March 12, 2025 • 20 mins
In today’s episode of the Super Entrepreneurs Podcast, we welcome Christopher Meade, co-founder of Crossnet—the company that took a simple twist on volleyball and turned it into a worldwide success. Chris and his team bootstrapped their way from humble beginnings to multi-million dollar revenue, securing retail deals with major chains like Target and expanding internationally. But the journey wasn’t without its challenges. From early struggles to breakthrough moments, Chris shares the hard lessons, growth strategies, and entrepreneurial mindset that fueled his success. Plus, he reveals his latest venture, The Founders Club—a thriving network for high-level entrepreneurs. If you’re looking for practical insights on scaling a business, leveraging community, and building a brand that lasts, this is an episode you don’t want to miss!
Chapter Stamps:
01:43 Challenges and Growth of Crossnet
03:24 The Founders Club: A New Venture
05:43 Crossnet's Continued Success and Future Plans
06:22 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs
10:49 Influencer Marketing and Organic Growth
18:01 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks
Pullout Quotes:
- "There were a lot of days where people didn’t want Crossnet. They didn’t like it. They were confused about what it was."
- "We bootstrapped the entire thing, and over time, we just started knocking down retail doors."
- "This was our one chance to change our lives, and we weren’t going to give up on it."
- "Every entrepreneur is lonely to a degree—we all need connections, and we all face struggles, no matter how successful we become."
- "If you remove yourself from the finances, that’s a recipe for disaster as a business owner."
Social Links:
Website: https://www.crossnetgame.com and https://www.foundersclubofficial.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjmeade/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chrismeade/
X: https://x.com/thechrismeade
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crossnetgame
Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the opinions and perspectives conveyed in this podcast are solely those of our guests and do not necessarily represent the views, ideologies, or principles of Super Entrepreneurs Podcast, its associated entities, or any organizations they represent or are affiliated with. We provide a platform for discussion and exploration, and the content of each episode is understood to be independent expressions from our guests, rather than a reflection of the beliefs held by the podcast or its hosts.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Go straight for the conflictand rip off the bandit.
(00:02):
That'd be number one.
Number two is never losesight of the businesses P&L.
You could put a lot of smart financialpeople in the right seats but as
the owner, it's your job to makesure the plane's flying every day
and if you remove yourself from thefinances that's a recipe for disaster.
Um,
(00:37):
Welcome back to the superentrepreneurs podcast.
I'm your host, Shahid Durrani.
Today we have with us ChristopherMeade, the co founder of Crossnet,
a company based on a simple idea.
Four way volleyball and turnit into a global success.
(01:00):
Chris and his team created anentirely new game that quickly grew.
It reach key retail deals and aimsto make Crossnet and Olympic game.
That's incredible.
Thank you so much forcoming on the show, Chris.
Thanks for having me, man.
I appreciate it.
Danger, quite an intro.
No, my honor, my, my pleasure, brother.
(01:21):
It's great to have you.
Chris, cross net is such a unique idea,
and you have turned into a into global, soquickly, that's what's exciting about it.
Can you share some of the biggesthurdles that you face when you
were growing this new sport?
Yeah.
And, how did you
push through them?
(01:42):
Yeah, you say quick.
I say slow, it's beenseven years of doing that.
It took a long time.
A lot of perseverance and trying through.
There's a lot of days wherepeople didn't want crossing it.
They didn't like it.
They were confused what it was.
What is this game?
And for two years, it took us literallygoing to the beach every single day,
trying to convince people to play.
And then I'd come home.
(02:02):
I'd take content from the beachday and I'd upload it to Facebook.
We'd run ads on it andslowly started getting sales.
And first year was a dud.
Second year was a little bit better.
And then we shot from a couplehundred grand to two and a half
million and then from two and ahalf million up to 10 million.
So it just it kept skyrocketing.
Yeah,
(02:23):
we
bootstrapped the entire thing.
And over time we just startedknocking down retail doors.
We just rolled up thetarget this week, actually.
So I'm excited about that.
Oh, I love it.
Congratulations, bro.
I love this.
So you mentioned the first year was a dud.
What kept you going?
What was that?
Did you have a specific belief inyour ability to make this happen?
(02:45):
Or was it the actual sport or the feedbackthat you were getting from people?
Yeah, there was the desireto change our lives.
None of us wanted to go back to our city.
Love it.
Internal belief.
Yeah.
Nobody wanted to go back to theircorporate job that they hated.
And this was going to be our onechance to change our lives and we
weren't going to give up on it.
Yeah.
(03:05):
Never give up on your dreams.
There is a perfect example.
And your partner, I believe hewas supposed to come on as well.
Last time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we, I now have a new business actually.
So it's called the founders club.
And so that was a part of going.
Yeah.
So we created thisentrepreneurship community.
So about two years ago, we launchedthis thing called the Founders Club,
(03:26):
which is a private entrepreneurcommunity that has over 250 founders.
So it's probably all the listenersof your show a lot of them are
probably in this community.
So there are e commerce experts differententrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes.
Average revenue is about 10 millionbucks a year and they mastermind,
they network, they mingle.
There's a chapter here in Miami.
There's a chapter in Toronto,in New York, in Los Angeles, and
(03:49):
events are happening all the time.
Yeah.
We have an event, a massive eventtonight in New York for about 90 people.
We had three events in Miami lastfew weeks, becoming a massive
business and kind of my new passion.
It's really fun.
Oh, cool.
And not to mention thecontacts you're making.
Of course, dude.
Yeah, they're yeah, it's very it'sinspiring to walk into a room that
(04:11):
you help bring together and the 10times that you do, and there's some
of your favorite brands showing up,but like the key tone is that Every
entrepreneur is lonely to a degree.
We all need connections.
We all know it's going to be stuffthat we struggle with regardless
of how many you're making or howbig is entrepreneurship stuff.
(04:34):
Yeah, and that's 1 of the.
Purposes behind this show too is toexpand that value in the marketplace
and bring more awareness out there,build a community around it, of people,
thinking and feeling the same way.
And that's what you created becausethose guys their mindset is at a
(04:55):
different level and how they lookat money and revenues and success.
Them coming together, like youmentioned, loneliness is the one thing
to do is to surround you, surroundyourself with like minded people,
of course.
Yeah.
It's the power in the community, right?
Like your friends can't relate toyour high school friends anymore.
(05:15):
Your parents have no idea whatyou're doing and sometimes it
comes off like you're bragging,but it's just real problems.
You just want to vent tosomebody and seeing the power
of being able to vent and.
Not only just complain and vent butalso to reach out and when you need
help and to level up It's really cool.
And it's been awesome to see.
So are you still involvedwith cross net or are you
(05:37):
selling it or you're keeping it?
Any juicy
news about it?
No juicy news.
The juiciest news is that we rolledout the target to several hundred
stores this week, so that's a, that'sbig business continues to grow.
We, have an Australian distributor.
Now we have warehouses in Canada andEurope are sold in 53, a million players.
(05:58):
The goal is there's no end in sight.
It's not a fad.
It's not a get rich quick scheme.
It's a sport game.
That's going to be here for hopefullyuntil I'm not on this planet anymore.
And my kids and my grandchildrenwill get to play it.
So that's the goal.
Wow.
So if you had to do this entiresuccess over again God forbid, if you.
Say you just lost everything,you have to start over again.
(06:21):
What would be your top threethings to do initially?
Have the hard conversation sooner.
The conversations that just festerin your mind and you just want to
have them, but you're too scared tohave them or you don't like conflict.
Go straight for the conflictand rip off the bandit.
That'd be number one.
Number two is never lose sight of thebusinesses P&L You could put a lot of
(06:44):
smart financial people in the right seats.
But as the owner, it's yourimportant, it's your job to make
sure the plane's flying every day.
And if you remove yourself from thefinances that's a recipe for disaster.
So that, and then my otherthing would probably be
Fire quick and be careful.
Be more careful with hiringbecause we had a similar normal
(07:06):
startup issues when we scaled upat 10 million mark, we just hired.
Try to have a 30 person team, right?
Like we need to scale and need to scale.
We need to hire.
But reality is we didn'tneed to do any of that shit.
We just need to keep doing whatwe were doing and the business
was going to continue to grow.
And yeah, we over inflated the business.
We set ourselves back a couple ofyears by just making too many big
(07:29):
time hires and running down our cash.
So I go back.
Yeah.
Now I build this new business.
It's keeping my eye on theprize every single day.
Yep.
Yeah those are wonderful recommendations,especially the last one and this
comes in all areas, not justhiring, but sometimes we, confuse
(07:52):
emotional excitement for intuitive.
Nudges, but we get really excitedabout someone, for example, we meet
and we bring them on, but then they,without doing the due diligence,
it could be costly later on,
man, I did, I just did the same thing.
I'm coming out of a four monthrelationship with a salesperson and hired
(08:13):
too quick, didn't do enough diligence.
Brought him on and set back ourfinancial goals by pretty much six months
because I trusted this one person whohad a ton of experience to crush it
and Yeah, should have had some harderconversations quicker and you always make
yeah
uses why you didn't do itsooner Oh, they need to ramp.
Oh, they need these tools.
It's always there's
(08:33):
Always an excuse Yeah At the end of theday, it's the owner and the operator.
It's your job to make sure you'rehitting your revenue targets and
your dreams for the business.
And if the person is not doingit, you got to remove it.
Yeah.
Rip off the badge.
But to elaborate to go further onthat question is see if you had to
(08:54):
start from ground zero again, whatwould be the top three things you
would do to get yourself as fast aspossible to where you are right now?
I'd have a firm focus still on Facebookads, like really getting a firm
understanding of how to run Facebook ads.
We spent so much money just goingleft to right, spending money on
(09:14):
podcasts, billboards, you name it.
We spent it.
There's only one thing thatreally works the best for most
e commerce brands is knowing howto run profitable Facebook ads.
Number two is spending more timeon the details of manufacturing.
So lowering our cost of goods.
Shopping around import brokersand finding cheaper containers,
(09:35):
finding cheaper storage.
There's a lot of ways to make money,but there's a lot of ways to save
money that most people overlook.
And we're manufacturing our nets now,probably 200 percent less than when
we started back in 2017, so it's notaccepting shit as Bible and really going
down to make those products cheaperIt's not like we're reducing quality.
(09:57):
We're just finding different suppliersand not getting screwed, but then
they're really put through the repsand then Number three would be to
really focus on organic content Thatwas a mistake early on was I yeah
Like I just said the Facebook stuffis really important But the look the
quicker that you can build an organicaudience The quicker you could get to
(10:19):
profitability and make pure money, right?
Like with the founders club,we have 250 members annual
memberships costs around 5, 000.
I'll probably be increasingmemberships in Q2, but yeah, we
haven't spent a single dollar onpaid ads cause it's all been organic.
All organic.
So do you do any influencer partnerships
(10:43):
or
podfluencer?
A podfluencer is another term.
We,
We definitely do some, itdepends on the product, right?
If you have an affordable, what I'venoticed from influencer marketing is if
you have an affordable product to shipand your cogs are cheap, send it all day.
Like I was just hanging out witha founder in Miami, 200 million
business selling like hoodies andhe sends out the 5 hoodies all day
(11:07):
long to thousands of influencers.
And the shipping is cheap, right?
So he's 10 on everything for me.
My cogs are, let's justpretend my cogs are 25 bucks.
My shipping's another 25.
It's expensive,
bro.
I'm 50 in for an influencerjust to leave me on red.
So it's
But if the influencer paid for that,
yeah, if the influencerpaid for it, it's fine.
(11:29):
But
typically the influencerdoesn't want to pay, right?
Like you're looking to make,
they're going to use it too,
yeah.
Hopefully they use it for sure.
Yeah.
Like why would I wouldn't seeany influencer taking that
step unless they're excited.
And then paying it as any otherbusiness you're investing in it.
And then actually playing the game.
That's another aspect of that excitement.
(11:51):
And then, yeah,
definitely.
But I do see a lot of younger companiesjust seeding product out for free without
having the influencer pay anything.
And that's when it gets dangerous, right?
Like we had, at one point we had 217influencers on monthly contracts and they
were sending out the lip, every monththey had a certain deck of deliverables.
(12:13):
Five pieces of videocontent, five selfies.
They need to do this.
It was an army.
We had a three person, threepeople just wasn't that
good.
It was amazing.
It was amazing.
But eventually we found out we almosthad too much content or spending too
much money to run this whole program.
Can there ever be too much content withthis ocean though, that we have online?
(12:34):
Yeah that's a solid point.
I felt like for the amount of moneythat we were spending on Facebook
ads, we weren't able to, we'reunable to test all the contents.
We ended up having, it was,there's a time and place, right?
The content
makes sense.
It was tough to end up becominglike almost a 300, 400, 000 project
(12:56):
just to maintain all this stuff.
Yeah.
So if.
Once I had content, I just cut it backand I was like, okay, I have a library
of content that can last me years.
Yeah.
But are you still doing that?
Or are they still publishing stuff online?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
(13:16):
Yeah.
We still have influencers, but we scaledit down from a crazy effort down just
because the unit economics didn't work for
CrossNet.
Makes sense.
If your sub
10 bucks all in, I'dbe doing it like crazy.
Yeah.
That's a manageable price, basedon the ROI that you're getting
(13:36):
for the rest of the sales.
But
if you
look at 40.
And I would even use like a toollike portless, you know what that is?
No.
I would literally, so it's thiscompany that has you send, you
manufacture in China, you send it tothem, they have warehouses in China,
and they'll do all the shipping toyour customers directly, airship.
(13:56):
So you don't have to Fulfillment.
Yeah, so you don't have to pay forany tariffs, you don't have to pay the
storage costs at your warehouse, you don'thave to pay the US fulfillment costs.
You don't have to pay storage.
So if you have let's just call ita hundred influencers, you send a
hundred orders to portless and thenportless will just ship it directly.
So you're cutting out the middleman,you're cutting out the American
custom workers and all that stuff.
(14:18):
It goes that much.
That's something that could be done.
Yeah.
It looks good.
I'll take a look at it.
Maybe get the founder on the show.
Yeah, for real.
Yeah.
And if you have any founders,I know you have a network.
Bring them on the show, man.
If big network.
Yeah.
If bring them on this show, invitethem, refer them because at the end
of the day, what we're trying to dois build that network and also share
(14:40):
their voice, because there's peopleout there that want to hear from people
like you, they want the guidance,
yeah, of course.
Yeah.
If someone is looking at launchingtheir own brand what could they do?
And this was a very creative ideathat you mentioned about going to the
beach every day and then, not beingshy, but just getting actually people
(15:02):
playing it and getting their feedback.
Depending on a product, obviously.
But is there any recommendations,suggestions you can give to someone that's
looking to launch a product how they canintensify the demand for it as soon as
possible through creativity of some sort.
Call every single personthat wants to support you.
Anybody who's ever purchasedanything on your website.
(15:24):
I have a good friend who's usedto call 2000 customers a day.
Literally just picked up the phoneevery day for 12 hours straight.
Just calling dialing whoever'sgoing to talk to them.
And Just make the dials.
Actually, sorry.
It was 2000 a week, not 2000 a day.
That'd be crazy.
Yeah, I was trying to do the math, butearly days, anybody who orders on your
(15:44):
site, ask them, why did they shop,where did they find out about you?
What do you think about the product?
Make them feel included, right?
It's if you own a gym, right?
You own a gym and the customer isthis machine, you end up putting
that machine in, the person feelslike they're bought it, right?
They're now a loyalist to the brand.
Same thing with us, right?
Like we're asking our customers,what do you want to see from us?
(16:06):
How can we.
What other games do you want?
What else can I do to makeyou spend money as a customer?
You'll get a ton offeedback really quickly.
So again, it goes back toavoiding the hard conversations.
Some of the stuff you don't wantto hear the box might come down.
It's okay.
It's okay.
(16:26):
The hunger to get that.
Yeah.
And you launched Uber Eatsin a few markets as well.
Yeah, brother.
I was one of the firstsalespeople at Uber.
Wow.
Yeah, I launched it in Rhode Islandprivate and sent a little bit in New York.
And yeah, that was my first sale,one of my first big sales jobs.
I had like sales team of a bunch ofcollege kids and we just hammered
the phones all day and sick sales.
Yeah.
Any big takeaway from thatexperience that could help someone?
(16:50):
Get used to hearing no,the all get comfortable
with no,
Get comfortable and
yeah, I think honestly having ahaving a few years in sales is just
so valuable in the moment it sucks.
It's a grind.
It's a. It sucks, right?
It's a lot of cold calls, all the
mindset game, bro, all
the mindset.
And I think those couple ofyears of doing it was the best
(17:13):
thing I ever did for my career.
Learning how to get inthe face every single day.
It's strengthened my jaw and yeah, I haveno worries about rejection these days.
Yeah, when you go into entrepreneurshipyou realize that more successful you
get, the less ego you start getting, andit could be the other way around too,
depending on the person, obviously,but it's extremely beneficial if
(17:37):
you're, you have some sort of a.
Eye on your ego when it comes to thesethings, because if you let it wild,
then it will stop you from so manythings, from, especially from progress.
But that's great thatyou have that policy.
Are you working on any new products?
Not right now.
It's just working on a verysuccessful launch hopefully to target.
(17:59):
Cause if we nail this account,happy, make the customers happy.
It opens up a Pandora's box for us.
And
yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's great, man.
Chris, this is so amazing.
So in Canada, which stores are you selling
through?
We're in like, sport check Canadian Tire.
Okay.
All
yeah, a bunch.
I'll go check it out.
(18:19):
Experts.
Yeah.
A bunch of stuff up there.
Yeah.
But it's more of a summer sport.
Obviously it's a lot of snow here, but
of
course.
Yeah, so
what do you feel beingsuccessful in entrepreneurship
being successful in startups?
What do you feel would be thenext area of product development
(18:42):
that could catch on quickly?
That you could manufacturein China and sell here.
Is there something that is it'sa good idea to keep an eye on?
I wouldn't say I'm the bestperson to to answer that question.
I'm not really looking at currenttrends and more focused on my sporting
goods industry and also the founders.
(19:04):
I think the most important thing is anyproduct that makes you excited to create.
Organic content to make otherpeople pick up their phone and take
selfies with it and as long as theproduct margins are, that's a good
point.
If you have shitty projectproduct margins, the business
is doomed from the red.
(19:24):
Yeah, good point.
Another excellent point.
Look at you, Chris.
You're full of all these greatsuggestions and thank you so much for
your time get to your busy day I hopeis as productive as it's worth your
time definitely keep in touch And yeah,once we go live we'll send you the
information if you can help us promote it.
(19:46):
Absolutely brother.
I'd love to it was great Thank you.
I appreciate it
Go straight for the conflictand rip off the bandit.
(00:02):
That'd be number one.
Number two is never losesight of the businesses P&L.
You could put a lot of smart financialpeople in the right seats but as
the owner, it's your job to makesure the plane's flying every day
and if you remove yourself from thefinances that's a recipe for disaster.
Um,
(00:37):
Welcome back to the superentrepreneurs podcast.
I'm your host, Shahid Durrani.
Today we have with us ChristopherMeade, the co founder of Crossnet,
a company based on a simple idea.
Four way volleyball and turnit into a global success.
(01:00):
Chris and his team created anentirely new game that quickly grew.
It reach key retail deals and aimsto make Crossnet and Olympic game.
That's incredible.
Thank you so much forcoming on the show, Chris.
Thanks for having me, man.
I appreciate it.
Danger, quite an intro.
No, my honor, my, my pleasure, brother.
(01:21):
It's great to have you.
Chris, cross net is such a unique idea,
and you have turned into a into global, soquickly, that's what's exciting about it.
Can you share some of the biggesthurdles that you face when you
were growing this new sport?
Yeah.
And, how did you
push through them?
(01:42):
Yeah, you say quick.
I say slow, it's beenseven years of doing that.
It took a long time.
A lot of perseverance and trying through.
There's a lot of days wherepeople didn't want crossing it.
They didn't like it.
They were confused what it was.
What is this game?
And for two years, it took us literallygoing to the beach every single day,
trying to convince people to play.
And then I'd come home.
(02:02):
I'd take content from the beachday and I'd upload it to Facebook.
We'd run ads on it andslowly started getting sales.
And first year was a dud.
Second year was a little bit better.
And then we shot from a couplehundred grand to two and a half
million and then from two and ahalf million up to 10 million.
So it just it kept skyrocketing.
Yeah,
(02:23):
we
bootstrapped the entire thing.
And over time we just startedknocking down retail doors.
We just rolled up thetarget this week, actually.
So I'm excited about that.
Oh, I love it.
Congratulations, bro.
I love this.
So you mentioned the first year was a dud.
What kept you going?
What was that?
Did you have a specific belief inyour ability to make this happen?
(02:45):
Or was it the actual sport or the feedbackthat you were getting from people?
Yeah, there was the desireto change our lives.
None of us wanted to go back to our city.
Love it.
Internal belief.
Yeah.
Nobody wanted to go back to theircorporate job that they hated.
And this was going to be our onechance to change our lives and we
weren't going to give up on it.
Yeah.
(03:05):
Never give up on your dreams.
There is a perfect example.
And your partner, I believe hewas supposed to come on as well.
Last time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we, I now have a new business actually.
So it's called the founders club.
And so that was a part of going.
Yeah.
So we created thisentrepreneurship community.
So about two years ago, we launchedthis thing called the Founders Club,
(03:26):
which is a private entrepreneurcommunity that has over 250 founders.
So it's probably all the listenersof your show a lot of them are
probably in this community.
So there are e commerce experts differententrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes.
Average revenue is about 10 millionbucks a year and they mastermind,
they network, they mingle.
There's a chapter here in Miami.
There's a chapter in Toronto,in New York, in Los Angeles, and
(03:49):
events are happening all the time.
Yeah.
We have an event, a massive eventtonight in New York for about 90 people.
We had three events in Miami lastfew weeks, becoming a massive
business and kind of my new passion.
It's really fun.
Oh, cool.
And not to mention thecontacts you're making.
Of course, dude.
Yeah, they're yeah, it's very it'sinspiring to walk into a room that
(04:11):
you help bring together and the 10times that you do, and there's some
of your favorite brands showing up,but like the key tone is that Every
entrepreneur is lonely to a degree.
We all need connections.
We all know it's going to be stuffthat we struggle with regardless
of how many you're making or howbig is entrepreneurship stuff.
(04:34):
Yeah, and that's 1 of the.
Purposes behind this show too is toexpand that value in the marketplace
and bring more awareness out there,build a community around it, of people,
thinking and feeling the same way.
And that's what you created becausethose guys their mindset is at a
(04:55):
different level and how they lookat money and revenues and success.
Them coming together, like youmentioned, loneliness is the one thing
to do is to surround you, surroundyourself with like minded people,
of course.
Yeah.
It's the power in the community, right?
Like your friends can't relate toyour high school friends anymore.
(05:15):
Your parents have no idea whatyou're doing and sometimes it
comes off like you're bragging,but it's just real problems.
You just want to vent tosomebody and seeing the power
of being able to vent and.
Not only just complain and vent butalso to reach out and when you need
help and to level up It's really cool.
And it's been awesome to see.
So are you still involvedwith cross net or are you
(05:37):
selling it or you're keeping it?
Any juicy
news about it?
No juicy news.
The juiciest news is that we rolledout the target to several hundred
stores this week, so that's a, that'sbig business continues to grow.
We, have an Australian distributor.
Now we have warehouses in Canada andEurope are sold in 53, a million players.
(05:58):
The goal is there's no end in sight.
It's not a fad.
It's not a get rich quick scheme.
It's a sport game.
That's going to be here for hopefullyuntil I'm not on this planet anymore.
And my kids and my grandchildrenwill get to play it.
So that's the goal.
Wow.
So if you had to do this entiresuccess over again God forbid, if you.
Say you just lost everything,you have to start over again.
(06:21):
What would be your top threethings to do initially?
Have the hard conversation sooner.
The conversations that just festerin your mind and you just want to
have them, but you're too scared tohave them or you don't like conflict.
Go straight for the conflictand rip off the bandit.
That'd be number one.
Number two is never lose sight of thebusinesses P&L You could put a lot of
(06:44):
smart financial people in the right seats.
But as the owner, it's yourimportant, it's your job to make
sure the plane's flying every day.
And if you remove yourself from thefinances that's a recipe for disaster.
So that, and then my otherthing would probably be
Fire quick and be careful.
Be more careful with hiringbecause we had a similar normal
(07:06):
startup issues when we scaled upat 10 million mark, we just hired.
Try to have a 30 person team, right?
Like we need to scale and need to scale.
We need to hire.
But reality is we didn'tneed to do any of that shit.
We just need to keep doing whatwe were doing and the business
was going to continue to grow.
And yeah, we over inflated the business.
We set ourselves back a couple ofyears by just making too many big
(07:29):
time hires and running down our cash.
So I go back.
Yeah.
Now I build this new business.
It's keeping my eye on theprize every single day.
Yep.
Yeah those are wonderful recommendations,especially the last one and this
comes in all areas, not justhiring, but sometimes we, confuse
(07:52):
emotional excitement for intuitive.
Nudges, but we get really excitedabout someone, for example, we meet
and we bring them on, but then they,without doing the due diligence,
it could be costly later on,
man, I did, I just did the same thing.
I'm coming out of a four monthrelationship with a salesperson and hired
(08:13):
too quick, didn't do enough diligence.
Brought him on and set back ourfinancial goals by pretty much six months
because I trusted this one person whohad a ton of experience to crush it
and Yeah, should have had some harderconversations quicker and you always make
yeah
uses why you didn't do itsooner Oh, they need to ramp.
Oh, they need these tools.
It's always there's
(08:33):
Always an excuse Yeah At the end of theday, it's the owner and the operator.
It's your job to make sure you'rehitting your revenue targets and
your dreams for the business.
And if the person is not doingit, you got to remove it.
Yeah.
Rip off the badge.
But to elaborate to go further onthat question is see if you had to
(08:54):
start from ground zero again, whatwould be the top three things you
would do to get yourself as fast aspossible to where you are right now?
I'd have a firm focus still on Facebookads, like really getting a firm
understanding of how to run Facebook ads.
We spent so much money just goingleft to right, spending money on
(09:14):
podcasts, billboards, you name it.
We spent it.
There's only one thing thatreally works the best for most
e commerce brands is knowing howto run profitable Facebook ads.
Number two is spending more timeon the details of manufacturing.
So lowering our cost of goods.
Shopping around import brokersand finding cheaper containers,
(09:35):
finding cheaper storage.
There's a lot of ways to make money,but there's a lot of ways to save
money that most people overlook.
And we're manufacturing our nets now,probably 200 percent less than when
we started back in 2017, so it's notaccepting shit as Bible and really going
down to make those products cheaperIt's not like we're reducing quality.
(09:57):
We're just finding different suppliersand not getting screwed, but then
they're really put through the repsand then Number three would be to
really focus on organic content Thatwas a mistake early on was I yeah
Like I just said the Facebook stuffis really important But the look the
quicker that you can build an organicaudience The quicker you could get to
(10:19):
profitability and make pure money, right?
Like with the founders club,we have 250 members annual
memberships costs around 5, 000.
I'll probably be increasingmemberships in Q2, but yeah, we
haven't spent a single dollar onpaid ads cause it's all been organic.
All organic.
So do you do any influencer partnerships
(10:43):
or
podfluencer?
A podfluencer is another term.
We,
We definitely do some, itdepends on the product, right?
If you have an affordable, what I'venoticed from influencer marketing is if
you have an affordable product to shipand your cogs are cheap, send it all day.
Like I was just hanging out witha founder in Miami, 200 million
business selling like hoodies andhe sends out the 5 hoodies all day
(11:07):
long to thousands of influencers.
And the shipping is cheap, right?
So he's 10 on everything for me.
My cogs are, let's justpretend my cogs are 25 bucks.
My shipping's another 25.
It's expensive,
bro.
I'm 50 in for an influencerjust to leave me on red.
So it's
But if the influencer paid for that,
yeah, if the influencerpaid for it, it's fine.
(11:29):
But
typically the influencerdoesn't want to pay, right?
Like you're looking to make,
they're going to use it too,
yeah.
Hopefully they use it for sure.
Yeah.
Like why would I wouldn't seeany influencer taking that
step unless they're excited.
And then paying it as any otherbusiness you're investing in it.
And then actually playing the game.
That's another aspect of that excitement.
(11:51):
And then, yeah,
definitely.
But I do see a lot of younger companiesjust seeding product out for free without
having the influencer pay anything.
And that's when it gets dangerous, right?
Like we had, at one point we had 217influencers on monthly contracts and they
were sending out the lip, every monththey had a certain deck of deliverables.
(12:13):
Five pieces of videocontent, five selfies.
They need to do this.
It was an army.
We had a three person, threepeople just wasn't that
good.
It was amazing.
It was amazing.
But eventually we found out we almosthad too much content or spending too
much money to run this whole program.
Can there ever be too much content withthis ocean though, that we have online?
(12:34):
Yeah that's a solid point.
I felt like for the amount of moneythat we were spending on Facebook
ads, we weren't able to, we'reunable to test all the contents.
We ended up having, it was,there's a time and place, right?
The content
makes sense.
It was tough to end up becominglike almost a 300, 400, 000 project
(12:56):
just to maintain all this stuff.
Yeah.
So if.
Once I had content, I just cut it backand I was like, okay, I have a library
of content that can last me years.
Yeah.
But are you still doing that?
Or are they still publishing stuff online?
Yeah, of course.
Yeah.
(13:16):
Yeah.
We still have influencers, but we scaledit down from a crazy effort down just
because the unit economics didn't work for
CrossNet.
Makes sense.
If your sub
10 bucks all in, I'dbe doing it like crazy.
Yeah.
That's a manageable price, basedon the ROI that you're getting
(13:36):
for the rest of the sales.
But
if you
look at 40.
And I would even use like a toollike portless, you know what that is?
No.
I would literally, so it's thiscompany that has you send, you
manufacture in China, you send it tothem, they have warehouses in China,
and they'll do all the shipping toyour customers directly, airship.
(13:56):
So you don't have to Fulfillment.
Yeah, so you don't have to pay forany tariffs, you don't have to pay the
storage costs at your warehouse, you don'thave to pay the US fulfillment costs.
You don't have to pay storage.
So if you have let's just call ita hundred influencers, you send a
hundred orders to portless and thenportless will just ship it directly.
So you're cutting out the middleman,you're cutting out the American
custom workers and all that stuff.
(14:18):
It goes that much.
That's something that could be done.
Yeah.
It looks good.
I'll take a look at it.
Maybe get the founder on the show.
Yeah, for real.
Yeah.
And if you have any founders,I know you have a network.
Bring them on the show, man.
If big network.
Yeah.
If bring them on this show, invitethem, refer them because at the end
of the day, what we're trying to dois build that network and also share
(14:40):
their voice, because there's peopleout there that want to hear from people
like you, they want the guidance,
yeah, of course.
Yeah.
If someone is looking at launchingtheir own brand what could they do?
And this was a very creative ideathat you mentioned about going to the
beach every day and then, not beingshy, but just getting actually people
(15:02):
playing it and getting their feedback.
Depending on a product, obviously.
But is there any recommendations,suggestions you can give to someone that's
looking to launch a product how they canintensify the demand for it as soon as
possible through creativity of some sort.
Call every single personthat wants to support you.
Anybody who's ever purchasedanything on your website.
(15:24):
I have a good friend who's usedto call 2000 customers a day.
Literally just picked up the phoneevery day for 12 hours straight.
Just calling dialing whoever'sgoing to talk to them.
And Just make the dials.
Actually, sorry.
It was 2000 a week, not 2000 a day.
That'd be crazy.
Yeah, I was trying to do the math, butearly days, anybody who orders on your
(15:44):
site, ask them, why did they shop,where did they find out about you?
What do you think about the product?
Make them feel included, right?
It's if you own a gym, right?
You own a gym and the customer isthis machine, you end up putting
that machine in, the person feelslike they're bought it, right?
They're now a loyalist to the brand.
Same thing with us, right?
Like we're asking our customers,what do you want to see from us?
(16:06):
How can we.
What other games do you want?
What else can I do to makeyou spend money as a customer?
You'll get a ton offeedback really quickly.
So again, it goes back toavoiding the hard conversations.
Some of the stuff you don't wantto hear the box might come down.
It's okay.
It's okay.
(16:26):
The hunger to get that.
Yeah.
And you launched Uber Eatsin a few markets as well.
Yeah, brother.
I was one of the firstsalespeople at Uber.
Wow.
Yeah, I launched it in Rhode Islandprivate and sent a little bit in New York.
And yeah, that was my first sale,one of my first big sales jobs.
I had like sales team of a bunch ofcollege kids and we just hammered
the phones all day and sick sales.
Yeah.
Any big takeaway from thatexperience that could help someone?
(16:50):
Get used to hearing no,the all get comfortable
with no,
Get comfortable and
yeah, I think honestly having ahaving a few years in sales is just
so valuable in the moment it sucks.
It's a grind.
It's a. It sucks, right?
It's a lot of cold calls, all the
mindset game, bro, all
the mindset.
And I think those couple ofyears of doing it was the best
(17:13):
thing I ever did for my career.
Learning how to get inthe face every single day.
It's strengthened my jaw and yeah, I haveno worries about rejection these days.
Yeah, when you go into entrepreneurshipyou realize that more successful you
get, the less ego you start getting, andit could be the other way around too,
depending on the person, obviously,but it's extremely beneficial if
(17:37):
you're, you have some sort of a.
Eye on your ego when it comes to thesethings, because if you let it wild,
then it will stop you from so manythings, from, especially from progress.
But that's great thatyou have that policy.
Are you working on any new products?
Not right now.
It's just working on a verysuccessful launch hopefully to target.
(17:59):
Cause if we nail this account,happy, make the customers happy.
It opens up a Pandora's box for us.
And
yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's great, man.
Chris, this is so amazing.
So in Canada, which stores are you selling
through?
We're in like, sport check Canadian Tire.
Okay.
All
yeah, a bunch.
I'll go check it out.
(18:19):
Experts.
Yeah.
A bunch of stuff up there.
Yeah.
But it's more of a summer sport.
Obviously it's a lot of snow here, but
of
course.
Yeah, so
what do you feel beingsuccessful in entrepreneurship
being successful in startups?
What do you feel would be thenext area of product development
(18:42):
that could catch on quickly?
That you could manufacturein China and sell here.
Is there something that is it'sa good idea to keep an eye on?
I wouldn't say I'm the bestperson to to answer that question.
I'm not really looking at currenttrends and more focused on my sporting
goods industry and also the founders.
(19:04):
I think the most important thing is anyproduct that makes you excited to create.
Organic content to make otherpeople pick up their phone and take
selfies with it and as long as theproduct margins are, that's a good
point.
If you have shitty projectproduct margins, the business
is doomed from the red.
(19:24):
Yeah, good point.
Another excellent point.
Look at you, Chris.
You're full of all these greatsuggestions and thank you so much for
your time get to your busy day I hopeis as productive as it's worth your
time definitely keep in touch And yeah,once we go live we'll send you the
information if you can help us promote it.
(19:46):
Absolutely brother.
I'd love to it was great Thank you.
I appreciate it
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