today, So.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Brian.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a pleasure to have you. We're catching up offline
a little bit just in terms of what you do
with your company and how you're impacting consumers across the country.
We're thrilled to have you. You know, I want to know,
you know, kind of just to open things up. What
inspired you to start Guardian Bikes and how did you
make that initial spark to evolve your company and your
(00:40):
mission with the company.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, it's been an interesting entrepreneurial journey. I started the
company a little over fifteen years ago and actually started
it not as a bike company, started with a new
type of innovation for a bicycle break and the inspiration
behind that was I had a family member getting really
serious head over handlebar accident. That's where you kind of
(01:02):
grab your front brake too hard and you flip yourself
over the handlebars, and so he ended up breaking his
neck and it was kind of this traumatic experience that
my family went through. So I wanted to work on
a new type of bicycle braking system that would prevent that,
and ultimately, you know, got involved in creating something that's
almost like an anti lock braking system but for bikes,
(01:23):
and it's kind of a simple mechanical way to do it.
So initially I was trying to sell that braking system
we called it Sure Stop, trying to sell that braking
system into existing bike companies, did that for the first
four or five years of the business, and then eventually
evolved the business into just deciding, you know, we just
want to do our own bikes and really control everything
and make an overall safer bike, and that's how Guardian
(01:44):
Bikes was born. So today all of our Guardian bikes
feature this Surestop brake technology. But we've kind of built
a different type of bike company and kind of control
a lot of the product aspects to it all direct consumer,
and we've built a factory in the US, and we
just kind of have built a bike company to compete
in a whole different way.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's great Brian, what was that aha moment in creating
the sure stop braking system?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Like?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Where did Where were you when you thought about it?
And you talked a lot about the accident, which of
course gave you the confidence to go out and do something,
But when was that moment for you?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yeah, so it was. It was interesting. I started this
also young. I was still in college.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
I was actually studying finance and entrepreneurship, so like I
wasn't I knew I wanted to eventually do something entrepreneurial,
and I was constantly kind of thinking about what problem
I could help solve, and I kept coming back to
this accident and thinking like, so there's analog brake systems
for you know, motorcycles, for cars, Like why why hasn't
(02:45):
somebody solved this for bikes? And ultimately got involved in
just started with a prototype, you know, got a prototype working,
made more prototypes, kind of refine the system over time.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
And this is all while I was in college.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
So I'd say the aha moment was just reflecting on,
you know, how I could add value to the world
in some way, and wanting to do something entrepreneurial and
having this problem be something that was fresh on my mind.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Wow, ambition, innovation. It sounds like you're chuck full of
it starting as early as college and now you said
fifteen years. I think with Guardian, how do you foster
that culture within your team and challenge people to be
ambitious and sharing that same vision of like safety, wild
manufacturing and you know, competing with with with you know,
(03:32):
large companies that are out there.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Yeah, I think it does start from the top down
and just kind of setting cultural expectations of saying like, hey,
we're not afraid to try new things and think outside
of the box. And that's that's often kind of a
big picture idea. But when you take that down to
the ground level, what does that mean? That means like
it's okay to try something that breaking systems a perfect
(03:56):
idea are perfect example of it just all starts with
a pro type like you have an idea, make a prototype,
see if you can get the prototypes to work. Start somewhere,
and then the first prototypes never right, then you go
to the second and the third that sure stop breaking
systems probably on its fiftieth version, you know. So everything
kind of starts in bite sized pieces. That's just kind
of how innovation works.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yep. But just being having a culture willing.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
To take that first step and not be afraid to
try something new and not be afraid to have those
early failures is a huge part of the expectation of
just being a part of Guardian Bikes and being willing
to you know, try new things and being willing to
have some failures along the way.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That's great. We're here with Brian Riley, co founder CEO
of Guardian Bikes CEOs you should know powered by iHeartMedia. Brian,
you talked a lot about innovation, ambition, trial and error,
not being afraid to make a mistake and whatnot. You know,
what are some big challenges within the industry and you
(04:54):
know manufacturing bicycles and how you're competing in the US
but really globally now as well.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, So, like I said that, the journey started with
trying to sell a brake system into existing bike companies.
So I got to learn a lot about the industry
and how it works and how everything's set up from
the from the channels of distribution to how the whole
supply chain works. And so one of the really interesting
things is it's a supply chain that's kind of completely
(05:22):
dominated by China at this point. So the whole entire
supply chain for parts and bikes and everything, it's all
sort of based in China. And the standard model is
to partner with a big Chinese oem right, and you
spec a bike and you design a bike, but you
have them build it for you, and you import that
bike in a box, you know, into the United States
and you sell it. So with that model, there's issues
(05:44):
that happened with just the products themselves and just the
way that these businesses work. There's not a lot of
innovation that really takes place because they're so far from
the making of the thing. They also don't have a
lot of control over just the setup and the safety
and the quality of every single bike because they don't
control the manufacturing. So for us, a big part of
trying to be disruptive was to say, can we build
(06:06):
a truly vertically integrated company where we control everything from
our own factory floor all the way to the customer's door.
And that's really allowed us to deliver on, you know,
an overall better, safer quality bike at a great price
point that's made in the USA. And we're the only
US bike factory that's turning out bikes in the USA.
(06:27):
So it's a really interesting model when you can kind
of combine a direct consumer model with vertical integration and
controlling the factory. But that's a big part of how
we deliver the experience that we do to consumers.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
So the only US bike company manufactured in the US.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, I mean there are you know, very small kind
of mom and pops, right, you know, high end frame
makers and stuff like that, but Guardian turns out hundreds
of thousands of bikes out of its factory in Indiana.
We're the only scaled manufacturer.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Incredible, And how many employees are part of the company
about four hundred, four hundred.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
What's the long term vision for Guardian keeping it here
in the US? And you know, how are like, what's
the next step for the company?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
A lot of how I think about Guardian is we
have the product itself, which is our bikes, and then
we kind of have the product that builds the product,
which is our factory. And right now a lot of
the focus is just continuous innovation and the product that
builds the product. So making this factory you know, more advanced,
more automation, you know, doing things better and better so
(07:33):
that we can just churn out affordable, safe, quality bikes
that people love, you know, at greater and greater levels
of scale. The neat thing about the market that we're
in is, you know, nearly every family buys a kid's
bike or multiple kids bikes, you know, along the journey
of their family growing. So there's a lot of volume
to it, and we're still a pretty small part of
the overall market. So the vision for Guardian is just
(07:55):
you know, continuing to take market share and and you know,
grow into millions of bikes over time, you know, all
coming out of Indiana and serving families all over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
How do how does the American family learn about you?
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah? We we It's interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A huge part of our art, of our business is
actually driven through word of mouth. So we get uh
and we deliver on a great product experience. People have
a great experience with it. It's used out in neighborhoods,
so people, you know, one kid has one, his friend
sees one and likes it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Our parents talk to each other at the park, so
it's a product that's used out in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
A lot of word of mouth, and then of course
we do kind of the full menu of kind of
direct consumer style advertising, so a lot on Facebook and Google,
you know, Instagram, podcasts, connect to TV, direct mail. So
we we do do a lot of advertising, and we
have to because we're not in store. So one hundred
percent of our product is sold through Guarding Bikes dot com,
(08:50):
and so to do that, you've got to be really
good at the advertising, but you also have to have
a great product that just kind of yeah, and it
has that word of mouth tailwind.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Is there a plan to bring it to retail?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
We're thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
We're contemplating whether we want to do owned retail or
pop up shops and that sort of thing, or have
some kind of model where we partner with some existing retailers.
The interesting thing is we've built the whole entire business
to deliver on a perfectly ninety nine percent assembled, perfectly
set up bike direct to your door, and we deliver
anywhere in one to two days. So the whole entire
(09:23):
model has been built off of this direct to your
door kind of model. So I think there's really interesting
opportunities to partner in the physical world in a way
where you have more of a showroom type of experience,
and you can test ride a bike and then you
can transact in the story and just get one delivered
to your door the next day.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Maybe we'll see you here in New York City at
some point.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
You know, as I'm listening to you, Brian, you got
a lot of passion, and I'm sure emphatically instill passion
in the folks that work with you, the four hundred
folks that are your employees. Thinking about other founders and
other aspiring entrepreneur ers, you know, what kind of advice
would you give to them, maybe in their early stages
(10:05):
of their concept of their idea. Maybe even folks that
are listening that are in college thinking about a prototype.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, I think, as you can kind of tell from
my story, it's it's not like a direct line of
like exactly how you think you know things will turn
out and when you when you think they'll turn out
that way. So in my case, you know, started with
this breaking system totally thinking that the business would evolve
into selling that breaking system into lots of bike companies
and getting on millions of bikes with the braking system,
(10:32):
but not doing our own bikes.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
And so you know, I think the.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Biggest advice is you've got to start with something that
you actually care about, because you're going to run into
bumps in the road all along the way. And if
you really care about what you're trying to bring into
the world, you're going to be willing to kind of
just find the way eventually. And you also got to
be willing to kind of evolve and pivot, but also
balance that with like holding some kind of vision of
(10:57):
like what you actually want to create. So like the
Guardian Bike's pivot for us was, you know, in retrospect
was great, but when I started, I would have never
imagined Guardian Bikes and being a bike company and having
a bike.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Factory and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
So I think it just, you know, for entrepreneurs, perseverance,
having something you care about so that you can kind
of carry through that perseverance and being willing to just
try new things and pivot and kind of find your
way along the journey because it's it's, uh, it's always
going to be different than you think.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I think. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, you talked
about I think you said in college you were studying
finance and entrepreneur, entrepreneur, what was what's what would have
been the other path for you, Brian, Have you ever
thought about that?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, I mean I I uh I.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
When I was going to college, I was going to
study mechanical engineering, and I always liked I liked kind
of physics and engineering stuff in high school, and I
actually went to like a pretty engineering focused college, but
I ended up doing finance and entrepreneership because I also
really liked the business side. Well, that's like an interesting
mix of interest because a lot of like what I
(12:06):
do today, I didn't study engineering, but I also feel
like I'm an engineer at this point, Like I've gotten
so involved in product development and factory development and all
that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
So I think, yeah, the other path might have been some.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Kind of engineering thing, right, But I think the biggest
thing with with entrepreneurship generally is like you kind of
find the mix of things that you're naturally good at and.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Apply those to trying to create value. And that's that's
what I've done with Guardian.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
That's fantastic. Again, we're here with Brian Riley, co founder
and CEO of Guardian Bikes on CEOs. You should know
it's been a pleasure chatting and learning about the business
and about you, Brian, what's next for Guardian Bikes. Anything
we're going to see that you could share with us
today for the holiday season or as we move into
twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah, I mean, you know, the holiday season is always
big for us, so I you know, we've got a
lot of great offerings for the holiday. We've got to
actually our Black Friday deals already kind of running on
the site, and then it you know, as we get
into next year and years following, we're just we're going
to be expanding the product line. We're going to be
(13:10):
coming out with new accessories and new things that kind
of complement the whole Guardian experience. So yeah, excited for
anybody that hasn't heard about us to check us out
and be a part of the brand family, and we're
looking forward to you know, serving them along the way.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Yeah, Brian, since you mentioned it, you know, how can
we find you? Can you just share maybe your website
and your socials for our folks that are.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Listening, yep, Guardian Bikes dot com, So how you find
us online and then Guardian Bikes across all the socials
you know, really active on Instagram, TikTok, really every social channel,
So just searching Guardian Bikes and finding us there and.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
All purchases are direct to consumer right through the website. Yep, okay, wonderful.
You know what's one thing that you might want to
leave our audience that's tuning in with about your mission
and thinking about your team and the vision that you
have that you share with your team for Guardian.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Yeah. I mean, I think.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
For people watching and kind of understanding this journey. We've
done a lot of things that everybody told me and
told the team that was, you know, impossible, Like when
it started with the breaking system, everybody thought like, well, like,
you know, this would have been created before if it
was a it's going to be a thing or you know,
and we kind of broke through that. I can't tell
(14:24):
you how many people say that it's impossible to make
things in the United States and do it competitively. We've
really proven that you can do that with the US
factory and applying the right technology and the right kind
of innovation to it. So I think, you know, just
don't be afraid to challenge the status quo, and I
think Guardian Bikes is an example that you can sure
is you can really challenge the status quo and you
(14:45):
can do it well.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, before we started and we went on tape here,
I was telling you I'm a father of three eleven,
nine and seven, and my wife and I are really
we just we have no intelligence. I feel like when
we're making that process of using a bike, we're kind
of on a shopper site where like, hey, that looks
cool or you know, shll like that basket or that color.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
School.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
What are some defining things that a parent should be
looking into when thinking about purchasing a bike for their child.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
A big part of it is when a kids first
learning to ride. That's a lot of times when parents
have the most questions like Okay, I need to teach
my child how to ride, how do I do that?
Do I use training wheels? Is there like a better
way or to do it? Or things like that. So
a big thing that Guardian promotes is learned to ride
in one day. So our bikes we lead with safety,
but they're they're so safe and so quality. They're also
(15:38):
easy to ride, easy to learn on, their lightweight, the
geometries right, and so in that learning to ride phase,
I think you know, looking for a brand that's going
to be really easy to learn how to ride on,
which Guardian specializes in that.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
And then looking at.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Ways a lot of kids learn to ride with training wheels,
still yep, a better way is just to basically take
the pedals off, put the seat all the way down,
and start using it as a balance bike first, So
just kind of kick around and learn how to balance.
That really teaches you the right balance really quick, and
then you can put the pedals on and a lot
of kids just take off right away. So that's a
(16:13):
major shortcut that a lot of parents don't yet understand,
is that there's actually a better way to learn than
the standard training wheel method. With Guardian, we you know,
we have bikes with training wheels too, so you can
do either way. But I always like to tell parents
that because it's something that most people don't know, and.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The website, the socials are you're putting out content that, yeah,
is helpful for parents.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
A lot of content.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
So in that example, you can search like how to
learn to ride with guarding bikes, and you can find
YouTube videos and you can find videos on our site
that teach you methods how to teach your kid how
to learn how to ride a bike.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
That is so helpful, and I'm sure you challenge your
team to think thoughtfully about the content that they're putting
out there that could really impact and help parents today
because there's no handbook on you know, trying to teach
a kid how to ride a bike especially Yep, and
it's been a pleasure. Again, could you just kind of
let us know where we can find.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
You, Yeah, Guardianbikes dot com is where you find Guardian
Bikes Guardian Bikes across all the socials and then if
you also want to find me personally, it's the Brian
Riley on x or just Brian Michael Riley on Instagram
or LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
LinkedIn as well. Great Brian, it's been a pleasure. Thanks
for joining us on CEOs. You should know.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Thanks for having me. Thank you
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