The Ledger
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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 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…”
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 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.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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 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 …”