THE ED MYLETT SHOW - What Separates Great Brands from the Rest with Ryan Bartlett

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Can You Build a $150M Business in Just 3 Years? That’s exactly what my guest today, Ryan Bartlett, did. As the founder and CEO of True Classic, Ryan scaled his company from zero to $150 million in just three years—and he’s only getting started. Now valued at nearly $1 billion, True Classic is rewriting the rules for what it takes to succeed in e-commerce. This conversation is an absolute game-changer for anyone who wants to understand the mindset, strategies, and work ethic behind building a thriving business in today’s world. In this episode, Ryan breaks down the key pillars of his success, including his unique approach to marketing, which he describes as “the best marketing isn’t marketing.” By prioritizing authenticity and creating content that makes people feel connected, True Classic has built a loyal customer base. But it doesn’t stop there—Ryan shares how relentless customer focus has set them apart, from premium products at accessible prices to moments of over-delivering on customer experience. We also dive into the real challenges of entrepreneurship. Ryan gets brutally honest about the emotional toll, the late nights, and the do-or-die moments, like betting $40 million on inventory. But his ability to turn risks into rewards and to lead with empathy has been critical to his company’s meteoric rise. If you’ve ever wondered whether entrepreneurship is worth the grind, Ryan’s insights will give you the clarity and inspiration you need. Key Takeaways: Marketing Done Right: Why emotional connection, not hard selling, is the real game-changer in building a brand. Customer Experience as a Superpower: How creating "wow" moments for your customers can make you unforgettable. Risk and Resilience: Ryan’s lessons from gambling big on his business and why fearlessness is essential in entrepreneurship. Scaling Without Sacrificing: The challenges of growing fast and keeping a strong culture intact. Ryan Bartlett’s story proves that success isn’t just about hard work—it’s about working smart, being relentless in creating value, and playing the long game. Whether you’re starting your first business or scaling to new heights, this episode will leave you inspired to take your next step. Let’s max out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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life. And you know, I've been asked a lot lately you know why is it that I don't always just have celebrities on the show because we've had lots of celebrities on in the past and one of the reasons that's just for other shows to be honest with you I want to put out podcasts every week that can impact and change your life and oftentimes I feel like when I have someone super well known it's just sort of platitudes and general statements. That's not always you can look at Matthew McConus, a episode we did and others.

They're just incredible. But I want people that can change your life that are doing it right now. And this man fits the bill big time. So my guest today is Ryan Bartlett. He's the CEO and founder of True Classic. It's a men's apparel line. Listen to this guys. He scaled his company in three years over 150 million dollars in revenue and is in the hunt of building a billion dollar

brand and a billion dollar company. He does it every day including today and so I want you to be able to have me pick his brain for you about business and life balance all these other things that he's clearly mastering right now in his life. So Ryan, welcome to the show brother. Thank you so much for having me Ed. Yep and the name of his company everyone is True Classic and I got their shirts myself. They're up in my closet today. I probably should have put it on to honor you doing the episode today but I love what you're doing brother. So let me ask you this first, just give people hope. I'm just curious about you. Have you always been an entrepreneur? Did you work somewhere else prior? Did you get some entrepreneurial, Michael Gerber in the E-Myth calls it an entrepreneurial seizure. Like you wake

up one day and go, I gotta be an entrepreneur. So what's your background? How'd you end up doing this? So I've definitely been an entrepreneur in terms of having the right DNA. And I just think that all the things that I did in my life helped shape that DNA in the right direction. But I think at the time, I didn't really understand that. I'm still looking back. But I mean, originally, I was in music. I was music came very natural for me playing instruments. I got into music production. Inevitably, you know, everyone told you, you got to do what you're good at. You got to follow your passion. So I tried to do that. And went to college and that didn't work out so well. I flunked out of Michigan State my first year just partied my ass off and

told my parents, look, I don't expect you to pay for school anymore. I'm willing to go down to Florida and go to this music school. That's my true calling. Like you guys wanted me to go into business, but I really think music is what I should do. So I went down there and got my degree in music business, got my audio engineering degree and they moved to Atlanta and tried to figure it out and very quickly realized that it was tough to make a living in music. And I was playing, I was like a session musician at recording studios and I would try to, you know, work as an intern, but the creative component really helped build that creative muscle in my brain that I now use in business all the time. So that's, to me,

one of the big components of my DNA that has wielded itself well through entrepreneurship. So it really started with that. Okay, and so leap forward a little bit because obviously that has almost nothing to do with a guy, well you can put it together for us, who's building a men's apparel line. By the way guys, I want to say it again, 150 million in three years. 150 million. So something incredible is happening here. So did you start another company that failed? You've been to three, two or three and finally you found one or is this your first venture that was yours and how did you start it? So the venture I had before this was a digital marketing company. So I did that for about a decade. So it starts to make a little bit more sense. You look at like our marketing and our ads and how we do a lot of comedy and it's super creative. It really just comes

from me over caring about that aspect of the business so much and also recognizing that like, I'm not out here to sell, I'm out here to just make people laugh and feel good and create an emotional connection. So originally it just started with, you know, trying to really make a better life for myself and digital marketing was something that I had a lot of skills in, in computer science.

So inevitably I fell into that space and started building that business. And it was really just about helping business owners do SEO and digital marketing and build their website. And I just had a knack for that. And so it was just skills that I kind of acquired over the year. I didn't really go to school for it, but I was super savvy on the tech side. So it made a lot of sense to go into B2C and it was really easy to make money.

Like it was really easy to stack up retainers and do sales and follow through with great work. And I built a lot of people's businesses over about a decade. So it really allowed me to see how to do things right, how to spend the money, how not to go in debt and really just use what works on the internet to really leverage attention and dollars and all those things so that when I finally started True Classic, it was very clear what I needed to do. It wasn't like I just, you know, woke up one day and decided to do e-comm. It took,

you know, I put in my 10,000 hours leading up to that. And by the way, when I look at True Classic, and by the way, we're going to pick apart everyone get ready right now because when I look at True Classic, the first thing I do think of is your marketing branding and marketing yeah and so I want to kind of pick that apart for everyone out there if you're in the mortgage business you're in the real estate business you're thinking of starting a business you should be following their content because it's very interesting so here's the I heard the statement you said which I want you to unpack this for me and help me understand it you said actually the best marketing is not marketing. What do you mean you say that?

So everyone lesson, huge lesson right now for you, your brand, your marketing and anything you're doing. What do you mean by that? I think that like when people think about selling, they think they got to really sell the value props. They really have to go overboard on selling. And I think people are tired of that ultimately. And I think if people just create great content that makes people think or feel or laugh or whatever it is, you need to just create an emotional connection is

the punchline. So it can show up in a lot of different ways. It just so happens to be comedy for us because what I realized when I started doing comedy was that making people feel good was all about, you know, like our mantra here is look good, feel good. So when you put the clothes on and they fit better, you feel better about yourself. So comedy is just an extension of that. So we just made a lot of sense for us to go deep on that. And I won't say that, you know, we crushed it in the beginning, but we've gotten much better over the years and now we create some pretty amazing

assets. And, uh, it's just, it's the most fun kind of creative to make really, to be honest. What if someone's listening to this thing? Okay, I got a business. I'm really not that funny, but I do need to get more attention. Are you are you believe like if you're getting attention, you can kind of market whatever you want through that brand. And if someone's like, hey, my jam's not funny. Let's say your jam wasn't funny.

Give me one other idea in marketing that could get me attention. Is that like what if I were educational? Like what if I was providing value to so to speak? That's exactly what I was gonna say. You can do edutainment is what we call it, which is where you're educating people, but you're also entertaining them. So I would just say that like going deep on the product

and helping people understand not just what they're buying, but what that is gonna do for their life is really kind of the punchline there. So what I always try to go back to in business is like, what problem are you ultimately solving for people? True Classic was solving the fit problem. It was solving the comfort problem. It was also solving a premium price problem where I was kind of looking at the market and everyone was overcharging for premiums. And I just thought I want to bring that price to the masses and really make have it make sense for everybody so that even people that want to buy James purse can now

afford it with true classic because we're just not going to gouge the customer. And so I would just say that like in terms of content, there's just a lot of different ways you could go. But definitely going as deep as you possibly can on the actual product itself, I think is where people get lost and they don't really kind of know what that means. But you just have to sit and work with amazing creatives, brainstorm some great ideas and then test the market and see how it does on Facebook ads. And if it doesn't resonate, you pivot and you reiterate and you just keep going. So it's just, it's a constant game of reiteration on paid media.

You really just have to test, test, test a million times over until you find out what works. In the beginning, we were doing a lot of like cool guy ads which were super boring and I hated it, which kind of inevitably led me to comedy. And then when I saw how well comedy was doing for the business, it changed the whole way I thought about marketing in general.

And so now we just try to put out as much goodness as we can and not really worry about overselling. Now there's certainly parts in the ad where I will try to have a moment where it talks about your class or it shows the fit or whatever it is but I really make 95% of the video just about being funny and making a connection with people. So good. So guys, stay here. We're gonna go through all kinds of different like techniques depending on your business. We will hit your business in a minute. So I want to ask you about that. Like you said something that I learned when I was building my brand. So I've never done any paid traffic at all. So I'm all organic, which is pretty incredible to get to, you know, 10 million followers organically, right? And my value prop was what you just said, I'm going to provide you value. I'm funny once in a while, but like my prop is like, come to me, I'm going to bring you value. But what I did learn after about a year, and I just want you to reiterate the point and speak to it a little bit more, because I don't think people

understand this. When I started, I created lots of different types of content, meaning some of it was highly curated stuff like professional look and stuff. Then some of it was in my car on a phone, and it was, you know, some of it was funny, some of it was personal development, some of it was business, some of it was sales, some of it was fitness and what my team told me was let the market tell us what content people like and once you have a piece of content that works you don't necessarily have to keep creating more content keep moving that same piece through. So that's what you mean when you say the market tells you, correct? And if you were talking to, let's say there's a guy right now, a lady right

now and they've just got into the real estate business and they're in, I'm making it up, Dallas, Texas right now and they're like, I gotta start creating content. Everybody tells me that. I gotta create a brand. What micro information would you give them about doing it? I know I'm pushing you on the topic, but I think it's that important because no one covers this on podcasts. I mean, look, well, I'll tell you what it all goes back to. And then I'll get to the real estate thing.

What it goes back to ultimately is being insanely customer centric, right? So like really understanding what the people are looking for. So if you're in real estate, what I would do if I was an agent in Dallas, you know what people love are those top five spots to visit in Dallas. If you're looking for a private school and a, in a big yard or whatever it may be, those list type videos absolutely

crushed. So if I'm, if I'm that guy, I am just going and making every video in a version of that, that I possibly can think of. And then just putting it on YouTube, doing some SEO, making sure that my keywords are in there and you're ranking for the keywords that people are searching for organically. And then I'm also documenting my life as a realtor, right? Like I love the guy who's just starting out, who hasn't made, he's not the Frederick Eklund just yet, but he's on his way. And I think people underestimate how powerful that journey and people watching that story really is. So if you're just the guy starting out, that's enough. People love that story.

They love the zero to hero story. So it's like, put a camera on yourself, vlog a little bit, put some content out there, and then just keep building your journey. And inevitably, if you create good stuff and you will create good stuff as you get better in the beginning, it's never going to be great. Right. It's going to be rough and you're probably going to have to

edit by yourself because you're not going to be able to afford an editor. But at least you're going to be creating something and you can't really get in your head about, oh, I have no followers. No one's watching. It's like just keep moving in the right direction and inevitably the market will respond. And if you really crush it on digital, especially in a market like Dallas, you really will get all the business because I will say that like most realtors are just not doing the best job of that yet. And the young up and comers that are really

digging in and leaning into those platforms like TikTok and all these other ones that no one's really thinking about, they're going to end up getting all the attention and all the business in the future. I love the answer everyone had I asked me that question it would have been the same answer. I'm not kidding you. I would 100% become the mayor of my town. Yeah, on social media, I'd be the mayor, the best of this, the best of that the place to go the secret this the da da da and start to create value. And then the other thing is zero to hero journey. Most of you aren't in real estate, you're in something else, but take pieces from today's

conversation and start to apply it. That's why I wanted Ryan on. That's why they went to 150 million in three years. Okay, the other thing you're great at that I see, there's a through line, whether it's apparel, digital products, you know, real estate, mortgage, hard assets, a restaurant, whatever it might be. My friend Andy Fersilla, my business partner in my coaching program on First Form and that is this. Customer service is like 90s. Everything today is about and you call it the customer experience, right? What, what is the customer experience and why does that matter so much in today's world? It's something I'm obsessed with and probably a little too obsessed with,

but I will tell you that when I started this thing, I was definitely on the same page with my co-founder, Nick, that we were going to be the Ritz Carlton and we were going to create such unbelievable moments for people that they were going to tell those stories forever. And so like we would be talking to a lady, we would hear a baby in the background and we would send them some sort of baby gift along with their refund. And so there's just like, there's so many nuanced moments that I can think about.

I've sent a guy a Tom Brady Jersey cause I found out he, he, he lived out there and he was a huge Tom Brady fan and he was having a bad experience with us. So like those are the kind of things where if you go above and beyond for people, they're just always going to remember you, right? They may not even end up buying your product, but someday they'll tell a story when they see that advertisement and they'll tell somebody in the room, that guy sent me something one time and he just really made my day.

And I think a lot of that is lost today. I think people are trying to really automate customer service as good as they can with AI and they're trying to create all these chat bots. And I just think having a human be able to make an impact on your life in a moment where you're frustrated and you really need someone to show up, that is really the time to do that. And I think people ultimately just don't want to deal with customer service. I see it as an unbelievable opportunity to show up in that moment when they need you most and over index for them so that they can just become a fan for life of the brand and really say,

you know what, this is definitely lost in this era and this one company did show up for me that one time. So that when they consider us in the future, that's just something that's ingrained in their memory about us. And that's the feeling I want them to take away, which is just, like I said, look good, feel good. It's feel good on the ads, it's feel good on the product, it's feel good in customer service, you name it.

There is a feel good component to every part of this business. And that's why it operates at a 10 in every facet and how you're able to grow so fast like we have. Man, I'm telling you this is so good. My kids are going to watch this today for a business course. I'm telling you. So hey guys, I want to jump in here for a second and talk about change and growth.

And you know, by the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow and also taking a look at the future. If you want to change your future, you got to change the way, it's no secret how people get ahead in life or how they grow And also taking a look at the future if you want to change your future You got to change the things you're doing if you continue to do the same things You're probably gonna produce the same results But if you get into a new environment where you're learning new things and you're around other people that are growth oriented You're much more likely to do that yourself. And that's why I love growth day write this down for a second growthday.com forward slash Ed My friend Brendon bruschard has created the most incredible personal development and business app that I've ever seen in my life

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Constantcontact.com. You guys, I think Ryan, the reason that customer experience isn't something most... Ask yourself if you're listening, by the way. One to ten, how is your customer experience based on what he just described? Because I think it's a separator because you really almost can't teach it. Like you can go to any business course, you go to any seminar, but you actually have to think through customer experience. It has to be part of your culture. Like you have to bleed it and it is the separator. The other cool thing about it is nowadays, it's the

advantage to the small business over the big business because you're more nimble. You can have more listening skills. You can move faster. You can create culture easier. Small businesses have huge advantages if they take advantage of them over big ones. Now one of the advantages they don't have though, and this is what I want to ask you because you've done this, you've scaled really big really quickly. I mean that's electric like meteoric growth that you've had. What's been the hardest part of scaling so big so quick and can you scale too big and too quick and harm your company when you do it? Absolutely. So we're up to about 600 million now. We did 200 million last year. We're in year five. We just got valued at 950 million. So to get to a billion in five years

in terms of just enterprise value is pretty mind blowing and it still feels pretty surreal, to be honest with you. Okay, so I completely undersold you at 150. We're, we're, we're, it's all good. Nine times that. Thank you for fixing, by the way, it's more impressive. Keep going. Yeah. So absolutely you can. I mean, there's, there's, this could be just an hour in itself. I mean, we've made every mistake under the sun. I would say that we always have to burn every department all the way down before we figured out how to

rebuild it back up. So I would say most of the challenges we've had in the early days were over betting on inventory, which is like the classic mistake of every e-commerce company where they just over bet. And now they have all these receipts coming in that they can't fulfill because the sales aren't there. And so like in year two, I made a $40 million inventory bet because I just, I was like, Hey, we're going to the moon guys and we're, and we're just going to keep going. So that was right after we had hit a hundred million in a year too. So we did 15 million the first year and 90 the second year.

So right after the second year, I was feeling really confident. And I was like, look guys, and I'm sitting around the table with our executives and I'm just like, let's just make a bet. What do you guys think? And this is the, so after music, by the way, just going back, I, after I kind of gave up on music, I got into poker. And that took over my life for a good amount of years. And I became a I guess what you would call a pro is really just not having a job and trying to gamble. But that really built my risk tolerance. And it showed me that what it feels like to lose and just getting numb to that losing feeling, which in hindsight was a huge advantage in entrepreneurship.

Cause as you know, you have to go from kind of failure to failure, uh, without, with no loss of enthusiasm, which is one of my favorite quotes. I think that really sums up entrepreneurship. So what I did was after, you know, doing poker for a while and also failing at that, it definitely built up my risk tolerance. And one of my other co-founders, it was also a poker pro at one point, which does not help us by the way in business. It just, it really, you know, we had no fear for better or worse. We had no fear, but ultimately,

even though we made that $40 million bet, I think what we were telling ourselves was even if this doesn't go well, like, let's just play out the worst case scenario. Even if it doesn't go well, what's going to happen? We're going to have to go back and renegotiate with our manufacturers. Right. Like we're going to have to hold some safety stock. We have to pay some interest, whatever it is. We just believed in our ability to negotiate with these people and level with them on a really human human to human basis and say, look, you see us going to the moon. Do you want the business or not?

I know we overbought this time, but stick with us and you'll be our preferred vendors in the future. So that was kind of our pitch to them. And it worked out. All the people that stuck with us in those early years when we overbent and couldn't pay our bills on time ended up eating it for a short term for the greater good later, because they just knew that we were going to figure out a way. Plus it was like inventory that it wasn't like I was, you know, holding

yellows and oranges. This was like sellable inventory. So they all like could see that they're like, OK, this is core product. They're going to get through it. But I would say that is a very easy way to sink the business. And that has been the hardest part. It's called demand planning in our business. And we still don't even have it perfect.

And we're in year five. It's still a nightmare. We business and we still don't even have it perfect and we're in year five It's still a nightmare. We run out of stuff all the time. And then I would say outside of that now in year five what I'm dealing with in terms of You know, what are the biggest problems I have it always goes back to people, you know And I love people to a fault and I'm overly empathetic Which is why I win in business because it really works for the customer. But where it doesn't really work in business is employees. And I have had to learn to put the business first in a lot of situations.

And when you move as fast as we do and you're a startup and you're scaling fast, one of the problems with people is that when you hire a person for a role, they quickly the business outgrows them very quickly. And when we were at 100 million, that CFO is a different level than 500 million. Right. And now we're looking back and we're going well where do we put this guy? Like we we there's no other spot for him to go. And a lot of times we will find a spot. Like if it's wrong person, wrong seat here today, we will try to shuffle them around and make it work ultimately.

Because if they're here, they're here for the right reasons, which is they have the right DNA, they're gritty, they hold all our core values. But we really try to now look and say, I got a guy who works for Kitsch, maybe you can go over there, let me just ask him if he's looking for a CFO, CFO, because he's doing, you know, X amount of revenue and you're perfect for that bracket.

And so it's really tough, though, because you have to have insanely hard conversations with people. And people are going through their own stuff, too. You know what I mean? Like a lot of times it's not even about work. I mean, ultimately, the someone that doesn't work out here, it's for one of two reasons I always tell our employees because a lot of employees will come to me and they'll go, why didn't it work out with so and so, and I'll

have to have these hard conversations. But what I always say is like, it's two things, it's either wrong person, wrong seat, and they're just really not qualified for that job, because the business needs them to really move at an absolute 10 to make it work. We don't have the luxury of having 20 people for one job and they can just kind of chill and let things go. Like this isn't that environment. Like if you're here at True Classic,

you are building legacy, you're working with an insane startup and you better be providing real value for the business. So if you can't live in that world, we're just not a good fit. But people know that by now, they've seen enough podcasts or they've listened to us and they know how we roll. So it's not a big surprise anymore. But it's been really tough to watch all the OGs of true classic kind of make their way out of the

business because you start with one group and you end with a completely different one. And but it's for the better. I mean, I look back now and all these people are thriving in different departments. So when I let people go, I have to let people go for the sake of the business. I always tell them, look, I'm going to help you. I'm going to be an amazing referral. This is not this doesn't have to be a negative. You know, there's always severance, obviously, like you can help people land softly. Yeah. It's not just like, let me cut the cord and never see you again. It's like, no, I'm going to see you again. And I can promise you when you go start interviewing, they're all going to be pinging me about you and saying, hey, how did this person work out?

And I'm going to give a great review because I just know that you're a great person. You work hard, you're gritty, and you provide value. So I'm going to show up for you there. But that's those two things take up all the, you know, what's the hardest part of the business in my brain. It's just, it's those two components are always the toughest. By the way, no pun intended. Well, it's a pun, but I mean, like this is a truly classic interview

about entrepreneurship. That's one of the realest answers ever on the show. By the way, when he's speaking in a vernacular, everybody about right seat, we're both thinking about a book named Good to Great by Jim Collins. We're talking about seats on the bus and I'm just in general before we move into something on you and personal development, I'm gonna ask him that in a minute everybody but is that your overall philosophy? CFO is different like you could have a specialized

person at a certain scale, they had to have been in that position somewhere close to it before but in general talk about your hiring and firing practices. Are you more of a hire for the position or are you like, this is an incredibly great person. We're going to get them on the bus and then we'll find the seat and then B take a while on it and then B when do you know it's time to let somebody go? And do you actually do it oftentimes? How do you terminate people? Um, I haven't done it in a while.

Unless it's somebody that has started with us, that's a kind of an OG that I have the best relationship with, it tends to always go by relationship when we let people go. I've also just realized that if I do it, it tends to go much better than if like a manager does it. For whatever reason, I think I'm just able to level with people and they don't get in their head about the reason. And ultimately, it's not, it's us that have to pull the trigger, but it's really the team that around them

that fires them. Right. Because so what'll happen is when you have a bunch of A players and you bring in a B player, the A players don't want to play with the B player because what it does is it forces all of them to work harder and keep up the slack, right? It's like the guy in high school who didn't want to work on the project, who everyone else had to do all that work and you're bummed about this guy. You're like, dude, what are you doing? So inevitably it starts bubbling up very quickly when it doesn't work. And then we have to make the call on it.

But it's not after a lot of feedback. That's like number one. We always try not after a lot of feedback. That's like number one. We always try to give a lot of feedback to people. But in terms of our hiring process, it's lengthy. And in my opinion, it's too lengthy. Because I'm such a move fast guy, that I tend to always bet more on the human than but like if you ask our executive team or leadership team, they would say, we have to do a homework assignment. We have to do this, we have to do that.

Like they have to do a personality test. So we're getting really granular with people to see if they're the right fit because we've quizzed people that aren't the right fit and we know which personalities just don't work here now. So that's really the hiring process. Sometimes it can take like a month and a half which is just mind blowing.

And then they need another four weeks after that to quit their job or whatever. So that's our hiring process. And then, yeah. What about bus seats? Will you hire someone because they're extraordinary and then find the right seat or you'll move them around? Do you do that?

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I do a lot of that because we love generalists over here. And there are certain jobs where you have to be a specialist, like CFO is one where you just didn't know the numbers, right? Like there's no generalists running our books. I'll tell you that they're math nerds, right? Which is exactly what you need. And like our in-house lawyer, like obviously you need to be, you can't be a generalist. They're not over on social media marketing, right? No, they're not. They're not making posts. Thank God. But I would say that, you know, it's a, it definitely is a DNA thing and we have core values and you have to kind of fit

the bill on all those core values. So you have to move fast. You have to move with empathy. You have to execute like a pro. You have to be creative and you have to harness grit. And those are really what we look for in people. And really who fits that bill, I'll tell you, is the entrepreneurs. So now we're like, well, maybe we should just hire like all entrepreneurs moving forward, because what entrepreneurs are so great at is wearing all these different hats. They may not be a master of anything, but they are a jack of all trades. And I love the jack of all trades guys. I would also say that some of the most valuable people that we have are the creatives.

It's the ones that understand storytelling at a high level that can look at an email and just go, guys, what story are we really trying to tell here? Are we really just trying to sell the percentage off? Or are we trying to show people that if you if you take this piece of clothing and this one, you match it together, it can make an outfit and that's why you should buy it. Not just because of the percentage of the sales promo. Like you need those people to be a voice of reason on your creative. Otherwise, you'll just get lost in the performance marketing aspect. And you'll always be kind of like trying to hack together to get a click or whatever it is to make it look good in the analytics. But creatives just have that magic sauce that you just can't buy.

It's like you either have it or you don't. And man, do I value that in an organization. What a great answer. I'm sort of the, I've become the last three or four years, I'm called obsessed, but I've really studied Steve Jobs. I've been blessed that I sit on a board with Cook who runs it now, and I also am a neighbor of his. And I've just been fascinated by the difference between the company when Jobs was sort of at the helm

the first time and the second time. And Cook and people ask me all the time, what's the difference with Jobs? And it's the, and I always say this, he had the DNA of a storyteller. He was a vision stretcher, a dream seller, a storyteller. And you got to have somebody in your company, if it's you or a team of people that can tell your story because that's what everything is now guys. It's a narrative. It's a story that's told people buy into the story and want to be a part of the story by being a customer with you. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know this month is all about gratitude

and along with everyone we're thankful for there's another person we usually don't thank enough and that's ourselves. We just get lost in the shuffle don't we so many times. Sometimes it's hard to remind ourselves that we're trying our best to make sense of everything and in this crazy world that is not always easy and BetterHelp can help you with that. Therapy can remind us to slow down and just take some stock of how things are going in our life, how far we've come. Maybe it's some trauma we need to work from from our past. Maybe it's just getting clarity and focus on where we want to go. But therapy is helpful for you know all kinds of things learning positive coping skills, setting boundaries.

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month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P dot com slash EdShow. This message is sponsored by Greenlight and I'm really glad that it is. You know, as kids get older I've experienced that things about parenting can get easier and some things can get harder if you don't lay a great foundation. And I know one of the things I am grateful for is that when my kids were young we started to teach them the principles about money and budgeting and the value of a dollar, the value of hard work as well, and that's very much lost in the world. But thanks to Greenlight, it's back. Greenlight can help. Greenlight's a debit card and a money app made for families where parents can send money to their kids,

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to navigate life together. Sign up for Greenlight today at greenlight.com slash ed. That's greenlight.com slash ed to try Greenlight today. Greenlight.com slash ed. I'm listening to you today and I told you off camera, your ability to articulate your energy level, all of it is off the charts and you're one of the great guests I've ever had on and I wonder about you. I know what it takes, by the way I went up to three years with you, now you're in the fifth year and the numbers have exploded but I know what it takes in year five. I know the fatigue, I know the

mental fatigue, I know by now you've had people screw you, you've had catastrophes, disasters, you've almost been out of business a few times I'm sure, right? So if all of that is true and you can tell me whether it is, what do you do to grow you and protect you and fill your own cup? Because as the CEO of something, as a founder of something everybody, rarely will a company outgrow you. Very rare can a company outgrow your ability to extend your own identity, your own vision. So what do you do for you on that? Because it's apparent to me you've done a lot of it. I probably should do more time for myself. Really what I do is, you know, I spread myself really thin with everybody. Yeah. And you know, but I've got a good balance now where I work from basically nine to three,

and I pick up my kids from school, and I go home, and I really lock in with them. I have three kids, eight, six, and four, and I lock in with them from 3.30 till they go to bed at seven. And so that's really my time with them, and that's where I can really recharge and focus and put my phone down and not worry about business and just worry about showing up and playing with them and just having those

moments because I remember, you know, growing up, I had a great dad who played with me and I remember how magical those moments were for me. And it really fills my soul when I can just run around the yard and make them laugh and just play games and do whatever I can. And then after that, I spend time with my wife. You know, after I put them down, it's those three hours before we go to bed that is really locked in with her. And then the next day I started all over. And in the morning, it's all about my employees and it's all about my customers.

I wouldn't say I have a ton of time for myself, but I'm also okay because I love this business. I don't love apparel necessarily, but I just love the business of serving customers and showing up and finding creative ways to do that and build a big business in lieu of that. So, you know, I get a lot of fulfillment in reading comments and stories and feedback from people and people just loving the product. And, you know, I get, you know, comments from wives that say that, you know, this product has really changed the way he feels about himself when he leaves the house. And that's just a really magical thing that you can do for $49. Like who would have thought just a t-shirt could make a difference?

And that's really fulfilling to me. So I don't really need a ton of extracurricular things to fill my soul. Let me ask you the real. So, and by the way, that's awesome. In year five at 900 million, but take me through year one or two, just for someone that's a startup entrepreneur right now, what did year one and two look like schedule wise? Errorable. Um, it's part of the reason we were profitable in the beginning.

Sure. But the three founders, we did the work of 15 people for about a year and a half Which is not recommended like we waited way too long But we were hell bent on staying profitable and we were hell bent on not Going in debt and and raising money. We were like we're making this thing profitable from from month one we're not taking a salary on taking any money out of this company and We're just gonna like operate at a 10 and kill ourselves for a year and then we'll start hiring the right people. And plus, like at the time we couldn't really afford killers like we can now.

It took us a while to get there, to hire like the, you know, the ex-meta people and the people that come from Yale and like those people come later and they help add tremendous value. But in the beginning it was just three scrappy entrepreneurs who were, you know, I was really good at the creative and the marketing and the digital. Nick was really good at the apparel side. He knew how to talk to manufacturers and Matt was just really good at finance. So he was kind of like our, our, our makeshift C a CFO in the beginning. And we ran the company, you know, as good as we could for that first year and a half, but it was absolutely brutal.

I think most people would have probably given up in our seat, but it was just so hard. And you know, also, hey, you know, having the background that I did, it allowed me to save some money. So I wasn't struggling, which was making it easy to not have to take money out of the company. So at least we had that going for us. Was there ever a do or die moment? Is there ever a moment where you're like, we're going to close the doors maybe?

And if there was, could you describe it? I mean, I would say that the do or die moment was really going back to that $40 million bet when we just couldn't pay the bills. And what happens is, is those bills start coming in and you can't cover them because the receipts just don't match the revenue. So like all of a sudden, they're hunting us down and they're like, what's going on? And we're trying to push them off and we're trying to talk, but it got really dicey. And if enough of them band together,

they can put you into bankruptcy. But we had such solid relationships with them that it just really worked in our favor. And then we were able to get out of it a lot sooner than later. Okay I got a tough one for you. So social media makes entrepreneurship look very easy, very sexy. It's like once you start a business you can get a Lambo and you're going to be in Greece and Turks and Caicos every three weeks right? And you and I know that that's not the case. The other thing that's become because of the shark tank stuff we see, I think most people start a company thinking I'm starting this to exit it and I'm going to exit it in two or three years and I think when you start a company with the idea of an exit already,

one it's unrealistic and two you can do things to your company that really can do it harm if you think that way. Having said that, that's just a theory. So when you started True Classic with your partner and the three entrepreneurs that you said were involved in the beginning, was it like, hey, we're going to build this and in three years we're out? Or are you building a company that in your mind you may keep for a decade or two? We've always wanted to keep it private from the beginning. We never had thoughts of going public. Those are the best companies, bro,

that at least think that way, but go ahead. Yeah, because ultimately, you're not thinking about the customer. Like it always goes back to that, right? Like if you're thinking about the money, you'll never get to what's best for the customer. You'll always just be thinking, how do I growth hack this to get a multiple on an exit?

And that is just the wrong way. You get the multiple by building a great business for the customer, right? So it's a very backwards way of thinking. So when we came into this, you know, Matt does come from the M&A world, but I told him from the beginning, I'm like, I don't even wanna think about this stuff.

Like this is, I am not interested in talking to bankers. Maybe in the future we would take some chips off the table, but I really don't want to use any kind of VC cash. And I definitely don't want a boss. I think that's the other people think, they forget that like, if you put, someone puts money in, they inevitably become,

they have a seat on the board. They're gonna ask you a lot of questions all the time. All of a sudden you have quarterly reviews. Like it's not fun going from being a founder, which you know, you want to get out of having a boss and then you go back to having a boss inevitably. Yes. Oh, I would just say that that's that's just you have to do

right by the customer and think about that aspect and the money will come. You create immense value at scale for people. The money will always follow. If you look at the people that are crushing it, it always goes back to the product. Right. Like it's not the marketing is just a vehicle for attention. But if the product doesn't crush, you have no business.

Like I saw someone the other day post on LinkedIn, the true classic, just doing these crazy numbers all because of their marketing. And I just had to chime in and level set with the guy and be like, guys, just so you know, you don't get to 500 million on garbage product. You just don't. It has to really stand on its own. And that has to be the pillar that you build off of. The marketing is just there to support it and just tell people about the product. But like, if you want any kind of retention or repeat purchases, you have to have a great product. And the repeat, by the way, is the profitability. Because we're really not profitable

on first customer acquisition. Like when we acquire a customer, we're basically break even. So you have to get them to come back to make a profit. So we're constantly pushing email and SMS and everything that retention is built on to get people back to the site. And by the way, that's also creating new product categories

so that you can get them to come back and be interested in other things other than just T-shirts, because they may think we just sell T-shirts, but we really sell absolutely everything now, including, you know, active wear, denim, underwear, you name it. We do everything for guys now. But people know that whatever we create is going to be great for them because it's always going to have a a good fit be comfortable and have a Really good price attached to it. So

What does the future hold for business? Well, let me tell you right now you can ask nine experts You're probably gonna get ten different answers bull market bear market rates are gonna get cut They're gonna cut it five times six times Inflation is gonna go up or down who the heck knows you don't really have a crystal ball And that's why I love netSuite because you can get some measure of control in the most important areas possible in your business. So if somebody can get a crystal ball together that would be great but until then over 38,000 businesses have future proof their business with NetSuite by Oracle.

The number one cloud ERP bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, HR into one fluid platform. Easy to use. We've been using them now for over a decade. NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize on your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash my let the guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash my let netsuite.com slash my let. What about broad versus narrow focus? I got two more entrepreneur questions. That's so good. You have a company built for men. It's not just like an apparel company. Now I don't know if

in the future you would do things for women or not, but sometimes I think people's business idea is either too broad, like, okay, what are you exactly, right? You have too many products too soon, or it's like too narrow in the sense that there's not that big a marketplace for you. So you did start, correct me if I'm wrong, as sort of a shirt company for men. At least that's how I knew you in the beginning. Once you built that base, then you added verticals, which are other products to the mix. But you have decided to stay in the lane with men.

So just discuss all of that for a minute. It's the only way in my opinion. And it was very strategic. I knew that if I didn't hang my hat on one thing with people and give them something to remember, we would just be the gap. And that was the last thing I wanted. I didn't want to just roll out with a million things. So I was like, okay, not only am I going narrow, like not only is it just a t-shirt,

it's a t-shirt that's fitted in the shoulders and arms very specific, right? So I went incredibly narrow. So even narrower than most brands. And not only only so that was so that people could go, oh, the shirt that fits you better. I got it. And they're priced better. That makes sense. And then eventually I was going to roll that model across everything. So denim, same thing. Like if you buy our denim, they are, you know, $200 premium denim that you get for like 50 bucks. So it's like we're just taking the premium market and bringing it to the masses.

Like I said originally. But yes, to your point, if you go too broad too early, how do you really expect people to identify you? People are in their heads about everything going on in the world. And if you can't stick out and stand for something, you stand for nothing, ultimately. So it's like, you have to go super specific, market it that way, and really be a solution for something. That's the other component to going narrow, is like, you have to solve a problem.

And when I get people that come to me and they go, hey, I wanna do this, I wanna sell this, what do you think? My first question is always like, what are you solving for the market? And if you're not solving anything, good luck. It's going to be, if it's going to be a lifestyle brand, buddy, that's going to be a rough road. And it's going to be really tough to get there.

Not to say you can't do it. And a lot of people have, but I would say that you have to just live in problem solving mode 24 seven in product development. And that will get you the audience that you're looking for. And then you can eventually tap into other audiences. Like with women, we are talking about launching women's, uh, sometime in the future, but I'm not going to do it until I really solve a problem for them. The same way I solved the problem for guys.

Like I'm not into checking the box and going, Hey guys, we need extra revenue. Let's hurry up and check the box for women and make all this extra money. I'm like, no, no, no, no. What is the shirt solving for them specifically on the fit? And do they absolutely love it? Is the price going to work for them? And if so, now we're onto something we can have that conversation. This is so good, bro.

I'll give you one more business question. This is so good. Like I'm, I'm sitting here literally thinking my, my son's gonna listen to this, my daughter today. I don't care where you are in college at what business class you're at, or any of you that have an MBA, this is a little bit of a separator today for you. It's cool here two entrepreneurs just chop it up. It just it really is. I've heard you say I think three times in the interview at least twice that I can recall kind of a debt aversion. Stay out of debt which a lot of entrepreneurs aren't afraid of. I am also. I'm

scared of debt. I don't like it. It doesn of. I am also. I'm scared of debt. I don't like it. It doesn't feel good to me. I don't even know that I'm a real entrepreneur in the sense that I don't have that gambler thing you have. I wish I had more of that. But in general, when someone's scaling, I know a lot of real entrepreneurs would want me to ask you this question. What is your philosophy about should I take on debt if I need to scale or should I take a giveaway equity? And if you had to do one or the other, which would it be most of the time? Give equity away or take on more debt? Tough question, right? Or are both deal breakers for you? I would definitely take on some debt versus sell equity. I mean, if you can not take on debt,

great. Like if you have that profitable of a product, see we have kind of tight margins. So we have to take on, like we have a credit line. You got lines everywhere. You got lines. Exactly. And not only do we have lines everywhere, like we have a big bank line,

but we also have amazing credit terms with all of our vendors, which is another thing that people don't think about. Cause I always tell people like, we started this company with $3,000 and scaled it to astronomical numbers. The only way we were really able to do that, well, it's two reasons. Facebook is just unbelievable in terms of their modeling and conversion. But I would say the other component is we negotiated with our manufacturers and we got terms out of that. And we said, OK, we're going to pay you in 60 days, not 30 days.

And a lot of them want money upfront. So we negotiated, we pushed the money out. We also just said, hey, can you float us half a million in credit, right? That way we don't have to go raise money, we don't have to raise debt. And they did that for us. Not to say that we also didn't try to put things

on credit cards early on, but I would say that getting a line with like an e-capital or one of these companies or a way flyer, getting a small line can really do wonders for the business. It can help you explode. It can help you. Now, if you can just do it without, that's the perfect scenario. I'm not big on selling equity. I just think that there's the debt is a way for you to retain that equity and keep that value to yourself. And then just listen, you you got to give something up.

There's a trade off. So you are going to pay an interest rate and it can be pretty hefty. Some are more expensive than others. We've worked with really expensive ones and then we've worked with ones that are single digit interest rates, which are obviously where we're living now. And then once you get to a certain size, the banks will work with you like the JP Morgan's and then you can really get the interest rate down to something manageable.

But to answer your question, a debt all day. Okay, that's spoken like a real entrepreneur, by the way. And this is a general statement, but this world today of giving equity away for investment, the Shark Tank world, I'm always very skeptical when people have asked me for investments for equity, and especially startup companies, because basically it tells me you don't have a lot of confidence in yourself, because if you had confidence

you'd take the debt route and keep your equity. So you're willing to spend and lose my money but not your own. And so that's a general statement, it's not true all of the time, so I don't need a bunch of feedback about that from everybody. But in general, when I asked that question, I wanna know about their debt answer first

and you answered it exactly how I would answer it and how I would hope an entrepreneur... Okay, last question. By the way, it's been extraordinary today. And I'm really grateful that we've done it. And by the way, everybody, go check out True Classic. I have their gear. I am proud to have their gear. You can tell that it's run by a good man with good values and a good culture. And he's provided all this value for all of you today. So by the way it's Christmas time for a lot of you when you're hearing this coming up. Great gift

for your dude is true classic so make sure you do that. General question, it's kind of a cheesy question but like answer it honestly. Not that you haven't been so far but is this worth it? This entrepreneur thing, man, people underestimate the stress. They underestimate the stress and the mind space it takes up. Like you're built now, like you've done so many reps of the mind space of an entrepreneur that I'm watching a guy in the throes of his prime and you're not even aware right now until someday

when you exit this and you're actually really breathing completely or whatever happens and you're not even aware right now until someday when you exit this and you're actually really breathing completely or whatever happens and you go, oh my gosh, the toll this was it because you're just you're built in it. You're in the throws. It's like finding a quarterback in the third or fourth quarter of a Super Bowl. They don't know the stress they're under. Yeah. But to some extent, if you could step out of it and look, is it all it's cracked

up to be or is it not so bad to be like a number two at a company making two or three hundred grand and let the owner have all the stress? Honestly, I'm super jealous of those people. Like I, I, I sometimes wish I wasn't so fixated on making an impact in the world because it certainly puts me in a spot where I am defaulted into the CEO at the top and it's a brutal position to be in because all you do all day is firefight in every aspect of the business. And that's what makes you effective in an organization is that you're able to fight the fires that no one else wants to fight.

And it's always the worst of the worst problems that you're dealing with, whether it's people or business. I mean, even like we lost a CFO a while back and we had myself and Ben, our president, had to essentially become the CFO. And there's just times where you have to fill a role or fill a void for the sake of the business because you have to not because you want to. And I would just say it's really tough at the top because you know it's also very lonely and people they look at you differently. I feel like I'm the same guy. I really still feel like that broke musician from Michigan

who was just kind of getting by and happy to be alive. But like they start to look at you differently when the numbers get bigger. And there starts to be this disconnect. So I tend to do a lot of one-on-ones and a lot of quick pulse checks with people, just touch base and let them know that I'm here for them and that I'm listening, and anything they wanna bring me, they can.

But to answer your question, I think most people would much rather be a three or a four than a one or a two all day of the week because you're still gonna get paid a lot of money and you don't have any of the excess stress that you carry with you once you go home. Because when I go home, it follows me. Like when I get back on my phone

after putting it down with the kids, it's a nightmare. I'm just like, I'm looking at my Slack and it's just problem after problem after problem and it's just like, I'm back in it. You know what I mean? And you just never really escaped that. So you have to just really be at peace with yourself and just understand that this is part of the process and it's also not forever, right? Like even just going from year one struggles that we talked about to year

five struggles, my wife has definitely seen an evolution of where I was in the early years and where I am now. And she's much happier with, with kind of what's happening with the business, but it is absolutely brutal. And I, and I don't say that lightly. And if you're doing it for the money, it's only going to get worse. Like you have to really do it for the love of it. You have to love providing value to people, creating jobs, creating an economy for people. You have to just absolutely love it.

Otherwise you'll quit because it's terrible at the end of the day. It's like the payoff is the money. But I think what people don't realize is like, once you have the money, it's like, it just goes back to like quality of life. Like what do I need just to be happy? And once your bills are paid,

you immediately check that box and then go back to like your health, your kids, your family and all the things you can't control. And so but to answer your question again, it is a tough road and especially startup world and entrepreneurship. You're just constantly trying to make the best decisions for everyone. And everything you say can get taken away. It can make people feel bad. You know, I definitely have done a better job over time of not just jumping in channels

and spouting off about a topic because I know how it affects people. Right? Like I just try to be empathetic, but I'm just in go mode all the time. Like I'm just in like execution mode. This needs to get done. What are we doing here? How are we doing this? Like, Hey, it's just like how we roll.

Right. But people can take that and they can go, Hey, why is he calling me out in the channel? And why this and people get in their heads about it. But that's just how you move and shake as an entrepreneur, you're just, I got to solve this problem today. I have 27 more on my plate that need to be done by three o'clock. So you know, let's figure it out and let's go now. But yeah, it's tough.

All right. Unbelievable conversation today. I cannot thank you enough. I mean it. This is a truly classic conversation and everybody go check out. True classic. Give us your social where they should go, Ryan. And again, thank you. Where should they go? It's just my name on everything. Twitter, Instagram, it's, it's a LinkedIn. It's all just Ryan Bartlett. Okay. Ryan Bartlett. hey everybody. Rockstar entrepreneur as you guys all heard today. You're welcome because today is heavy note-taking. You could share with anybody who's got a business mind or has a mind or a heart that wants to go into business as well.

Alright everybody, God bless you. Max out.