#208 He Built an 8-Figure DTC Brand | Unbound Merino Founder

As hard as it is, you're either gonna survive and thrive or you're gonna die. The one rule is just don't get knocked out. That's it. The rest figures itself out.

Yeah.

The longer you survive, the more wisdom you pick up along the way and the more you realize how to communicate value for your business, how to make it more profitable, how to scale it properly in a healthy manner. And yet again, it just comes down to just don't die.

Welcome to the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast, a show where we interview high voltage entrepreneurs growing and scaling through e-commerce, real estate, and other wealth without Wall Street ventures, showing you the path to In today's episode, we're joined by Dan Demski, CEO and co-founder of Unbound Merino, an 8-figure brand in the DTC apparel space.

Dan helped build Unbound Merino from a simple idea into a globally recognized merino wool clothing company loved by travelers, minimalists, and performance-driven customers. Over the past 9 years, he's navigated nearly every challenge e-commerce operators face. COVID shutdowns, supply chain chaos, freight spikes, and now the tariff shock that's forcing brands to rethink margins and cash flow in real time. What makes Dan stand out is his mindset. He believes the number one rule of business is simple: don't get knocked out. In this episode, he breaks down how his team tightened operations, became stronger operators, and protected profitability While still growing the brand. If you're in e-commerce, building a brand, or navigating uncertain economics, this episode gives you a rare look inside how a real operator thinks during a high-pressure season.

So Dan, we were talking a little while ago, not too long ago, and actually it's good to see you again, about the business of e-com and specifically, you know, your startup story and your struggles and challenges of an entrepreneur building, you know, 8-figure company in the DTC world, direct-to-consumer channels. And, you know, I wanted to bring it back and just continue that conversation. It was well received. We had a great conversation, so I I'm glad we're here today. People wanted to hear more from you about just your story, man. And I think would be relevant to dig into for this part of it, what's a real-time challenge e-com companies are having at scale right now? So somebody listening to this kind of knows what their road ahead might look like or things they can take into perspective. Maybe you can enlighten us on some of the things you're just dealing with right now.

Well, I mean, the big thing is obviously tariffs. We ran our business the way we ran it and we got to the place of where things were humming along, things were profitable. Just everything seemed to be kind of dialed in for us, which is not always the case. You know, you go through ups and downs in business.

Yeah.

And when tariffs came, the cost, you know, the, the gross margins are completely slashed.

Yeah.

The cost of goods go up. So you're in this new reality where you need to tighten all your cost controls. You need to look under the hood and get really, really smart to every little detail of your business. Which you always should be. But, you know, when something like this happens, as hard as it is, I mean, you're either gonna survive and thrive or you're gonna die.

Yeah.

Some businesses won't survive this, and the ones that do, they're gonna have to go with a microscope under the hood and fix all the little things in the business. And the weird thing about it is at the end of it all, you'll probably be a stronger business because it forces you to look more deeply, more carefully, and scrutinize all those little details in ways You may not have had to, had the—

Yeah.

Let's dig on that for a second. 'Cause when people say tariffs, they don't, that's a big word. Some hear it, they think all negativity. Maybe they don't understand history and how America used tariffs to power our country. So they're, we're a little disconnected from maybe, you know, public school education in business. Give us your version of what tariffs mean at the tactical level of a business when you're talking about making it more difficult. Is it because it's political? Is it because it's economic? Is it because it's Shipping, transport, legit, what's the whole component tie into when you say that?

I mean, pretty simply, there's just a whole other expense when the shipment comes into the country. So we're importing into the United States and depending on where it's coming from, we're paying, we're either paying the tariffs upon it entering the United States or we're in Canada, we import into Canada, we need to transfer stuff over the border. So there's transfer taxes. that we have to pay. So there's just, it's just an added expense. Our cost of goods are higher, our gross margins are way smaller. And then the reality of the business entirely changes because of that. So, you know, I would be curious to hear from you what, you know, what's the, what's the greater good benefit of tariffs? And I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's something, but in my world, it's just making things tougher. And then the reality comes down to, Pricing. Do we have? Can we can make up on lost margins by raising the prices? So the end consumer has to pay for it, and you know that's a way for us to deal with it. But we haven't done that yet, and when we're looking to do that, our fear is one: we don't want to raise the prices for the customer because we don't. We're already a premium price product, but will the customer even pay it? So it's like there's a fear that we might cross that threshold of it being slightly too expensive. So It's an uncomfortable experience, but you know, the first thing we're doing before we raise prices for our customers is we're seeing what we can do to be more efficient, have better cost controls in place, make sure our marketing is as efficient as possible. You know, all the little levers we can pull, you know, tighten any superfluous budget anywhere in the business, you know, meals and entertainment, let's trim it down. Everything helps.

Forces cash flow management at a strong—

Yeah.

So, so, so we're, we're getting better at business. That's for sure.

Perfect.

That's, that's kind of what we're getting down to here. And I want people to hear what you just said. You're getting better at business. We're facing the same things at companies that reached, just now reached their first $100,000 in sales. We got companies that are $250,000 trying to go to, you know, $500,000 and $1 million. And we got companies that are $14 million we want to take to $28 million. So the scale of the problem looks very different in each one of those businesses that we're attempting to maneuver, you know, and try not to be in a knee-jerk relationship with any of the, of the business justifications. And I think it does force you into streamline. Like one of the things my partner is very stringent about is our 90-day cash flow plan. And he has a process by which we adhere to what that 90-day cash flow plan looks like. And it doesn't mean that, you know, we take necessarily bigger checks outta that business at the end of the month or the quarter like we may have before, because we need to change the way the business works before we decide changing other things is important. Even, you know, the human capital component of that is one thing, changing, you know, how many pizzas you get in a month. is another thing for the teams or whatever, but it really forces you to understand how to be better at business, to be lean, to be a true founder, right? Like we were when we started these things.

Yeah. When things are good in business, you tend to relax a little bit, right? So you talk about things. Yeah, because it's like, you know, when things are profitable, when things are really, really good, it's like you could throw money at a problem anytime. And I talked a little bit—

Yeah, it gets a little easier 'cause there's a little more slush fund, but at the same time, you know, it's difficult to reinvest in new products or growth in the business if that fund is overtaking, you know, ideas of capitalization products and innovating in product in the market. That's a balance we have to go between, isn't it?

Yeah. A friend of mine once said that anytime something really comes to threaten the existence of his business, that he's been in at it for a couple decades longer than me, and he's a brilliant guy, a mentor of mine. He said, I almost want to buy the bouquet of flowers for that challenge because it's always the thing that makes the business so much stronger and better. And, you know, the tariffs is a challenge.

Yeah.

We've gone through this with COVID when there was the global travel ban. We're a travel product. So all of a sudden our sales completely halted. So we had, it was the same thing. We looked under the hood, we cut all spending where it didn't need to be. We, Doubled down on all the spending where it needed to exist, particularly the marketing and changing some of our marketing messaging. So it wasn't so travel-focused at the time. And that coming out of that, we were just that much stronger. So there's something to be said about how this helped cleanse the system.

Well, I mean, okay, so we're in a change. I see it as a change. Like there's any change, somebody's gonna suffer. Like any required change, somebody doesn't always get a fair shake. That's an unfortunate side effect of life, right? If we're cutting costs, somebody may end up being cut from the business because that's an unfair shake based on, you know, human capital being the largest part of a business, usually including its healthcare and other things. Biggest expenses at the bottom line. And when you look at the growth of tariffs and the opportunity it presents to take us away from other taxes and replace that burden by goods and services more tied to the country's GDP, Economically, it makes complete sense to take that off the burden of the people and to place it back on the businesses where it was always intended to be placed, right? And part of that didn't change until the ratification of the 16th Amendment. Prior to the 16th Amendment ratification in 1913, what you saw was businesses accounting for all taxation. There wasn't an income tax on the people to burden them. The businesses took it on in the import and exports of the country's goods and services. To go back to that place, is to go back to a place where the people are less burdened. The products could come down in price, or they will equate in the market of demand and supply elasticity by my having a greater amount of money in my dollar or in Canadian dollars and being able to trade that at higher amounts. But also that money goes farther even if the products are at higher price points. So the idea that we're all caught into is that race to the bottom pricing is the answer to all of this. We just need lower products so we can afford them. And that's actually the wrong way. I call that stinking thinking. That's the right way is that I get more money back out of my dollar so it has greater purchasing power, whatever the cost of that product actually is.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're a little— I'm not anti-tariff. I think you're maybe a little more pro-tariff than I am, or are you?

I'm pro-change for goodness' sake. Is it a challenge? You know, dude, we have a challenge, right? You know, we're in similar boats. We were faced with some very large possibilities that some products we get out of China were going to be dramatically impacted. Like, you know, product-ending fees if they went through at that tariff level. But at the same time, we've seen enough of this jockeying, not to speak over you, because I know you had a point to make, Dan. It's just that I see the benefits of making that change, although there is pain in the change.

Yeah, I think the, the, the challenge for us, and I think a lot of businesses across the United States, is the speed in which they came and The lack of time to adjust.

Or the week-by-day changes that make you kind of insane as to what's going to happen.

Yeah, but because there's just some stuff that you're not able to make in the United States or in Canada, or you can, but they don't even want to, you know, I mean, you, I know I have a friend that does a ton of products that are across Amazon and one of the products they make are these It's like a little plastic baseball bat and a ball for kids, right? It's an injection molded piece of plastic. It's cheap to make. It's not expensive to buy. There aren't injection molding plastic manufacturers in the United States that care to make this kind of stuff. They want to make medical devices. So this product now, it's like, they're going to pay these increased tariffs and now the price for the end consumer has to be higher. Or someone in the United States needs to choose that they wanna make something this cheap and nobody does. It's, it's not an exciting thing to make. So everyone has different realities. It depends on the business.

Yeah.

But it's also just competency. So for us, it's like with Merino wool, it's very, very, it, there, it, it's a finicky fabric that takes manufacturers over a decade to figure out how to really work with it.

Yeah.

It's different than polyester. It's different than cotton. And its ease of manufacturing.

So, mm-hmm, every business is different, but, well, we have such a lead time on some of that stuff. I don't have a product like yours, but we have another product made that has quite a long lead time. It's like a 72-day lead time based on the manufacturing process before we can even get it on a fast boat here outta India. And it's like, that's a long lead process for a large order to find out that we might get a, you know, 50, 100% tariff on. So yeah, I feel your pain when it comes down to, That product has a unique, you know, valuation to it, and that's its, you know, selling position in the market. But it's harder to make those decisions as a business owner. Totally get it. And I understand this is the negative part of the tariff change that I understand first and on the ground like you do, is how to make those decisions and when to make those decisions. You know, you're a very laid-back guy. You've gotten successful because you're very smart about when to act, which is clear based on the success you've had with your business. When have you made bad decisions that you've learned To get to the place where you're comfortable, where you're at now?

I mean, make bad decisions all the time. I think it's just a matter of not making nail-in-the-coffin decisions and just being like careful. I've been fast, being willing to make mistakes, man. I can't even, where do I even begin? First of all, I think our preparation for the tariffs was lousy because we do a SWOT analysis every single year and every single, I mean, we've been in business for 9 years. So every single year since we started, we wrote in the threats section of the SWOT, tariffs, global trade war, it's a possibility. What did we do about it? We kind of scratched our head and said, well, how would that look? I don't know. And we moved on to other things and focused more on opportunities.

Yeah.

If I was, if I can go back in time, I would've really visualized what does that look like as a Canadian company with most of our customers being in the United States. What does that look like for us if there was an actual trade war? Would we be able to send stuff over the border? No. All of the things we did to react to the situation, I would've prepared slowly in advance and modeled out what the thing would've looked like. And it would've been a much softer landing. Having said that, what do you do? You deal with what you have.

Yeah.

If you have a good product and you create real value for the customer, You'll survive if you're careful, if you're thoughtful and you react properly. What I'm experiencing right now in the business is seeing our chops as operators grow at light speed compared to the way they were before. We're just so much better. So again, I see— Yeah, I hear you. And, and, you know, I, I was talking to a friend who was talking to one of his mentors, a guy who's been in business for many, many decades. Like, I think he said he's almost 90. He's an old-time, very successful, very, very prominent entrepreneur in Canada. And he said what was fascinating about this guy was he would speak about eras of his business, like decades-long eras, as in a sentence, like in passing. It was like, that was a horrible decade. We had to grind through it. And I'm looking at this past 9 months or whatever it might've been, thinking like, wow, this feels like it's been forever. I'm like, this is a blip. We might go through this for many more years and we'll grind through it. But in the grand scheme of things, it's just a, it's a chapter. And I got a lot of comfort in that because I'm like, hey, grind through it. I've been an entrepreneur my entire working career. So I've gone through all sorts of ups and downs. So this is just, it's just an era.

You've just got a big dig into it then.

So you can— A couple decades.

Yeah.

I remember that decade when it wasn't like that.

Yeah, it might be. And, you know, I said that to my business partner. We might be living through a weird decade.

Yeah.

And I'm like, cool, we'll, we'll just keep going. So, you know.

But how fast are those decades going, man? 'Cause I look back and I'm like, wow, I was there when the internet started.

Yeah.

Yeah. That seems like it was forever ago, man. 'Cause it, how fast it's moved. It, it really is moving fast. And you're right, we're doing, we're making decisions in temporary concerns, but how fast are those changing year by year? And maybe it's just 'cause I'm getting older, but it literally feels like The years are moving at light speed now. Ready to escape your grind? We help entrepreneurs build real wealth with private label brands. Visit voltagedn.com to start now.

Yeah.

And the same guy said the one rule he has in business is just don't get knocked out. That's it. The rest figures itself out. And, you know, I heard you talk about your 90-day cash flow, like little things like this you do to keep it healthy in the short term and to make sure you're doing the right things now. These things matter. And it's just, it's about survival. And the longer you survive, the more wisdom you, you pick up along the way. And the more you realize how to communicate value for your business, how to make it more profitable, how to scale it properly in a healthy manner. And again, it just comes down to just don't die. That's it. You just don't give up.

That is so true, right? And that probably is the reason why you haven't considered selling your business because you're, you're in the fight and you don't really see yourself Getting out. Some people I'm talking to today are like, I want out of the fight. I want to sell the business. I'm going to go disappear. I don't want to do this anymore.

I usually don't. It's fun. I don't know what I'd do. I would golf.

That's not me.

Yeah, I don't like golf.

If I like golf, I'd be good. That's how I would go old real fast.

No, no, this part of the business is the most exciting part because, you know, we've gotten to a certain point of scale where people know our brand. We're not We, there's so much room to grow. We could become a much bigger, more iconic brand. And I think with the team we have now, with the vision that we have now, I'm like, wouldn't that be fun to chase? Like, it's like the next—

Well, that's the chase.

That's the hunt. That's what keeps you young, right?

It's just so fun to imagine where we can take it. And I'm having the time of my life, so I don't see why I would want to sell it. I've already done the zero to one thing a few times. I wanna, I wanna do the 1 to 2.

Keep going.

Yeah.

What the next 18 years look like. To me, it's kind of like, you know, we've been at this for probably around the same amount of time in life, and I look at it and I go, man, I don't see myself doing anything else for the next 10 to 20 years. Like, anything else sounds kind of boring. It doesn't sound like a challenge. It doesn't sound like, you know, and, and there's a lot that's changed. You went through the 2020 period just like we did in those first 2 years into 2022 are insane. Dealing with cost of tariffs and shipping and a different way of tariffing shipping and logistics costs and freight management that went through the roof.

Yeah.

Which is worse when you look at the numbers, at least it was on our books, than what the tariffs are doing. So I balance that difference out with the first quarter and second quarter of, of December 2020 when 40-foot containers bounced to almost $25,000 for a little while. I look at that in relationship to tariffs and I'm like, well, that ain't so bad actually. I just want it to settle into a new norm. Because one of the things we've done that I'm sure you are looking at or done, have done as well, is we're leveling our product base up. We aren't selling any more sub-$50 products. We sell $50 to $500 now. We, our averages are around $100 to $300 on our product base now. All of our product, it does take more capitalization to do it. And it changes the game. However, the profits increase dramatically and I don't have to send as much product.

Right.

And, um, that's worked out well for us. Our average order value is around $230, $240. And if our average order value was $50, I, I can't imagine how hard it would be to scale this because the most important thing for us is the cost to acquire that first customer. And for us, we're profitable on that first purchase. Um, and that's super important, but if We paid $50 to acquire a customer, which we do. And the average order value is $50. We'd be losing a lot of money. So I don't know, you know, I know it's easier and it's cheaper to acquire a customer for a cheaper purchase.

Yeah.

But, you know, the more expensive the product is, the average order value, the easier it is to justify the cost of acquiring that first customer if you can do it.

So. Yeah. That's what it gets down to when you get to the paid, the traffic, the media, the product on Amazon with its referral fees and challenges, you know, with the, with the stack. of fees we have to pay to sell that unit, it is a lot easier to make profit on a $389 product than it is a $39 product on acquisition one.

100%.

And it really does change the growth trajectory of the business too, when your bottom line is 20 to 30%, not 5 to 15%. And I see this as a volume versus profitability game, and I will always default to profitability first. I can sell a $50 product 1,000 times, great. Good for you, go for it. But you better sell something else on the back end. You better add some additional value. You better increase that average order value or you're gonna be out of business. I think so many people don't want to accept that reality.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not about how much money you make. It's about how much you keep.

It's all about keeping, isn't it?

Yeah.

Sounds greedy when we say it like that.

Well, you, you're not a business if you're not making money at the end of the day. And I think people do, you know, They, people get sucked into the vanity of revenue, but it's really about profitability. That's the whole game.

It's just profitability will keep us running till we're 90, which is what your friend was talking about. And we're in the 4th quarter, right? So at the time we're doing this around November 4th, you're gearing up for Black Friday like the rest of us.

The most wonderful time of the year, isn't it?

Most wonderful. You almost broke into song. I would change your name to Mariah Carey there. Yeah. 'Cause she's showing up anytime now, at least in my house. I don't know, is your house back to Christmas on the, is it, is it a November 1st thing or how does it work?

November 1st, the whole world turns to Christmas.

The whole world turns to Christmas. Is that e-com or is that your house?

No, that's just like the city I live in and everywhere around.

Everything turns.

Yeah.

Well, that's cool. I like this time of year. Thinking 4th quarter's gonna be good for you guys?

I, I think so. I hope so. It's a strange year, so I'm always curious every year. I think, I hope it's as good as I hope it's as good as last year and I hope we continue to grow. And every year has been great. We haven't had a Black Friday season that's been a disappointment yet, but, you know, come to me in a month, I'll let you know. I think I'm always optimistic.

Yeah. Well, that's blind optimism is why we're still here, isn't it?

100%. You're not wrong.

No, it's true. 'Cause some of the stuff we're talking about, if we really truly knew what it took, we probably wouldn't have started out and done it in the first place.

Yeah, I was saying that yesterday. If I were to be more careful and analytical about everything in my life, I wouldn't have started a business in the first place. It's an insane thing to want to do.

Yeah.

It's an insane thing to want to do.

But clearly we love it or we love pain. We're self-deprecating. I don't know why, because we're still in it. There is something to love about it.

Well, it's like a sport. You were talking before about, you know, you don't want to sell, you want to keep going. You're loving what you're doing. I'm like, You know, I was watching the World Series and seeing this pitcher who's my age and he's an old man on the, on a baseball team. He's at the end of his career.

Yeah.

And I was thinking like, what a career he must've had. And that's so awesome. I'm like, but I'm just starting. In fact, I'm entering my prime and what a great life choice to make, to be in the thing I love where the older I get in a way better. I'm sure there's a diminishing return when I get really old, but I'm like, man, I have Decades, decades ahead of me of the best years of peak performance. So.

Yeah, you're right. We're in the prime. That's actually true. And you're right. That's a good analogy. I forget about that a lot because I don't pay attention to sports much. But, and it is true though that there's a certain age limit within the sports world where you just age out at 20 to 30 to maybe 40, depending upon how well your body holds up.

Yeah, I'm 40. Anyone my age in sports is geriatric.

Isn't that crazy?

Yeah.

Broken knees and arms and everything else that's falling apart because they, they bruised themselves.

Hanging in there.

Yeah. That's one of the positives of a career in business. And I say that because while we're business owners, it is sort of our career, isn't it?

It's the best.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm unhireable now. I don't know about you, but I couldn't get a job to save my life.

Yeah. Well, have you ever written a resume? I haven't.

I'm trying to remember when I had one last.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd have to dig it up somewhere way back and I actually have. Yeah. 'Cause I went the corporate route for a few. Few years, more than a decade, I guess I can say that. That was my corporate decade. How about that one?

Right. It's easier now though. You can just go to ChatGPT, like, knowing what you know about me, write me a resume.

Yeah, I actually have one writing me, uh, some, some job descriptions right now, which is actually pretty good. 'Cause if you get it going correctly, it really pulls out some serious detail. I'm like, dang, this is pretty easy to write a pretty serious job description.

It's the best.

There's some cool tools to be used. You're using some of that too, clearly.

All day, every day.

What's particular, like what, what processes have you put in place with AI now?

I'm trying to build some job roles I'm not ready to hire for. So I'm working on a data analyst, but my favorite that I'm actually working with is a business coach. I've sort of trained it on a bunch of business, business coaching frameworks and I use it as a sounding board and it's amazing because it's plugged into all of our datasets and it's—

What are you asking it to act like Tony Robbins or something? Or act like—

Not, not motivational stuff, more strategic planning stuff. Okay. So it goes in your— So it, it, it knows what our, our 3 to 5 year plans are. It knows what our company priorities and rocks are. It knows what all the data is and what our targets are. And I, I, I use it to plan out strategic planning meetings, to check in, to, to, you know, talk about, hey, I'm doing a one-on-one with this person. Just get, like, be a sounding board for things I should bring up and like checking in on. So it helps me with leadership stuff, but it also helps me like, reminds me of what our targets are. It's, it's really, it's just a, it's a great conversation to have that it's just like gets my mind going. So it's, it's fantastic.

I saw you might like this. There was a prompt the other day. I'll have to go find it, or maybe you can find it. I think it was on X and it was really just getting it to not just tell you what it thought you wanted to hear, but get it to actually answer and criticize what I'm saying.

Yeah.

Like to, to change, you know, prompt to change its outcome so it doesn't just placate you. It's, you gotta be careful of your prompts.

Which it always will.

You have to tell it. It always will unless you specifically prompt it and tell it, check me at everything, offer suggestions, don't every, you know, don't always take everything I say at face value and really get it to double-check you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I, I, I, you know, even for some stuff you need to be careful with that. For some it doesn't really matter cuz, you know, this is just like, hey, help me with some talking points. And rather than me sit there and like, you know, really think it through, I'm like, I look at these, I'm like, this is a good con— this is a good, This is not just good enough. This is a great conversation starter for this one-on-one. And I find there's value in not having to sweat the details of everything, like these little things. This is good enough. This will serve its purpose because there are things in the business where I should really exhaust my mental capacity and really think deeper. And it's not everything. So if you're sweating the details yourself about everything, you For me, I get exhausted.

Do you feel like it could ever be a crutch for you? Like something you might—

Absolutely. I've slipped into it being a crutch many times. I see it all around me with other people. So you have to be mindful of that when using it and know where it's helpful and know where it's destructive because I think it's going to stop people from actually thinking.

From thinking.

Yeah, no, I'm worried about that too. And that's why I'm careful with my kids to make sure what they're using it for or not using it in some cases because of what could end up happening is, is not something that they start thinking and talking and programming and, you know, to a point where they have some kind of strange relationship with it that's not normal, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. I, you should never let it stop you from actually thinking where you need to think critically. And I think there are some studies coming out that it, it's doing that too. It, it's, it's actually hindering people's cognitive function because they're just like, They're, they're, they're assigning all thinking to ChatGPT.

Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, that's kind of a scary thought process. We don't need a generation that allows AI to wield whatever ideas it wants upon us.

Oh yeah.

That would be hopeless. No one will ever become a business owner if that's the case. They'll all go play sports instead, which is great, I guess, or not. So 4th quarter looks like it's going to stage up. Any, or have you even thought past the 4th quarter at this point?

Yeah, that's, I'm always trying to think, you know, 3 to 5 years ahead and that's sort of the new, we're, I'm not sure if I mentioned this last time we talked, but, you know, the vision that we had when we started the company is, it's, I feel like we're sitting in it right now and it sort of came up kind of, I mean, it was 9 years, but well, we're here and there's a lot more thinking to do of what's ahead. So really trying to plan out how we go more omnichannel, in the 3 to 5 year period of where do we want to play and not? Do we want to be in retail, wholesale? I mean, we're all D2C e-commerce. So I'm in the, I'm in a vision planning mode right now of trying to think not just past Q4, but really way ahead, way ahead.

Any insights into where you think you'll go?

I'm really trying to build out a model of how a retail strategy could work, but you know, The original vision I had, which was to start with a flagship store in our hometown in Toronto, 'cause it's our biggest city, I quickly learned was a loser's game. It's not profitable to have a single flagship store. The model really needs to have— be around having multiple stores and having, you know, a mini corporate head office, so to speak, that runs multiple stores. 'Cause it only really works with scale. So trying to figure out What that looks like. How do you pick locations that you can reliably think will be profitable? How much capital is needed? What would happen if it went wrong and we lost all the money? How do we walk away unscathed? So just, you know, trying to de-risk it, but think of the vision of how to expand into retail because it's still the largest form of commerce is in person. It's not e-commerce, which is exciting.

Because yeah, there's still an uncharted territory of opportunity. We play in it in one of the businesses, and I tell you, it's quite a learning curve for me. Yeah. To see how that actually operates, at what level it operates, the operational components of it.

But it's exciting though, because I, I think about it, you know, with the potential of what it could be, but also just the creative endeavor of what would our store look and feel like? How, who are we in a retail environment and what is the brand?

Or even if you get into other stores, how would your end cap look or, you know, your placement and, and how would you be able to get that, you know, negotiated into such a way way that your brand is represented properly should you go out to, you know, retail.

Yeah.

Including, including which stores and which shows you go to.

And which stores you go to, the shows, where they're placed. You know, there's a lot of interactions with the buyers to get that done right. And then sometimes you have buyers that just disappear for years on end. They just keep buying and you're like trying to reach out and they won't respond. And then magically 3 years later they show up, hey, we wanna order more product. Like, where have you been? Like, what happened to all the other calls?

Yeah. None of this stuff I'm familiar or used to yet, but it's exciting.

Oh, it's awesome to deal with.

Yeah.

I'm getting baptized by fire right now with it. We just got Target Plus to accept after 3 years from originally submitting the owner, then we bought the company and then transition at this point to grow it up. We just got Target Plus approved and he filed that like 3 years ago. So if you want to get into retail, you better start now.

Okay.

It will literally be on your 3-year plan to get into the stores that are required. And just for those who have any idea, they're going to order some amount and all the risk is placed on you. So you have to be very cautious about how much inventory and what SKUs you do, because if it doesn't sell at the rate as expected from the buyer, you own it. It's gotta come back to you. So if you can sell it on your DTC channel, great. You just have to have secondary backups in case you send out 10,000 units and they sell 3,000 and they tell you the 7,000 are coming back to you. That's something you have to be careful with, bro.

Sounds vicious.

It can be. It's a whole different world. And I'm, I'm very surface level. My partner's been digging a lot more deeper. And as we learn from the owner and do this transition, he's gonna stay around for a while, which is great. need him, but we're gonna be training operations in behind him just because it's a new world for us. And I'm literally learning it every day and week as we go through how the whole thing works. My, and as I mentioned, my partner's really getting baptized by it. Um, and it's a different world. We're on the DTC side, we're on the Amazon side and the TikTok and the Shopify side and all that stuff. But this is a whole different beast. It's a big opportunity, but it's a lot, there's a lot to it. No doubt about it. But if you need any insights, just hit me up.

Will do.

Yeah. Anybody else who wants to talk about it, we can talk about this more too. Anything I didn't ask you, brother? Anything we haven't conversed about? Family's good. Life's good.

Life is good. Just grinding away and getting geared up for the Black Friday season. So should be exciting. We'll connect after that and I'll let you know. I'll let you know if it is as good as I optimistically hope.

We'll either celebrate or commiserate depending upon what happens. We got a lot of inventory showing up here in the next 30 days. So I'm very hopeful that it will all sell as expected through the first quarter. So I hope the same for you and everybody else who's listening to this podcast.

Yeah.

Any other insights, man?

Good to go, man.

You're so laid back, dude. I love it. Thanks for coming on, man.

Oh, it was a pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me again.

Absolutely. We'll talk some more. Guys, if you like, comment, share, subscribe, say something stupid.

I don't know.

It helps big tech when we get the message out. Retail opportunities, business, it's not for everybody, but there's a huge opportunity. If you sounded like one of us just now, then you probably want to keep listening to this podcast because we're going to keep talking like that. So if you're crazy, you're blindly optimistic, and you want to build an 8-figure company that maybe can keep going for the next 20 years, listen to this guy, go follow Dan's information, go check out his website. It'll be in the show notes. If you love his products as much as we do, then you're going to want to check it out. And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode coming up here shortly, I think is the 200th. So by the time you're listening to this, you probably already caught it. So yay. Thank you for being a guest on the podcast and we'll talk again some more as we head into 2026. See you then. Thanks, Neil.

Ask you this. If you're serious about building an e-commerce business starting on Amazon FBA, what if myself and my team worked with you one-on-one to execute the steps outlined in the podcast while helping you discover what the heck to sell, how to make sure it's profitable, and how to successfully launch a brand, plus how to do it under a consulting plus performance-driven model where I put a $10,000 skin-in-the-game guarantee for those that show up and are serious about building a real business done without If yes, text keyword profit to +1-417-413-4209. That's 1-417-413-4209. And I will personally respond with a few simple questions. If you're not in the US or Canada, please visit voltage dm dot com. That's voltage dm dot com. Click get started and book a no-pressure discovery call with me or a member of my team to learn more about the business builders one-on-one coaching and mentoring. For CEOs, entrepreneurs, and those looking to build an empire or retire using the power of e-commerce. Once again, thank you for listening, and be sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the High Voltage Business Builders Podcast.