YouSaid · the spoken record

Gary Erickson

lines on the record
74
first
2024-12-05
most recent
2024-12-05
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1
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podcast

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  1. “People need to understand Because the majority of people are going to buy it because they look good and they're functional, not because they're recycled.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “I think that's a key point, Gary, is that there will be some consumers who are attracted to the story and the recycled aspect of it, but I think most people are going to warn about the function. They're going to want to know why this is better. And I think that having Athlete having an Alex Honold or an outdoor person, somebody or a Michaela Schiffrin wearing the ski goggles. They're probably already sponsored. But you think about the shoe brand on, which we're going to tell that story in the show. Roger Federer supercharged that brand because all of a sudden Roger Federer is wearing ons and people like, what is that? Roger Federer, they must be amazing.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “It doesn't get better in that. And so I 100%, without having to go on and on about it, yes, we've always had athletes from day one. Endorsing our product. And they're super legit. They're not just celebrities who look good, and they could choose anything. But these people used our product for function and for quality and believing in our story.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “It was in our mix always. And we still have world-class athletes with cliff bar stickers on their helmets and like ski racing. You're into skiing because I saw your goggles. You know, Bryce Bennett, who won a World Cup race this year, gets in the start line, and you see this big red sticker, and then he crosses the finish line, and he wins, and he literally points to the cliff bar sticker on his helmet, like holy crap, that is worth so much.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “You know, it's kind of cool is like you could have, you could basically take a competitor sunglasses and just show a pile of plastic and say this becomes this.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “You took the words out of my story. Sorry. Sorry. No, I'm glad you did because people don't realize that sometimes... It might be what you want. And so I think people are afraid to attack competition. So, you know, my question back to you would be like, do you pick the number one competitor that you can grab? Or do you do them all together? And do you go after them and create a super aggressive campaign that gets you PR? Because back then there was no PR per se. But it was usually, oh, in a retail magazine or a trade magazine, you know, Cliffbar gets sued by PowerBar. We're like, thank you. And guy's right. Like then all these bike shops are like, well, let's just try it. I mean, gosh, and they did. And we had 700 accounts in like months. And our goal, this sounds very aggressive, but our goal is to put them out of business. And for the first 10 to 15 years, our people were like, we are going to just go after their market share everywhere we could.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “They sued you guys, but that lawsuit actually was A blessing in disguise, right, Gary, because it got you all this attention.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “No boy, this tough one has changed over the last 30 years. It's changed so much. I'll start with our story. You know, in 1992, it was really only PowerBar. And a few bars had come out during that time, but they were kind of like, they took the power bar ingredients and they added a little more vanilla or they, you know, a little more peanut butter or something, we created a completely different product. Okay. You're kind of like that and you're kind of not like you're there's so many sunglass companies. I don't have to tell you. And there's some beautiful designs out there in all these companies. But what is the difference? And we had this radically, we had to educate people that it is an energy bar. It just tastes better. And so we sampled a lot, which was instant sale. But you can't get to everybody. So we did some print ads and we did a print ad called It's Your Body You Decide.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “So, your question was about breaking through, right? And your question for Gary is, why should somebody at Cliff Bar versus a competitor snack, which you're trying to figure out how do we get people to get educated on what we're offering? Gary, where would you even start?”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “It's a really interesting idea because you're a vertically integrated business from the get-go. I mean, you manufacture your own material, and then you make your own products. And essentially what you're saying is by showing how it can be used at your products, the hope is that other brands will just buy stoked plastics, you will continue to make sunglasses and ski goggles, but really it's the plastic material that you like everyone to use.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Okay, so just to be clear, you've got stoked plastics, which is the technology company that makes this recycled material, and then you create a separate brand called Opolis, which makes sunglasses and ski goggles using the stoked plastics technology.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “All right, we're going to get to your question and to Gary's answers in a moment. But if you don't mind, indulge me, I have some questions for you first. Sure. So your company is called Stoked Plastics, and you basically use recycled plastics to make things like sunglasses and ski goggles. Is that right?”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “All right, let's go. First caller on the line. I think it's James. James E there. James, introduce yourself, tell us what the name of your business is, and where you live.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Have to have that foundation first, and then from there you go out. If you're going to try to go mass market, You'd have to have so much funding to be able to do that. And chances are it's not going to work because you've got to build that base.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “And what started out with a small group of people, cyclists, triathletes, clamors eventually became a mass consumer product with moms and kids and people on the go and people going to the gym and people just getting some energy. But it really is interesting because so I think a lot of really great products start that way. They find a small, narrow group of people who love it. And then from there, that group helps to grow it out into something bigger.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “It was the path to success, for sure. Many ways to say that, but that's how I feel right now. I think the two sports that I was deeply involved in were, well, three actually, cycling. I did some triathlons before that. And then I was climbed since at that point I was about into 20 years of climbing. And so I went to each of those groups and would just pass out bars. And I knew I had a tiger by the tail when I was able to go to multiple either climbing crags or bike races and just literally hand out the bars out of my car. And for free. It's like, take this. And their reaction sold it to me. And then from there on, it was just, as I say, hang on to the reins from year one to, you know, we just, we never did not grow for 30 years”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “And you turned it into one of the biggest energy bar brands on Earth. One of the things that I love about how you started Cliff Barr was that initially you focused on a community of people that you were a part of, which in your case was cyclists. You are an avid cyclist. You go, I know you do these long cycling trips through Europe and Italy multiple times a year. You start up by getting the product into their hands, into cyclists' hands. Was that critical, do you think, to Cliff Barr's eventual success?”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “Which I did before I met my wife. And I'm just so thankful that we escaped that moment and went with the gut reaction and the heart and both of us decided this is what we're going to do. And we did it for 22 more years.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “Yeah, I still have now and then nightmares of what if I would have sold the company in 2000. That was after only eight years in business, which is a long time. But I can't even describe the exponential growth and good things we were able to pull off over the next, what, 22 years. And if we would have sold it, yeah, I probably'd be fine. I'm happy anyway, I'm happy living in a garage like I.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “So, Gary, when you were on the show, you and your partner Kit were still the owners of Cliff Bar at the time, though your employees also owned a significant chunk. And in 2022, after 30 years, you sold it. And I know that in that time, over those 30 years, you guys feel the tons of acquisition offers, and you even had to fight some of them off. And in fact, I think listeners who remember, who heard your episode remember quite an emotional moment in our conversation when you talked about walking away the first time you had an acquisition offer, and you had to come up with a money to buy out your first partner.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Alright, let's get to it. With me this week, one of our very first guests on the show Gary Erickson, founder of Cliff Bar Gary Erickson, welcome back to the show. It's so awesome to have you back.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Hey everyone, it's Guy here. So, our team is taking a little time off for Thanksgiving. So, we're bringing you one from the archives this week. It's the advice line with Cliff Barr founder Gary Erickson. Gary was first on the show way back in 2016, and he told us about how he was trying to make a cookie without butter, sugar, or oil. And the result was Cliff Bar, an energy bar named after his dad. And it became one of the most popular energy bars in the US. So popular, in fact, that Gary later sold cliff bar for nearly three billion dollars in 2022. Gary came back to the show as one of our very first advice line guests earlier this year, and he was the perfect person for this episode. Be sure to stick around to the very end because we have a few updates about some of our callers, but for now, enjoy the show.”

    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

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    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

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    2024-12-05 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Gary Erickson of Clif Bar (May 2024) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT