The Achieve Podcast - Andrew Griffard (Blu Shark Straps)
In this episode of the Achieve Podcast, host Taylor Baker interviews Andrew Griffard, co‑owner of Blue Shark Straps, about how the duo acquired a struggling watch‑strap e‑commerce business in 2019 and turned it into a growing brand. They discuss the acquisition process, early turnaround actions, and how they leveraged Andrew’s background in digital marketing (Disney, Amazon, Expedia) to revamp paid media, email/SMS, and organic social. A major focus is on elevating the customer experience through branded packaging, detailed product pages, and a bright‑blue mailer that reinforces the brand. They explain the complexity of watch‑strap variants (materials, sizes, colors) and the inventory challenges that come with hundreds of SKUs. Capital allocation decisions, especially around custom molds and inventory investment, are highlighted as ongoing constraints. The conversation moves to recent experiments with affiliate marketing and the use of AI: a chatbot that handles product queries and AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini) for marketing analytics, promotion planning, and scenario testing. Andrew identifies manual processes and time scarcity as the top constraint to solve in the next 90 days, aiming to automate inventory and marketing operations. He ends with advice to “just dive in” for entrepreneurs considering acquisitions or new initiatives. The episode wraps with contact information for Blue Shark Straps and a sponsor plug.
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Welcome to another episode of the Achieve Podcast, a show where we highlight leaders, creators, entrepreneurs who are building meaningful businesses, shaping their industries, and having an impact on society. I'm Taylor Baker Baker, your host, and excited today to be joined by Andrew Griffith, the co-owner of Blue Shark Straps, and you can find them at bluesharkstraps.com. .com. That's BLU. So Andrew, give us the backstory a little bit on how you got into this space. You've been helping a lot of businesses and you have an expertise, but what brought you to Blue Shark and who are you guys serving right now?
Yeah, great question. Thanks, Taylor Baker Baker. Great to be here. Um, so we, uh, we started out in Blue Shark Straps. Uh, my business partner and I, good friend, uh, we decided to almost 3 years ago acquire a business We'd looked at different opportunities and found that there was a lot of activity in kind of the entrepreneurship through acquisition space. And so we found an existing business that kind of hit a lot of our criteria. So in terms of price and size and revenue and type of product and work to be done and decided to dive in. And so we found a business that someone had launched several years ago, kind of back in 2016, had grown it, had seen a lot of success there, but kind of had just run out of, out of time and energy to continue putting into the business. And so when we came along, it was kind of in a revenue-declining situation. So we thought, okay, you know, with a little more time and effort, a little more resources, we could plug in here and really make this thing shine. So that's when we, we picked it up and just made a ton of changes. Like, that first 6 months was pretty, pretty crazy in terms of the time and effort and new stuff we were putting in, a lot of stuff we were learning. But, uh, Yeah, that was almost 3 years ago, and we've been able to turn it around pretty well. So we got it back into revenue growth, and have actually been able to about triple the size of the revenue of the business since we picked it up.
Wow, and how big is the organization now?
Yeah, so our organization is still pretty small. When we started, there was just 1 employee covering customer service, and today we have 1 full-time employee, bring on another full-time employee, but then we work with a bunch of different agencies and contractor partners. So we've kind of got a bunch of different functions spread out all over the world.
Wow, that's impressive. Now, what would you say is driving organization— driving growth for the organization right now?
Yeah, so we've done a few things. One of the things that needed to be fixed when we started off was really to beef up the marketing approach. So the founder, he put a lot of things into place, had a lot of things that were working right, but then there was a lot of things that also needed to be optimized. And so My background is in digital marketing. I've worked at kind of larger companies like Disney, Amazon, Expedia, and then also some startups. And so this was an area that was really familiar to me. So I applied my typical approach and my experience and said, okay, we need to, you know, improve how we're spending on Google and Meta. We need to really get our email program up and going. We need to launch into organic social and kind of all these other channels that are very familiar to me in previous roles. And so we started putting those into place and employing those. And so for some of them, we did a lot of the work ourselves, just dove in, said, okay, this hasn't been done, this hasn't been done as well as it could be, and, and jumped in there. But then others, we've brought on agencies and contractors to help us out with that work. So that was a large part of what we were doing over that first, yeah, 4 to 6 months for sure.
Okay. And for you, what would you say, looking back personally, what turning points have molded the way you think about running the organization?
Yeah, yeah, great question. One thing that my business partner has been really, really good in focusing on is just really trying to bring everything back to the customer. So that was a point that he put a lot of effort into and that we decided to prioritize at the beginning. It was really, okay, what is this customer experience? So we're selling watch straps, and watch straps, you know, it's a pretty common everyday item. Obviously, people are very particular about, you know, what is the color of my strap? Does it match my watch? Is the material going to work for the activity that I'm doing? You know, I'm going to go use it outside while I'm doing outdoor stuff, or I'm going to be exercising, I'm going to be at the office, you know. So just a ton of different use cases. So there's a lot of specifics around that. And so we tried to change our website, change the product pages, the product photography, to really speak to what are those use cases for customers and how do we help them really find what they're looking for since they have all these very specific criteria. And then we also spent time focused on, okay, once you buy the strap and you get it, like, what is that experience when you get it? Because, you know, you've bought stuff from a bunch of different e-tailers on Amazon and everywhere else, and, and sometimes it's a really great product experience when you receive it in the mail or from UPS, and sometimes it's just pretty, pretty plain and vanilla. You get a little plastic bag or something like that. And so My partner spent a lot of time in creating special inserts and packaging and stickers and that sort of thing. Something we also did, you know, we send our straps out typically in just a standard bubble mailer and, you know, you've seen them everywhere. They're pretty generic, but because our brand is Blue Shark Straps and our branding is all based on the color blue and the ocean, that sort of thing, he found these great mailers that were this bright blue color.
Yeah.
And so it's a more memorable experience now when someone picks that up in their mailbox and they see that big bright blue envelope. And so that just really helps to reinforce our brand and trying to cement that experience in the minds of customers so that they know when they're buying from Blueshark, you know, they can be excited when that arrives in their, in their mailbox. So again, really just trying to focus on the customer and saying, okay, how do we take an item that, you know, is common and everyday, but kind of elevate it and make it more, more meaningful. For that customer.
I like that a lot. And there's certain types of watches you guys specialize in?
There are. Um, we, we make straps for, for most types of mechanical watches, your traditional mechanical watches. We also do have straps for Apple Watch and are starting to branch out into Samsung Galaxy Watch. But we do specialize in what's known as kind of dive watches, so specific style. So if you are, if you do scuba diving or anything like that, there's different functions that you need if you're going to be going down underwater. So, and then there's a lot of people who don't actually do any diving whatsoever, but they like the style of that watch. And so, you know, they'll find straps that tailor to that. We also do a lot of straps that match well with field watches. So it's, again, it's a different, different style of watch. So if, if you are, if you are a watch aficionado, a lot of the stuff is familiar to you. But if you're not, just know that The watch community is very, very interested in how watches are designed, how they're built and made, and there's a lot of specifics. And so we try and create those, those straps are going to match well with, with all those different types of watches.
Okay, that's amazing. That, that is fascinating to see, to see the whole industry that you're developing just on straps.
Yeah, you think, you know, when you first come to it, you think, how complex could this be? But when you start getting into it, there's a question of Well, is it a single piece or is it a two-piece? Is it a double pass, a single pass? Is it rubber or nylon or silicone or leather? You know, okay, there's just a bunch of different variations. And then you get into coloring and sizing. So that is one of the things that we found, uh, challenging for sure when we first started in the business was just managing all that inventory. Because with all those variants, I mean, we have hundreds of different variants on the site. And then every time we add a new collection we just increase the complexity for ourselves. And so that has been one of the things that's just been a challenge is just keeping up with inventory, making sure we have enough, uh, uh, product in stock but not too much so that we're overextending ourselves. But you know, this is the common sort of plight of, of any e-commerce owner.
Yeah. Now as you guys try to grow and expand, what have been some of the biggest bottlenecks or obstacles that keep showing up?
Yeah. Um, there has definitely been a question just in terms of cap— capital allocation. So we've looked at some, uh, straps and different things where we say, you know, we, this, we think this could sell well, but it's going to take a certain amount of inventory investment to, to get it off the ground and really test it. And depending on, on straps, the more customized you get, you have to create a custom mold. And so there's a minimum order quantity that the supplier expects for that. And so you just get into that question of, okay, is this really something we want to tie our money up in right now? Do we really think this particular strap style has a lot of potential or, or not? So there's that. And then, then other challenges are just around that common question of how do you grow? Like, how do you continue growing the business? Where's the best place to invest? I, I talked about marketing channels that we've turned on or have reactivated and that sort of thing. Something that we did recently was starting to get into the affiliate channel. So we hadn't done any affiliate marketing before. That has a startup cost, an ongoing cost, of course, course to, to make sure that can get up and going. But we think there's, there's potential there. So that's one of those areas where we've decided, okay, we're going to invest. It's probably going to require, uh, expenses for 3 to 4 months before you start to see real return. But it's, it's, it is an experiment, just like a lot of the stuff that we run. You know, try it, see how it goes, and then evaluate results.
That makes sense. And when it comes to your messaging, your outreach and marketing systems, what has been working well and where do you feel the biggest gaps and frustrations?
Yeah, something that's working really well, I think, right now is kind of our email and our SMS program. So that is also a large area where I've spent a lot of time in previous roles. And so we've really tried to figure out, okay, how much communication should we send to customers? And, you know, what is too much? What's, what's not enough? And kind of what's that happy medium? And then also just the content, like, what are you saying to customers? There has to be also that nice mix of education and excitement about the product, but then also keeping it very of course, commercially oriented, you know, sending out promotions and helping them understand what the value is and the pricing and that sort of thing. So that channel has been working well. There's always areas for improvement. In fact, right now we're going through an audit of our email program, are going to be redoing some things. We've also made some really good strides, I think, on the paid media side. So I've increased our investment quite a bit on Google and Meta. You know, that is always a hard game, I think, for anybody, but we're starting to find what are the right levers for us and how does that work. But, you know, there's definitely a lot of ebb and flow in that. We have peak seasons, we have low seasons, and just adjusting our spend almost on a daily basis to make sure that we're not overspending but also capturing the demand that exists out there has been, has been a big, a big, big trick for sure.
Yeah, that one is, especially with the advent of AI and the way that's changed things.
Yeah.
Curiosity, how have you guys found ways to utilize AI and automation internally and where do you see opportunity?
Yeah, yeah, good, good question too. We have been able to put into place essentially an answer bot on our website. So we do it through— we have a customer service tool that we answer all of our customer questions with. And so as we've been using that for a few years, we found that there's a lot of data in there based on what customers are asking about and then how we're responding responding. And so they have a feature that we launched, I don't know, 6 months ago or so, that just allows people to go onto the site and ask questions of the bot and, and get really specific answers back. Like, I'm looking for something that'll match this kind of watch, this size, I want to do this activity with it, do you have that in a different color? So, you know, just imagine yourself going into a store and actually, you know, talking with someone who's, who's a salesperson for the store, and then that, that bot is essentially doing that. And at first we wondered, okay, how good can this be? Is it really going to be able to know our product well enough? We did have to do some training and tweaking of it at the beginning just to make sure, okay, it has access to all the right information, it's giving correct answers, it's talking about things in the right way, kind of in our language and our brand language. But over the first little while, we've been able to get it to the point where it's actually generating revenue. I think it's kind of keeping up with its cost right now. So we're kind of break-even on it. And it's decreased our number of questions we get into our customer service. So, you know, saving us time and creating what we believe is a better customer experience at this point. And the great thing about it is it was literally like a plug-and-play tool that was in an existing tool that we already had. So we just had to do that training and then we're up and going. So it's been a good experience.
Wow, that's phenomenal. I'm sure that just compounds.
Yeah, for sure. And then, you know, I use, I use AI, like, you know, whether it's ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever, just for a lot of our planning and analysis. So that's been a huge time saver. It's like having a data analytics team just right there where I'll say, okay, here's the question that I want to answer, tell me what data you need. I drop in the data, then I say, okay, let's look at it this way, and then planning out different scenarios, like We, you know, specifically around promotions, you know, coupon amounts. How much do we want to offer? A 15%? A 20%? What's the duration for that? How should we communicate it? So we've just put in all of our historical data and they'll say, okay, this is what has been most successful for you now. Let's try and test this later. So it really is like a marketing or data analytics partner that I'm working with and able to then implement that on the site. And so I've I've done things definitely differently with our calendar and marketing that I wouldn't have done otherwise if I hadn't had that support on the AI side. So it's been awesome. Wow.
That makes a lot of sense. And it's amazing, amazing the compounding effect that proper use of AI can do. Yeah. Now, Andrew, when you think about the next stages of the business, what are you most excited about?
I'm excited about just kind of seeing how far we can scale this. I think we're at that point. In the business, and we've seen evidence of that probably over the last year, where we feel like we've got a lot of the basics in place. And that was really the job to be done over that first year or so, just making sure we've got the right amount of inventory, you know, the customer experience that I mentioned, marketing channels and so on. And about last— about 1 year ago, we started really scaling up a lot of our marketing channels in terms of spend and efforts, and we've seen a lot of benefit and growth there. So I think we're ready now to continue that scaling. In fact, we're, you know, when we're recording this right now, it's, it's March time frame. We're just going into our peak season. So in spring and summer, that's when people are interested in buying more watch straps because they don't have to wear winter jackets and that sort of thing anymore. You can kind of show off your watch. And, and so, um, we're really kind of starting to step it up. We had a record Q4 kind of shopping season previously, and we're already kind of starting to outpace that at this point. So I'm excited for, for where we can keep going. Um, the thing too I'm excited about is there's, there's so many different ways to market your product online nowadays. And for us, it's just, it's not a question of, you know, where else can I market the product? It's just a limitation of time and resources. Like, I would love to go into this channel, I'd love to do programmatic advertising, I'd love to do Reddit advertising, you know, all these different types of areas. It's just, yeah, just a limit of time and funds, but there's, there's plenty of places to go. So I'm excited about our, our growth prospects as we look forward.
That's awesome. Now, last question, Andrew. If you had to pick one constraint to focus on and solve over the next 90 days, what would it be?
One constraint, I would say it's really how we're using our time. I really feel like there are manual processes, manual steps that we have in place right now that take time that we could really improve. The challenge is, you know, obviously using— with AI tools, you just have to take the time to find the tool or build the tool. But I think that would be a huge opportunity for us. There's a lot of things like on the inventory management side, even some of our marketing operations sort of stuff that I think we could make a lot of improvements in. And so, you know, yes, it would speed things up and we would see benefit there, but we would probably do it better too, uh, so there'd be an improvement in quality. Um, so I would— that's, that's where I would really focus over the next, next 90 days. And I, I hope I get some time to, to do that.
That's the challenge with all, with all the balls you're juggling and things you're doing. I can see that being a, a big constraint is having bandwidth and time. That's so— you can't fabricate more of that.
No, you can't. No, you can't. You can hire people and tools, but you know, that's That's time and money too.
Yeah, exactly. Well, Andrew, thank you for coming on and sharing. Any final words for other listeners, other entrepreneurs, leaders in the space?
The only thing I would add is just, just dive in. Um, just dive in. Like, if, if you've got something, whether it's a new idea you're trying to do, you want to acquire a business, or there's a new initiative that you can put forward in your current business, you get to the point where you've analyzed it and you've looked at it a lot And, you know, you're never going to have perfect knowledge. You're never going to be able to see the future. Just dive in. Once you've done your homework, just dive in. We got to the point when we were looking at this business initially where we had reviewed it, we'd met with the owner a few times, and we just got to that question of that point where you have to decide, are we going to buy this or not? And, you know, it was actually my business partner that prompted me and just said, let's just do this. Let's just dive in. We don't know whether it will work, but we want to take a chance and we think we can do it. And I'm so glad that he pushed us to do that. And I'm glad that we dove in because it's been, it's been an awesome, awesome ride.
That's so good. That's wonderful. I love it. Just dive in.
Yeah.
So Andrew, thank you for coming on and sharing. And for those who want to learn more, again, bluesharkstraps.com, LinkedIn, anywhere else you want to send them?
No, those are the right places. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Oh, absolutely. And thank you to our sponsors of today's episode, Achieve Fractional, which provides fractional executive leadership for growing businesses. And if you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a colleague, with a watch enthusiast, reach out to Andrew and the team, and we'll see you on the next episode of the Achieve Podcast.
