Consistency is the Key to Building a Business with Chris Gronkowski

Welcome to Super Entrepreneurs Podcast. Today we have with us Chris Gronkowski. How are you? I'm doing good. How you doing? I'm doing amazing my friend. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Can you kind of introduce you know yourself and your own words please, and we'll take it from there. Yeah, for sure. So Chris Gronkowski, I was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. Most known, family's most known as being a family of athletes. You know, five brothers, four of us played in the NFL. The oldest brother played in the minor leagues for baseball. So all five played professional sports. From there went on to become an entrepreneur. I was able to get onto ABC Shark Tank, started a company called Ice Shaker, got a deal from Mark Cuban and Alex Rodriguez, and six years in and just enjoying the ride. Amazing. That must have been incredible when you got them on board. Yeah, it's something that I wanted going into it. You know, that was kind of the dream. Partners was, hey, let's get someone with experience, the MLB, the NBA, and then I had the NFL background. So it's pretty cool locking up the sports trifecta. Yeah, that's awesome. So can you tell us more about this product? Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to. I was done playing in the NFL. I was still working out, living an active, healthy lifestyle. And I was here in Texas. It was super hot outside one day, and I came home, I grabbed a plastic shaker bottle, and I was heading to the gym. I filled it with ice. By the time I got there, I was sweating everywhere. I was actually making little sweat rings on the ground at the gym and took a sip. It was warm, it smelled awful, and I was like, man, there's got to be something better out there than this. So I went home that day, and really the goal was to get an insulated bottle that could actually blend and shake, but there's just nothing out there at the time. So I went on this journey to create this product for myself. I realized pretty quickly that a lot of people were also looking for something as well. So I took the standard shaker bottle that everyone knew, everyone had. I usually get them for free when you order supplements. And I liked it. I loved the pop-top on it. I used one myself, but I wanted to fix all the things I didn't like. So I made it a kitchen-grade stainless steel, so it won't absorb the odor. We insulated it, vacuum insulated it to keep your drink cold all day without sweating. We created a patented twist and agitator to break up the powders, added measurement markings, added an easy-to-hold handle. Just went all in trying to make the best bottle that I could. Really for myself, everyone else, but I wanted it to be something I could use all day, every day, not just at the gym, but bring it to the airport, bring it to work, sit around on the couch and drink out of it as well. So that's where the idea came from and just exploded once we got on Shark Tank. That's awesome. But what about the weight? Did it affect the weight, adding all those things to the bottle, stainless steel and everything? Or how was the weight on it? Yeah, it's definitely a little bit heavier than your standard plastic bottle, but definitely nothing that's too much to handle. Sturdier. Absolutely. It's still a product that weighs underneath a pound. And then we put a sturdy handle on it as well, so it's super easy to hold. Do you have one with you right now that you can show us? Yeah, I'm actually drinking out of one of our newer colors right here. I got the lid off. I don't know how I don't have like 20 of them laying around here. No, right? It's okay. Oh, I do. Here we go. I do got one. Oh, you're going to open a new one? It's probably a nice little sample bottle. So we are able to actually custom engrave them as well. Oh, to brand logos and whatnot. Absolutely. So we're able to do that. We turn them quick, three to five business days, which is huge for us. But here's the easy to hold handle, snaps down. You're not using it. Easy open pop top. This is a kitchen grade stainless, measurement markings inside of it. And then we have, this is actually the patented twist and agitator. So this will twist right off, making it super easy to clean. Twist it back in, it'll break up powders. You'll never be drinking a protein shake that has chunks in it, but it also works as a strainer. So a lot of people actually use their bottles more as cocktail shakers. They'll put an alcoholic drink in there. This will strain it, they can pour shots with it. It floats in the pool. So it's kind of that all purpose bottle right there. That's so amazing. I love this stuff, Chris. It's incredible how you just started trying to figure out something for yourself and turned into an entrepreneur with that product that's serving other people and helping them use this product. Now, do you deliver anywhere in the world or is it just the States right now? So we do deliver throughout the world. Shipping is going to be more expensive and pretty slow as well, especially with all the COVID protocols and everything going on. But yeah, we've shipped to countries I've never even heard of. So it's pretty cool to see and of course do some good business in any of the other English speaking countries, but stuff ends up everywhere. Shark Tank is definitely played throughout the world, is what it seems like, because we get hit up all the time saying, hey, we saw your Shark Tank video and it's in other countries overseas. So it's pretty cool to see how far the reach of Shark Tank actually goes. Oh man, people love that show. And Mark Cuban is a lovable guy. Have you worked with him directly then with this product? So Mark invested into it after the show. It was all the due diligence. He closed the deal. He sends the money over. And then he has a whole team built out. He's got Mark Cuban companies. He assigns an advisor to us. And anytime I need to talk to somebody, I can call the advisor, reach out to the team. I can reach out to Mark direct as well. He will answer. He usually writes back within five minutes. I emailed him at Saturday night at midnight at times. He's wrote back to me within five minutes. So I don't know how he does it. It's pretty impressive. But he's all about just helping people live the American dream is what it's all about. Yeah. He's always bending backwards for people. That's what I heard. He's working with a lot of charity organizations. He's helping a lot of war veterans. He's helping them get back into business. He does a lot of things and that's great that you partnered with him with this product. You mentioned that there's an opportunity to put a brand logo for a business. Is there a minimum order on those? We asked for 10 as a minimum. It's not bad. It was pretty low. What people love about us is that we could turn them so quick. I had a friend just hit me up within the last hour saying he has an event tonight and he wants to bring four gifts with him for the event. It's a big event for them, big clients. Can he stop by and snag them within the next hour? And I'm like, let's do it, man. Let's do it. Obviously, that's not an ideal situation to do them that fast and to bump our schedule for somebody, but we turn them in three to five business days for the most part for anything less than a thousand bottles. Most of the time, you can't even get them within a month with most companies. That's definitely a huge advantage that we have. We realize people forget or wait to the last minute to order a lot of things. Making that accessible to them within a week has been a huge selling point for us. I can imagine. What are the prices for each? Our 26-ounce bottle retails at $35. We have a 20-ounce at $25. We have some larger bottles as well. We have a 36-ounce. We have a gallon and a half gallon coming as well. I think they'll be here tomorrow. So I'm pretty excited for those. So really the range, $25 all the way up to our jug, we're going to be pricing at $109.99. So nice little variation of products for us. RRS Well, Chris, I just, I don't know, man. I sense that enthusiasm, the excitement, and everything about this business that you're working on, and you can hear that passion in you. Are you taking this anywhere else? Are you going into product development? Are you going to come up with new ideas? Are you scaling this? Any kind of plans for the future? Yeah, for sure. We have a great roadmap, really a nice five-year plan ahead of us. Yeah, we've introduced a decent amount of new styles since we started. The company's going into year six. We have over a hundred different SKUs, six different actual bottle lines as well. We brought in some bags, cooler bags, stuff like that, but the new jugs will come. That's a whole new line. We have what we're calling a sports bottle as well that we have coming in June. And then we just have cool partnerships as well for this year that we have planned out already. We're going to do an official US Army military camo bottle. Oh, nice. Partnership with the US Army. So we're super excited about that. We're working on a partnership with a speaker company called Bumpbox. So we will have a speaker bottle is what it looks like, which is pretty cool. You can actually pair the bottles together. So you can be hanging out of the pool with your family and across the pool, we both be playing the same music out of the bottle. Amazing. So you got that surround sound. Surround sound with the bottles. Beautiful. Even going to the gym, you'll want some music to pump. You just bring your bottle with you and it'll twist right off as well. You could replace it with a little compartment if you'd rather put supplements or pills or something like that. We're pretty excited for that partnership as well. So I feel like when you asked, I'm like, we don't have that much coming, but then I started talking. We got some cool stuff in the pipeline just for this year. Yeah. No, no, no. It sounds like you guys are doing amazing to add those kind of features. Would that speaker one that you're referring to, does it have a Bluetooth connection? Absolutely. Yeah. So built in Bluetooth. The team we're partnering with Bumpbox is one of the loudest and best Bluetooth speakers in the game. So you'll see they're big. They have a huge bump box that the 49ers were carrying out of the locker room with them during the playoff run. So pretty cool to see the NFL teams carrying these speakers with them as well. And we'll have a pretty cool- Did that help with the partnership? So they were already doing that. We actually already were helping them fill product through our other company called Gronk Fitness. So we already had a partnership with them. So everything kind of just helps. And I think this will really take the partnership to the next level when we introduce the speaker bottle. Yeah, for sure. So when you were growing up as a kid, were you fantasizing or thinking about entrepreneurship or getting into business? Was it always focused on sports? It was a huge sports focus growing up. I don't know if it kind of rubbed off on me that my dad started his own business. He's been in business for 32 years now and he sells fitness equipment. So I grew up delivering the treadmills, delivering the equipment, building the equipment and helping him at the age of 15 and drove the trucks and did all that until I left for college. So yeah, I don't know if that was ever the plan for me. I think I more kind of stumbled upon something that I was super passionate about and just started it as a side hustle. And pretty soon it blossomed into a full company. I love it. I love it. So your dad's company, what is it called? It's called G&G Fitness Equipment. G&G. So my dad's name is Gordy and his brother's Glenn. They started it 32 years ago and they sell specialty fitness equipment. Started because he wanted to buy fitness equipment for his five sons. He played college football himself. He wanted to buy equipment for us. Same concept. Yeah. Realized that if he bought the stuff at the local Sears or whatever it was, it wasn't going to last because there was five boys that had to get through. He wanted some quality stuff. He realized that to get commercial grade or good quality equipment in the home, he had to drive all the way to New Jersey. And he realized there was a business opportunity in Buffalo, New York to start these companies. So we started with one, grew to 17 stores and a massive commercial division as well. Oh, that's great. Are any of your brothers involved with him? Yep. My oldest two brothers worked with my dad. He wasn't too happy that I was the first son not to work for him. So yeah, it was tough for me after playing in Arizona for college and bouncing around the NFL to go back to Buffalo, New York. I was here in Dallas. The weather was beautiful. I stumbled upon this opportunity for the business and wanted to see it grow. So we ended up settling here instead. And unfortunately the business is exclusive to the Northeast. He has exclusive territories with the fitness equipment providers. So he can't just sell in any state. He actually has exclusive rights to the Northeast. So he's kind of stuck in the Buffalo, New York area or at least the Northeast. So it was tough for me to pull the trigger and go back home. Yeah. Yeah. Tough decisions. We want to make our parents happy too, but sometimes you got to make those decisions. Yeah. And then for you, you guys kind of cross market as well, your bottles with your dad. Yeah, absolutely. So it's a pretty cool situation because all the brothers in some capacity are in that sports and fitness world. So we're always crossing paths. We're always helping each other out. We're always recommending, sending over recommendations to each other for clients or customers or suppliers or whatever it is. So pretty much on a daily basis, we're talking to each other and we're helping each other out in some capacity. So it's pretty cool because we're not working over or the boss of each other, but we're able to help each other out and succeed. So it's a pretty cool relationship that we have still as a family. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. It sounds supportive, right? Because it's not just sports. There's involvement in business and you can find ways to help each other, serve each other. And obviously within the family, there can't be anything better than that, right? To be working within the family. Yeah. It's been good. So it continues to grow. We continue to stay busy. That's for sure. That's awesome. Do you guys have, I mean, do you have affiliate programs? We do. We have an affiliate program. If anybody's interested in audience that wanted to get into this and help you guys out, how would that work? Absolutely. So you can jump on our site. We do have an affiliate program. If you're an influencer and you want to jump on and sign up, for sure. If you have a blog or you have a website, we love working with websites and blogs as well. That's actually our ideal client. We love working with fitness blogs and finding ways to weave content in. And with that, we pay on a scale, on a commission basis. So the more you sell, the more we're going to pay you. That's awesome. So whenever we have guests on the show, we always ask them, what's their inner superpower that got them to this point? Man, inner superpower, I would say consistency. I'm going to show up every day, going to get the work done every day. I'm going to try to find a way to get better or make a new relationship. And I think with most things, my wife's business as well that she started, I did this before with her that was still going today, still growing, still super strong. We just kept showing up every day and we just did it better than everyone else. People always ask, you didn't have a patent. I get told all the time that, hey, I thought of that idea about the shaker bottle before you did. And it's true. I'm sure thousands of people did, but to actually put it in play and then stay consistent with it, put that work in every day and find a way to consistently get better is extremely hard to do. There's so many times where you just want to walk away from it or take a vacation or just say, I don't have time for this today. But if you show up each and every day and people can count on you, they're going to keep counting on you and they're going to keep coming back and they're going to start recommending you as well. So I found out pretty quickly that if you keep showing up each and every day, customers are going to keep showing up too. They're going to keep adding more. Yeah. Consistency is in my books, a superpower. And it's funny that you mentioned that. And there's a lot of people that suffer from this because they go into business and consistency or the level of daily, regular, consistent action that is required to grow or run a business is by hands down one of the most important aspects of running a business. But people don't find that mindset, right? Sometimes the mindset, those voices get in the way, right? So for you growing up because of that environment of competitiveness, like the sports, training, consistency in sports, would you say that helped you with being more consistent to have that quality? Yeah, absolutely. I'm blessed to have that discipline really growing up to go through that. You just don't know anything else. There was never a time where I could say no. You make an excuse. Yeah. There was no chance. So we came home from school and the first thing my mom would say was, hey, you have to get your homework done. There was no excuse. We couldn't say no. It was, hey, you're not going out. You're not going to your games. You're not playing in the backyard. You got to do your homework first. So it was always a no excuse mentality. We just did it because that's all we knew. It was that we had to get it done no matter what. There was no other option. So I think my parents did a great job of just teaching us responsibility, teaching us the value of a dollar, having jobs at a young age, making us buy our own stuff. I think that all pays off. And it's hard to do. I have kids now and I want to give them everything. I can give them everything. And then they ask for it and it's hard to say no to your own kid. So I think my parents at first had to say no because they had no money. But after a while, once they started to get money and become successful, it was still the same thing. It was, hey, if you want a car, go buy it. If you want to go to college, it will help you get there, but we're not going to pay for it. Yeah. And it's so important because nowadays, I think we're a little bit softer with our kids too. Our parents were very strict, but when I have three kids and now that I think about it, they don't really ask for much. They're very simple. They don't bother us. They don't say anything. We have to actually sometimes say, do you guys want to get something? So it's good that way. But I can see how we as parents, we want to do everything for our kids. We want to just give them whatever we can, but the problem is it can have a reverse effect, right? Because if those kids can know that they can get anything they want just like that, that becomes a paradigm when they go into business or work, whatever career is going to hold them back. For sure. Yeah. It doesn't show you what hard work's all about and how to really earn it. So that's something that's just built into me at this point. That's great. It's almost like you take a weekend off and it's frustrating because nothing was done. So yeah, I mean, it definitely has its pros and cons and it's hard for me to go a full day without feeling like I accomplished something. That's excellent. Well, you know what? I wish you all the best, all the success, the growth, the more products you come out with. If you come out with anything else, let us know. We'd love have you back on the show. Are there any final words for anyone in the audience that has an idea, has a concept, they're just procrastinating, thinking, okay, you know what? After I get promoted in this job, when I get $10,000 a year more, I'm not pointing at anyone, I'm just giving an example. Or after my kids become teenagers, I'm going to go and launch this product or start the process. Any kind of advice for people? Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you don't have enough time right now, you're never going to do it anyways, is how I've always seen it. I've started everything as a side hustle with little effort. If you work a full-time job, now you're going to work 40 hours, you still have almost double that to do whatever you want afterwards. I have my fourth kid coming, my wife has a business, I have a business. We have, I don't know, probably combined, she probably has about 15 employees. I'm right around there as well. So we've got plenty on our plate, that's for sure. And there's still time for me to go to the gym, get a workout and take care of myself. If you want to get it done, you're going to get it done. You're going to find a way to do it. So my advice is always, if you didn't already start it, you're probably not passionate enough about it to actually do it and you're probably going to fail anyways. If you are passionate about it, start it as a side hustle and don't use the money as an excuse. You can start very small. It doesn't take much. My wife's business started with, I think, $300, a little cutting machine. I was a little bit more fortunate where I had more to spend when I started the business, but I didn't have a ton of money to spend on it. The real big expense was just the first purchase order and it was a lot because I wanted it to be bigger. I wanted to go bigger because I thought that I would be able to sell it faster, which wasn't the case. I definitely over-ordered. So realistically, I could have started with a thousand units and started with maybe $10,000 max. What was your first order like? How big was it? I put in 10,000 bottles, thinking that I could move them pretty quickly and didn't realize how hard it really is to start something from the ground up. So yeah, those 10,000 bottles, they were gone in the first year, but that was because of Shark Tank. You made that call without Shark Tank being in the picture. Correct. Yeah. That's ambitious though. It's good. It said I was going to find a way to get through them. So we were almost out of them by the time Shark Tank came around. We actually brought in a couple of colors and brought in another PO. But yeah, it was a lot. I mean, day one, I had no marketing plan. I thought I was just going to kind of show up and everything was going to move and that wasn't the case at all. So yeah, really when it comes down to it, if you're super passionate about it, you're going to find a way for it to work anyways and you'll find a way to get that money either. You're going to find somebody that can help you out. You're going to get a loan. You start smaller and then just keep building and building and building. So if you can't afford the 10,000 bottles, maybe you can get 1,000. Maybe you can find a way to build up $5,000 or get an investor if you have to with someone else that will help you out. You'll find a way if you really love it. You'll find a way to get it started and get it going, but it doesn't need to be huge. For me, it was, I always said, start small, prove the concept, make sure people actually want it because I thought ice shaker was the coolest thing in the world, but it was mine. So of course I thought that. I thought of that idea and that happens to a lot of people where they think it's the best idea ever instead of actually trying to sell the product to get it made. They go and try to get it patented. They spend thousands and thousands of dollars on patents. They then go to get it made. They can't even get it made. It costs thousands more because the patents for the specific design that you can't even really manufacture because you never actually brought it to a manufacturer to see what their capabilities were. And it just becomes this huge expense and you're not even close to making any revenue yet. So start small, prove the concept. No one's going to steal it until you explode. You're not going to come run in and copy your idea when you're not making any money. So make somebody first, prove it, start as a side hustle, a couple hours a day, whatever it is, until you get it up and running. And then once it's successful, once you know it's going to take off, then that's when you go all in and then make it your full time. Once it could actually support you and support your cost of living, go all in at that point. And at that point, hire quick because if you want to grow, you got to get out of your old way and you need people to help you. You need to build a good team. Well, Chris, those are incredible suggestions, recommendations. And thank you so much for sharing that with the audience. I'm sure, I'm hoping this is going to motivate a few people to jump up and start this process and get into it because the more we have this in the market, this innovation, the more leaders we can create, the better we can create our economies, environment. So what you're doing, going on these podcasts, sharing your story and your message is very important. And I appreciate your time and thank you for coming on the show. I know you mentioned a couple of times your wife's business. We're all about supporting entrepreneurship and businesses. I would love for you to give me a quick background on what she does, if you would like to share. For sure. For sure. So she started, really started as an Etsy shop back in 2012. She became one of the biggest Etsy shops. We then opened multiple, but the company is called Everything Decorated. She sells personalized engraved gifts, mostly for the wedding industry and for events and holidays. So anything from a decanter gift set, engraved flask, pocket knives, champagne, flutes, stuff like that. You can go on our site, even robes and anything for a bachelorette party, you're going to find on her website and everything, every single thing is personalized to your order. What is the site called again? It's called Everything Decorated. Everything Decorated. Perfect. On her website as well as everythingdecorated.com, but really doing that for five years with her taught me how important it is to first get stuff out quick, do it better than other people, but also how important customization is. And we brought that aspect into iShaker as well. And it's been a huge game changer for us. Excellent, Chris. Thank you so much for sharing your dad's and your wife's business, because you know what, if you're a great guy and you've got great products, there's always businesses that are in connection with great businesses that someone could get something out of it, right? That can help someone somewhere and it can never hurt by sharing that. And I appreciate that you did. And again, thank you so much for taking the time to come on our show. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Keep in touch. I appreciate it. All right. Take care, Chris. Thank you so much.