Solo Stove founders hired their CEO weeks after a LinkedIn message
Spencer Jan · Solo Stove: Spencer and Jeff Jan · Aug 14, 2023 · at 51:00
Solo Stove co-founder Spencer Jan explains how he and his brother Jeff realized their managerial limitations and brought in external executive John Maris.
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“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 oriented. And he was a very energetic guy, really likable guy. And I think it was a matter of weeks. And he was in there taking the bull by the horns.”
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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.”
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.”
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.”