Evaluating: Is This a Good Idea? And What Do I Do with It?

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Of Million Dollar Mastermind. I am back with Travis Rosbach. And Travis has done so many things in his life that mainly by diving in, following his natural curiosity and doing, using the same type approach over and over, which is you follow your instincts of things that excite you, you look for people that are good at it, you ask a lot of questions, and. And then you implement it. So welcome back, Travis.

Thank you, Larry. Good to be here.

The reason the guy at that first trade show in Orlando was surprised when you were asking him questions is that most of the time when you're in a leadership role in an industry or something, people are all the time asking questions and they never do anything with it. And so I joke with my friends about, you know, I, I want to spend my time with somebody who I can tell them one thing and they'll, they'll use it a million times rather than telling somebody spending my time with people that you have to tell them the same idea a million times, and then they never do anything with it. Yeah, you know, it's just like. But you're somebody who, you get the clue and you dive, you know, you go on the attack. And so you get this flask built this water bottle, and then you come back in. And how did you launch it? How many prototypes did you have to do?

Well, so as soon as he said yes to the okay, yeah, we'll try it. We got the molds made and minimum order quantity. The MOQ, I think, was, it was 3,000. And so we committed to 3,000, got packed up everything. We literally sold everything we had. I had a suitcase, she had a suitcase. We moved back home to Bend, Oregon, moved in with my mom into her spare bedroom, and found that we only had enough money for 1500. And so I called and said, hey, you know, I'm sorry, but can we just do 15? And the guy kind of says, well, I don't think I'll ever do anything with the other 1500 because this isn't a very good idea. Nobody's really going to want these bottles, but fine, you know, it's better than none. So I said, you know, we'll see. You know, then the challenge had kind of already started at that point. Where you just make the bottles and I'll sell them. So we got 1500 to begin with.

Yeah. And so now you're back in Oregon and you're sitting on 1500 water bottles that nobody's ever heard of. And at what point did you get convinced this thing was going to work? I mean, these were really cool and really a great solution.

Well, we went up to the Portland Saturday market, which is kind of an outdoor market, kind of a hipp festival up in Portland on Saturdays and Sundays. And I just kind of grew up in Salem going up to Portland and going to the Saturday market. So my idea of selling these bottles was we just go to the Saturday market and sell. We show up and the woman running the market, which we'd already talked to, and we found out, you know, how much it is and everything else, who to talk to, where to go. We show up and she looks at him and she says, no, like, nobody's going to buy these bottles. You can't sell them here. Go out by the railroad tracks, set up your table and good luck with you. So it's like, okay, well, at least we have a place to legally set up our. You know, nobody's going to call the police on us. So we set up the table and started selling the bottles. And it was really hot outside. We put ice cubes inside the night before and wrote on the bottle, you know, 4 o', clock, Friday night, 9 o', clock, 10 o', clock, 11 o', clock, there's still ice on it Saturday morning. And people had never seen such a thing. It was kind of a black magic. They weren't quite certain what was going on or what this technology was. And I think Sunday. So that was Saturday. It was our first day. Sunday, we got our first repeat cell. And the guy came back and he was just ecstatic. He says, look, look, he's showing us there's still ice in it from yesterday. Like, it really does work. And he was so excited at the booth that other people then became excited. They started buying. And I was pretty convinced that we were on to something pretty big.

And so how long did it take you get rid of the 1500? And how, how did, how did you gear up? Let's say.

Yeah, so the 1500. So, okay, so we did. On the weekends, we did the Saturday market. And then during the week we'd come back over to Bend and do the, like, Drake park, munching music or TV or movies in the park or whatever, festivals. We could get into it to set up our little 10 by 10 booth. And the. The Ben Bulletin came and did an article on us for the business section. You know, kind of a slow day in the week in the newspaper. And we were at our second lunch in music when a guy came up and said, hey, I'm a. You know, I saw you in the newspaper. I'm a sales rep. Could I rep your bottles? And I. I didn't actually really kind of know what that meant. I didn't really fully comprehend what he was saying. But he wanted 48 water bottles to go out and get into the stores. And it. It was a big stretch because by that time we were. We were already moving the bottles pretty well. And it was kind of scary to give this stranger, you know, 48 bottles, which meant a lot of money for us when we didn't have a lot of money. But we gave it to him. We gave them to him. And he went out and called about three days later and said, hey, how many do you have left? And we told him the number, and he said, those are all mine. They're all sold. And meantime, I had gone into Whole Foods, and, you know, I said, hey, I got this water bottle to sell. Who do I talk to? They said, well, you need to go talk to Evan. And they pointed me towards Evan. I go back to meet Evan, and Evan was literally laying on the floor pulling the Sig water bottles off the shelves because they had the aluminum bottles, because they had bpa. And he was livid. He was furious that they had lied to him and to as a whole and that they were having to do this. I said, well, that's great timing, because here I am with Hydro Flask. We're a local company, double wall vacuum insulated, stainless steel, no bpa. And he says, I'll take a case of everyone you have. So after I got that Whole Foods account, and I also. We have a family friend, Trudy, who has Mountain Supply here in Bend, Oregon. So Trudy was our first outdoor retail location. And then Evan at Whole Foods was our first, you know, sort of fancy food location. After we had those two, is fairly easy to go out and pick up new accounts because we had, you know, kind of the two, you know, big and old timers, and. And we had a product that people had never seen. So we got through those 1500 probably in about two months and. And got the other 1500 in. Got through those even before they landed. They were all sold. They were all ready gone before they got here. And then the next order was 20,000. And then the very next order was 40,000. And then we just started ordering 40 and then 80,000 every month.

Wow. Incredible growth. And at what point now, you know, usually you get out of things after a year and a half or two years. This was really a powerful thing for you to stay in. How long did you stay with Hydro Fly?

I did that for about five years or so.

Yeah. And then you decided enough of this. I wanted to be free up. And did you? You didn't have the Tumelo idea yet, did you or did you?

Not really, no. I didn't really have the idea for Tummo until after I had sold Tum alone.

And how did the sale go? It has to be pretty exciting. What was it like for you? Was it hard to sell your baby, but you've already sold other businesses? How hard is it the process of selling an enterprise like that?

It was very bittersweet. I had gone through a lot of personal stuff. My brother had just died and had gone through a lot of turmoil right there towards the end. And one of the big things was that the new owners were going to keep the employees and that they were going to keep it here at the end. That was my main focus, was the employees get to keep their jobs. Just because.

How many employees were you up to at that point?

I think we had probably about 10 or so around there still.

The manufacturing was still over in China.

Still always has been and always, you know. You know, hopefully soon. But for now, all water bottles, double wall vacuum insulation are in China, within the same little region area. Yeah.

And so they're not stuck on a container ship trying to get. Get into the United States.

It's not a mess. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, but I guess you sold out before that happened, so.

Yeah, not my job.

That's your job now. So. So you sell. And how does that make you feel now? You're, you know, what does that do for you mentally, you know, when. Because people a lot of times, they lose their purpose, they lose theirs, you know, because it's very exhausting. You just put yourself through a very exhausting process and maniacal around the clock. And because there's unlimited numbers of decisions you're making every single day and the pressure never leaves. And so all of a sudden now you wake up. It's kind of like, I remember John McCain. I refer to this from time to time. The news item of John McCain after the morning after he lost at 10 o' clock the morning after the election and he lost. He was standing in line in jeans and a shirt, getting Starbucks at the Local Starbucks. And nobody was talking to him. Yeah, and everything up to that, you know, the microphones in the face and the planes. And then the next morning he's got to go get his Starbucks. You know, I guess he's still. I guess all his staff had abandoned him too. Maybe just wanted to get out of the house, but had to be humiliating for, for Mr. John. And so entrepreneurs go through a similar type experience, you know, once it's over, you know. And how did that hit you when it's like it's over?

It was, it was a. It was a trip, you know, I think when the money hit the bank, it was jubilation. I mean, it was just like, wow, you know, and like, now I can finally pay off my student loans. Now I can finally pay off the investors. I had family members that had been working for the company that after I left, they had been fired. And so I could pay them the money that they were owed. And so that felt really, really good. Like I could. I could finally pay off my student loans, which was huge, and my debt, which was amazing. But then it, after that, it kind of became, well, now what? You know, and I sold in April. And then I remember in that very next September, I was the first time I woke up and realized, like, I am no longer working hydro flask anymore. Like that whole. It took a long time to just sort of get out of my system because it was so deeply entwined. I'd been doing so much for so long and it was such a big part of my life that, yeah, it was a little bit of a, I don't know, identity crisis type moment. And, you know, who am I and what am I doing? And I didn't necessarily want to go back to the islands and go scuba dive, you know, as a vocation anymore. I didn't have to, which was the big thing, you know, I didn't have to go make, you know, $20 a day as a dive instructor anymore, but all I really wanted to do was go travel and. And gosh, I had the money to go do it. So that's really kind of. That's kind of what pacified my, my time and my sort of yearning to do more was, Was the travel. But after a while, that too just kind of became methodical and. And then when the Tumlo group came, it was like, yeah, I just gotta be doing business. That's really what I want to do. I want to help other people do awesome business.

And so now the Tumalo concept is helping people who come up with the idea of new, better something and show them the things you learned by starting Hydro Fly. Is that right?

Yep. Basically. Yep. Yep. I've. I've been consulting now with lots of startups, lots of big fortune whatever companies I've had the privilege to work with, even some celebrities and even small little island nations, countries, things like that, and.

Talk about some of those and those experiences. Talk about some of those that you can't, you know, some of those you want to keep quiet. But what, you know, let people know that, you know, there are bigger opportunities that'll come along out there after the wait, you know, so you might be at a point where, well, I sold out or I'm not in that anymore. But what I found, Travis, I don't know if you'll see it the same way, but what I found is that the main thing you're accumulating is the experience and the knowledge and the relationships along with the skills and those contacts and that, like how you do things, who you do it with, where you do it. That's priceless and priceless knowledge. When you pass it on to somebody else who needs it, you know, it's useless unless you use that information. But you can use that information and it can be worth a whole lot more to you than how much money you saved up and put into the bank after the sale. You know, it's like going forward, there's a big world out there. Talk about how you've leverage that and the kinds of people that you've been amazed, really, you know, and that are looking to you, Travis, for how you do this stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Well said. I think that the, you know, I think that if we get along as humans, first and foremost, we're probably going to do good business together. I'm not everybody's company of tea. I don't get along well with everybody and not everybody gets along well with me. And yet if we do get along, we can do some awesome things. And I love that. I mean, I love the fact that, you know, I've. I've got the scars and the battle wounds now that I can help other people avoid those same pitfalls that I've gone through. And there are a lot of times where it gets scary starting a business or running a company, having employees, having payroll, having everything that goes along with having a major corporation and just to have a sounding board and have somebody to talk to, somebody who has a little bit different perspective or fresh ideas or a new way to look at things has been. It's been fun to be on this side of it. I never really had mentors with business. I never really had anybody who I admired or looked up to. I just sort of went out and did it on my own and had to figure it out. I had nobody who I looked towards for help and I didn't really have anybody come to me to help. And so to be in this role now, it feels awesome. It feels really amazing to help sort of fast track through and just be a sounding board and a. Give people a peace of mind when, when it gets dark, because, my gosh, it gets dark sometimes.

And what kinds of things do you find you're able that help them the most that come up the most frequently?

I think one of the big ones is, is this a good idea? You know, and what do you think of this idea? And, you know, it's, it's, it's hard. I mean, I think that's kind of also the most difficult thing that I have to do sometimes is tell people that, yeah, I'm not really interested because I don't know if this is going to really work or take off. But it's also, you know, it's always really fun for me to see new ideas. And when I see the new ideas and I start hearing their story and why they're doing it, I get really excited to help. And I, I just love that.

And how do you evaluate, Help them evaluate what is a good. If their idea is good, useful, or how do you, how do you go about helping them to figure that out?

Well, one of the, you know, I think one of the matrix that a lot of people use is, well, you know, I want to get into this category and there's 8 billion people that use this. And so therefore, if I could get 2% of the market share, I could do big numbers. And that's not always real accurate. That's not really always practical. One of the big ways is passion. Like, how much passion do they have? Like, if it's really a burning desire, a calling that they can't quite describe why, but it's just something that they have to do. They've been called to do this, to bring this forth into the world. That's typically a really good starting place. And not everybody feels that strong passion. That's, you know, kind of a rarity. But I think one of the big ones that I don't like working with are the ones who just talk the money, you know, like, oh, I can sell this and I can make money and I can make big money and I can do this. For money. And if the word money keeps coming up or there's a dollar sign that keeps coming up, typically those aren't going to be the ones that I work the best with. I work better with the ones that are doing it sort of for a higher calling or a higher purpose.

Yeah, I've, you know, we have found in our business that if people only want to join you, that's one thing about salaries. You know, you can use salaries as an indicator on that. It's like if you give like the. You don't want people to come and work for you just because you've given them the biggest salary. You know what I'm saying? You want to have a great salary, you know, solid, this, that and the other. But you never really want it to be the biggest because you want. There's got to be some element where they're excited about what you're doing and they want to be a part of it. You know, and we used to find that, like, with, you know, we recruit people in commission sales, but it's like if they mainly came in for the money, like, we found the same thing, you found out that it's just like they're just not going to make it. You know, you've got to feel like there's a cause, there's a crusade, you're doing a higher good, you're making things better. And even a product like a water bottle, I mean, you're saving people lots of frustration. And, you know, you're bringing. You're upgrading one element that people are going to be using, you know, taking the element of stress out of their lives, that, you know, one less thing for them to worry about. And plus, give them a positive thing like that water's cold, you know, or that, you know, it's hot, you know, and so you can get. You can see the bigger value of what you're doing, even on a product. But if you don't see that, you just see it's money, you just don't have. The main thing is they don't have the stay in power. Don't you see that?

Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that's. Yeah, that's huge. And I. Yeah, one of the reasons why I kept going was I started getting the feedback from people who were a lot of them. For the first time in their life, they were truly hydrated. They were feeling better, they were looking better, they were getting better jobs, their careers were improving and expanding. Their relationships were way better than they'd ever been. And those were things I didn't really fully anticipate hearing. But when they started to tell me these and I started getting this feedback, that kept me going, you know, and that gave me the passion to keep going further and further. And had I just been doing it for the money, I don't, I don't think it would have been nearly as successful. I basically handed it over to the people who wanted to go make the money later. But to begin with, it was a passion project and I let them go and do their money thing.

Well, I'm going to leave this, Travis.

And.

Try and go out and figure out a new product so I can contract with Tumelo to help me take it big time. Because I'd love to have some kind of business we did together.

That'd be awesome, Larry. I'd like that.

I think we'd have a lot of fun, don't you?

I do indeed, yes.

So I got to go find a product. But if you do, if you are listening to this thing and you have a product, you got to go, you got to call Travis. And how do they find you, Travis?

Infohommelogroup.com T U M A L O G-R-O-U P.com Or I am TravisRosbach R O S B A C H on.

LinkedIn okay, thanks so much, Travis. This has been a ball. Thanks for spending the extra time. I think we've given some priceless information for people that are wanting to do something special and looking for clues of how to make it happen. And so let me ask you this. What do you. When people go through the. This is one I want to get in. When you say they're going through the dark times and you can help them through the dark times, how. Where does that come from? What do you find out that that comes from the most when you're. You're consulting with, with these businesses, Celebrities, you know, Fear.

Fear. Yeah, fear and unknown circumstances, unknown situations, you know, like maybe the orders late or maybe there's a hiccup with the manufacturing or, you know, like with the celebrities. You know, like maybe there's fear of, you know, no longer being relevant or whatever it happens to be. But typically it's. It stems out of fear. Fear of things that may or may not ever come true. I think that a lot of times people in general will spend time being afraid of things that typically do not come to fruition. And so just to have somebody who can kind of remind them that, you know, we're going to get through this and the sun's going to come out Tomorrow, it can be very beneficial for people.

Well, and there's a. There's a natural reason that happens for the leader, because it's the leader's job to look down the road and see calamity coming in advance. So you've got the most time to make the adjustments and dodge the bullet. And so that's an easy trap for leaders because part of their job is to look down the road and look for what could be a late delivery. And you want to read the tea leaves. Usually when this happens, it sets off a cascade of negative dominoes, and then we wind up with a big disaster there. So a lot of times you're playing laying off your instincts and, you know, and. And so that's. That's a real thing you got to learn. It's a skill to learn how to balance that, isn't it?

It is, yeah. And sometimes they read the tea leaves and they don't see anything, you know, and that could be another very real fear that they have. It's, you know, what are we going to do? And so to come in with the outside perspective and just see, I see things a little bit differently than, than. Than a lot of people do. It can help. It can bring solace to the what ifs.

If you enjoyed what you've heard and are dead serious about finding out for yourself exactly how this works in the real world, I've taken the most valuable business lessons I've learned over 40 years and put them into something for you to watch. Go to whiteellumwinning.com forward/webinar now in order to move up as fast as. As possible. I'm Larry Weidell, and I run the Million Dollar Mastermind. Go, Go.