YouSaid · the spoken record

Steve Holmes

lines on the record: 73
first: 2025-05-29
most recent: 2025-05-29
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

“Coates, JC Howard, Catherine Cypher, Carrie Thompson, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Ros and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at h-id at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtin Era Bluy. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Gilly Moon. Our production team at How I Built This also includes Alex Chung, Carla Estavez, Casey Herman, Chris Massini, Ellen.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I decided to invest in some fundamental research, and I wanted to ask myself one question. Did any retailer in America believe that trampolines were dangerous and so dangerous that they wouldn't sell them? The answer was yes, and that was Costco. The CEO of Costco was a man named Jim Senegal, and Jim said, I will not sell trampolines. And so I made it my mission to try and sell Costco Trambling.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And by the way, if you haven't heard Steve's original I Built This episode with Dr. Keith Alexander, you've got to go back and check it out. We will put a link to it in the podcast show notes. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I love it. I love it. That spring-free trampling founder and chief activity officer Steve Holmes. Steve, thanks so much for coming on the show.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I'm going to tell you two things. One is it took me about 20 years before I started keeping this black book. And the reason is that what I'm going to tell you is. You may think you can remember everything you can't. Write everything you learn down. That's number one because you can't remember the things you've learned and you, things you've experienced. So write it down and keep it with you. But the most important thing I would say to my young self, be honest with yourself and honest with others regardless of the consequences you may perceive because most of the time you perceive consequences truthfully that never materialize and you should have actually just come clean to yourself and to others because in entrepreneurs you know we've got young guys who you know they got an inventory issue and they don't really want to tell somebody but I'm just saying you know the reality is make sure you're honest with yourself because that's the only way you won't get yourself in trouble”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You've given some great advice today, a really great advice about purpose and about the why. And if you could go back and give the young Steve Holmes some advice now, knowing what you know, what would have been helpful for you to know?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I live with cancer. I have cancer. I have a number of active nodules. They are slow growing, but they seem to re-resistant to most other things. And occasionally, they impede behaviors. And so recently I had to have my low back to me and lost the top part of my right lung. But otherwise, I feel great. I do. I feel great. And I think I've shared with you many, many times. Today is the best day of the rest of my life. And this moment with these entrepreneurs has been a great joy. It's been a really a good, fun time for me. And so when you live in those moments, hey, it is, we are all blessed. We can find reasons to complain, but we are all blessed.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Steve, you mentioned something I thought was really important, which was to take care of yourself. And I would be remiss to say that you have you're a survivor of cancer. I mean, you've been battling it and living with it for over a decade and going strong. You look great. Tell me a little bit about how you're feeling and how your health is these days.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Here's my last piece of advice. Okay. So you're doing it all alone. So congratulations. Take care of yourself. You know, one of the hardest parts about being an entrepreneur is, and it's about passion and it's about hard work and all of those things. But we've heard hundreds of guys guest. And what I would say is make sure you don't forget to take care of yourself.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Have a club, have a club that gets your newsletter that's committed to buying a wine club where you're buying a case every quarter, they're committed to buying it, but they also get first dibs on these new... Unusual flavors.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But making sure that your existing customers are, as Steve said, buying more. Could you create a club where every month, not just a club, but these are you're going to be your column your brain trust. These are the people who are going to try your experiments. Maybe you come up with some super weird flavors. Maybe you come up with a, I mean, just all plantains, all kinds of things right in there.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, and to kind of double down on that, I mean, a lot of businesses, especially in the early stages, focus too much on customer, well, not too much. They focus on customer acquisition, which is the right thing to do. but really as your business begins to mature right and you're you're in a couple years in here now right you're about four years in it's really the repeat customers it's doubling down on your existing customers where you're going to extract the most value it's it's you know to get new customers they're going to come into the store and over time you're going to need new customers but”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, another comment I would make to you just to be careful. And here's Guy and I don't want you to think that we want you to become lint chocolate. I mean, lovely to become lint chocolate. But I think you need to think about geotargeting. You don't want chocolates to be shipped and go bad and you get a bad and get any bad review. So I think it's really critical to find that market segment within you. You're talking about people who come back to your store every two weeks to pick up chocolate. So there's a geotargeting strategy that I think is really, really critical in how you can figure out and maybe, to be honest, I know in your area there's lots of Caribbean restaurants. Maybe that Scotch bonnet should be sitting on the checkout of a Caribbean restaurant. I don't know about you guys, but if I walk out of a Caribbean restaurant, I'd probably buy a chocolate right.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they're actually back kind of back. I mean, they're pretty. They are really back. They're back. That's an interesting idea because you could do whatever you want with that QR code. It could automatically launch your little, you know, you've got a video on your YouTube, a video that tells a story about this chocolate. Maybe you, you know, down the road, you invest a little bit and you show the chocolate being harvested or the farm that you buy it from, if there is a story there. But with a QR code, it can say, put your email in, we'll send you 10% off right away. And not everyone's going to use that 10%, but then you've got the email address. And then you can't, you're directly communicating with people. And you mentioned you have a newsletter. Tell me a little bit about the newsletter. How often are you updating it or writing something?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Says melt in your mouth to win or something. I think if you could figure out how to utilize the QR code in your packaging and tie it to a promotion that captured their SMS or captured their email as guys suggested using that way I remember we rolled out QR codes in 2006 and they died kind of in America, but they didn't die in the rest of the world.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the only reason I say it is this in Canada, weak guy, you may not know this, but you've been to Winnipeg with him. So, you know this. There's a thing called roll up the rim to win. And I say to you, have a QR code”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Let me give you a quick observation. I'm looking at your packaging. It looks great. It's fabulous. One of the questions I would ask is, do you have any space in that packaging to be creative with, I'm going to say a QR code for a moment?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you've got to opt in. And I wonder if there's a way to make it almost automatic. So on the website, it's one thing because you're going to put an email address to get the order. But when you buy it in store, it's a little harder to get people to give their email addresses and phone numbers these days is because people are more wary of it. Could you incentivize them? Like, hey, get 5% off if you give your email address or your phone number. And the reason why I say that is because email and SMS capture is that's the When you use platforms like TikTok or Instagram, you're renting space basically. They kind of own your audience. But when you've got your own email or messages, phone numbers, you own it. You can communicate directly with your customers.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You guys, when you sell, right? Because a viral moment, as Steve said, is really ultimately just about the joy and the moment. And we've done stories where even big brands, like there's a brief spike, but it passes. My question to you is, do you have a way to capture email or telephone cell phone numbers now when people buy the products?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Back in 2007, we were on the Ellen Degeneris show, and I'm going to share with you the number one thing you get out of a viral moment is joy. But you don't build your business off of it. You get joy and you get to always go back and look at it as a joyful moment, but you still got to stay really, really true to those roots and the foundation about how you're going to build, get your product, your chocolate into the channels that you want and into the customer's hands that you want, whether through a direct relationship or whether it's through a channel partner.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, absolutely. Congratulations. I love chocolate. It's probably an impulse purchase. How are you finding your customers? And then I'll come back to the Oprah question. But how are you finding your customers?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so you are on Oprah's favorite things in 2023, and of course, there was a viral moment, but how do you sustain that or take that momentum and turn it into a long-term, more sustainable marketing strategy? Steve Holmes, I want to bring you in fellow Canadian here, Kanisha. Making chocolates not too far from you”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's amazing. All right, before we get to Steve Holmes and bring him in, tell us what your question is or your pain point that you're trying to solve.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And tell me a little bit about how the business is doing. I mean, are you guys sustainable? Are you running into headwinds right now? Are things just seem pretty stable?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, congrats on that. And tell me a little bit about how the business is doing that. I mean, I'm assuming it's mostly direct to consumer through your website.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Slow burn indeed. That Scotch bonnet. So tell me about, and so these are chocolate bars, or do you make chocolate bonbons? Tell me a little bit about the products you have.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All right, so these are chocolate inspired by your Caribbean heritage with like, you said Scotch bonnet, a Scotch bonnet chocolate, like really like a, because that's a spicy pepper.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Steve Holmes. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of course, implementation is a bit more difficult. Cody Johnson, the brand is called Grand Tongo. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Alright, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar. Stay with us, I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raws, and today I'm taking your calls with Steve Holmes. So, Steve, let's get back into it and bring on our next caller.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think if you look at the business model, Canvas as another tool, there's two ways to get to your customers, either a direct relationship or through channel partners. And you need to broaden your channel partners. And now that you've launched and got a target as a channel partner, that is always a great way to leverage. Into other channel partners. You know, you can use that brand to say we're here. This is what we're doing. We can help you and we can do this. And there are chains that now run so many of those airport convenience things. I don't even know them. In Canada, others.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As an extension of your comment there, Guy, I have no idea what, I mean, you've now learned so much about retail you might look really carefully because they have high margins at retail in airports. So it's that last minute thing. And typically when people go to those stores in airports, you know. They're not thinking price, so they're not as price sensitive, but they are thinking, what did I forget? I mean, how many times have you guys been in an airport and said, geez, where's my toothpaste? Three days ago at Bill.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things is that the cycle, the sales cycle for this really starts in January, February. I mean, first of all, people are still going to warm places in the wintertime in North America. They're going to the Caribbean and Mexico. So if there's a way to create some kind of campaign around always have this in your suitcase, or when you're in early spring, you start advertising on Facebook, beat the swarm, get protected before the mosquitoes hatch or something like that, right?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I would say it's a wonderful thing if you look at Chris Zook wrote a book about a prophet beyond your core. You've defined your core. You've got a core retail partner. And then the other thing is looking at new products is always a good thing, but they need to come from your core. You know, what are the things that are really critical? I mean, I don't know what it takes to manufacture your product, but you don't want to be diversifying manufacturing processes too much”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What I would say to you is as you look at your ad spend, that turn off, turn on, the only other alternative you may consider, and I know you probably have, but you're probably got limited resources, is what Gran Tonga has a brand you build that package, you build that shelf space, what is that next product that falls under Grand Tonga?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and that's the environment we're currently living in, the second cycle moving into third, most certainly. We do have that always on approach on Amazon. We just do see a significant uptick during that summertime frame. But when you advertise for big retail, it's a whole nother complex scenario where you're advertising in meta and Google in these different channels. And oftentimes when the demand or the return on ad spend decreases so substantially, you got to flip those ads off because you're running red. So when you're doing big retail, I'm just what I'm finding, you know, and this is my question is like, how do we do it to where it's just we can meet that demand, but always keep an always on approach so that the algorithms and those ads stay optimized so that you can find the best consumer at that time that you need it.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I guess my question for you, Cody, is why does it need to be more than a seasonal product? I mean, there's plenty of products that kill it, Halloween candy, snow gear. I mean, there are pumpkin patches. I just did a whole thing about a very successful pumpkin patch in Nebraska. They're open six weeks a year. I mean, toys. I have a toy line for my kids company in the world. And we make most of our money on those toys between Thanksgiving and a couple weeks before Christmas. So I guess my question is, is there a world where you plan 12 months of the year for four months of profit?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's a good question. We're not exclusive, the ones only using Picaradin, but there is stratification in the category. I would say most of the category and probably 80% of products to date still use active ingredient D, and there's also a small segment on the opposite end of the spectrum, which is a lot use the essential oils. So you have people who want great efficacy, but they trade off toxicity to be able to use that. And then you also have the essential oils that kind of sort of work, but they also don't really work that well and they don't have firm claims. So where we sit, even though Picaridin's not exclusive to us, there's still significant room for us to run with and educate on this active ingredient. We kind of fit right in the middle. We've got the longest protection time at 12 hours on the market, but we've also got more of like a cleaner feel better for you kind of story about the active ingredient.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, my question's really this is considering my product category that it's insect repellent, it's bug spray, how do I build a sustainable business with an effective advertising engine with a highly seasonal product? We see a super strong demand during the summer time frame and then the demand tips down towards September.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I will share. The first year we did really small. We only launched an soft launch of just doing a thousand of each SKU, so like 5,000 units. So that was itty bitty, teeny tiny. We really just validated the product on Amazon and became an Amazon's choice product because that's when we felt like we had like product market fit. And then the second year, we were capable of scaling up to meet a more substantial MOQ.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started out working in emergency rooms. I used to be an emergency room scribe and used to do trauma research, but most of my career was spent in pharmaceuticals and working in medical devices. So I just really became cognizant of the health factor and cognizant of what we put on our skin and the ingredients and the chemicals that we use. So that's kind of like my niche is in the health field.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's inspired, so it's not necessarily a biomolecule, but it is clear and it's odorless, and it has a nice consumer feel and experience. And more than anything, it's got a long protection time. So it protects you for 12 hours.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I really just became an expert in the space by digging and asking questions and looking in the EPA database and what was available, what other countries are using. I used something that they had used in Germany and I brought it here and used it in my formulation.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am Cody. I'm super paranoid about ticks and Lyme disease. And even I'm in California, it's less common. And I do use that deet spray, but I hate it because I'm always like, this is not, I'm not sure about this. And so this is exciting. Tell me a little bit about how you got into the bug spray business.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a pleasure to be here with you. Cody, welcome to the show Grand Tongo. This is a mosquito repellent that is Deet Free. Diet is that harsh chemical, very effective at keeping ticks and other bugs off your body. But a lot of people are nervous about using it because of its potential toxicity. You have created or you formulated a new deat-free repellent?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hello, welcome to the advice line. You are on with Steve Holmes, founder of Springfree Trampoline. Welcome. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's an art, it's an art and a science, in fact. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Ros, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Ros, and my guest today is Steve Holmes, the founder of Spring Free Trampoline. Steve, let's take another call.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the scary part for me there was the word consignment, you know, like because you can get a sizing or an item that'll sit up that'll sit on that shelf for a long, long time because there's nobody moving it and you've got your cost stuck in there. I mean, you can inventory manage could be at the smallest level and it can be at the biggest level. But if you ignore it, if you ignore it, it can be the detriment of you.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, we did a story on the show, Steve, a couple years ago, about Zoomies, you know, that skatewear shop in the mall. And the secret to the success of that store is inventory management. They're just obsessive about inventory management. And so it's like I don't say tricks, but tricks like that can make or break an apparel business, for sure.”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I'm going to go back to what Guy said earlier, go back to values, get those values right, get that existence right. And then look at it and make sure you clearly identify your customer segments. So guys just identified a segment that I wouldn't have thought of, you know, which is basically anybody who's a Bills fan in Buffalo. So look at those segments really, really carefully and then ask yourself two questions. Do I need a channel to get at that segment or can I build a direct relationship? So once again, do you have a brand partner that actually has the ability to extend a relationship with a large customer segment and that may be very powerful?”
2025-05-29 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT