YouSaid · the spoken record

Chris Ruter

lines on the record: 48
first: 2024-11-21
most recent: 2024-11-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We actually didn't set a number. We kind of just said invest whatever you're comfortable losing because chances are very good that you're going to lose it.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That time I had no idea how much it was going to cost to manufacture. I had no idea how much to make a website. Back then, all websites were hand-coded, so they were really expensive to make packaging, marketing, et cetera.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you, Nigel. Chris, before I let you go, a question I ask a lot of people who come on to join me on the advice what do you wish you knew at the beginning of starting your business that you now know that would have been helpful for you?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's kids in South Dakota wearing quicksilver and all sorts of other surf brands that aren't within a thousand miles of an ocean, but they just love that culture Is there a fashion designer you could work with that could learn your vibe, your brand, everything? And is that a new channel? I'm assuming you had t-shirts and hoodies and stuff. Could you multiply that times 100 and really run with that? I don't know. That kind of excites me.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, okay. One point and one, I guess, thing to consider. I loved how you mentioned earlier the surfboard lockers. I'd never heard of such a thing, but man, that sounds cool. Yeah. If you think of the when the store was open, what parts of it worked really well and what parts didn't, I'm assuming you've already thought of all this, but obviously whatever didn't work, okay, maybe trim that, but is there a way to expand the lockers? I don't know if that's a money maker or not, but I love it. I love the vibe that you describe the shop also, you know, people with sandy feet walking in, music playing, Bob Marley, like that seems very unique. For the surf culture and New York being one of the fashion hubs of the world, where my mind is going is merch and apparel.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guessing there's a lot of gold in this community. And if you start asking questions, it sounds like they'd love to help you out.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, maybe able to buy a chunk of the company. You're asking about finances. Is there a CFO that works for some other company but loves your store that would be your wingman or wingwoman to kind of help you”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love that you have a partner like Paragon. Our product has been in Paragon for years, and they are fantastic. I so love that store. If you've never been, it's this quirky, massive sporting goods store in Manhattan. And what you have is, I think, what most brands would kill for you have people asking for the product, essentially your store. You're down, they're rallying around you, and this comeback is not this like fabricated thing that a fancy ad campaign brings you back. It's going to be the will of the people. So, I think the big question going through my mind is how can you leverage this group of people that want you to come back one area my mind goes to financially? So is there a Kickstarter or something that you get started? Or is it a private conversation with a few of these folks that become shareholders?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, so I could do a couple episodes of just the last couple years what we've been going through and holy smokes is it's hard and not everybody is cut out to be an entrepreneur. So I applaud you for giving a shot and seemingly you're dusting yourself off and saying I'm gonna try it again. That's incredible.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, a lot of big shows and media you'll see, you'll only hear the positive. And oh, our growth chart was nothing but up and to the right the entire time. That's BS. That's BS.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I also think there's value in seeing if you can just meet somebody face to face if one of these store owners locally would be willing to meet with you just to see you and to understand your passion and that you're legit, you're a runner. You're not like some You know, dilettante coming into this is your passion, and this is a problem that you are solving for yourself and you believe for other runners. And I think there's a lot of value in just trying to go one start at a time in person, at least initially.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Into it. It wasn't Chris Ruter trying to tell them the story that this was an amazing thing. There was all this outside validation on social media and elsewhere proving that the world is into this. The more of that you can get, the easier it will be to get into stores.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We weren't in any stores for our first five years 100% spikeball.com. For us, we were so focused on building the brand, building the community and building sales at spikeball.com. Eventually all the stores called us. When Dick Sporting Goods reached out and said we'd like to carry your product, I thought it was a joke or somebody messing with me. Same thing when Walmart did it, when Target did it, and all sorts of these small mom and pop toy shops and sporting goods stores. So from what I understand, that's not normal. But man, did it work for us? Because I think if I would have called them in the early days, they would have said, what is this trampoline? Nobody knows what it is. And I think what resulted in them calling us, they saw this sort of cult-like following. They saw this quirky thing that people were.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I've reached out to probably half of the running stores in the United States, and there's been some good reception on some of my smaller products. But yeah, I guess the question would be is like, you know, any kind of tips in getting into these stores that may not initially show interest?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree. I also think that, and Cindy, you probably already thought of this, but I do think that. Runners are a tribe, a really passionate tribe, as you know, you're a runner yourself. And I feel like to get to that tribe, you've got to be in the shops too. You've got to be able to get into those shops. And many of these shops are independently owned. The proprietor is in there. They're interested in showcasing things that are going to be interesting to their customers. And I would really, you're in Boston, I imagine they're amazing running stores there. Have you gone to any of them?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Shoe carrier. I mean, my God, any place that has cleats running shoes, whatever, can you make a different version for each sport? And I think as long as you're making something that where you've identified a need. And you're not like, oh, I think this could be cool. I'll just do it because I like it. In my experience, identify needs that other people have or a problem that you think you can solve. And run straight in that direction.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was just in Chicago recently, and it was a few days after the marathon, and seeing the amount of people walking around with branded gear. It was even like four or five days after the race, and people were still wearing it. I was seeing it everywhere. Just like you go to a concert and you have no problem spending $50 on a t-shirt because it's this special event. I think like people are in a different frame of mind wheren these events, especially when it's a massive thing like a marathon. So can you do more on site sales there? Or maybe go there and witness with a pen and a paper, like what other product ideas can you get? That would be my version of going deep. And then the wide is what other events have Or like the name kit. I think of mountain bike races.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I would, I don't want to say go deep and wide, but I guess as you're still in the early days and exploring, I think that's probably the route. So one, how many marathon runners are there in the US, let alone worldwide? But I'd say start in the U.S. I'm assuming it's massive.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Chris, as somebody who cultivated these niche groups, you know, found out who's buying a church youth groups, and you're like, well, let's lean into that. And PE teachers, let's lean into that. I mean, right now we're thinking about runners because Cindy's a runner. But there's got to be other folks you should be targeting”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. And the other trend that I'm trying to hop on is that their grocery bags are being banned from stores and most people put them in grocery bags. But really to be more sustainable and kind of eco-friendly, like a reusable travel shoe bag makes a lot of sense.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, this is actually not an uncommon problem. I would say this in a focus group of one, namely me, which is every time I pack and travel, I'm like, oh, do I put my shoes this way? I don't want the bottom of my shoes touching my clothes. So how do I pack them? And I know people listening to this right now are picturing this because they're going through the same thing. You're packing your suitcase and you're like, I don't want the bottom of my shoes, that sticky gum or dirt on them to touch my clothing. So I'm going to angle them like this, but a shoe bag, a proper shoe bag that would still give me room in my suitcase, that makes a lot of sense.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I do see there's potential there, and it's also a bigger market opportunity, right? There's not a ton of marathoners out there who are running major marathons, but everybody has shoes, like even non-runners, like travel with sneakers and things like that. But I do see that there's an opportunity for demand and also for gifting.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thank you. Thank you. I'll take it number one, I love it. Can you share a bit on the sales mix? So the vast majority of your sale, the name tag, is it the shoe bag or what's the general breakout there?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Number one, I wish this product was around years ago when I ran the Chicago Marathon because if it were, maybe I would have broken the four-hour mark, which was my goal. I did not, unfortunately. You kn”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, cool. I'm going to bring you in, Chris. You who has created a light up spike ball kit that enables people to play in the dark. So you know a little bit about accessorizing things. Do you have any questions for Cindy before we tackle her question?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Alright, Chris, guy, I really appreciate it. And guy, when I hit 100 million, I have a straight on goal. It's coming back as a come back. We're going to have you back. Okay.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or whatever, like copy their playbook, and I also love Jimmy that you mentioned the employee university thing. I think of McDonald's, you know, their hamburger university. So what is your version of that? And I think step one is, it sounds like you've already started, documenting everything that's working. If you think of that star employee right now, what is it that makes she or he great? Write that down. That is that persona you want to try and multiply throughout your three locations and your fourth, fifth, sixth, then the more you can define that playbook, right? Yeah. The more you can document what's working, I think the better off. Okay.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because if a parent walks into the gym and the culture is even just a little off, it doesn't work at all. So, I guess my anxiety there is if we have franchises, I don't have like a total control over that. Yeah, Chick-fil-A's made at work, right? There's a million franchises that have done it. I understand the sensitivity around being with kids. So if I were in your shoes, I would study as many businesses that have physical locations, multi-location, and work with kids, whether that's a nursery school or jump zones or the inflatable house places”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back into the parkour business. Yeah, I think that's awesome. I think the world of parkour could really benefit from having like a baked-in kind of professional incubator. Jimmy, as you think about your march to 100 million, and I love that you've got that goal. Is it a franchise model you're thinking? Is it corporate owned? Or how do you think about these future locations? Yeah, so I am right before kind of really needing to pick that path, right? Like I see Starbucks has the corporate locations where as I see Chick-fil-A, you know, lets an owner own a single location like you just said, guy. And there's a few different ways to splice it up. I don't know yet. Ideally, we do it all in corporate because it's working with kids. So I want to really make sure that it's safe and effective and has that culture. The culture is so vital.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's like half and half. Some of them, yes, they come in, work for a while, and then leave. And then the most passionate ones stick around for four or five, ten years.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Best friends, honestly. And so it's been a decade since we opened. So many of those friends have like trickled off. A lot of those friends, none of us knew what we were doing, right? So we all had like giant expectations of that. We would be millionaires in six months or less. And when that didn't come to fruition, you know, like a lot of them just aren't around anymore. So it's like as we grow and we get multiple locations, I need managers who get the passion that we want to transform kids' lives so that they see the world as a playground. But also they have the technical chops to manage multi-locations, run HR and train integrity and a culture of high performance into the coaches below them. Like it's on that higher end that it can be tricky, like finding that skill passion balance.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, number one, congrats, Jimmy. This is such a cool concept. The fact that you don't have one, you've got three locations. Like, that's incredible. So you're starting to scale. You're finding what's working, what's not. I love that you didn't give up after the first one didn't quite work. You've got that grit, which is absolutely required. And most importantly, you're getting kids moving and being social and together. Spikeball, that's something we're trying to do as well, but I applaud anybody that is doing that. So that's so cool. On the topic of how to engage employees, is it safe to assume a decent amount of your early employees were already into parkour or kind of knew a decent amount about this before you showed up? Yeah, yeah. And you're totally right to clarify that. I opened the gym with a handful of mice.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. So our parkour gyms thrive on a super passionate team. We need these passionate people to inspire a passion for movement and for play within our students. We have three gyms now. I personally plan on growing this to a hundred million dollar company with a lot of gyms. So my question is how can I invest in my most passionate employees to grow their skills? And how do I scale the recruitment of passionate and skilled people as we continue to open more parkorgium locations?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's like a 3D obstacle course. We have walls, we have different platforms. And it's not like Ninja Warrior, where Ninja Warrior has like bungee cords and weird rotating things. Parkour is actually, it's a martial art, right? It's the martial art of movement just not fighting. So our indoor gyms simulate the outside architecture of like walls and rails and things to jump and land on. And so our indoor parkour course just has all sorts of shapes and heights and things for us, our coaches to train our students. The whole variety of movements that come with parkour.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, a few ways. So I had been coaching a lot of kids doing a lot of private lessons and things. So I had a few thousand dollars from that. I had a job on the side, a few thousand dollars from that. We had a couple people give us some money. We had an original investor give us some money. Our business had one iteration and then it failed and then we reopened. So like there's a little bit of play and how the financing worked out there. But yeah, so a few sources and we were very scrappy with it.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The mayor at the time was like, I don't know what parkour is, never heard of it. Sounds like a liability nightmare. You're best off opening up in the private sector. So, after I went and Googled what private sector mean, I figured out we have to open up our own gym. And then, and I'm 19, so like, then it was a whole hurdle of like business landlords taking me seriously as a 19 year old. They also not knowing what parkour was. How do we find the money for that? It was a whole challenge. But in 2014, by the time I was 21, we were able to open our first gym in Myriada.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, like the urban architecture in different areas provides different opportunities for movement and play, and you can work on balance on those handrails. You can work on climbing over walls, these walls over here. And so, and here's kind of how we got to me opening a gym. It got to the point where I was teaching kids, like parents were paying me to coach their kids one-on-one. And I would take them to just some parks outside. And you probably can imagine that sometimes the local city government didn't like us climbing all over their city hall architecture in the front. So I had a meeting with the mayor at the time. This is when I was 19. I'm 31 now. And I had this adorable presentation on like, here's parkour. You know, I like printed stuff out of my mom's computer. And I was like, let's have a parkour park just like a skate park.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So in high school, when I had first discovered parkour, this is right around when YouTube kind of first came out, so found parkour through that. In high school, we had a parkour club, and it became the largest club on campus at 150 kids. So imagine like a wave of 150 kids coming to climb all over your stuff. It was a lot of fun.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have three gyms currently, one in Marietta, California, Riverside, California, and Loma Linda, which is one of the blue zone cities, so that's kind of a cool mix right there. And we intend on opening many more gyms, so hopefully. I actually live in Oakland, despite my gyms being down there, California. And I hope to have a gym up here soon, too.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Jump It's like Spider Man without the webs. It's like skateboarding without the skateboard. We actually try to distance ourselves from gymnastics pretty heavily, so we're not gymnastics at all. But we take the outdoor environment, the walls, the railings, the parking curbs. And our mission is to transform all of that into a playground.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kristen guy. My name is Jimmy Davidson. I'm calling in from Riverside in Southern California. I'm the founder of Freedom in Motion, where a chain of parkour gyms where we teach kids, teens, and adults the sport of parkour here in our indoor obstacle course gyms.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Designed for more casual play. Yeah, they're not like if you're a hardcore pickleball player, you're going to get a real paddle, of course. But yeah, they're very versatile. And I was just at one of our tournaments this last weekend and watched some of our top players ever just kind of playing off on the side with paddles and laughing and diving. And we're just trying to find new fun ways to use our existing stuff.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And young life is a massive Christian youth group, which, again, you weren't involved with it. It's not like something you came up just kind of came to you. I know that since we've talked, and actually around the time we talked, you were introducing new products like paddles, which I think are interchangeable with pickleball, right? They're paddles that you can use to play spikeball, but you can also use them to play pickleball.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wound up hating it, um, but it was these groups that I never would have thought of in a million years that loved it. And once I did identify those, then I started, you know, getting to know them. Some of them I'd say, hey, would you mind can we get on a call? Like, you know, I've never heard of this thing called Young Life. Like, what is it? And can I learn from you? And oh, by the way, do you have any other friends in that community that I can maybe send a free set or two to? That free product was really critical in the early days of spreading the word”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I saw some people playing there. Or I'm a camp director at a Christian camp or something along those lines. But I ask the question enough times over the years where I was able to identify these themes and these buckets. And I also thought that, you know, when I launched it, I was like, yeah, volleyball players are going to love this game. And that was just what I thought.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. When the first few years of the business, you could only buy a spike ball on spikeball.com. And we had the benefit of I was able to communicate literally with 100% of our customers. I could email them and ask questions. Nearly every single customer I replied saying, hey, thanks for buying Spikeball. I'm going to mail it tonight or tomorrow. It should show up in a few days. By the way, if you don't mind me asking, how did you hear about it? And that's where I heard a lot of people said, oh, I'm a PE teacher and I'm always looking for new games. And new games are ways to engage kids that normally don't engage. Or I'd hear from people say, oh, I was at an ultimate tournament.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Chris, you painstakingly built this brand into a mainstream game, starting with PE teachers, ultimate Frisbee players, Christian youth groups. You aren't connected to any of these groups. You just found that that's where the product was resonating. How did that happen? I mean, and when that happened, how did you lean into those groups?”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's essentially identical to two on two volleyball rather than hitting a ball over the net, you're spiking a ball off a net that looks a lot like a trampoline.”
2024-11-21 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Chris Ruder of Spikeball · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT