The (sorta) start of a niche business Journey
Opening an odd family business with my cousin Mike
January started with freezing temps in Colorado and a relatively great snowpack that encouraged me to get out skiing in the early season more than usual. I had the time, as I recently transitioned out of the world of construction management towards unemployment. January also arrived with thoughts and conversations between myself and Mike about taking our homemade “high-carb” drink to a new level. The more we saw how affordable it was to make this stuff, the more we realized we’d been getting fleeced by nutrition companies for years. Why not start our own then? But with none of the B.S. and price gouging.
So amidst other work, the past 7 months has looked like getting the business (slowly) off the ground! And now I’m stoked that we’re only a couple weeks away from having our product, “Dirtbag High-Carb” launched!! We’ve gone through incorporation, research, testing, branding, ops-development, learning how to build a trash website, and a ton of other phases so far this year and we’re finally at a point of being able to offer something of value to the endurance community that has real value!
I’m considering a few thoughts as we crest the hill into a new stage of this little business project:
JUST START
I have spent so much time dreaming about different goals or ideas or challenges that have interested me through the years. My past is well littered with those very things that never evolved to anything more than theoretical. The distinguishing factor of Mike and I’s little “dirtbag” project has been this: we had the idea, and we immediately began with the simplest first steps. Sometimes my big goals like “starting a business”, “climbing that one peak”, “traveling that super long distance on a bike”, “showing up in my community in a meaningful way” seem too large and arbitrary. We chose to break down the initial steps to the most easily attainable goals (in our case researching cost of production of our specific product) and JUST STARTED.
DOING BUSINESS WITH GOOD FRIENDS IS UNDERRATED
Mike is the best. We’re cousins, he’s one of my best friends, we live super close to each other. And often people say it’s foolish for us to do business with family. We’ve found the opposite thus far. It’s actually an amazing excuse to spend even more time with someone you care for deeply and an awesome way to take on a challenge with someone who’s good company. To me, I feel as if doing business with friends is potentially the best move for Mike and I. We have years of trust, honed communication, and we know how to have fun together and not be overly “businessy”. We can call one another on our crap.
Granted, we made sure to create contracts, agreements, work expectations, etc. There’s a lot in writing and signed and that’s been good structure for our business relationship as well. All in all though, doing business with friends might be the META.
I DIDN’T HAVE TO QUIT EVERYTHING I WAS DOING TO START A BUSINESS.
I feel like I’ve always had this notion that I’d have to go “all in” while pursuing some business venture. Thrust all my chips into the pot, close my eyes, and cross my fingers that my hard work would pay off. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by contentment in a different approach taken.
Both Mike and I still have jobs and work on this on the side with the extra time we have. Mike is an amazing counselor and has a private practice and I currently work at a cafe down the street from my house trying to convince people to not buy pour-overs. We are both working a good amount of hours at our primary jobs and find time in the margin to invest in “dirtbag”. The pressure feels so off, there doesn’t seem to be a clock ticking against us, and so far the business has just felt fun. I highly recommend the side hustle approach, it’s been a blast for us.
MAKE SOMETHING YOUR PROUD OF, NOT SOMETHING THAT IS SURE TO MAKE $$$
I don’t think selling carbohydrates would be our first choice if Mike and I wanted to make money, we’d probably have just relocated to TX and joined some oil and gas cult. What I’m convinced has been and will be a good heading for us to follow is this: Let’s make a product and more importantly a business that we’re proud to be a part of, particularly in the way we treat people we buy from and sell to. Let’s have fun doing it. Let’s build a business which, if scaled, would be a life-giving work place to anyone we’d call co-workers. That seems more fun to me that making business that lacks heart but makes good money. It’s served our decision making so far and hopefully will continue too.
Check us out, sign up for the dirtbag email, maybe even buy some if you’re an athlete and don’t want to get scammed by bigger nutrition companies. https://dirtbaghydration.com/