How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Chris Riccobono of UNTUCKit

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0:35Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. All right, let's get to it.

1:05Joining me this week is untucket co-founder Chris Riccobono. Chris, welcome back to the show. Great to be here again. So, Chris, when we last talked, not that long ago, in 2025, you told us the story of untucket and if anybody missed it and wants to go back and listen, I highly recommend you do. We'll drop a link to it in the show notes.

1:24Chris, you started out as a medical device sales rep. You had no fashion background, and you were thinking about different businesses until this idea came to the shirt idea, a shorter shirt, a button-down shirt that you could wear untucked, and you almost tucked yourself out of it, because you thought, well, if there was a market for it, somebody else would be doing it, but within about 10 years of that idea, with the help of a friend of yours from Columbia Business School, Aaron St. Andrews, you guys built Untuck It, going from zero to like 73 stores in just four years. You've been through a lot. That episode was so powerful because it had so many ups and downs and a lot at stake. First of all, how have things been since we last spoke? They've been okay. It never ends. When I was on that episode, we talked about COVID. We talked about high interest rates taken on debt to survive COVID. And I believe we were just touching on tariffs.

2:21But we had not gotten there yet. I think we were predicting that there could be some tariff issues. Well, they, of course, hit us hard. We had about nine million that was pulled out of our bank account that we had no line of sight to. And that was for two reasons. One, the normal tariffs, but then also Trump removed in the middle of the night this three to one de minimis rule, which you could ship from Mexico, which it had been in effect for like 100 years without paying duties. So that kind of doubly hit us.

2:51So we are fighting through it. We still have a loyal following We just started getting into wholesale. That's new so that'll be art now We'll have ecom stores and wholesale But we're working to cash issues. So you'll be in department stores will be in department stores for the first time ever That's great. Congrats on that. Yeah should allow to brand to really scale even further So I want to ask you about another you know we talked about this briefly when you were on on the show But you had launched a second brand a sportswear brand called greatness wins Tell me about a little bit about how that's going. I mean you you know, this was a completely separate parallel brand Hard to run two things at the same time and you're you're a very determined guy But tell me a little bit about how that's going that's going great as well We pivoted there a little bit and for those who are out there are in

3:38in anything that they're marketing on Facebook and paid social. Everyone knows that the customer acquisition costs are very high just based on the amount of competition out there. So our pivot was to go into wholesale earlier, but in this case, Greengrass Golf Shops, which is, for those of you who know the golf brands, the Peter Millars, the Johnny O's, you can do 150 million north in just those shops. The way I looked at it, it was a way to increase revenue, but also free marketing because if our shirts out at your local golf course, you go in there, you buy the golf shirt, you then go home, you go on your website, you buy our shorts. So now we have a golf and athletic brand. It's a battle. It's, you know, retail is tough. You have the Vioris, you have the Lululemon's, you have the, the Allos. These are monstrous companies, Nike, but we are finding a way, you know, by trying to go different directions and, you know, lower the cost of acquiring a customer. And it's exciting.

4:37I love that word battle because I think you used it when we talked to us. You know, you're not sugarcoating this. It is tough to run an apparel brand. It is true. It is a constant battle. I was wondering, you know, Chris, I mean, as you just explained, the customer acquisition landscape is so different from when you launched Untuck It. If you were starting from scratch in 2026 with no brand recognition, what would you do differently? How would you build Untuck It today?

5:05Do you even have a sense of how you would do that? Oh, what's interesting about on Tuckett was everyone's doing paid social today. Even when everyone was telling us, all the experts in marketing were saying, stop marketing on anything but paid social. It's all dead. We said, well, we can afford it and we don't agree. And we talked about this last time. We went on airline magazines. We went on radio for a fashion brand, which is rare.

5:28because you can't see it. We went on Howard Stern, we went on the USA Today's back of New York Post, and that's what made us successful. And we mixed that in with TV, more expensive, paid social, and it all came together. And by the way, we're still doing that today, and very few are doing it. So that's how I would do it. Now, it would be a lot more challenging because my cost of acquisition on Facebook when it was us, Casper and Bonobos, I think, and maybe Warby Parker, back in 2011, it was a lot easier. It was like a gold mine. You went on there, you said, oh my gosh, this is incredible. Those days are gone, probably forever. And now it's getting even more complex. Now we're trying to come up with a strategy around AI and no longer about SEO because now I'm going into chat GPT and typing, I want an untucked shirt. What's the best way to do it? And now we got to figure out how we're going to pop up and not someone else. So it's a constantly changing game, as you can imagine. Yeah.

6:21Well, Chris, we asked you to come on to help us give some callers advice. So are you ready to take our first call? Yep. Let's do it. Okay. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Chris Riccobono, founder of On Ticket. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, please. Hi, guy. Hi, Chris. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Adrian Alvarez. I'm from Sacramento, California, and I am the founder of Arrow Shorts, which is an athleisure and lifestyle brand focusing on making affordable shorts that are Known as hybrid shorts cool and tell me a little about the shorts. What where like how would you use them? Yeah, so we call them hybrid shorts because I designed them with the goal that they should be short to use for any pretty much any occasion They're fast drying so they can use it at the beach at the pool for athletes who sweat They have compression for athletes for gym goers of people go hiking weekend warriors They're pretty much shorts men for every occasion and that's how they're meant to be used

7:17And tell me a little bit about how this business came about. First of all, how long has it been going? Yeah, so I created this business two years ago when I was a senior in high school. Wow. Okay. I'm currently a sophomore in college, so it's been my second year working on this business. I came about when I was playing volleyball in high school. I played on club teams and with the tournaments and I realized there was a need for more affordable shorts. Shorts are $65 to $80 nowadays and I believe that you shouldn't have to pay high price points for high quality shorts. So that's why I kind of came with the goal to find a manufacturer to make more affordable shorts for young athletes and for pretty much anyone. So your shorts are looking at your website about $35 roughly. Yeah, I keep my shorts at $35. That's my goal. It's my motto to stay consistency. That's awesome. So you started this in high school and did you find like a manufacturing partner through like, you know,

8:14Did you just go online and find a partner or manufacturer in China and start that way? I actually went to a sourcing show in Las Vegas. I went there and I was able to meet vendors who sourced the materials. I got to see what fabrics I liked. And from there, I was able to find the fabrics and produce them overseas, found a product that was high quality. And that's where I pretty much went from there. And tell me a little bit about how the business is doing right now. What are you doing in sales?

8:41Yeah. So our first year of sales, we became profitable. Our first year was at $100,000 sales. Nice. And this year and our second year, we're on track to make approximately $400,000. Wow. Amazing. And this is all D to C? Yes. All direct consumer, all e-tumbers. We sell online. We used to do pop-up shops when we were smaller, but now we mainly just sell online through our website. Got it. OK. Before we bring on Chris, tell us your question.

9:06Yeah, so my question is I found success in my brand so far. I appeal to volleyball players particularly, but I really want arrows to be more of a mainstream big-name brand that can compete with other big-name brands. So I want to know what should be my strategies and goals to build a bigger brand identity to get more of a target audience.

9:24All right, Chris, I want to bring you in. Say hello to Adrian. He was trying to figure out how to build his brand to build it up and scale it. Let's think about that. First of all, thoughts for Adrian? Questions before we try and answer his question. Hi, Adrian. Nice to meet you. Congrats, man. That's awesome that you're that young, getting going. Pretty impressive. So yeah, a lot goes in my mind. I mean, obviously you're now in my world of a new athletic brand, probably the most competitive place you can be.

9:53Not a bad thing, just throwing it out there. But one thing I know that you might have an advantage of is the youth, right? You're obviously going after younger people and you've seen a lot of success stories there. I wish that I could be in that space at times because of the TikToks of the world and because of all the different...

10:11ways that your generation shops now, which is different than the older generation. How has your growth been? Where has it been mainly through? Have you been on paid social or have you been doing it free through influencers or organic growth? Mainly through paid social. I haven't really done any influencers yet. Mainly just through ads, social media ads. We make a lot of funny videos on our Instagram. So that's how we pretty much post most of our content.

10:39I have a question for you, Adrian, a bunch of questions. I mean, listen, you are wondering, how do you turn this into a more mainstream brand, a bigger brand? Obviously that is your goal, and I think that's an admirable goal. But I think before you start to think about that, or start to move in that direction, you have to ask yourself and answer a few questions. So first of all, who is your tribe? If you look at untuckets, it's guys between roughly, let's say, 20 to late sort of fifties at you know athletic or you know want to you know sort of outdoors kind of lifestyle but it's a maybe slightly slightly more affluent I wonder who you are I mean you played volleyball this started out from your experience is it college students is it volleyball players are young men who live in warm weather states like who who do you think of as your core tribe

11:32Yeah, definitely the younger audience, definitely people in college, people in high school. That's who I really made the shorts for. I see people golfing my shorts, people surfing in them. I see a wanting for a different use of my shorts, and I can really see it, especially in the younger generation. I mean, we live in our shorts, so we're always using them in different ways. And do you have a sense of what percentage of your existing customers buy a second pair? Yeah, about 60% of our customers return, so it's a pretty good return rate.

12:00Yeah, no the one other thing I'd say is like what's your ultimate goal here? And I think it makes a difference like do you want to do this for fun in a way? You know build this up to three four five million dollars Make a little few extra bucks and then go into finance or do you want to? Build this into a fifty million dollar brand. I know it sounds obvious But that's not always the case like would you be very happy with it being a five million dollar brand and pulling off a hundred thousand dollars?

12:27and kind of living your life that way. Like, what's your goal? I definitely want this brand to be something big. I definitely, like you said, in the $50 million range. I want it to be able to compete with the big brands in the world, like the Vioris, the Nikes, the Lululemons. Those are the people I want to go after, and those are the brands I want to be up there with. I mean, those brands...

12:48They, I think, and I'm talking too, built their brands on specific tribes. Lula Lemon, obviously around yoga, Viori, men's, originally around men and yoga, but then sort of board shorts, men who were surfing and playing sports. And I think that's been core to their success. I mean, I think what you wanna think about as you start to build out how you're gonna do this is, who is your community? And if you think you know that, then really leaning into that tribe and building the brand around them and using them to be a force multiplier. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, my other thought is that if you want to build this brand, you're going to have to, and I'll speak to this all the time now because of all the growing pains I've had with untuck it when it comes from cash flow purposes.

13:47you will need to raise money if you want to grow the brand. It's just a fact. So now's the time in my mind, you want to go to friends and family and you want to grab something 150k, right? On Tuck, it went from 90 to 300 to 500. And that's when we raise money when we went to 3 million. So that's my first point. And then the second point is, you really have to start thinking about a strategy. You know, where are you going to spend money? How are you going to grow? And then, yes, I think I agree with Guy, like who's your It seems like you found your target audience because there is not much competition in the volleyball world. So that made me think, wait a second, maybe you do want to focus on volleyball right now. And I know you want to be shorts for everyone, but shorts for everyone, you're now competing with 70 great brands. Not a bad thing. Yours are less money, although there are other brands that make it for less money. Maybe focusing on volleyball temporarily gets you out there because there's no competition. So you start running ads on volleyball. Two volleyball players might be a thought. You might want to do that separately anyway.

14:44because now you're the only game in town. But you really gotta fine-tune that message. Shirts designed to be worn on tuck took me a year to come up with. That message is important, right? Shorts for everyone can't really use that. We all have those now. I mean, I sell them too, right? Shorts, you can go swimming, you can go play golf, whatever it may be. Just think about how are you gonna continue to differentiate beyond the price point. Got it.

15:09Chris, one final thought. If Adrian was to raise cash in the next, let's say, two or three years, where would you put that cash? I like to simplify this stuff in a way, especially if you're an e-commerce brand. At the end of the day, you need good product, and then you market and you sit back. That's how you're going to know whether you're going to succeed. And I don't like wasting time.

15:32this was me, right? I had no interest in building a $5 million brand. I wanted to build a big brand. And if I wasn't going to, then I didn't need to be hanging around wasting time doing it. That's just me. That's not everyone. So my point is bring some money in and allocate it to marketing and see if you can get some momentum. But that's changed a little bit because it's very, very hard on paid social to get momentum, right? So you have to think about other ways. And maybe it's, you know, and I'm making this up, maybe there's a volleyball radio.

16:01something or maybe there's something you know and you start marketing there for nothing and all of a sudden people are coming in and then of course for you I mean I would focus on content on tiktok and on you know telling your story fine-tune your story but I would use the money I hate to say it sounds basic but it's product and marketing right that's that's going to determine whether you're if people if you're getting the brand in front of people and they're not buying well there's a problem right I'm just saying get the cash in the door while you are scared while you went from 100 to 400 because it'll be a lot easier

16:30Then when you go from 400 to 500 or 600. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. The brand is called Eras Shorts. Adrian Alvarez. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling in. Thank you for your advice. Good luck, guys. Thank you. Good luck. It's awesome. High school student starts a business. Yeah, I love those stories. Hey, it's great. It's great. I mean, this guy, I mean, even if it totally collapses, which it won't, he's got his whole career ahead of him to build on this.

16:57everything he does at this point just increases the chance that he's going to succeed. I was going to say the exact same thing. If it were to fail, he's ahead of the game. Exactly, yeah. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Ross, and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab. Our presenting sponsor today is Amthropic.

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19:18Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross, and my guest today is Chris Riccobono, the founder of Untuck It, and we are taking your calls and let's bring in our next caller. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. My name is Preet Anand. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Snug Safety, and I'm calling from the Rockies. Snug is a free daily check-in for seniors who live alone. So that way if something happens, people will know and can get them the right help.

19:47Okay, thanks for calling in. So this is an app that you're talking about. It's a service through the app. Yes. Okay, and tell me how it works. Like I'm a senior citizen, how does it work? Super simple. So Guy, you would pick that after breakfast you want to check in with Snug every day, let's say at 8.30 in the morning. We'll send you a bunch of reminders. And if you don't open your Snug app and hit just the basic check mark by 8.30, we will then send you a few more reminders. Then we will notify your emergency contacts. Hey, Guy did not check in this morning.

20:16Here is his last known location. And that's on our free plan. If you are on our paid plan, we have a alarm service that will call you as well, call your emergency contacts, and then if still no one confirms you're okay, arrange a visit by emergency services. Okay, cool. And tell me a little about when this started and the story behind it. Yeah, so this was back in 2017. I was in the process of selling a different business. And I had a conversation with a customer. Her name was Jan and she said, you know, I don't need help where I can call for help. I need help for if I can't respond. If something happens in her case, she had had a seizure before and she says, who's going to know? You know, she at the time was 70. She lives alone and she was worried that if something happened, no one could know for days. And then when she could have gotten help, she wouldn't. So that's where it started from there. We

21:12we realized, you know, this is something different. This is unique. We learned about how many people are living alone in the country. Now over 17 million seniors live alone. And we realized we could do something focused for them. And it's just been the little engine that could from there. Cool. All right. I imagine that there are probably some competitors out there, maybe slightly similar services. Tell me a little bit about how you guys are doing. I mean, what are your sales at right now?

21:40Yeah, we're in the mid six figures right around $400,000 in annual revenue growing this year should grow 70% or more And that's subscription revenue. Okay. That's great. And how much does subscription cost? The subscription is $20 a month and I imagine most people who are Who are who are sort of interested in this are interested for their parents or or elderly relatives It's definitely that. In a lot of cases, it's the senior themselves who chooses for it because they want to stay living independently. They don't want to be in a position where they become burdened. It's an easy, light touch way so that way they can keep their independence. Before we bring on, Chris, tell us your question for us. Yeah. We're doing all right, but we really want to grow awareness of snug. There's all the time.

22:36we hear about people who say, you know what, I wish I had known about this years ago because my mom could have used it or somebody who says, you know, I had to give up my dog because I was worried about what was going to happen to them if something happened to me. And so we just need to really grow awareness about what we do and how do we do that with the targeted budget? Not even just customer acquisition, but just awareness of the solution. Right. All right. Chris, I want to bring you in, please say a little treat and his product is called Snug and, you know, You're dealing with an older customer base, right? You're basically targeting this to people over 65. How do you increase awareness? How do you reach these folks? Hey, doing pre-congratulations so far. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Do you have any marketing budget? And what is it? And what are you doing? Yeah, we do have marketing budget. This year, easily deploy up to $50,000 could go more if we need to. But right now,

23:32Most of our growth comes from the combination of Google and word of mouth. I would say about 70% is just word of mouth We are seeing some success on actually sponsoring youtubers who are senior youtubers But we are constantly trying new things to try to find that channel that'll help us break out So yeah, you know one thing that I like is believe it or not is radio radio reads targeting on serious or Spotify or where you hit a massive amount of people and you can really target your demographic and you can get a nice 30 second read that tells the whole story. You know a notch above that is you go on like a I'm not afraid of politics just you know when I mark it so this is not my my

24:19I'm not going to say one way or the other who I would choose politically, but you go on these shows, like whether it's a CNN host, a Fox News host, or you know, have these radio shows. People listen to those. These people who follow these political commentators are obsessed with them. This is the type of app I feel like that if you get to the right person, there's no reason not to have it. You know, I could say it if my dad was alone right now, I would sign him up. Why not? Right? To me, it's a great product. It's not a hard sell. So now you just got to get it out there.

24:49And obviously going on paid social, which is the normal way you would go. I don't think this product works on there. I just don't think that's the best way. It's tough to create an ad, right? So I think telling the story in 30 seconds, whether I think it's start with these reads on Spotify or on Sirius where you can just hit tons of people. And the next level would be you pick one guy and I would almost do both in separate times so you can measure them. You pick one guy, yes, a little bit more expensive. Might be 700 a read.

25:17You know, do three weeks worth. If the guy's passionate about that, it will work. And if it doesn't work, then you'll learn something. Like it's important to know why isn't it working, right? So, you know, it's not wasted money. It's okay. It's the message is being told wrong. If that didn't work and that didn't bring in sales, then I got to tweak the messaging.

25:36I think it's great advice. And you probably came to the conclusion that social media really isn't where you want to deploy your cash because your product is solving an emotional problem, right? This is a trust-based product. Absolutely. And a trust-based product is distributed through trusted people, intermediaries, right? So I would look at terrestrial radio rather than Spotify or even serious because I think a lot of seniors are listening to terrestrial radio like the Dave Ramsey's or the Mark Levin's and you know Sean Hannity's of the world of Brian Kilmeade's Well, whoever it is. I mean that and by the way, that's expensive. There's no question. It's not It you know, it's a bargain but to me that's a starting point But the other thing and this is this is interesting because I I recently was talking with a PR rep and

26:27I was asking, like, what matters now? And 10, 15, 20 years ago, a matter was an article in New York Times. Or if you're trying to come up with a new product, cosmetics, you go to Vogue or Cosmopolitan. Today, of course, it's all online. It's all social media. In your case, it's somewhat different. You may actually really benefit from having an article in a local paper or or a spot on local TV news and your story, the story of what you built is really compelling. Like I would think about really putting some time and energy into pitching local TV reporters and local newspaper reporters to or community publications to write about this thing, how this happened. How did you start this business? What was the idea behind it? Now you really want to also aim the message at

27:21the adult children, right? And that's where some social may be interesting, right? But I still think earned media is a really interesting thing to explore because it's like as, you know, as Chris said with the radio, it's almost like an old school way of doing things. And in your case, it may be the sweet spot. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we've definitely seen earned media have a lot of impact for us. You know, we were in NPR a few months ago and we're still, you know, up significantly year over year off of that. And we've also seen some success with ARP before. You made a good point. You almost want to test whether it's the 40 year old per kid or the actual. A lot of these older people are very stubborn and they don't actually want that type of service. So it's almost more that it's the children. So then I don't think that changes the game of radio. You might just want to check.

28:13you know, more stuff that I market for on Tucket, which is sports radio and stuff like just normal people listening in. And then, and then yeah, it is, it is, I've never been able to figure this part out, but it's like, if you can find a way to get to every geriatric doctor, they're going to want to provide it to their customer. You can put those brochures in there. They'll talk about it to their patient, but that's challenging because you got to have a kind of a sales force, but it's that type of product that you have people who will want to share it, right? Because it's you know, if you're in that position, a church or a doctor, it's beneficial for these elderly people. Yeah. Well, can I ask you one more question related to that? Sure. So a lot of folks don't want to use something like a life alert or something that physically signals a lowering independence. And what we haven't done so far is sort of message, let's call it against life alert or as an alternative to it.

29:10I personally get fired up about it because, you know, Life Alert hasn't really innovated since the 80s. And when you set up with them, it's a three-year contract unless you die. Yet they still have massive brand awareness. On the other hand, though, you know, if you do it that way, you're sort of advertising for them versus taking through these trusted channels. How do you all think about that? I don't think this is a...

29:36necessarily a competitor to life alert and alternative. I think it can be, it can be, right? But life alert famously, I fall and I can't get up, right? I think that's what it is, right? That is unfortunately 100% true. Classic, commercial, it was parodied. I mean, it's like, I'm not surprised it's a huge brand and they probably haven't had to innovate very much. It's very simple. You push a button, I fall and I can't get up and you press a button. That is a product that probably a lot of people Like and and want to use this to me is is could be complementary in the sense that it is More like this is just a daily check-in. It's different life life alert is something you only use in an emergency This is just daily reassurance and I I think you really want to position it that way because the life alert if you got a life alert, that's a that

30:22you know, the anxiety just kind of ratchets it up, right? You're like, oh my God. You got a seizure and you're out of it. You're not going to be pushing life alert. You could be laying there alive. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of reason. You got to be pretty with it to press life alert. You're just failing. You can't get up. That's kind of, or you have chest pain, but I think it's more of the examples that I read about with you or like post seizure or, you know, maybe you're just out of it for whatever reason that you're not thinking about. Like covering from surgery, whatever. Yeah.

30:48And we just shared a story of somebody who had a low blood sugar attack and snug got them paramedics. So yeah, okay. Thank you. I love it. It's awesome. It's a really cool idea. Congrats. Preet Anand, the brand is called Snug. The app. Good luck. Thank you for calling in. Thank you. Good luck, Preet. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raaz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab.

31:36Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ross and today we're taking your calls with untucket co-founder Chris Riccobono. Chris, what do you say, ready for the next call? Let's do it. All right, let's bring our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business, please. Hello, Guy and Chris. I'm Derek and I'm calling in from Arlington, Virginia. My company is Hockey Ninja and we are a hockey equipment company. We specialize in hockey visors.

32:04the half shields you see the pro players wear and for our customers that want a little more protection our full face titanium hybrids. Awesome welcome to the show Derek. So Visors I'm assuming I think when I watch hockey does anyone play with an open face helmet anymore? I think there are a few players that are still grandfathered in but there was a rule passed that's probably 10 or 15 years now that you're no longer allowed to play without a visor.

32:31Right, because a puck hits you in the forehead and it can... Yeah, it can be devastating. Right? Yeah. And what... I mean, if the players in the NHL are already playing with a visor, tell me who is... who are your customers?

32:43You know, my customers range from beer leaguers, you know, hockey actually is a growing sport again, to high school players, even youth players at this point. The majority of the business right now, especially in the US, players care a little bit more about their dental work. And so the full face shields are a bigger part of the business. We started out with Visors and have kind of added, we started with three products now, we're probably close to 30. But the full face shield is the core part of the business right now. The full face shield. So, and just.

33:10Describe what it looks like. It's not it's it's not like a metal cage, right? It's like a it's a clear plastic Yeah, and so up until recently you've had a choice of the full metal cage, which I never loved having the bars You know two inches from my eyesight. It was it was kind of tough, right or You had the kind of what we called the fishbowl was an all-plastic piece Not great airflow. They tended to fog and so this is this is kind of a marriage of those two things We have a titanium lower cage and we have a replaceable really high-end plastic visor you can even wear that visor as a, you know, the replacement visor can be worn as a visor only. Got it. Okay. Tell me what makes your product different? I mean, this exists, it's out there. Why would somebody buy from hockey ninja versus, I don't know, the big brands that are out there? I think first and foremost, it's for us, it's safety. We import Macrolon, which is a Lexan plastic from Bayer Material Sciences in Germany. And so this is

34:08a material that's used by Audi and Bugatti for the headlamps and it's known for Impact resistance is known for optical clarity in my background on the consumer electronic side of things This is more so in the optics side of that and so it's something I know a little bit about also most testing bodies will test those visors other the other brands at 65 to 75 miles an hour We test ours at 120 which is faster than any, you know pro slap shot that's ever been clocked So from a safety standpoint optical clarity our anti fog coatings, I think are second to none. You know, that's a challenge with this type of shield. If you play a special this summertime in an indoor rink, there's a lot of humidity. And if you don't have a good product, it's going to fog on you. And that, that doesn't end so well. So, and I'm looking at your site and these are not crazy expensive. I mean, some of them are 50 bucks, 79, 80 bucks. You're, so you, you mentioned that you were in the industry, you focused on, on optics. Is this

35:03Your full-time job now, what you're doing at Hockey Ninja? Right now, Hockey Ninja is a side hustle. That's something I think I have in common with Chris. I know for a long time, even into the seven figures, that you were still working your job at GE. And I think that was kind of a relief to hear because sometimes I feel like maybe not a true entrepreneur because I haven't gone out of a limb and just kind of thrown caution to the wind and gone down that path. But I actually still love my full-time job. But Hockey Ninja is my baby and I want to grow this thing.

35:32Awesome. Okay. Before we dive in further, what's your question for us? Being that it is a side hustle and my time is somewhat limited. Do I go down that path of leaning heavily into social media, which we've talked about, you guys have talked about a lot on the show already, but you know, that's not my forte or...

35:50because we recently received NHL clearance on several of our products, do I go down that path and go after those equipment managers and those teams and try to grow that side of the business and maybe get a player involved? Okay, interesting. Before I forget, what are you guys doing in sales, roughly? So right now we're averaging around 250k. We've gone as high as 400 and that's kind of leveled out a little bit. But I think we can easily do a 10x or more if we get the right formula.

36:17All right, Chris, I want to bring you in. Derek is trying to figure out, you know, at this point, do social media, do the focus on social media, do the work with a player or some kind of hockey influencer.

36:30And also, like you, I mean, I still think about the story, but you sit on an airplane, and you're like a medical sales device guy, and you're with your colleagues, and they open up the airplane magazine, and there you are in an ad for untuck, and they're like, dude, what are you doing in my airplane magazine? I love that story, it's so funny. So you were doing, you were like burning the candle, right, at both ends for a long time. So you can probably relate to Derek in a sense on this. Oh yeah, Derek, congratulations. Nice to meet you. Let me ask you a question.

37:00Have any professional players ever worn this product? Right now, there are not any NHL players. We just got clearance. And so I didn't want to approach equipment managers in the middle of the playoffs. They've got so much going on. Those guys never sleep. And so we were kind of waiting for the right time. There is an equipment managers conference coming up here shortly that we've been to before, but wasn't as fruitful as we'd hoped because we didn't have clearance yet. We had a player.

37:26maybe seven or eight years ago, pre-COVID, we had a player all lined up and we didn't have the clearance. And so that's kind of where we are right now. I think with equipment, you got to get it on guys. That's just my quick thought. Because if my son was 17 and you're like, hey, give it to your son, I'd be like, who's wearing it? You know, because it's safe around safety. So it's really important. So do you have any money to...

37:48to pay to pay someone or what what's your like yeah we do have a budget for that and originally we did find a player and actually our whole thing was we were going to lease them a Range Rover that was that was going to be our our payment to them they were going to get a nice car out of it we had a two-year deal lined up and that's kind of where we were and I don't know that that wouldn't be a great idea now but you tell me well the first thing is if you do bring on a player you're going to still need a budget to market it right because you're going to use him in your ads, right? He's not just gonna miraculously make the product sell. So you gotta look at it like that. I mean, we do this all the time. We're just running a great ad with Garrett Cole right now. Jacob Truba from the Rangers is also doing something. Brock Bowers from the Raiders. So I'm very familiar with it. Yeah. The other thing I want to say was that

38:39I don't know this sector, right, this category, but if there are competitors out there, it seems like your advantages are significant. You did a lot of work in optics, as you mentioned, so you've got that credibility. It sounds like you're bringing in really high quality. I mean, if it's used on outies and Porsches, the same material, and people are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for those cars, and now you're using it in the visors, to me, that means something. I mean, these are premium materials.

39:06you know, if I had to pick between, you know, social media or whatever, and then onto a human, I would definitely choose the human. And not necessarily, I mean, Garrett Cole is still an amazing pitcher, even though, you know, he's like 30, 34, 35. He's probably expensive for you guys, I imagine Chris. But so I wouldn't go to NHL Stars, right? I would go for maybe, you know, you mentioned equipment managers, but maybe kind of a player who's just Not that well known, right? You know, there are plenty of players in the NHL who are, they're not getting the same kinds of endorsement deals, but still might get some playing time. And because you want to see it, I agree with Chris, you want to see it on the player, but of course you want to be very strategic about

39:53How many dollars you put behind that? Sure. We do have some ends in that space. Like right now, we're the main visor sponsor for a pro three on three league, which this summer there's a World Cup in Europe, which we will see some former NHL players wearing our product. There's also the US season that's about to kick off that will have some pretty high end players, not NHL, but you know, some fairly well known players and they'll all be wearing our brand. There's another.

40:18If you're telling me that all players wear them and that yours is better than what they're wearing now if those two things are true then I might even go a totally different route and Go to someone big and give them 25% of the company you're gonna say no way Well, no I'd be open to that and that mean if you can convince them if Jack Hughes was sitting right here and Jack Q's and I had him here with me and I said, you got to try this thing. It is better than what you're wearing. He puts it on, he's like, by the way, even if it's equal, I'll throw that aside. But if it's better and he's like, this is awesome, I need it. You want 25% of the company and I'll give you a 50 grant or whatever you can afford. And maybe we can bring his brothers in too. Yeah. Yeah, but that's my, like my buddy had a cooling spray and he was almost, almost did a deal with Venus Williams or Serena who wanted 50% and I was like, give her 80%. Like that, once you,

41:12It's just because the products that like a shirt does that doesn't work a product that you're using people really believe Jack Q's a skating in that and starts to promote it amongst his friends and is it that that? So there's I think guys point is one way you go about a bunch you get a bunch of of guys who are and by the NHL you're in a great place They're not expensive anyway, right? They're just not that you have to pay them compared to these other guys You go to you go to guys who are maybe you know the third fourth line, you can get them for nothing. That's one route. The other route is you've got one guy, you give him equity and he is now part of your brand and he's going to promote it because he thinks this brand can grow to a $30 million business or whatever number you think can grow to. That's great advice. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I love that. And then down the road, you know, who knows? Maybe baseball will require advisors for matters at some point. You know, you never know. Well, it's true. You can transition that into anything. Ski goggle, like if you're good at that,

42:09thing that you do, then that's how you grow it even further. Yeah. The brand is called Hockey Ninja Derek. Thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thank you guys. Take care. Yeah. Thank you. Good luck, Derek. Chris, before I let you go, a question that I've been asking everybody who comes back on the show, which is if you could go back to when you started this, like knowing what you now know now and all the experience you have as an operator and as a leader, what advice do you think would have been helpful? What do you wish you would have known?

42:38back when you started building on Tucket, that might have been helpful for you. All this stuff is really hard. Really, really hard. And listen, it's still going wrong. A lot of things for me. You just can't get upset about it. You can't get down about it. You can't get depressed about it. You got to just kind of keep moving forward. You're going to have all the advice we just gave.

43:01to implement all that is really challenging. I know they're going to hang up all these people like I used to do and be like, love the idea, but how am I going to do that? What do I do? Where do I go? How do I, you just got to find a way and realize that it's not going to be easy. You might go spend that money on marketing and lose the seven grand you just raised. Well, you got to figure something else out. I put myself through so much pain and worry and depression because of things going wrong.

43:28And now with the new brand, I kind of just shake it off. Like, okay, I was waiting for something like that to happen. So I just wish I enjoyed the journey more, like what all of these guys are doing. I mean, I love this, like these are the, just to get to the point where all these guys who we just talked to are at, that's admirable number one in your way ahead of 99% of the rest of the world. So if you fail even, go to the next idea because you clearly have what it takes if you've gotten this far.

43:55It's Chris Riccobono, founder of Untitled Chris. Thanks so much for coming back out of the show. Thank you guys, really appreciate it. And by the way, if you haven't heard Chris's original How I Built This episode, you gotta go back and check it out. It's such a good episode. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. Tell me about that first batch of inventory, because I mean, you save it.

44:19The shirts were terrible, which is shocking. I mean, I don't... When it comes off the boat in New York, you open the boxes and what? You see right away that they're not good? Well, actually, when people started wearing them and saying that they now used it for a rag for their car, that's when it really... But you know what's funny? You know what's funny? I didn't... We thought through it and said, you know what? We'll one day get them back. We'll keep a list of those people. And I'm gonna lose X amount of customers. I mean, you didn't have a choice.

44:48This is entrepreneurialism. You just have to survive. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at GuyRoz.com or on Substack.

45:03And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibt.id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Mussini with music composed by Remtine Arableui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was An Li Huang. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estevez, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Kerry Thompson, Sam Paulson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raaz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

46:04One more mention for our presenting sponsor, Anthropic. Claude is built for people who like to keep pulling on the thread, the research, the planning, the questions, the follow-through, until the work starts to make sense. So try Claude for the next problem worth solving.