Aug 14, 2023 · 1h 1m · how-i-built-this
Solo Stove: Spencer and Jeff Jan
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Brothers Spencer and Jeff Jan recount how their search for a passive lifestyle business led to the creation of Solo Stove, an innovative smokeless fire pit brand. Through clever DIY engineering, strategic supply chain expertise, and building professional executive infrastructure, the brothers scaled their bootstrapped side project into a publicly traded, nine-figure enterprise.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 33.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 1.2 Guest teaching 1.3 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.1
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 23:19 Rejecting the idea of white-labeling off-the-shelf stoves
Spencer firmly dismisses Guy's suggestion that they could have simply sourced an existing stove model, explaining the strategic necessity of proprietary custom tooling.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 23:19 Guy questions why they designed from scratchGuy challenges Spencer on why they went through the complex process of prototyping rather than using existing Chinese manufacturing lines.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 35:31 Spencer reveals Fox Outfitters eclipsed Solo StoveSpencer catches Guy completely by surprise by disclosing that they secretly built a multi-million-dollar commodity brand that initially outsold Solo Stove.
Guy holds their own ▶ 3:36 Guy identifies Elkhart as the RV capitalGuy demonstrates detailed industry familiarity by immediately identifying Elkhart, Indiana as the manufacturing epicenter of American RVs.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Humble Beginning: Interviewing at Starbucks | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Spencer opens with an anecdote about interviewing early employees at Starbucks, followed by Guy Raz's introductory framing of Solo Stove's origins. The tone is purely warm narrative setup without pushback or conflict. | |
| Spencer's Sourcing Career in Shanghai | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about Spencer's early career sourcing RV parts in Shanghai and demonstrates basic industry knowledge about RV manufacturing hubs like Elkhart, Indiana. Spencer shares the difficult emotional experience of laying off his staff during the 2008 recession. | |
| First Online Hustles: Blogging for Profit | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Spencer describes stumbling into blogging after looking up a donut recipe and partnering with Jeff to launch niche blogs. Guy inquires about the mechanics of the blogging courses and AdSense revenue. | |
| SlumberMax: Selling Mattresses to Expats | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Spencer explains discovering a demand for memory foam mattresses among Shanghai expats accustomed to softer beds than local preferences. Guy listens as Spencer details hauling 80-pound mattresses up apartment stairwells by hand. | |
| Launching The Garden Cloche Business | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Jeff explains the concept of garden cloches imported from China and sold via a dedicated website. Guy admits he had never heard of a cloche before, and the guests clarify how the product works as a mini greenhouse. | |
| Fulfillment by Amazon and The 4-Hour Workweek | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The brothers discuss discovering Amazon FBA and applying principles from Tim Ferriss's 'The 4-Hour Workweek' to find non-fragile, high-margin products. Guy prompts them on how they brainstormed product categories. | |
| Engineering the Smokeless Stove Prototype | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy presses on why they didn't just rebrand an existing off-the-shelf stove from a Chinese manufacturer. Spencer explains that no one was manufacturing double-walled gasification stoves, requiring custom tooling. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Sponsor Message | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Following the mid-episode sponsor break, Spencer recounts finding an engineer in China making coffee percolators who was willing to build the complex prototype. Guy asks about initial capital requirements and naming the brand. | |
| Direct-to-Consumer Launch and Explosive Sales | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Spencer describes the explosive 500k-dollar first year on Amazon and the subsequent friction with his day-job employer over his successful side venture. Guy inquires about the fallout and emotional tension with Spencer's boss. | |
| The 2014 Kickstarter Campaign | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Jeff recounts the criteria he and his wife established before he felt secure enough to leave his corporate banking job. Guy explores how the brothers managed growing operations on their own. | |
| Fox Outfitters and The Demands of Growth | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Spencer reveals they launched a second brand, Fox Outfitters, selling commodity camping items that actually generated more revenue than Solo Stove initially. Guy is surprised by the multi-million dollar scale achieved with no full-time staff. | |
| Customer Service Overload and Amazon Headwinds | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Spencer explains how customer service burnout pushed them to consult M&A brokers, who told them their profitable business was not sellable without corporate infrastructure. Guy questions why a brand doing millions in profit wasn't seen as attractive. | |
| Mid-Show Intermission | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Spencer describes liquidating Fox Outfitters to focus exclusively on Solo Stove and successfully landing an unexpected wholesale account with REI via Kickstarter buzz. Guy discusses the significance of retail validation. | |
| Building the Team from Starbucks | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The brothers discuss hiring customer service staff and quickly realizing they needed professional executive leadership, leading to hiring John Maris as CEO. Guy asks about the transition of handing over control. | |
| Unsolicited Nine-Figure Buyout Offers | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Spencer details receiving unsolicited nine-figure buyout offers in 2019 from private equity firms, prompting their initial majority-stake exit. Guy tracks the financial milestones of their first liquidity event. | |
| Pandemic Surge, Secondary Sale, and 2021 IPO | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The guests recount the pandemic surge in backyard leisure products, leading to a secondary private equity buyout at a much higher valuation followed by a 2021 IPO. Guy clarifies their retained equity stakes. | |
| Life After Exit: Family and Personal Fulfillment | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy questions whether Spencer and Jeff will ever return to entrepreneurship given how many wealthy founders stay driven by work. Both brothers express contentment prioritizing their families and church communities. | |
| Attributing Success: Luck, Hard Work, and Faith | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks the classic closing question on the balance between luck and hard work, with Spencer emphasizing luck's role in humility and Jeff pointing to divine providence. Guy concludes the episode with closing credits. |
Statements from this episode (21)
Spencer Jan made $75 from his first year of blogging
“I mean, I think I made 75 dollars of which like 50 never got paid out from commission junction because I didn't meet the threshold of the payout.”
Spencer Jan sourced mattresses for $200 and sold them for $1,000
“Kings mostly you'd buy for about 200 bucks, and I'd sell them for about a thousand dollars US.”
Spencer Jan bought garden cloches for 20 cents, sold for $15.99
“You know, we'd buy these things for 20 cents a piece and bundle them in maybe a pack of five and sell them for, you know, 1599, 1999 and just start selling.”
Jan brothers aimed to build ten $100K niche sites for $1M revenue
“If we could create a site that sold a 100,000 dollars and we repeat those little niche sites 10 times, well, that's a million dollars. And for me, who was making 40, 45,000 dollars a year, that's a big deal.”
Jeff Jan's formula for e-commerce: lightweight, durable, and high-value products
“There's kind of a formula in there with the different types of products that work in an e-commerce type of business. And there was a list in there, and I don't remember everything, but there were definitely things, it was basically something that was, that you…”
White-labeling off-the-shelf products offers zero competitive defensibility
“And if we were able to buy it off the shelf at some manufacturer and they're selling it to other people as well, it would be that, that much, just as easy for the next guy to buy it.”
Spencer and Jeff Jan invested $15,000 for Solo Stove's initial tooling
“I remember it's 15,000 dollars we put in... That was to get the tooling paid for.”
Solo Stove generated about $500,000 in its first year
“The first year was about half a million dollars. In the first year of putting it out there.”
Solo Stove operated at roughly 80% margins in its early days
“The margins were really high. You know, we were in the 80, 80% margins.”
Solo Stove was originally started to achieve a four-hour workweek
“We had this, I had this idea of this four hour work week. That's why we set out to do this.”
Jeff Jan eliminated his household debt before going full-time on Solo Stove
“I kind of had this plan of, well, if we can get rid of all of our debt, it was basically three things. If I could Bring in enough income to allow her to be a stay-at-home mom, and we had, I think, two kids at the time with a third on the way, and we could pay …”
The founders' side brand Fox Outfitters initially outsold Solo Stove
“And we sold more of that than Solo did all the way. I mean, I don't want to say, I mean, I don't remember when we stopped selling Fox, but probably about We were selling more on Fox than we were for Solo. Millions and millions of dollars of Fox stuff.”
Solo Stove and Fox Outfitters reached $3M to $4M revenue by 2016
“I mean, we probably all together, by the time we got to about 2000 16, I mean, just with those two brands, we were probably doing like three, four million dollars with.”
Solo Stove generated up to $10M in revenue as a two-person operation
“Revenue at that time I think was, I mean, between Fox and Solo, I was probably close to about, I want to say like seven-ish million bucks, Jeff.
Is that, do you think that's about right?
Yeah, probably.
Yeah, seven to 10 or somewhere around there.”
Founders liquidated Fox Outfitters for pennies to focus entirely on Solo Stove
“Pennies on the dollar is what we did. We really just said, here's the inventory. We'll give it to you for pennies on the dollar. We got introduced to some good guys in Houston who wanted to have a stab at e-commerce. And we said, Hey, you know, this is an oppo…”
REI agreed to stock Solo Stove via a single email exchange
“It was just one email, very brief email saying that he wanted to carry all of our products and we just replied back. Like there was no meeting. There was no testing. It just went straight into their stores.”
Custom machinery gave Solo Stove high barriers to entry against copycats
“It was hard to gauge, and then the second part of it, it's a very difficult product to
Create.
Because we had invested a lot into custom machinery with our manufacturers and so the barrier to entry was much higher than any other Me Too product that somebody co…”
Solo Stove founders hired their CEO weeks after a LinkedIn message
“We reached out to John over LinkedIn really, and honestly, just to ask about how to build a sales team, and chatting with him, it just felt like, When he left, I kind of looked at Jeff and said, this is a guy that I think could run this thing. Very sales orien…”
Solo Stove reached a mid-nine-figure valuation in its secondary PE transaction
“I mean, it was mind-blowing to me that, you know, from being in the low nine figures, just over a hundred million dollars, to now being well into the mid-nine figures on this next Private equity exit. You know, we would sell less shares than we did the first t…”
Solo Stove's founders did not sell any shares during its 2021 IPO
“We didn't sell any stock at the IPO. That IPO was truly an IPO where new stock was issued. So it wasn't a liquidity event for us.”
Acknowledge luck in business while working as if it does not matter
“You have to realize that it's a part while at the same time working as if it doesn't matter. I think it helps you not pat yourself on the back too hard when things go right, while at the same time not getting too hard on yourself when things don't go right.”