The Exchanges

Q So I guess from what I understand, you were really landing, kept landing on this idea of like, could I make a different kind of bicycle? Could we sell like a bicycle that didn't require a whole lot of maintenance?

A Yeah, that's right. So, I was trying to take my experience of working in a bike shop, working for a bike manufacturer, and when you're in that world, you're most excited about the high-end bikes. You're excited about the carbon fiber, the titanium, the full suspension, and when I left the bike industry, my The way I used a bike changed. I wasn't riding 5000 dollar bikes off-road. I was riding 300 dollar bikes on the road, and so were my friends. And so I started to think about, what do my friends need? Well, I go to their house and I have to tune their bikes every time Before we go for a ride. And, you know, the bike needs to be reliable so people aren't getting flat tires, and they're not ruining their pants as they ride, uh, you know, with their, their pants getting stuck in the chain. I started to just think about all these really simple creature comforts. And I also started to bring in my experience of software. And back then in, in 2014, there wasn't a lot of bicycles being sold online. And those that are, were pretty low quality. So I thought, gee, if we could bring something to market that's a bike shop quality bike, that's really reliable, really long lasting, that maybe that'll, that'll resonate with people.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, that's right. So, I was trying to take my experience”

Q biking on this trip with my kids overseas, like, we went up, you know, we climbed incredible elevation, you know, we just, I could not have done that on a regular bike. Um, do you think that most bikes will be e-bikes in 20 years from now, or do you think that it's still gonna be, you know, I don't know, maybe a smaller percentage of overall bikes, bike sales?

A E-bikes are quickly becoming 50% of the sales in the bicycle industry. And I think that's going to continue to grow. When you go door to door to your neighbor's guy, everybody has a bike, but not everybody has an e-bike. And the people that do swear by them, uh, certainly my family, we ride much further and we use bikes instead of cars. Because we have e-bikes, and we can get where we're going without breaking a sweat, and we get there fast, and we get there by taking in the world around us. I, I think that e-bikes are going to continue to rapidly grow because they're better for, for the person riding it than, than certainly driving a car, and, and in comparison to a regular bike, you can just go further. You can use more energy if you want to. You can use less. At the same time, e-bikes are evolving. The technology is growing so fast that the people that bought an e-bike five years ago love it, but then they get on a new e-bike, and they're like, wow, the innovation is tremendous, and I think e-bikes are going to be a big part of the sales in the bicycle industry.

AI assessment note: “E-bikes are quickly becoming 50% of the sales in the bicycle industry.”

Q do you think about positioning your business? You mentioned that you're not keeping too much stock, too much inventory, which is critical, right? Especially in retail business. Uh, but also, uh, You've got to make other choices and decisions. So what are some things that priority is doing, not just to, you know, to, to secure its business in the, for the future, but also to prepare for potential headwinds?

A We've been trying to fill white space. You know, our sales have been really steady, but that's because we continue to innovate and put out new products. We were constantly looking at the light white space in the bicycle industry and say, where can we bring a low maintenance bicycle? That'll be a best-in-class value that consumers will look at and say, if I need a bike, that one is special, and I want to buy that one. So we continue to innovate. We have several new models already this year, and several of our best yet to come this year, uh, because innovation is the only way that we can gain market share in a market that is declining right now.

AI assessment note: “innovation is the only way that we can gain market share in a market that is declining”

Q people might say yes, in that case, if you can afford. To do that, right? I mean, that, that, to me, lifestyle is, is definitely an important consideration when you're thinking about what to do with your business, right? I mean, Dave, you, I think you have figured out how to manage that in a way that enables you to also be a parent and a dad and be present.

A Yeah, that's a great point, Guy. When we started Priority, I was working every night, every weekend, and, and, To Alex, uh, you know, to what you're doing, making sure everything was perfect. It took until we got to a larger size that I could start to really hire the people that could take things off my plate and that I could say, I'm not going to micromanage this. I'm going to let them run with this. I hired the right people. They know what to do. And I'm going to monitor the data the way that the guy is saying you need to set up the data and And make sure it works and then monitor the data and hire the right people to do it. It sounds like you have a really successful event planning business. You need to, if you want to grow the other side of the product business, you got to find a way financially to hire the right person or people or, or promote the right person or people to, to do that work so that you can focus on the, the next version of the business. And at the same time, finding the important time to be a parent.

AI assessment note: “It took until we got to a larger size that I could start to really hire”