Nate Nordstrom – Owner of New Spin Bicycle Shop, Rochester, Minnesota
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Nate Nordstrom – Owner of New Spin Bicycle Shop, Rochester, Minnesota
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Meet Nate Nordstrom. Lifelong entrepreneur and new business owner of an e-centric bicycle retail location featuring electric assist bikes, electric scooters, and traditional “acoustic” bikes.
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Nate Nordstrom
Tue, 4/13
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bike, bike shop, shop, people, rochester, products, called, customers, brand, building, ride, thought, bicycle, feel, business, sell, cargo, industry, buy,
SPEAKERS
Heather Mason, Nate Nordstrom, NBDA
NBDA 00:10
You are listening to bicycle retail radio brought to you by the National bicycle Dealers Association.
Heather Mason 00:16
Welcome to another episode of bicycle retail radio brought to you by the NBDA. I’m Heather Mason. Thanks for listening. I’m happy you’re here. If you’re a first time listener, be sure to check out all the previous episodes. Do us a favor and leave a review helps members of our industry find our podcast. As always, the NBDA is thankful for our donors and association members. If you would like to make a donation to the NBDA you can do so directly on our web page. Special thanks to Canberra gel products for your donation to the NBDA. I’m a huge fan of their products. The company is based in Lancaster, New York, and it’s founded by a great friend of mine, a cyclist. The entire staff is passionate about sport, and they make Shammi cream sport wipe sanitizer gear and air fresheners. All tea tree oil based supernatural feels so good on your skin. Check them out it’s Canberra gel calm. That’s knvragl.com very excited about today’s conversation. The guest today is Nate Nordstrom. He is owner of new spin bicycle shop located in Rochester, Minnesota, a lifelong entrepreneur and new business owner of an E centric bicycle retail location featuring electric scooters and traditional acoustic bikes. brands include giant turn, urban arrow, or beya and Terra trike. Some key takeaways from today’s conversation will be the process of opening a new bike shop your business plan employees and location and considerations for an E bike focused business. What a great opportunity to bring a new bicycle shop owner to talk about the process of opening and his path into our industry. Without further ado, welcome me. How are you?
Nate Nordstrom 01:59
Great. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I’m pretty excited.
Heather Mason 02:02
Yeah, I think it’s been maybe a month or so maybe a little bit more since we first chatted. And you’re in the process of the build out. I know you had a timeline. And I think originally the shop was set to be opened by now. Catch me up on where you’re at in the process.
Nate Nordstrom 02:19
Yeah, so the the original timeline is broken. I was supposed to be open on March 20, which was my birthday and the first day of spring. So I thought oh, that’d be a pretty good fit. So plan it out months ago. It didn’t happen due to the nature of these sorts of things. We ended up with delays with initially signing the lease and just lease negotiations. And then we ended up with the city telling us we needed extra permits that we didn’t realize that we needed or weren’t originally told that we needed. And that’s added a whole other month or two. So we’re probably about a month from opening still, but I’m just doing basically doing appointments now anyway, have been selling bikes by appointment.
Heather Mason 03:03
Interesting. So, I am thinking about Rochester, Minnesota, I’ve never been there. Can you give our listeners like a little bit of a sense of the demographics of the area?
Nate Nordstrom 03:12
Yeah, so Rochester, Minnesota is home to Mayo Clinic. It’s a town of about 115,000 people, but there’s about 38,000 people that work at Mayo Clinic. So, it is healthcare by far. There are other industries, of course, here hospitality, food services, and then there’s kind of a little bit of everything else. It’s a nice like middle sized town. I’m from Omaha, Nebraska originally, which is a little larger town. So, Rochester really felt like a small town. To me, there’s rarely a traffic jam, and things like that. But demographic wise, I would say that the income is slightly above average, unemployment is slightly lower than average, the trail system is really good. There’s a good number of young families with kids that are kind of moving to the area to get a job at Mayo Clinic are one of the one of the other businesses here. And then there’s a good number of folks that are older, that are either near retirement or at retirement or maybe still working at Mayo, but they’re sort of in their upper years.
Heather Mason 04:16
Awesome. So, it makes me think that I want to know your thought process on being a person who lives there to decide this community needs an E bike shop or just a bicycle shop in general. But are you a cyclist? Is that where you were approaching this from?
Nate Nordstrom 04:33
Great question. You know, like at a base level, I’m just a, I’m just a dad who loves to get outside and do stuff with my family. And bikes have been one of the key ways that we’ve done that. I wouldn’t call myself even a semi professional cyclist. I like to bike. I’ve got a friend who used to race kind of semi professionally but that’s sort of what brought me into the industry really was family and electric cargo
Heather Mason 05:01
How about Rochester, Minnesota for cycling? in general? Is there recreational paths? is there other bike shops?
Nate Nordstrom 05:08
Yep, there’s there are several other bike shops. The path system here is really solid. And the more we rode around, the more we realized how well put together the path system is here. So, there’s plenty of places to ride just for fun. And it’s actually practical to take a bike just about anywhere for commuting purposes as well, which has been great.
Heather Mason 05:31
I feel like the I don’t know if you’ve been overseas, have you been like to Europe or any other country? Or you’ve seen people out? It definitely makes you think that what’s capable here in the US, right?
Nate Nordstrom 05:41
Yeah, I think so I think one of our biggest challenges in the us is that we, our whole infrastructure is built around cars. In most cities, some most cities don’t have great biking lane sort of infrastructure. And they also are really spread out. Things in Europe tend to be more compact and tend to have even roads in Europe that are only for bikes and walking, which is just a different sort of philosophy. I think you’re starting to see some trends that direction. And in fact, Rochester is one of the city’s pushing some of those trends, which is another reason it was another sort of positive indicator for what we want to do with our shop.
Heather Mason 06:21
So why not a traditional bike shop? Why the focus on electric bikes? Was there something about e bikes that caught your eye? I mean, do you ride one?
Nate Nordstrom 06:31
Yes, we do ride one. And actually, I purchased an electric cargo bike from a company called Blix online as a pre order. And it’s one of those like cheaper, rad bike style bikes. And that was our first experience with an electric bike and our first experience with a cargo bike, I purchased two of them. This was just a couple years ago. And it truly changed our family’s life. It allowed us my wife and I with young kids to be able to put the kids on the back and go on a ride, and not have them tired and complaining after like a mile. And the other bonus was we could ride together. So, it wasn’t like my wife was more tired than me or vice versa. Like we could actually both keep up. But we were still both pedaling and both getting some exercise. So that was a real eye opener for us. And then as we’re writing these things around, everywhere we go, people were saying, where’d you get that? Where’d you rent that? And then when they found out what wasn’t a rental, they’d say, where’d you buy it? So, we just got questions constantly. And it got me thinking, Okay, maybe people, other people would actually like these too. And the more we actually we would bring friends to go on rides with us as well. And they absolutely loved it. So, it just became really clear that this was an opportunity and a trend that nobody No, none of the other shops seemed to be paying attention to.
Heather Mason 07:57
Yeah, that he when you hop on an E bike, it’s a definite instant smile that comes across your face. Now, you mentioned cargo bikes, and I feel like the cargo bikes that are coming to the US. That’s the next, you know, thing that we should be paying attention to. Do you have any thoughts around cargo for the US market?
Nate Nordstrom 08:15
Definitely. Again, I think as far as like, what’s practical with a cargo bike, we sell urban Aero, as well. I just put one together the other day, and we were we were test riding with the family. It’s huge. It’s, it’s like it’s fun. And it’s practical, but in a different sort of way, it’s not something you can put on a bike rack. So, you really with the bike, especially like an urban arrow, and you have to have a very clear purpose for it. And it has to really fit kind of your lifestyle. So, if you’re going to get an urban arrow, you’re the type of person that’s going to plan to actually start from your house, go out, maybe run some errands, actually maybe drop the kids off at daycare, maybe go pick them up at school, and then come back rather than the type of writer that maybe puts their bike on a bike rack and goes out to I don’t know, a camping trip or some other trail somewhere else. And those kinds of bikes are great too. But I think just specifically talking about cargo. I think it you have to have the right sort of city infrastructure, and then the right sort of buyer for those and I think that there’s enough of that in Rochester for that to take off a little bit anyway, I don’t I don’t imagine we’ll see tons of them. But I think that there’s buyers to be had that that nobody was really serving.
Heather Mason 09:29
I think part of it is showing the product right and like you said you were out riding on the path and people saw Alright, so we’re getting really into E bikes and I there’s so much there, but I think we just need to know a little bit more about you. I know that you are involved in companies called EZ board and brand who, but I know you’re an entrepreneur, can you tell us a little bit just about your past so we can figure out how you how you came to the bicycle industry?
Nate Nordstrom 09:53
Yeah, well, I grew up constantly trying to figure out ways to make things sell things. Nobody really had to tell him to do that I just love to do that I even made as a kid, I would make like little what I thought were clay pots, but it was basically like little dirt pots out of like our backyard to like put stuff in. And then I would sell them to neighbors, and especially to my brother and I made him a coupon book, I don’t know, if I was like six years old or something, I made him a coupon book for my stuff. It expired, like the next day, all the coupons,
Heather Mason 10:28
buy today. He got like pressured to buy stuff.
Nate Nordstrom 10:31
So, like I’ve also learned, like some of those things are just bad ideas, like doesn’t really create friends, but I did make some sales. So, I also grew up with sort of an entrepreneur family, my dad, and then his dad started a Christmas tree farm, like about 40 years ago. And they did that seasonally. So just growing up, even from a young age, I knew that, and I experienced working with customers doing customer service, trying to navigate all the complexities of that because sometimes customer will have a request, that’s totally unreasonable. And sometimes they have a very reasonable request to just kind of figure that out. So, we really learned hard work at a young age, we would plant 1000s of trees, and then just combined to sort of my own interest and bent when there’s a whole bunch of stories in there that I can tell you, I used to run cross country, and was pretty serious about that. That was a very, like grueling sport. that taught me a lot of endurance and, you know, having gotten through stuff, as long as you have a clear goal in mind. And
Heather Mason 11:35
I love that you brought up you know, like you, your store, when you were younger, I used to do the same thing I would have like my parents sit down and I’d make a fake menu and they’d have to come to my restaurant and buy. And I agree that what we do in our sports and our athletic pursuits, definitely is that same mindset, that competitive driving spirit. So here you are, you’re an entrepreneur, you’re you know, brand new, which is a data platform, right and easy board tells ya,
Nate Nordstrom 12:01
let me tell you a little bit about easy board and brand new, there’s more than that two, there’s a few other things. About 10 years ago, I felt burnt out at my job. And it was like a daily deal startup. It was like, like Groupon, but it was called deal garden. And that was back when that was a very, very hot platform, a very hot marketing tactic. And I just, I could first see the downfall of that model, it was already starting to happen where businesses weren’t really well served with that. So, I’ve never ever been one to want to sell something that I didn’t believe in. And I just didn’t believe in the business model anymore, because I was seeing customers not really get the results that we were telling them they were going to get. So, I’m not going to sell that to them and make up numbers. And so, I resigned. And I happened to actually be the first employee at that company. And so, it was kind of a hit to the company. And I felt really bad about that. And I don’t know if I handled it the greatest way either. I didn’t realize at the time how much impact that would have on the company and just kind of where things were at. But I started brand new as sort of an answer to the issues I saw with do garden as far as a marketing and sort of sales approach. And my goal with brand new was to help small businesses better connect with their customers in a sustainable way. And so, I cold called a couple local restaurants. cold calls are something that I was totally used to in my previous job, I did over 100 cold calls a day prior to that. So it was like no big deal. So I just called up strangers and asked for appointments, got some appointments, got some customers, and started serving them with social media marketing. And that went well. But I was severely under charging. And so once I started to figure out like how to make this more sustainable and started raising prices and tweaking the model, we lost some customers and then gained some new customers and then started getting requests for websites. And so fast forward a whole bunch brand who has a team of eight people. We do websites and mobile applications. We do work for Mayo Clinic, we do work for some other organizations around the region. And out of that, our team has developed a lot of experience with creating new brands and launching websites and doing a lot of the foundational stuff, the HR side of stuff, employee handbooks, like all the behind the scenes stuff that you don’t think about when you open a new business. We’ve done that now. And I’ve been deeply involved in that for years to a point now where I could foresee launching something like new spin and we’ll talk more about why why launch a bike shop but a lot of the behind the scenes stuff just comes very natural and they’ve kind of done it before so I kind of knew what to expect. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. And I knew kind of what pitfalls to avoid. But there’s definitely been stuff to learn for sure as well. Easy board super briefly on that easy board is a product of brand new so I personally and our team are very product, brand minded. So brand who does clients services, which is great, but you’re always constantly chasing like the next project. Ez board is a product with a recurring annual subscription. And so it’s a way for nonprofit boards to manage their people meetings and documents. And so for a nonprofit board, this is super convenient and efficient. And we’re, we’re growing that product. I think we’re right now just just crossed like 30 customers, it’s a pretty new product. And in about like, 15 states or something, and that’s gonna be recurring annual. So that’s awesome. Because now like we’re building we’re literally building a SaaS subscription based software that’s completely cost them that we own entirely. So that’s like my other side of my life, business life. And then I don’t know
Heather Mason 15:42
how you’re wearing so many hats.
15:44
There’s a lot of, yeah,
Heather Mason 15:46
when you and I first connected, I went directly, like I always do, I went directly to your website, I always go directly to the website or whatever shop, I’m talking to you. But new, new spin shop.com your website is amazing. So yeah, let’s why a bike shop, dive into that with me, you’ve got so much else going on, you know, talk to me about that.
Nate Nordstrom 16:05
Yeah, so my wife kind of made me promise a few years ago that I wouldn’t start a new business, or any more businesses. But I kind of smiled and we talked about a little bit more. And she’d like she kind of knew, like there. I’m just wired to create things, and to set up teams and to scale things. And so I knew there was gonna be something else at some point. And this probably won’t be the last thing. But the key really was like, how do you do that sustainably and make sure that it has enough focus and really the right team in place so that it can be successful without me being directly involved, because there’s no way I have enough time to be there every day and like be fixing all the bikes and everything. I just can’t do it. But I’m totally okay with that. So getting the team set up is key. So why a bike shop? Going back to the promise my wife maybe make, like a year and a half ago, we were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains. And I was sort of complaining to her really about how we had, I saw so much opportunity to create an E bike specialty bike shop. And I didn’t feel like it was ever gonna happen. And we just didn’t have the resources. We didn’t have the team, she wouldn’t want me to do another thing anyway, and etc, etc. And then she just kind of like she kind of paused me and said, I think you should do it. I said I was like, but I was like, Did you just give me permission to do another thing? And she’s like, Yeah, I did. Because I think I sit in front of a computer most of the time for my my other businesses. And eventually, I don’t think it matters who you are, eventually, you could just get sick of sitting in front of my computer. And I really, even when I was a kid I, I sort of promised myself that I would never have a desk job. And now somehow I do. I like the computer side of stuff. But I really want to do something with my hands. And I love working with customers in a bike shop. Really, it’s a more of a customer facing thing, the stuff I do in the technology world is sometimes abstract for the average person. And what I found with ebikes, specifically, just the spark of an electric cargo bike is it was really the spark of the idea. It enabled what is in a lot of ways, kind of an average family with kids, to now be engaged with bikes and exercise and being outdoors in a way that we never were before. So while I hope to serve more of that, like, for lack of better term like hard, hardcore biker, that’s not what caused me to start the shop, the shop really is started for getting the average person on a set of wheels and getting them pedaling, getting them out there. So far, so good. But that was really sort of the vision behind it. And I just couldn’t let the idea go. And then my wife said to do it. So here we are.
Heather Mason 18:52
Here we are. I love that you have someone that supports you. She’s amazing. Okay, so you’ve done a lot of businesses in the past but bicycle shop may be something you’re not familiar with. When you were attacking the business plan. Was there anyone that you used or reached out to professionalize to help you?
Nate Nordstrom 19:07
Absolutely. So one of the absolutely key things that I’ve come to realize over the past 10 years running some of these other businesses has been find experts in whatever it is you’re trying to solve, and work with those people and listen to them. So I reached out found NBDA and then reached out through there to find David dekeyser, who is a consultant for bike shops. He’s been extremely helpful. He helped me figure out like, I didn’t know what what’s, what’s the normal margin to expect. And then by the way, based on that margin, how do you how do you achieve that margin and what are the pitfalls? Why are some shops disappearing? What are the factors he’s seen in that happening and so, figuring out margins, figuring out product mix, figuring out even just his advice on like picking up giant so as I was in the middle of planning this by shop and looking for a place to lease or buy. The local giant dealer shut down, he retired. And he was one of giants first dealers in the US. So he’s been around a long time. So there’s a customer base already for giant, there’s a loyal following. And they’re just a big, good brand. So he shut down while I’m planning. So I immediately called him up. Well, I should say, though, first, I talked to David and said, Hey, here’s what happened. Do you think I should pick up giant? I’m like, I don’t know. He’s like, you should definitely do it. So we talked through a little bit more. But I got a better sense through with his advice to say do it. And here’s why. So David’s been extremely helpful. I also reached out and found a gentleman with fixture lab named Brian Brian’s
Heather Mason 20:47
Yeah,
Nate Nordstrom 20:48
who has been helping me design the shop. So I had all kinds of ideas. And I’ve done some like building design, my dad’s actually an architect. So I’ve like seen some things over the years that are pretty fancy and high end and funky, like our old house had a leaning wall and some different stuff. So like my, my sense of like design and architecture is maybe a little bit, sometimes maybe a little bit out there. But I try to make things like interesting. So I had ideas, but I’ve never built a bike shop before. And it’s similar in some ways to designing like a piece of software. But not really because like in the software world, if if we don’t like the color of something, or we don’t like the way it looks, we just change it in the code, like in five minutes, it’s done. And the bike shop world, like if I designed my shop layout, and then I decide that wall isn’t in the right spot, I don’t just like click and drag, it doesn’t really work that way. So like, okay, I don’t want to mess this up. I need to work with somebody who knows the ins and outs of how to design a successful shop layout. So Brian has been very helpful in that and was able to take, there’s been a lot of back and forth. And I’ve probably been one of his most picky clients ever, which I’d happily admit. But I’m just very particular about the branding of things, the flow of things, I really want to create this modern, approachable, but kind of approachable, higher end feel, where when you walk in, you feel like the shop itself is actually part of the experience. So for example, we’ve actually got turf going up one of the walls, and they’ll be product on that and it goes up like about 18 feet, then it’ll be lit in some interesting ways. It’ll be the logo on that. So like a whole sort of theme is is kind of connecting the average person with technology that helps you get outside.
Heather Mason 22:36
I mean, when I went to your website I’m getting I was like, drawn into that feel of something unique was happening here, but turf on the wall. I love that idea. And I’m friends with Dave, and Brian. And I think it’s great that you reached out to professionals, especially with this industry that you’re not too familiar with. But obviously now you’re all in. Let’s talk about the building. So did you have a space in mind originally? Are you renting or buying or
Nate Nordstrom 23:02
so I had a space in mind that’s actually located a couple blocks from my house that was for sale. That property after I talked to the couple local contractors and got their estimates on actually fixing it up and making it what it needed to be, it was going to be a huge amount of money to sink into it. And by the time he did that, it would have been maybe worth it. But then the real kicker was because of COVID. No bank is giving financing. At least they weren’t when I asked. They said I’m sorry. Like your brand new business has a successful track record. But we actually don’t care at all because this is a new venture. So there is no financing available. It basically forced me to say okay, we’re gonna have to find somewhere to rent. We did that. And then I was just, I just kind of looking everywhere. And I’ve been looking for months too. But I was driving around with my kids actually, and saw a random sign outside of a building on a frontage road in a pretty near a pretty popular shopping center in Rochester. And it said for a lease and I was like, that’s interesting. So I walked in the the owner was actually there, we talked I looked at the space, I was immediately impressed with both the location and the the it’s like a real tall ceiling. It’s got the clean polished concrete floors. We’ve changed it quite a bit now but like the the bones of it was exactly what I would have wanted. It has this more open sort of feel we can even almost create like an Rei kind of feel versus like this, you know, eight foot popcorn ceiling kind of thing, which was like not at all what I was going for. So we’re renting. Yeah, it’s a little bit about how we ended up renting.
NBDA 24:44
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Heather Mason 24:57
Sometimes write what you necessarily want it to be Getting is turns out to be, you know, it’s like, oh, I’m glad that didn’t happen, because I ended up with something that
Nate Nordstrom 25:05
well, the other thing I’d say quickly about that is actually the place I originally wanted to buy is on a bike path. Okay, so the original concept was we could do sales and rentals. And the bike path where it is is a great spot, you can go about a half mile one way to what’s called Silver Lake and go around that, you know, about a half and a half mile the other way and you can go to Rochester is largest, by far, like nature preserve area, and it’s beautiful over there called quarry Hill. So I like that aspect of it. But I even had like business people in the community telling me, I don’t think that’s a great location, it’s in a neighborhood, they’re like, you really should look at something more visible. But anyway, I was kind of forced out of that anyway, because of the finance stuff.
Heather Mason 25:47
It is a good consideration for ebikes. So to have a space that’s safe for demoing, right?
Nate Nordstrom 25:53
So yeah, it is. So we’ve got, we’ve got an okay space for test rides, I think it’s gonna work fine. It’s not as good as the my first pick. But what we do have is a parking lot with only sort of one entrance exit. And then you can go around, like sort of around a loop in that parking lot. And so for the most part, you’re out of the way of where cars can even enter because there’s only one entrance exit. So that works decent. And that’s worked. That’s worked well. So far. Interestingly, David with a consultant at the NBA, he told me that he has seen on average, the most successful shops have the worst test ride facilities
Heather Mason 26:38
that makes you feel good.
Nate Nordstrom 26:40
Because he said usually the those shops that are successful are because they have a lot of visibility, or they’re convenient to people or both. So that sort of reassured me to to say okay, as long as I’ve got an okay test area, where they can at least ride safely. It’s maybe not a bike trail, but it’s okay, that if all the other factors look positive, that this should be a good fit. I’ll, I should add as well, I know this kind of a lot about the location. But the other real deal maker for me on this was the same building the adjacent space is a high end car repair shop, I would say probably Rochester is nicest one, they’ve got like a lounge when you walk in the door, it’s very classy. And they work on a lot of nicer cars than frankly, cars nicer than mine. So those kind of customers, for better or worse, those are going to be the customers that have a little more expendable income for a more expensive ebike. On the other side of me directly adjacent is a powersports dealer, and a boat dealer. That dealer is like our region’s premier boat and powersports. And those things are like 10x or more what our products costs. And so I think there’s a lot of crossover in terms of customers, more of that average person kind of customer that will be willing to at least check out our shop, and may very well find themselves interested in something they didn’t even know existed before.
Heather Mason 28:14
Yeah, I think that’s a great crossover. And it sounds like the location is actually really amazing. I’m wondering when you’re thinking about an eBay store, is there anything special as far as your build out considerations like in your repair shop, you know, workbenches repair stands
Nate Nordstrom 28:32
a little bit so we purchased one so far of The Park Tool, like a motorized stand. And that thing is huge, and it is expensive. It almost feels like overkill, but I’m a big believer in quality tools to do a good job. So we’ll see we may end up purchasing a second one of those. But basically you can just wheel the bike up to it however heavy The bike is doesn’t matter, clip it in and press a button and up it goes. So just a lot less wrangling with a heavy bike.
Heather Mason 29:03
So now you have the space you have a business plan you have your consultants we know giant you mentioned giant, there’s a lot of varieties of E bikes. We talked about the one that you purchased online, originally back with your family. How would you cultivate your offering and decide what brands you were going to carry? And with this time, you know this past year, how has it been security brands,
Nate Nordstrom 29:26
as far as how did we pick the brands giant we talked about how we got that one? Really glad we did the more the more we’re connected with giant and purchasing products, the more glad I am that we that we picked them up just because they have such a broad offering. The other brands I feel like are maybe a little more specialty. And so for example with turn, I’m just a huge fan of their products and I purchased a couple other products from a different bike shop, just to try them out. And I had done a lot of research on them and heard a lot of good things but within once I actually tried it. My wife tried it and our kids tried it and some friends tried it. I was apps sold for on two things. One, the product is really well designed and built, it’s very comfortable. And two, it is a clear step up as far as experience, even just right within five minutes, or even a minute of getting on a turn bike bike versus getting on a blacks or a rad bike, the quality of the ride, the smoothness, the pedal assist, everything about it, on the turn, is a clear step up. So I felt like strength wise, I was going to be able to legitimately compete against the notion that someone says, Hey, you know, why are the ebikes online half the price. And I think I’m just gonna buy one of those. In fact, we’ll see how this goes. But I actually bought Arad have it in the shop. And if somebody asked, I’m actually gonna let them try it, or at least show it to them.
Heather Mason 30:52
I have another retailer who I chatted with who actually did that and brought it in and, you know, built it up, just to gain experience with the brand and then does let people test ride a inexpensive bike if you would, and then maybe a higher quality bike, and it’s helped. So I think that’s a really great idea.
Nate Nordstrom 31:09
We’re gonna try that. Yeah, it’ll be interesting. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes. But I think for a person that is looking more for the best value, not necessarily like all I can absolutely afford is 16 $100. If they’re actually looking more for best value, and they’re actually looking at this as a longer term investment. I think it’s a pretty easy, especially once you talk it through and then once you see the product, it’s pretty easy to make the decision to go for the nice product that’s turn and turn also sells just their designs are extremely clever, just the things that they’re doing with the engineering on their bikes, I’ve been absolutely impressed with everything about them the way they handle the wheel size, and just the cleverness of how they fold and all these other aspects. So turn was turn was really my number one, once we were able to secure turn, then we sort of started stacking some of the other brands that I felt like would be important. So I wanted to have urban arrow because I wanted to have just a different sort of cargo bike. And I know that’s the most popular cargo bike in Europe. So I thought well, that really kind of fits with our scheme and kind of fills a gap, or beta i picked because I like turn I was just very impressed with their products. I felt like they Frankly, I really wanted to, to carry specialized. But there’s a couple of specialized dealers in town already. So I just did more research had a lot of conversations. I feel like our beta is sort of similar to specialized, at least in terms of like beauty of the product like you almost almost every specialized bike you look at you’re like, that thing just looks amazing. And our beta kind of takes a similar approach. And so frankly, that’s actually why I was initially drawn to them. I did more research as well. And I’ve just been really impressed with their products and their how they put everything together. And our beta allows us then to sell ebikes that look like regular bikes, and they’re super well integrated. So or, or may have some bikes that stack up like very well against a specialized, they’ve got a mountain bike called the rise that’s extremely popular and like sold out months ago. That is a lightweight e bike, mountain bike, full suspension. That’s an awesome bike. So I think our Bay really filled the gap and kind of stacked up well, Terra trike, I really wanted to especially being in a medical related town, I wanted to have something that really, I thought would work well. We’ve gotten some prosthetic companies. We’ve got some older folks in the area. And it was surprising to me that there was no terror drug dealers in Rochester yet. So a call to them. And some discussions about our community led to a pretty quick Yes, on adding them to the mix. And I think that’s all of our current list. We’ve got a couple that I’m working on right now.
Heather Mason 33:43
That sounds like a really great brand mix. I agree like bringing in or Beo is definitely a great move for the lighter weight like road bikes or whatnot. What about your sales staff mechanics? Are you going to actually be an employee? I mean, it sounds like you have a lot going on yourself.
Nate Nordstrom 33:57
I do have a lot going on. I honestly if someone asked me what my hobbies are, My hobbies are personal hobbies is building businesses like I would do i just i do it in my head constantly. And so I’m probably going to work like Fridays or Friday afternoons. And then maybe here and there as needed. But for the most part, the shop will be run by the team. So one of the other key pieces to deciding to to actually go for it was finding someone that could be a head mechanic with experience in the industry. And so I thought I found to the person. And then he ended up backing out for a variety of reasons. And then I put out a job post at the advice of David and NBDA. I posted it in I don’t know some like bicycle, retail magazine or something. Yeah. And I thought there is no way that I’m going to get a response. And I got a response. I got one response and it was totally random. It was a guy that lives in Austin, Minnesota not too far from here, and used to own bike shops with his brothers back in the 90s. And has worked on bikes, a lot of bikes his whole life. His name is Glenn. And we just got to talk. And it’s sort of been his dream to open a shop in Rochester for a lot of years. And so two and two came together. And so he’s sort of our repair and shop manager. And then we’re adding some staff. then beyond that, we’ve got a guy who I’m going to talk with again next week, actually, but he will most likely be our sort of front office like sales kind of manager. Both of these guys, though, have crossover skills. So they both can, Glenn can absolutely do sales. And this other guy can do repairs as well. But those are sort of be the cornerstones. And then we’ll see from there, I’ve got a few other part timers lined up. And I’d consider myself just one of the part timers and well, we’ll just try to fill gaps from there and see how busy we get.
Heather Mason 35:58
I love it when a plan comes together, what a great thought to place an ad and bicycle retailer and industry news. And then you get some one, there’s just a very tough topic right now is finding qualified people in the technology in the marketing space with my other businesses.
Nate Nordstrom 36:13
I am far more in the camp of using social media ads and the digital stuff. Because I’ve seen it work really well. We do it for our customers all the time. So I thought there’s no way this would work. But I’m happily surprised it did.
Heather Mason 36:28
I saw on your website that you’re already scheduling, like appointments, and how is that going like test rides, you’re taking questions are people actually filling that form out,
Nate Nordstrom 36:38
they are filling out the form and we are getting test requests and then I manually one at a time follow up with them and schedule an appointment. So I’ve got three, I think for now appointments for Friday, they’re filling it out, and we’re making it happen, I decided to do that because it was either start scheduling appointments, or wait for the shop to be finished. And at this point, that still might be another month or so. And we’ve got products, and we’ve got assessories. And we’ve got Glen and like, so we got to start turning some revenue. So we’ve sold some bikes, you’ve sold a good number of bikes already if Funny thing is been a lot of turns so far. Not too surprised. But so here’s really kind of funny, awkward side story. Most of the bikes we’ve sold so far. They walk in, there’s a totally unfinished shop, like exposed studs and everything. There’s dust on the floor here and there. And I’ve got three bikes assembled. That’s it. Two of them are turn and one of them’s a giant. So they walk into a bike shop with three bikes. We talk about those three bikes, and over 90% of people are buying one of those three bikes.
Heather Mason 37:49
Wow, that has to make you feel positive,
Nate Nordstrom 37:51
right? It does. But it’s like from like a retail standpoint, I’m just trying to imagine what it’s like to be them. Like, that’s got to be the weirdest thing ever.
Heather Mason 38:00
Yeah, it’s definitely not a typical situation that we’re selling in these days. And I actually just put an email out today to our members be like, hey, it’s a great time to reach out to these customers from this past year and welcome them back into your store. So you’ll definitely need to do do that and welcome them back in when you open up,
Nate Nordstrom 38:19
we’re gonna have to do that. The other thing I did actually, last year, when we before we even officially decided to do a shop. We thought we might. And we got so many questions when we were riding around our electric cargo bikes as a family that I just I made business cards and started handing them to people and signing people up for email list. So once we officially decided to do it, I emailed the list and said, hey, it’s it’s actually happening. Here’s the plan. Here’s the name. Here’s the branding, here’s the products we’re gonna start carrying. And so we had like some interest drummed up from the start.
Heather Mason 38:57
Nice. It’s like Constant Contact, right making it happen. You know, you talked earlier about your opening a shop admist, COVID. And everything with supply chain being disrupted. Anything that stood out about this time that maybe made it a little more challenging, like did you think about putting this off because of the state of you know, the situation globally, or
Nate Nordstrom 39:18
I did consider putting it off decided not to, because, you know, there’s just certain things you just feel like the time is right. I didn’t want to wait any more. I also felt like taking advantage of the trend and and putting these brands together in one shop needed to happen and it needed to happen. Now. I didn’t want to wait a few more years and see if somebody else picked up some of these brands. And then the dream is dead. So it was like it’s either it’s either we do it this year or we don’t do it. So then I have started having conversations with the brands to say, Hey, can I even get inventory? Do you have products that you can sell me even and sure enough, for the most part the brands that we’re working with already? To give us enough inventory that I think this first year is going to be at least a decent year. I’m definitely not getting all the inventory I want. There are a whole bunch of different giant, acoustic traditional bikes that I will have a grand total of zero for the rest of this year. But going into next year, I’ve already got a big order in. And so we’ll be sat next year. And so that’s the other thing is orders for next year, most shops have already made those including us. And so if I wasn’t, quote in the business now, but I was going to try to open next year I’d be behind again, I think it’s gonna be years before things get straightened out. So it’s like, just just figure it out. And I’ve never been, I’ve never been afraid of a challenge. But yeah, we’ve got enough inventory. I think to put ourselves in a good spot. We’ve also been very aggressive and mine, hopefully not too aggressive. But we’ve been very aggressive in purchasing product and getting things ready. And so far, we’re selling it just at about the pace that we’re buying it at least lately. So I think that’s going to put us in a pretty good spot. We certainly haven’t been just waiting around to see if we sell something before we buy stuff.
Heather Mason 41:13
Definitely like that magic eight ball, and you have to be watching everything. Are you going to continue to work with Dave dekeyser as you open and continue in the process? Absolutely. I
Nate Nordstrom 41:23
hope to be off and on contact with Dave. In fact, I need to call him again. here maybe after our our podcast is recorded and asked his advice on attendee events. So I just scheduled attendee event got things lined up for the 16th and 17th of this month, because again, we’ve got product to sell, we don’t have a shop ready, it’s like at this point, it’s spring, people wanna buy products, let’s just do it. So we’re gonna get a 15 by 30 foot tent, we’ve got a friend who does homemade kettle corn, he’s gonna make it on the spot. That’ll be cool. And then we’ve got a van that we wrapped, you can actually see pictures of the van if you just go to Google, but we wrapped our van it’s like a bright green. It’s very branded, very memorable and like kind of sticks out. And so we’ll have that there.
Heather Mason 42:09
Weed sounds fun. What a great idea, right? Like, don’t be limited by the fact that your space isn’t ready yet. And I was going to ask if you have plans to connect with your community.
Nate Nordstrom 42:18
So we’re just going to go for it? Oh, absolutely. I don’t know exactly how we’ll do that yet. But this is sort of the first step, maybe this 10th event. I would like to do monthly rides or something in I think we’ll have like themes. So one of the one of the themed rides would be like cargo bikes and families, because there there’s a growing number of those. And hopefully, they’ll be more if we have something to do with it. But there’s already some of those in town. And then other themed rides, like, like a road bike ride or whatever, like, you know, some of the more traditional stuff maybe that shops do. And then maybe a few more non traditional things that most shops, I don’t know, maybe they’ve thought about it, maybe they haven’t, but nobody’s really doing it.
Heather Mason 42:58
Alright, so here you are in the process. takeaways give us a tip for someone thinking about opening, or starting a bicycle shop?
Nate Nordstrom 43:09
Call David and call Brian. And David will try to talk you out of it actually, because he knows the challenges, which is awesome. Or at least that’s what he did for me. He said, Are you really sure? Here’s why I don’t think you should do it. So we basically addressed all of those concerns, to then say, Okay, let’s do it. Call some experts. phone a friend, would be my number one tip.
Heather Mason 43:34
Yeah. And I promise to listeners, I did not know that Nate worked with, like, I didn’t bring him on the podcast, because I knew that. But Dave’s contact is on the P two consulting on the NBDA website. So any other tips? I know you already gave one. But is there anything outside of professionals, I feel like just go for it. Right? I
Nate Nordstrom 43:53
feel like I’m getting that from you that when you have a great idea and you have your support of your loved ones, I really did try to consider all the angles and like they just kept getting green light after green light after green light. So the location worked out having the key staff member the key like mechanic worked out. So I think like figuring out what are the non negotiables? Like, what are the baseline things you need in order to be successful, you focus on those first, if you can solve those problems, you know, other stuffs gonna come up, but at least you’ve kind of got like a solid core there and we’re able to thankfully get some of those pieces ironed out. The other thing I would say is, I think bike shops in general should pay more attention to branding and Design and Merchandising layout. And at least that’s what we’re going to be doing. And I think it’s going to give frankly, a whole different look and feel to a bike shop than most people are used to. And I’m excited about that.
Heather Mason 44:52
Yeah, I feel like we’re reaching a whole new slew of customers, let’s say who are coming in the bike shops for the first time and experiencing them and that you’re setting a new way of retail a new modern way that people can really connect with. You don’t have to keep me in the loop when you open and I don’t know if you’re having a party, or did you get involved with your local Chamber of conference? Are you doing a ribbon cutting or so I’m
Nate Nordstrom 45:14
actually on the local Chamber of Commerce board,
45:16
of course,
Nate Nordstrom 45:18
which is how easy board one of the reasons that EZ board came to be, was because I saw how boards worked. And I and I’m in the software world. And so I realized, hey, this should be better. And by the way, I’m not sure what we’ll do with it yet. But I’ve seen multiple things in the bike industry that like drive me nuts, process wise, that software would make better. And so I’ve already thought about some things that we could possibly do software wise, to make the back office stuff of a bike shop more efficient.
Heather Mason 45:49
Well, I’ll have to be keeping an eye on you and seeing what comes down the pipeline. We’ll see what else
45:53
yeah,
Heather Mason 45:54
there’s a question. I like to throw it our guests in the end of every podcast. And that is in terms of retail excellence. And if I threw out the term to you an excellence in bicycle retail, I wonder what that means to you.
Nate Nordstrom 46:11
Excellence in every area. And what do I mean by that? I mean, not just great customer service, that’s absolutely part of it. Great products. That’s absolutely part of it. A great shop experience, like actually, the the look and feel, and the flow of the shop, I think is part of excellence. The branding is part of the excellence though the online experience is part of excellence. Those are all things that you know, I don’t think we’re doing those all perfectly. But those are all things I’m thinking about. And we’re pushing all those areas forward to try to make it very cohesive. So when you see the website, when you see the green van, when you walk into the shop, when you see someone on one of our products, it all clicks and feels very cohesive.
Heather Mason 46:49
That definitely aligns with what I think of bicycle retailer excellence. Thank you, Nate. Wow, you’ve been great. I can’t believe we’ve been chatting for almost an hour now. Thank you for coming on. I think this is a awesome story for our listeners, we constantly have people reaching out or thinking about opening up bike shops, and then you know a lot of conversations with our current members on you know, how do I get into E and, and how we develop the customers and the clientele for E bikes. So I’m really thankful if people wanted to reach out to you as okay to share your contact information. Sure, your email is Nate at new spin shop calm. And then the website is new spin shop calm. And I recommend everyone just go check out the website. So that’s it, Nate, I keep us in the loop when when you guys are opening please.
Nate Nordstrom 47:38
Well, thank you very much. Um, one last like observation that I guess that I might share that I don’t know if it’s if it’s just perceived or reality, but one of the things I kind of noticed was I definitely have some disadvantages coming new into the bike industry. But I think I also have some advantages is I don’t have any sort of like preconceived notions about what a bike shop should be or what products we should carry, or how we set stuff up like so my my approach here my encouragement to people that might be new into the industry is I think you can actually inject some new life some fresh perspective that will resonate with people and maybe a little different way and I think some really positive ways for the industry as a whole.
Heather Mason 48:23
I agree with that fully and they you know, I’m thinking please send us photos I’d love to do a member spotlight to give people you know I have this mental image of turf running up your wall now so I should do
Nate Nordstrom 48:33
I’ll send you an email with renderings I’ve got renderings that Brian help me gather and it looks it looks pretty fantastic. looks realistic.
Heather Mason 48:41
That is awesome. Alright, listener so that is it. I invite you to connect with me and come on bicycle, retail radio, share your story with our listeners, contribute to our outspoken blog, or you could become a feature on our member spotlight if you’d like lots of love for our industry. We’re doing lots of great things. If you’d like to support the show. Don’t forget to subscribe to the show. I thank you for listening and hope to see you back here soon. And with this we go.
NBDA 49:03
This has been bicycle retail radio by the National bicycle Dealers Association. For more information on membership, and member benefits, join us at nbda.com
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The NBDA has been here since 1946, representing and empowering specialty bicycle dealers in the United States through education, communications, research, advocacy, member discount programs, and promotional opportunities. As shops are facing never-before-seen circumstances, these resources offer a lifeline. Together, we will weather this. We at the NBDA will not waver in our commitment to serving our members even during this challenging time—but we need your support.
Now is the time to become a member as we join together to make one another stronger. Whether you’re a retailer or an industry partner, your membership in the NBDA is one of the best investments you’ll make this year.
Learn more about the benefits of being a member and join now.
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