Episode #146 - John Duquette, Owner of Blue70

Episode #146 - John Duquette, Owner of Blue70
John Duquette shares his journey from athlete to CEO of Blue70, reflecting on the challenges of taking over a business, navigating tariffs, and managing cash flow. He emphasizes work ethic, mentorship, and leadership, while discussing wetsuit design, balancing family and business, and maintaining health through exercise. John also explores his evolving view of success and offers insights for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How's it going, everyone? Welcome back to another edition
of the Stupid Questions podcast.Today on the pod, we're going to
be talking with John Duquette. He's the CEO of Blue 70 Wet
Suits and Swimskins. Awesome company based here in
the US and the Northwest. And yeah, they sponsor a lot of
professional triathletes and tryteams across the world.
Really awesome conversation. Really appreciate John taking

(00:20):
the time, especially during thisbusy crazy season with all the
tariff stuff going on. I really, really do enjoy this
conversation, so I hope you alsoenjoy it as well.
So with that further, I do want to introduce you to John Dekat.
Well, hey, thank you so much fortaking the time.
Really thankful to have gotten connected with for to you from
Larry. So super thankful to him

(00:41):
obviously as well. But yeah, I appreciate you
taking the time to jump on with me.
How you doing? Yeah, good, good, hectic times
right now with the tariffs and peak season and all that, but.
Yeah, yeah. But we're we're fortunate to
have the man for a product, that's for sure.
Yeah, for sure. Well, demand is good.
Tariffs like you said are crazy.I'd be curious to hear what's

(01:02):
your experience been the kind ofreactionary, did you have a plan
going into it? Like what are you?
What's going on? Well, you can't plan for your
tariffs to go up to 145% overnight.
I mean, we knew that when Trump got elected, OK, there's going
to be an increase in tariffs andthere was.
And January, you know, as soon as he took office, there was a

(01:23):
modest increase and we made a modest price increase because we
just can't eat it all. In fact, we ate it all on our
lower on our lower price products, but not we did some
price increases and but now it, it's just no business could
possibly plan for this. It's it's chaos.
It's really, really chaotic. Yeah, yeah.

(01:45):
I, I, I don't want to get right into politics, but it there's
nothing you can do to convince me that he's a businessman,
let's put it that way. Yeah, yeah, that's wild.
Well, you this place is totally yours to share whatever you
want, however you want, so don'tfeel like you got to hold back
anything whatsoever. OK.
So I guess we'll get into that. I want to ask a lot of questions

(02:08):
just about Blue 70 and the the history and whatnot.
But first, we'd love to dive into a little bit of who you
are. So my first question really to
you, John, is who is John? Who is John father, husband,
business owner, athlete, youth soccer coach?
You know, definitely busy, busy days.

(02:31):
I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.
But you know, I, I played team sports through high school and,
and played some college club rugby, but just always loved
running and I could run a long ways, but I couldn't, I had no
real Sprint speed, which held meback a lot, you know, as a
football player or rugby player.And just the honestly, I was one

(02:53):
of those dudes who like saw the Hawaiian Ironman on TV when I
was in high school and thought, man, someday, someday I'd like
to do that. And I was in college and quit
rugby and just started running more and more, which led to
Sprint triathlon. And hey, I think I think I could
do this Iron Man thing and endedup doing Kona in 2002, 2004 and

(03:13):
2005. And then that kind of led to
bike racing where I met my wife,led to a job.
I had been working at a running store and then kind of moved up
the ladder in the industry and started working for Blue 70.
You know, my girlfriend turned into my wife had a couple kids.
We had the opportunity to purchase the company in 2017,

(03:35):
which we did. And yeah, it's there's a lot
going on with me at all times, but very fortunate to be where
I'm at. You know, that what I always
tell people is when I, I got outof college and started working
at the running store, I was scheduled for 30 hours a week at
8 bucks an hour. And that's, you know, that's a
hard life, right? And a lot of people would think

(03:56):
they wanted to be in the endurance in the tree or running
industry, but the reality of starting on the ground floor,
working in a bike shop or working in the running shop can
be very, very difficult. And a lot of people kind of quit
right away and go get, quote, a real job.
And I kind of went the other waywith it.
I took every last shift that I could just because I was
scheduled for 30 hours. I would just show up an hour

(04:18):
early and make myself useful. And so when it was time for, you
know, a buyer left the store needed a new buyer.
Well, John's already been here every morning, you know, just
helping stock shoes and count socks and all that stuff.
So, you know, then I got that job and then, then I got another
job inside the store just because I always made myself

(04:39):
useful And, and a lot of it was just fighting for hours and
being able to make rent in the grocery store and support my
racing habit. But it, you know, it also turned
me into somebody who was reliable.
I always had that mindset to just, you know, work as hard as
I could and make it successful. So I feel really lucky that I am
one of those people who started on the ground for the endurance
industry. And 25 years later, you know,

(05:01):
here I am, get to travel all over the world, talk with
healthy people, people who sharethe same passions, and it's a
pretty good life. Yeah, that's phenomenal.
So what is your official title at Blue 70?
I call myself the CEO, but you know, it, it's almost tongue in
cheek because we're such a smallcompany.

(05:23):
We've got six people in the US and we've got 1 overseas.
And you know, I, I, I answer thephone when it rings and answer a
sizing question. Yeah, a little bit of
everything. I'm, I'm helping check orders
and tape boxes shut. So yeah, technically I'm the CEO
because in the end all the decisions kind of rest with me.

(05:45):
But look, everybody does a little bit of everything.
Yeah, Chief, everything officer,I think is probably the most
accurate then. Sure.
Yeah. So where are you from?
I grew up in a small town in Western Washington on the
Olympic Peninsula called Squim, right next to Olympic National
Park, and then went to college at Washington State University

(06:05):
for four years, and I've been inthe Seattle area ever since.
OK, nice West Coast. Would anything ever convince you
to move or are you pretty prettymuch settled?
You know, Seattle has changed a lot, a lot, a lot in the last 15
years. And you know, my wife and I more
or less made the commitment onceour kids got school age, we felt

(06:28):
like it was important for them to kind of go through school
with the same peer group and thesame school system and all that.
And obviously our jobs are are good here, so there's no real
reason to move. But I would say when my kids
graduate, we'll move not to the East Coast by any means, maybe
the Eastern Washington or, or something like that, maybe even

(06:52):
Salt Lake area, something like that, where the cost of living
is a bit lower, the pace is a little bit more relaxed.
You know, we just a couple weeksago we took the kids to Saint
George Zion National Park and and snow cannon and all that for
spring break. And it just amazed me how you
could drive across Saint George from one end to the other at
8:30 in the morning and do the speed limit the whole time.

(07:14):
You know that those days are long gone.
Traffic. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
No kidding. So how old are your kids in
high? School my My daughter's 15.
My son is 13. OK nice.
How are the teen years treating you?
You know, every stage of parenthood is is awesome in its
own way. So it's great to ski double

(07:36):
black diamonds with my kids. It's great to actually talk
about music and go to shows. So, you know, that's really,
really fun. You know, my daughter's a pretty
good athlete, runs track and cross country and plays select
soccer. I mean, shoot, I'm I'm going
running with my daughter now, right.
And, and when you're, when they're really, really young,
it's awesome in different ways, but I, I've always really

(07:57):
enjoyed sharing my passions withthem, teaching them to ski.
I'm a, I'm a huge skier. In fact, at this point in my
life, skiing is probably my favorite outdoor activity.
Being able to share music and skiing and, and at the outdoors,
backpacking trips in the summer,stuff like that with them.
It's really, really great building memories for sure.
Yeah. Are you still cool on your?

(08:18):
I'll go for it. I was just going to say I think
it's important to instill in them that we don't sit around on
weekends. We go out and we experience
stuff whether we're going out biking or hiking, just, you
know, get outside. Doesn't matter what the weather
is, just there's so much of thisworld to see.
There's so many cool things evenin our backyard, and we got to

(08:38):
go experience them. Yeah, for sure.
Those values and just the thingsthat you enjoy, do you feel like
those things that you've instilled in your family now are
things that were given to you bynature or nurture when you were
growing up? I think some of both, certainly
my parents weren't athletes, butmy dad's a really hard worker.

(09:01):
He, he was in the same kind of situation where he was working
for a guy and then he had the opportunity to purchase the
business. It was a sexually, a ready mix
business, concrete, so pretty different than what I do.
But I, I certainly watched him be a boss and I watched him
leave the house before 7:00 in the morning and come back after
5:00 in the afternoon and work Saturdays if he had to.

(09:22):
And so he instilled that work ethic.
I mean, we had to have a job growing up.
We had a chore list, all that stuff.
And I think that's healthy. They would take us camping.
We did these massive car trips across the country.
I mean, living out in the upper left corner of the US, we drove
1 Summer we drove to Maine and back.
Another summer we drove to Florida and back.

(09:43):
My parents took me to 45 states before I left the house.
So I, I definitely got this sense that travel is great and
there's a lot to see out there. But as far as as my desire to do
things physically, that was something I was born with and
I'm super grateful for that. Yeah.

(10:04):
So with your parenting style, I don't know what it is, but with
your parenting style, would you say that there is overlap in the
way that you also lead your, your company, your business?
Yeah, that's a good question. I I think so because I
definitely believe in giving people enough robe to hang
themselves, if you will. Let them make a mistake.

(10:27):
I, I, I don't micromanage my kids and I don't micromanage my
employees. I mean, we obviously have check
insurance and everybody knows what their job is.
And if the job isn't getting done or if my kids aren't
getting their homework done, youknow, then then we address it.
It's, you know, this day and age, you can log on anytime and
look at your kids grades in any given class.
So do that. And hey, why didn't you turn

(10:49):
this assignment in? What changes do we need to make?
But in general, I trust the people around me, whether it's
my kids or my employees, to get their job done and don't feel
the need to get in the weeds with them.
Nobody likes that, right? Yeah, no, I hate it.
I've worked with people helping them build businesses and their
style was very much micromanaging and usually
doesn't last super long in termsof our eye to eye values and

(11:14):
things. Yeah, I think that most people
like you're saying that given the opportunity, if it's the
right kind of a person that's atleast somewhat motivation or
self motivated, you can have a lot higher ceiling of success
for sure. Yeah, and feel ownership, right.
I mean, like my customer service, you know, we'll think
of a new policy and just come tome and say, this is what I want

(11:35):
to do. This is why.
And I said, great, you know, that sounds good to me.
Let's do it. You know, I don't feel the need
to, you know, they're the ones dealing with it every day,
right? Or in my, my e-commerce person
says, I think we should do this app and here's why I say, OK,
great, that makes sense to me. You know, I'm not going to get
in the weeds and and tell them right or wrong, right, because

(11:55):
it's their day-to-day. It's not my day-to-day.
Yeah. Are you a good leader?
I don't know. I think I'm a fair leader.
I think that people who need more management have worked for
me in the past and they haven't done well and they haven't been
happy because I'm probably not as hands on as they needed or

(12:17):
would have liked. But I think I've got a team now
that is pretty independent and doesn't need me standing over
their shoulder all the time. Yeah.
What is the vision that you castto your team at Blue 70 that
keeps people coming back? I think if I'm being honest,
although this company is my life, I'm fully aware it's not

(12:37):
their life. So, you know, my e-commerce girl
has two young kids and if one ofthem is sick, yeah, I work from
home. If, if you have an opportunity
to go on an awesome hike with a friend on a weekday, then go on
an awesome hike on a weekday. I, I, we used to have what I
think is reasonably generous vacation days.

(12:57):
And it kind of came to head, oneof my employees had used all his
vacation days and his mom felt really, really ill and he wanted
to go visit her. And, and on paper, he doesn't
have vacation days. And it's like, well, you know, I
could make him take on paid daysto go visit his mom, maybe for
the last time. Or, you know, I, I could

(13:18):
obviously just pay him. But you've, you've got the
legality of, well, if I let him do it, then I have to let
everybody do it. I just realized this whole thing
is stupid and, and I called everybody and said, we're not
tracking vacation days anymore. Do your job.
If you don't come in for a month, we're going to have to
have a conversation. But in general, just, you know,
go on trips with your family, goskiing on a Wednesday once in a

(13:38):
while. And, and we're all going to do
this together. And I think people or I hope
people really appreciate that. It's definitely kept people
around. You know, if, if, if you have a
chance to do something, go do something.
I know that your job isn't your life.
I don't want your job to be yourlife.
And, and they all reciprocate by, you know, if they have to

(13:59):
work the odd Saturday morning ata wetsuit demo or if they have
to stay late for one reason or another because they haven't
gotten something done, they'll do it because they know that,
you know, I've got their back and they don't mind putting a
little bit of extra effort in when they have to.
Are you familiar with Yvonne Schnard?
You know who that is? I do not.
OK, so there's this great book called Let My People Go Surfing

(14:22):
by Yvonne Schnard. He's the founder of Patagonia,
and he had a similar ethos, I guess, around work, as the
company started to really grow and they started to gain
prominence, you know, getting outside of just rock climbing
gear. He had this policy of like, let
my people go surfing. Like if the surf is high and
it's good, then go out and do itlike, you know, work to live,

(14:45):
don't live to work type of a mentality.
So I think there's some pretty cool overlap there, but it's a
little bit more encouraging, I guess that you haven't heard of
that. And it is like kind of your own
thing because I wish more peoplewould do that.
But I do question like, do you think that that kind of policy
is scalable when you, if you like, let's just pretend that
you've got to 50 a hundred employees?

(15:06):
No. Well, honestly, no, there will,
there will always people be people who take advantage of it.
Now, I guess it's possible if you have strong managers and you
have strong metrics. This is where your job is.
Are you getting your job done ornot?
I'll use an example. We we've never tracked sick
days. The the sick policy is if you're

(15:26):
sick, nobody else in the office.So don't come in kind of thing.
And nobody ever took advantage of that.
And then we had an employee who all of a sudden, whatever
they've got migraines, can't come in, can't come in, can't
come in all of a sudden they're missing 15 days out of 20 kind
of thing and, and not working from home.
And then it's like, OK, well, now we need to have a sick day

(15:48):
policy because you know, and, and maybe they really were sick.
I'm, I'm certainly not accusing them of came in the system, but
that I, I, this is just an example that came to mind.
Like, OK, well, guess what guys,there's a new sick day policy.
Here's what it is. You get this many days and blah,
blah, blah. And that employee left us a

(16:09):
short time later because, you know, they were out of sick days
and they decided to move on. So it, it's not possible, I
think to, to scale to 100 peoplebecause there will be people who
are taking a vacation day everyday kind of thing.
Unless you if, if I had 100 employees that are just like the
ones that I have now, then it would work.
So yeah, I, I guess this is something I've never thought

(16:32):
about and I'm rambling now, but you like to think it would work.
But in reality, you'd probably need some time to controls on
it. Yeah, for sure.
So what are what are your ambitions as a business owner
runner of of Blue 70? Like, do you want to grow it to
a place of that scale or do you want to take a remain more of

(16:52):
like a lifestyle where you're really involved in every level
of the business? Like what?
What's your future? The reality is, I mean, we would
never be a company with 100 people.
We can be bigger. We've just kind of had set back
after set back over the last fewyears, which has been really
frustrating. But we'll never be a $20 million

(17:14):
company in the US We could probably be in a perfect world,
we could be 20% bigger and we could be a lot bigger in Europe.
I took over my own European distribution for the first time
this year. And that's where the real growth
opportunity is. But I'm, I'm pretty realistic in
what I think the ceiling is. And I, I live pretty good life,

(17:39):
You know, it supports my family.I get to travel over the world.
So I, I, I'm not one of these guys.
And I think about that at night sometimes if I should be more
ambitious and take bigger risks and try, you know, shoot for the
moon. But I'm pretty happy with where
we're at. I mean, certainly we've got some
flaws that need to be fixed, butwe're never going to be tier or

(17:59):
speed or anything like that, andI'm OK with that.
Yeah. Well, I mean, given just some of
the values that you've laid out there when I asked like who you
were, I think the for one of thefirst things you said were or
was a father husband. And if you were growing a
business to that size, I feel like it becomes a lot more
difficult to continue to own your time unless you step into
like more of a chairman role or you have somebody else run in

(18:22):
the day-to-day operations. Because from what I've seen
some, some of my friends, whoever taking a company from,
you know, 10 million in revenue to approaching 50 or more, it
just, it like seems to eat time like nothing.
There's always some massive firethat you feel like has to be put
out or the business is going to end in 24 hours.
So I figure if it's your fits your lifestyle.

(18:43):
Yeah, I, if somebody asked me about selling the other day, I'm
like, I'm not interested in selling because then I'd have to
go get a job, right? And, and right now, you know,
I've kind of built my, my job into my lifestyle and, and it
all kind of works. So yeah, I'm I'm pretty happy
with where I'm at. Yeah, so tariffs are obviously
taking a big chunk of your mental bandwidth, but what are

(19:06):
some of the other things that kind of seep into your mind as
you're going to bed in the evenings or waking up first
thing in the morning? Like these are the first things
that are hitting your your wheelhouse inside the mind.
Cash flow for sure. You know, we had the funds to
buy the company, but not the funds to really put a ton into
it. And I'd built, I'd built this

(19:27):
structure where we own the US distribution, but I had third
party distributors all over the world.
And when things are going well, it works really, really well.
But all of a sudden we had really big problems with our New
Zealand distributor. He got into financial issues.
My European distributor which was 40% of my business went
insolvent and all of a sudden you know between those two, New

(19:50):
Zealand and Australia where the same distributor and Europe all
of a sudden half my revenues gone and a two-month period.
And so having to claw that back it has been difficult.
So we've got purchase order financing which helps us in the
US, but as we've tried to get those overseas markets back,

(20:10):
it's and especially for buying our own inventory, you know cash
flow becomes a real issue. Yeah.
So you are buying your own inventory.
You're bringing it all over herefirst.
Yeah. I mean, you know, Speaking of
tariffs, so we ship direct from the factory in Asia to Europe
and we've got small distributors, you know, all over

(20:31):
the world, all over South America, Middle East, Asia,
whatever. And the US has always been the
central warehouse. So when somebody in Taiwan calls
and says, I want 10 wet suits, we used to ship that from the US
And with these tariffs going forward, we've already made the
plan that we're going to hold extra inventory in Europe, not
in the United States. Because obviously I can't bring

(20:54):
in extra suits and sit on it all.
All of a sudden, I'd have the pricing so high wet that that
Taiwanese distributor wouldn't be able to afford them anymore.
So it's directly costing the US business.
That's product that's not cominginto the country.
It's a product that my employeesaren't going to be shipping.
It's, you know, tariffs the US won't make because I'm just
shifting that business to another country.

(21:14):
So these tariffs are going to isolate America more than
anything else. You think that it'll calm down?
I think it has to. It's just a matter of when and
how much. But what we're, we're, we're
nothing, right? My company is, is insignificant,
but real big companies are goingto have real big problems.

(21:35):
And they're the ones that are going to move the needle.
Though it is frustrating when say the, the tech guys, the ones
who have the clout to maybe get their way, they go to the the
White House and have a meeting and all of a sudden there's no
tariffs on phones, right? And I just saw a couple days ago
now there's no tariffs on car parts.

(21:56):
So the guys of the cloud are taking care of themselves, but
it's not trickling down to the lower guys.
And there's 10,000 companies in the US just like mine, right,
that are really, really scared and really trying to navigate
this because I've, I've got the,the cash flow to buy my PO and,
and pay the old tariff of 10 or 20%.

(22:16):
But very few companies have the cash flow to pay 145% tariff.
And that's upfront. So yeah, we could raise prices
and we will raise prices, but the tariff needs to be paid
before it gets into your warehouse.
And so, you know, it takes a couple months to get that money
back through the sales, through the increased prices.
So that's the that's the big challenge.

(22:38):
Yeah. What is the shortest amount of
runway that you have come to in the past, let's just say six
months when it comes to cash flow situations and the
financing you have laid out? Because I know the I know the
game a little bit just from someof my background and it can get
quite hairy. Yeah, I've got a really solid
CFO. He's been with me since day one.

(22:59):
He was the CFO for the old company before I purchased it
and he lives in New Zealand. So he's really good at
forecasting and I and we don't take a lot of risks.
We'd rather be out of stock on something than underwater, let's
put it that way. So we, we, we're always updated
our cash flows about six months out and there might be a lot of

(23:22):
questions in that three to six month period.
But you know, if there's any alarm at all, then he's poking
me and and we have a deep conversation about it.
So let me ask you this question,who is your biggest fan?
Who is my biggest fan? I would say that there are a lot

(23:42):
of men and women between 40 and 60 years old who love swimming
in the open water. Maybe they're triathletes, but
maybe they're just open water swimmers to swim at the lake or
the beach a few times a week with a group.
And you know, certainly those are our kind of most brand loyal

(24:04):
people. Obviously we sell mostly to
triathletes, but I don't know that the average triathlete is
as brand loyal as these open water swimmers that really
identify with our brand, identify with our service and
come back this time after time. Yeah, what about you?
On a personal level, who do you think gives you the most
support? My dog, Loki.

(24:28):
Your dog, Loki. No, obviously my wife is is
great and and she helps me out when when I just need to talk to
somebody. My parents are great.
And then I've, I've got a friendin Park City who he's more or
less retired, but he's, he's been through a lot of stuff with

(24:51):
companies and I, I guess I'd call him a mentor.
So when, when I'm really stuck on something, I'll give him a
call and kind of explain it. And once a year I go out and
stay with him and maybe ski and,and go over the financials and
talk about the year ahead and what makes sense.
Yeah, he's come up with some really good ideas over the
years. Yeah, the sounding boards are so

(25:13):
important. I have two or three guys
specifically who I, yeah, I'll call.
And it's always encouraging to have those conversations.
It's always amazing too, whenever, I don't know if you've
experienced this, but when you have something kind of mulling
around internally, and then onceyou finally put it to to words
and verbally it comes out, you said somebody like, oh, wait,
that doesn't make quite as much sense as I thought it did.
That kind of helps you navigate the situation.

(25:36):
Sure. Yeah.
And whiteboards too, right? I mean, you've got to draw if
you want to go from point A to point Z, you've got to draw how
you're going to get there because, you know, you got to
make sure it all works out. And I take that philosophy and
into everything when when somebody says just kind of
rattle something out of their brand or out of their mouth that

(25:57):
came from their brain, I'm like,OK, let's break that down.
Because if you believe that, then you believe this.
And if you believe that, then you believe this.
And then they're like, oh, right, right, right.
You know, I guess it kind of falls apart.
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting how that the
the mind works in that way. How old are you, do you mind me
asking? I am 47.
OK. So John, you're 47 years old.

(26:19):
When you were 27 and you were thinking maybe a little bit
about the future as you started to gain a bit more maturity or
coming into the the wiser years.Is this where you thought you
would be at 47? No, I certainly didn't think I'd
be a business owner. When I was 27.
I'd been at the running store for six years.
I was still racing Ironman triathlons pretty seriously, but

(26:43):
I also knew that my time in the running store was limited.
The industry was a lot differentback then.
The brick and mortar retailers were a lot healthier.
And what I wanted to do was be asales Rep and, you know, go from
store to store with four or fivedifferent lines, a shoe line and
a clothing line and a sock line and a nutrition line.
And that just seemed like a really good lifestyle to me.

(27:03):
And and then the next step abovethat would be a sales manager
for a big company like Brooks orSaucony or Scott or something
like that. So I think this worked out
better than that because I do have my own company and I have
my own freedom. I tell people, you know, I, I
can take all the vacation days Iwant, but at the same time, my

(27:25):
job never stops, you know, and, and I deal with, I deal with
Europe. So there's emails coming in
literally 24 hours a day. And, you know, we go to Saint
George for a few days to go hiking in Zion.
And every morning I'm on my e-mail from six to seven before
the family gets up, just trying to make sure I'm not too buried
when I get back. So it's, it's definitely a

(27:46):
blessing and a curse. But All in all, I've kind of
built my life around the fact that, you know, I, I just got to
manage it all. I never get too high or too low
emotionally and just keep turning up are.
You a pretty stoic guy. For sure.
People have a hard time reading me a lot because I'm stoic and
I'm sarcastic. My humor is very, very dry,

(28:07):
sarcastic humor, and so people sometimes can't tell that I'm
joking or something like that. But honestly, I think that's why
I've been reasonably successful as an endurance athlete because
I am so stoic and I never get too high and I never get too
low. If I'm feeling bad, I know I'm
going to feel better. If I'm feeling great, I know I
don't go overboard because you're going to be feeling bad

(28:28):
pretty soon. And just try to keep really even
keeled. Have you always been that way?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, obviously nobody has
more bravado than a 19 year old white male, but I, I, I've never
been, you know, the class clown or anything like that.
Yeah. So talk me through the story of

(28:51):
what led you to the place where you thought, oh, maybe I should
purchase this company under its previous name, I'm assuming is
when it was a different name andthen you, you know, took over
the reins. Like what was that story like?
The so that was Blue 70 USA and I had been named CEOA couple

(29:13):
years earlier and it had a, it had a pretty significant amount
of debt which I won't go into. And then we had a problem come
up with US Customs, where one ofour factories in Asia had been
not properly reporting the full cost of a product.
But basically we bought the fabric for these swimsuits and

(29:38):
then the factory from somebody in Italy.
And we had it shipped to China. And then they made the suits in
China and shipped them to the USAnd the Chinese factory was only
putting the cost that they charge us to manufacture these
suits, but they weren't putting the cost of the fabric on the
customs documents. And we more or less thought that
was the right way to do it. And then US Customs came in and

(29:59):
said, no, no, no, you, you're not paying money on the cost of
the fabric in these suits. And they came back and said, you
know, you owe this much money and got to pay it by this date
or you're not going to be able to import anything anymore.
And the company didn't have the money.
And it was very, very precarioustimes.
And my wife and I made an offer that was accepted.

(30:22):
And yeah, that's, that's the short story of it.
And as Dan Enfield said when I told him, he said that's the
best and the worst thing you've ever done and can agree more.
Why was it the worst thing you've ever done?
Just because it takes a lot of stinking work.
Lot of time staring at the ceiling at 3:00 in the morning
worrying about this or that. Yeah.
What is your go to comfort routine whenever you get to that

(30:45):
point? Like for me it was eating a box
of Cheerios, just a fist in the box.
Like what did you do? When I'm freaking out at 3:00 in
the morning, Yeah, I guess I'll,I'll, I used to lay there and
just toss and turn and be pissedoff that I wasn't sleeping.
And now I'll get up and I'll petthe dog a little bit, walk
around the house a little bit, and just get myself in a

(31:07):
different mindset. I might sit down and do a
crossword puzzle or something like that just to calm my mind.
Yeah. Do you have a daily routine that
like centers you to keep you in a relative mind of focus?
Like are you religious or spiritual or anything like that?
No, I mean really, exercise is my thing and I, I used to have a

(31:30):
love hate relationship with swimming and, and I've grown to
really love it. And I swim with the Masters
group Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings that it's like 5
minutes from my house in a beautiful outdoor pool year
round. So we're out there in the snow
and the rain and all that, but it's amazing to me the days that
I miss that swim, I'm kind of pissed off all day.

(31:51):
Like just seeing those guys, seeing the same group of dudes
and women and talking with them and getting that workout in.
It's, it's just such a good start to the day.
And then Tuesday, Thursdays, like this morning, I went
running. Almost every morning I start
with the workout and it just sets me in in the right mood
straight away. I'm pretty anxious if I don't

(32:13):
get a workout in in the morning.Yeah.
Do you find that especially whenyou're travelling and you get
out of sync with those routines,like it really affects the way
that you're able to be productive in the mindset that
you sit in and. Yes and no.
Usually before a trip, I'll, I'll actually kind of plan out
like, OK, you know, I'm going torun on.

(32:35):
I won't say you lose so much control, right?
So I won't say that on this day I'm going to do this, I'm going
to do this on this day. But I might say, OK, I'm going
to sit on the hotel exercise bike for a total of 2 hours.
So I'm going to go on three runsover the course of six days or
something like that. And then if I bang all that out
in the first few days, then great.
I don't mind if I have to miss aday because I've got a late

(32:57):
dinner or something like that onanother day.
But to be fair, you know, I'm solucky because I, it's not like
I'm going to Tulsa, OK. I'm, I'm going to great places
when I travel, right? In fact, I'm going back to Saint
George in a week. And I've already lined up a bike
tomorrow, and I'll be running and biking with other happy,

(33:19):
healthy people. Who you are you staying in like
an Airbnb out there or a hotel or?
Actually, it looks like I'm staying with one of the local
people, so we work with a guy named Nick Chase.
That's how I was going to ask you, yeah.
He's he's got me set up with thebed.
I'm only going for a couple nights so you know, I don't need
anything too official. I said.

(33:40):
Even a couch is fine and looks like he's got me hooked up with
somebody that I was texting withyesterday.
Yeah, he's a great guy. He coached me for a number of
months and has spent some one-on-one time with him for a
week at a lake before. He's he's a cool guy, fun that
you guys know each other too. I think he Nick just knows
everybody though. Yeah, I got to say, he's one of
the hardest working people I've ever met.

(34:01):
He is always up to something. He's he's the ultimate hustler,
but he's a rock solid guy. Yeah, for sure.
How many, I guess what's the best way to ask this, like
partners or people groups do yousponsor as a company?
Like how many? Yeah, I guess you could say it
in total athlete names or. You know, we've got we've got

(34:25):
kind of a couple different channels.
So first of all, we've got Tri clubs and coaching groups and
I've got a guy who manages all that.
Off the top of my head, I want to say we work with, I don't
know, 50 to 80 of those and thatthat's a relationship where they
get a discount code and we mightgive them product this and that

(34:46):
there. There's a lot of kind of
individual deals based on a number of factors.
And then if you look at sponsorship of athletes, I
believe very strongly in a pyramid where the bottom you've
got a lot of ambassadors or, or pros who get free product.
And then you go up the pyramid alittle bit and there are fewer

(35:08):
pros who are maybe on a bonus contract.
And then at the very top, you'vegot a few pros on retainer.
For us, we try to flood the start line.
If if there's going to be a photo of a triathlon swim is
typically of the start. So we want to see a lot of those
blue Helix shoulders on the start.
If somebody wins a race, but they were mid pack swimmer is

(35:29):
not as important to us. And then of course, you got to
take social media into account to these days if, if they're
trying, if they're providing us content.
I won't pay retainer to an athlete who doesn't have a
strong content team because to me, I don't want to pay athletes
and then also pay for photo shoots and pay for videos and
stuff like that. I want the photos and short

(35:52):
videos to come from the athlete.Just kind of a random question
because you mentioned the blue shoulder and like the blue 70
Helix and I guess I'll really most of your products, they
stand out very interestingly in shape and color.
But why is it that within the wet suit space that you don't
have like a company, it would make just like a bright yellow

(36:14):
wet suit or a bright green wet suit?
What is keeping that from happening?
We almost all use Yamamoto neoprene and we are limited by
what Yamamoto can offer. Yamamoto has a very tight color
cart. They've got blue, red, silver.
I think they do a green. So that's kind of why you see

(36:36):
the same colors come through wetsuits and you know, tear kind of
took red and we took blue or because usually black and white.
So the neoprene only comes in a handful of colors.
They've the Yamamoto has actually come out with kind of
this different kind of finish, avery almost Chrome finish on the

(36:57):
suit or on the neoprene. But unfortunately we learned
pretty quickly that that rubs off relatively soon.
So you could buy this really fancy looking wet suit, but then
all the fanciness rubs off and then you're going to want to
return it, right? Because hey, this doesn't work
the way that it did. So outside of colored neoprene,

(37:18):
the other way to make a suit dramatic looking is through
printing on the neoprene. But the more paint on the
neoprene, it tends to get heavy paint can actually limit
flexibility. So we keep things on the simple
side and that's why you don't see a lot of really wild looking
suits because printing printing is really expensive.
Multi colored printing is even more expensive and it actually

(37:40):
detracts from the performance ofthe suit.
So this company Yamamoto that that is a company like that's AI
guess premier manufacturer of neoprene, that's what you're
saying. Yeah, there are three main
manufacturers of neoprene that you'll find in triathlon
websites. Maybe you could say 4 I guess,
but Yamamoto far and away has the best neoprene and for that

(38:02):
reason the most used neoprene. Yeah.
Do you know if the coloring is just something that like how
Henry Ford is like black becauseI said so or and, you know, is
there like a limiting factor to the innovation?
You can't make neoprene other colors, do you know?
Well they could definitely do other colors.
I think they just don't see the demand for it.

(38:24):
I've never come to them and saidI want hot pink, make me hot
pink. They'd probably say, OK, we've
got to commit to this amount that have to decide if it was
worth it or not. Yeah, interesting.
But, you know, even with the blue on the Helix shoulders, we
do see situations where it rubs off.
And the black shows. Typically that's for people,

(38:45):
women in their cheek rubbing against the suit.
But yeah, and then people want to return their suit because
they think it's falling apart. You're like, well, it's kind of
your cheeks rubbing against the,you know, it's complicated.
Yeah. Do you know or have you been a
part of witnessing the manufacturing process from raw

(39:05):
ingredients or harvested raw materials to finish neoprene?
Have you gotten to witness that?Oh yeah, yeah, I've been to both
the Yamamoto factory and our wetsuit factory.
Nice. Tell me about it.
Do you like that kind of stuff? I do it's it's quite
interesting. And when you're talking about
designing suits, obviously it helps tons to understand how

(39:26):
they come together. And especially when you're
talking about the panels of wet suits and how they're cut and
how they interact with each other and how they're put
together. So yeah, that's that's pretty
crucial. Yeah.
So earlier you mentioned just ina by the way conversation that
Blue 70 current has current flaws that you're trying to work

(39:46):
through. What are some of those flaws or
the big hurdles and challenges that you are trying to remedy
right now? Inventory to cash flow to sales,
I mean, that's, that's everything, right?
And that's why these tariffs arejust wrench in the works, right?
Yeah, yeah, we've got the finance for this.
Let's do it. Oh, now it's going to cost 145%

(40:10):
more than it was like, oh, well,I don't have that much money.
So it's it's kind of a nightmare.
Do you find that your crediting sources are assume you have some
kind of revolving line or line of credit, Are they adjusting as
well like in being, are they working with you to be able to
get through these kind of interesting times where you're

(40:30):
going to need more cash flow to make the whole system run?
Yeah, yeah, I've, I've was givenaccess to an expanded line
recently. So yeah, there's there's
opportunities. Yeah.
So what is a typical like Wednesday or Thursday look like
for you? What do you do?

(40:52):
I you know, get a workout in have some coffee, probably walk
the dog and then it's a lot of emails I've subscribed to two
different newspapers in New YorkTimes Seattle Times.
I've always thought it's important to know what's going
on in the world know what's going on in my community.
AI find it interesting and BI think it's just proven as a

(41:14):
business owner to understand if if Houthis are shooting missiles
that ships, then that's why my freighter had to go around
Africa instead of through the SOAS canal, you know, just
things like that. I've got distribution in Israel.
You know, it's it's really good for me to understand all these
things that are going on all over the world.
So the first thing I do is read the two newspaper, two

(41:37):
newspapers and kind of understand what's going on
there. And then any urgent things in my
inbox, I guess before noon, I tried to do any phone call
meetings and I try to get caughtup on my e-mail.
And then, you know, lunch and then in the afternoon is when I
do the bigger picture stuff, theforecasting and purchase orders
and things like that. So right before you get to the

(42:00):
office or right before you're about to engage in the daily
leadership activities, what getsyou in the zone?
Yeah, I guess, man, I used to beable to ride my bike to work and
now I've I've usually got to pick up my daughter from one
thing or another. So I'm driving more than I want
to. But that drive to work and just

(42:22):
listen to music and just kind ofthinking, OK, well, these are
the first things that I'm going to do.
Or these are the things, it's not even this is the first thing
I'm going to do. It's this is what I positively
need to get done by the end of the day.
What? Kind of music you like listening
to. Man, just about anything but pop
music or country. I mean, we, we listen, we listen

(42:44):
to so much music in the office. You know, our shipping guy is a
big music guy too. So we, we listen to radio
stations from all over the world, from Greece and Germany
and France. Oh, that's fine.
I'm, if I, I used to be really into, you know, 90s punk rock
that Pennywise rancid, no effects, and that turned to kind
of electric downtempo, like poured his head in Massive

(43:05):
Attack and Fever Corporation, stuff like that.
And then that goes into, you know, jazzy hip hop like Q-tip
and MC Solar and Guru. And so, yeah, but you know, I
love me some Merle Haggard and some Johnny Cash.
So I'm, I'm all over the place. And growing up in the 90s just
outside Seattle, of course you've got Pearl Jam and Nirvana

(43:25):
in there. So a little bit of everything.
Yeah, I was on a Johnny Cash kick here recently.
Listened to some of his remastered stuff as I was
driving north through the ShastaWilderness up to Mount Shasta.
Just something about listening to that type of music with the
massive trees on each side that like really get you the, I don't
know, such an interesting feeling.
But I, I, I dig you on the Johnny Cash stuff.
It's pretty fun. Sure.

(43:46):
Yeah, Shasta is great. We spent a week on like Siskiyou
a couple years ago with the kidsin our RV.
That's a really great community.Yeah, I got that, I felt.
I felt like, so we go to a lot of mountain towns, right?
And I, I they've all kind of gotten really kind of ruined.
And certainly I acknowledge I'm one of the people who ruined it.
You know, the prices go up, the traffic gets really bad, locals

(44:07):
can't afford to live there anymore, blah, blah, blah.
I felt like Mount Shasta hadn't been ruined yet.
Like, price is still reasonable.Yeah.
All I can figure is just so isolated, right?
It's, what, four or five hours from San Francisco and four or
five hours from Portland? It's just in the middle of
absolutely nowhere. It was really nice.
Yeah, it's gorgeous. Couple things I got to.

(44:28):
So I recently moved here in October.
I'm from the East Coast in Tennessee, Chattanooga, which is
beautiful. It's in its own right.
But just out here the the vast, the large mountains, I mean,
when you're standing at 900 feet, you can look across the
valley, you know, an hour drive away and see that Big 14 are
punching through the sky. It's pretty amazing.
But I recently got invited to gosnowmobiling and I really wanted

(44:49):
to hike up Mount Shasta, but it kind of made it seem like such a
trivial thing when you can hop on a snowmobile and be to the
top in 15 minutes. I was just like, what is this?
Like doesn't even seem like thatbig of a feat anymore because I
can zip up the side of this mountain on some snow.
It's absolutely crazy how big those mountains are and it's
kind of scary in a lot of ways, honestly, as you're going up
these giant bowls. I, I, first of all, I, I first

(45:10):
time snowmobiling, it's a lot harder than I thought.
So I was already like gassed because it's just trying to
control this machine. But there's something about
being in nature and realizing how small I am or how small we
are as as a human, that really kind of puts things into
perspective of like, well, what really matters?
Staying alive, breathing, eating, like as long as you can

(45:32):
do those things and stay alive, that's what kind of really
matters. Have you been on the east side
of the Sierras feeling? Like I flew from so once when
inner bike was in Reno, I, I flew into Sacramento at night,
though I and I made the drive from Sacramento to Reno in the
dark. So I didn't know what I was

(45:53):
doing. And then on the way back I was
drove into daylight and thought,Oh my God, I got to come back
here. Got to what is it Truckee, the
big town up at the top. I got it and I'm frustrated.
I haven't made it back yet, but I definitely will because it was
just gorgeous. Just going over the past there.
Yeah, I went for the first time this past weekend put to a it's

(46:14):
called WT Fondo. I don't know if you know who
Phil Guymon is, but he puts on this ridiculous gravel ride.
Well, I took my road bike down there and with put some 30 fives
on it and about killed myself. But just the beauty on that side
of the mountains, it's just so much different than the other
side where there's like Hot Springs and, you know, lava
beds. And then I I guess, did you,

(46:35):
have you heard of the the Bristlecone Ancient Forest or
whatever? They have the oldest trees in
the world. I had no idea that we had that
in the US Yeah. Crazy, crazy stuff.
So beautiful. But you had.
Some cookies at the end of that fondo.
You know, I actually, I actuallydidn't.
Bill should have. Had cookies there.
Yeah, they had a, they had a biglike an amazing food truck and

(46:57):
there probably was cookies somewhere, but I didn't get any.
It was like a big whiskey and burritos push that one.
OK. Yeah, but if you ever get a
chance, I would definitely go dothat fondo probably on a
mountain bike or a really nice XC bike.
It wouldn't recommend a road bike about quit so many times.
But yeah, enough of me. So another question for you,

(47:18):
what does success look like to you now compared to when you
first took over this business? Yeah, that is, that is a good
question. I think I had aspirations for
more growth. You know, we're we're going to
kick some ass here and and I think I've consolidated that.
I think success looks like even cash flow start to build more

(47:41):
equity and and a cash reserve, which unfortunately we haven't
had in several years for one reason or another.
And then honestly, working less and spending more time on my
mountain bike or on my skis. I'm not going to try to say that
I'm put in an 80 hour weeks or anything like that.
I definitely get me time, but I,you know, I always like more me

(48:04):
time. Yeah, you think you'll keep it
within your wheelhouse and your family.
We'll kind of take over the business after you.
No, no, I I doubt my kids would want to do this and nor would I
make them. So yeah, we'll see what the exit
strategy is. It's, it's certainly not

(48:25):
imminent. And, you know, right now I'm
happy to get the paycheck out ofit and be part of it.
Yeah. How much longer do you think
that you would want to be working on at this like level?
Yeah, You know, my son is in 7thgrade, so I think things will
change a lot for us when he graduates from high school or

(48:47):
whatever he ends up doing. I think at that point, my wife
and I won't be tied to this overcrowded or really expensive
city anymore, and that's when we'll really start to look at
how we want to spend the last years of our lives.
Yeah. How long have you been married?
It was 07, so short of 20 years,18 years.
Congratulations, you can do something crazy for your 20.

(49:11):
I, we haven't talked about that yet.
You know, right now it's everything that's just kind of
right in front of us. But you know, we, we managed to
take a trip together at least once a year.
We've got an RV and so we'll typically send the kids down to
my sister's who lives in San Diego and then hop in the RV and
go somewhere with our bikes and hang out.

(49:32):
What have you learned about yourself as a parent and as it
relates to like your wife? The reason I ask that is I'm
thinking about having kids here relatively soon and I've heard
that it changes your life drastically.
And sometimes it's easy to be less focused on each other and
more focused on the kids. What are some of the things that
you've learned to help continue to bind and work on that

(49:52):
relationship with your wife? Because I know that's 20 years
is a long time and it doesn't not take work like it's it takes
some work I would assume. Oh yeah, for sure.
I mean, patience and, and the knowledge that there's going to
be, it's not that it's going to be hard days, there's going to
be hard months, right. And communication.

(50:16):
Keep an open mind and, and really try to empathize with
each other. I think, you know, you get so
caught up in what you're going through that you don't, a lot of
people don't take the time, myself in the past included, to
try to understand what my wife is going through.
And we, we might be processing the same situation in different

(50:38):
ways and, and just trying to be understanding and understand
that. And a lot of things, there's no
right or wrong. It's just different ways of
interpreting things and comparing notes.
You know, it's a cliche, but communication is really
everything. Yeah, you're speaking to me
pretty real. Me and my wife, we used to when
we first got married, fought quite a bit.

(51:00):
But we've since kind of mellowedout.
And I don't know, it's maybe every once every few months.
But the other day we were havingan argument and for whatever
reason, I was so bent on kind ofwhat you're saying, getting
across what I was feeling because I was so justified that
moment. But it's interesting.
I you give it 24 hours, you comeback around and compare notes.
And when the blood pressure is lowered a little bit more, you
can try to figure out and understand that other person's

(51:22):
perspective, which isn't an easything to do.
Like what are some of the thingsthat you do that I don't know,
get you back in a frame of mind where you can observe and try to
interpret the other side from the shoes of that perspective of
that person? I've always been kind of a
peacemaker, so I'm certainly nota yeller.
I don't yell at my kids hardly ever.

(51:44):
I I coach 2 soccer teams and I don't really yell at those
players. So.
I, I try to really just be mellow and reasonable and, and
break things down. So I, I can't really relate and,
and, and to these really high intensity screaming matches.
But on the other hand, there might be this slow burning anger
that kind of goes on for days where I'm just like my wife

(52:08):
asked me a question, I'll answerin one word and, and kind of
just avoid her, which is the wrong way to do it, But it's,
it's certainly a more passionate, aggressive way of
doing it. You know it, it's time, and it's
me being reflective and trying to understand why she's acting
like that and then waiting for the right opportunity when she's

(52:30):
kind of mellowed out too, and then just comparing notes on it.
Yeah. Thanks for the feedback.
So let me ask you then one more question because then you
probably got to get back to doing fixing all these tariff
problems. But for you, let's pretend for a
second that we're 20 years down the road and you've decided I

(52:50):
think I'm going to be selling this business.
And you find somebody, some bright eyed, bushy tailed 30
something who is excited to takethis company to, you know, the
next level. What are some of the pieces of
advice or just something that you would give him by way of
wisdom and in sharing from your experience as he is about to
take, he or she is about to takeon that experience?

(53:12):
You know more than anything, make sure you've got the cash
flow for significant inventory spend.
You know, you've you've got to get those equations dialed in
the when you're going to buy theinventory and when you're going
to have the revenue from sellingit and when you're going to get
the next inventory after that. Holes in cash flow leave holes
in your inventory, which leads to lost revenue.

(53:34):
And the other thing is learn to say no, Everybody has their hand
out. Everybody.
Hey, I got second my age group at the YMCA triathlon.
Will you sponsor me? And it goes on and on.
Every pro thinks that they deserve a living as a
professional triathlete and that, you know, and they want

(53:56):
money to be because they need money to support their
lifestyle, right? Every race director thinks that
we should be cutting them massive checks because hey, I've
got 2000 people in my race. I could give you all this
exposure, everybody wants to sell you Facebook ads and Google
marketing and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And, and you've got to be comfortable saying no to most of
it. And, and when you do say yes,

(54:17):
you've got to have a really, really clear understanding of
what you're going to get out of it.
And it's OK for some things to cost you money for you did not
make a, a return on your investment, but you've got to
limit those. And you've got to really have a
clear understanding that, yeah, this is going to cost me this
much money, but it's worth it because of this.
But other than that, I I I need a really clear ROI if I'm going

(54:41):
to be writing a check to you. Yeah, just kind of, I know I
said that was my last question, but I have a follow up on as you
navigate the business decisions,just listening to you for the
past hour, it seems like like you've talked about equations
and you know, making sure you doyour forecasting correctly.
So you're a pretty analytical logic based guy.

(55:02):
But I'm curious, for the majority of your business
decisions, do you operate more from a position of logic or do
you follow your gut? I follow cash flow.
Yeah. Which I guess is logical cash
flow. Yeah, Yeah, You know, yeah, I
will say logic because in many years ago, I worked with
somebody who was very, very enthusiastic and wanted to say

(55:24):
yes to everything. And he was a pleaser and he
would, he had these grand plans.But you know, you can't, you
can't get to, you can't make this sale if you don't have the
money to buy the inventory for it, right.
So he would go out and like, yeah, we're going to be great.
We're going to be great. Let's sponsor every athlete in
the world and, and the, the spend didn't match the revenue

(55:47):
didn't match the cash flow and, and we, we got along like a
little water. We did not get along at all at
all. Because I'm like, dude, he
thought I was really negative and I thought he was reckless
and that was just the way it was.
So I'm definitely more analytical.
Like you got to walk before you could run and it's better to
under promise to over deliver. I'm into that.

(56:09):
Well, good stuff man. I really appreciate you taking
the time out of your busy day tosit down and amuse me with the
questions and answering just thecuriosity they have going on.
But I wish you all the best and looking forward to seeing Blue
70 on more start lines and hopefully taking over the
market. Really appreciate what you guys
are doing and it's been cool to see the stuff out in the wild

(56:31):
and then get to meet the face orone of the faces to help make
that stuff happen. So thanks for making the time.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Cheers.
Thank you so much to John for coming on the podcast and for
sharing about his life and the journey that he is on.
If you made it to this point thepodcast, just want to say thank
you so much. Really appreciate you being
here. Make sure to check out the show
notes for any and all of the things that may have been

(56:52):
mentioned in this podcast. And if you wouldn't mind, like
comment, subscribe if you're on YouTube, if on Spotify or Apple
podcast, if you could like and review, that would also be
awesome. And you can also sign up for a
newsletter, which is also in theshow notes below.
Thank you so much for jumping inwith me this week.
Yeah, really appreciate you guysfor being here.
We'll catch you in the next one.Peace.