EPISODE SUMMARY

Max Kislevitz is the Cofounder of Bala, an LA based fitness accessories company. Max & his wife + cofounder Natalie Holloway were one of Shark Tank's all time hottest deals, ultimately securing financing from Mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova. Since then, the company has done upwards of 50M+ in revenue, has been worn by celebs & culture icons, introduced new product lines, and kicked off Balacize, a new digital platform for the brand.

EPISODE NOTES

On this episode of DTC Pod, Max joins Blaine to talk about starting the brand as a side project, getting early conviction, bootstrapping to launch, landing a major shark tank deal, product positioning, brand design, form factors & digital amplification, early retail strategies, fundraising, go to market point of entry, market disruption, and much more.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

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10:35 The Best Ideas Are Simple

I think that, like, given this simplicity of the idea, it was hard to have a real conviction about it, right? Like when you think of something novel and new, it's like, God, that's the world's best idea. But when you think about reprising something sort of old and tired, like wrist and ankle weights- like it felt viable and there were like some good aspects of the idea going for it, but it was hard to sort of like bet the farm on this idea. Would people be interested? Would they fundamentally care? So there wasn't like a bravado at the outset about like, we're gonna change the world. I think we've had some of those revelations since in terms of disrupting this ultra serious industry. But at the time we were like, how do we both test the idea and raise the $40,000 we needed to fund the first production run. And Kickstarter was kind of the perfect solution for that.

29:20 *8Xing* after Hottest Shark Tank Deal EVER

And so I think we came in looking for 400 K investment and left with 900K. We've given up more of the company, but I will say that there's so many intangibles associated with that deal. Like Maria's been in photo shoots for us. Mark spoke with us at a South by Southwest panel earlier this year. Obviously there's incredible media value associated with the show. So it really sort of propelled us to the next level. So where in 2019, we did 2 million in sales in 2020, we did 16! So it was like kind of an 8X relative to the prior year.

38:00 Disrupting Fitness Accessories

Like let's invent new products, but let's also introduce meaningful improvements on existing products. And that was the paradigm shift from a single products company to we can be the Lululemon of fitness equipment and accessories, right? Like we can bring a Glossier sensibility to this super serious like CrossFit centric, fitness space. And we can do it through a beautiful product and a playful brand.

42:00 Why Point of Entry Is Key for Startups

We didn't realize how massive the opportunity was kind of hiding in plain sight. We sort of tripped over it, but we really do think that, fitness, accessories, and equipment and the products you're actually working out with should be as beautiful and elevated as the environment or what you're wearing whilst doing those activities.

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Transcription

Blaine 1:02

What's up DTC POD today we're joined by max kislevitz who is the co-founder of BALA. so max, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about, BALA, the company that you guys built the stage you're at and everything that went into getting to, getting you guys to where you're at today?

Max 1:19

Yeah, absolutely. So first thanks for having me, Bala is really a design led approach, to fitness, accessories, and equipment, the likes of which have historically been really utilitarian. So we talk about this sort of phenomenon that we've all experienced, where you walk into any gym in the world, and it feels a lot like any other gym in the world. And, when you think about the adjacencies in ath leisure or boutique fitness, these are like thoughtfully designed, fitness, performance wear, or in the case of boutique fitness, really thoughtfully designed studios. And yet the products you're actually interacting with in those spaces are all, all black, hyper masculine, really kind of intimidating. And so we've tried to bring a sort of fashionable, colorful design sensibility to this otherwise utilitarian space. we started the business about four and a half years ago. We thought it would only ever be a side project. We literally launched it on Kickstarter. and four and a half years later it's become sort of, my wife and my full time effort.

Blaine 2:31

No, I love that. And, and I like how you describe it in terms of like, almost bringing this fashion and art sense into this product category that had been like traditionally just like boring, very masculine, et cetera. I mean, when I see your content one, obviously the design packaging, all of it stands out the, the PA the product itself, for our listeners who may not, be familiar with the product. It's like, you have these different, like arm bands and arm weights and stuff like that, but there's like very smooth contours, like pastel sort of colors, really like a organic, like comfortable sort of design vibes, and even like the digital and the creative around it, it's almost like bringing high fashion to this category. Like, I don't know. I just seeing it, I like automatically get like vibes of like James Terrell and like space, age, modern, like all these cool sort of design themes. So anyway, I think it's really cool what you guys have done from, from that side of thinking. Clearly that's something that's really captivated, a global or, a national and now expanding to a global audience. So my next question, in terms of like one, one thing you mentioned is you guys started this out as a side project, right. So what did it look like in the early days before Kickstarter? Like, what was the inception where you were like, okay, let's, let's even start spending time on the side working on this as a side project.

Max 3:50

Yeah, absolutely. So at the time, I had just started dating this woman named Natalie Holloway, and we'd met at, an ad agency on the west side here in LA called 72, and sunny and agencies kind of tend to be anonymous because they're doing work, on behalf of clients. But, the folks that 72 worked with was like the Googles of the world cores, light, Jeep Starbucks, right? And so we were a relatively small cog in this much bigger, sort of marketing wheel for all these massive global brands. And, the burn rate was pretty high on, just the, the hours you'd work and, the sort of client service based deadline oriented industry of advertising. And so when Matt and I had first started dating, I think I had drunkenly said to her one night, what if, what if we quit and traveled together? And, I, we were very much still in the courtship phase and shockingly, she kind of called my bluff and said, yeah, let's go ahead and do that. And so before we knew it, we'd bought one way tickets to Tokyo and ended up spending the next eight months, traveling through India and Nepal and Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, et cetera. and it was this phenomenal trip, but it was actually on that trip when we were just about to kill one another, it's like early stage, couple spending 24 hours a day together. we said, let's go to a yoga class and burn off some steam. And the, the class itself ended up being far more meditative than we planned, like, so we wanted to kind of, really relieve stress and it ended up being sort of stressful, the degree to which it was unsatisfying. So it was after that class where we were like, how could we have made that more difficult, right? Like class based fitness Fitnesses on the rise, people will get off work at 6:00 PM. They'll only be able to go to this six, 15 class down the street. What if that's an entry level class and what if they wanna work harder than that? And we're like the, the solution existed in wrist and ankle weights already, right? Like they were ubiquitous in the eighties. They were very on trend for the sort of style of eighties aerobics and jazz size, but they'd sort of fallen off, the earth, right? They'd like the collective consciousness forgot about wrist and ankle weight. So that was like the inception moment where we said, what if we redesigned and reintroduce this product that had real functional value, but had real design deficiency. So they were neoprene. So they would absorb sweat and smell bad. They were filled with iron filing. So you couldn't actually tighten them enough. They would still slide around your wrist. and so we sort of said, Hey, this is a rare opportunity to, reinvent something people were familiar with already, but everyone stopped using, it's kind of a terrible thesis for starting a company, but we had enough time on our hands that we could, really dedicate design time to sketching it. I, finding folks to render it for us, starting to reach out to factory contacts, et cetera.

Blaine 7:00

The thing I love about that is, well, first of all, the fact that you're able to take a vacation and just like spend time traveling the world. I think that's like a really awesome thing because it shows you can draw inspiration from those sort of experiences. And I think a lot of times like people just get caught up, work, work work. And one thing that I've been thinking about a lot is just like, how do you align your personal interests? The things that make you feel most like fulfilled with your career path of things and the projects that you're working on. So just to hear how that came about organically, that's more proof of like the, those sort of circumstances leading to, to these sort of outcomes where, you, and what you want to create is very aligned with the lifestyle that you like to live with, the people that you like doing it with all that sort of thing. but my question in terms of like your guys' specific background, so you guys were both in the agency world, but like, what were your specific skill sets when you were working in agency land? Were you doing similar things? Were you doing different things? Were you, were there specific sub niches that you were like really, really good at? Or like, what were your core competing? I guess, core competencies, I guess you could say in when you were working at the agency.

Max 8:13

Totally. So without, going down a rabbit hole, like agencies generally are divided up into four disciplines, there's strategy, there's creative, there's production and there's account management, Natalie and I both had more of an account management orientation. I worked in new business that worked at like, as an account person, the core competencies, like a little bit of sort of business acumen across all the competencies, but you're not actually responsible for any of them. So, if you're in the agency, the idea that an account person could be creative is like, is laughable. Right. But what we did do was like participate in every discipline and we'd had a, not even just a, a front seat from a spectator's point of view, it's like you're involved in the conversations and you're advocating for the creative, or, the, the, the strategy of a particular campaign to the client. Right. And so you're a little bit of a conduit between each department. and I think actually that positioning really helped us with Paula because yes, we had like a creative point of view. We, we had a sort of inclination for what could be disruptive from like a brand positioning perspective, but we also had more of like a, a kind of tried and true business background. So it wasn't creativity, sort of agnostic of, the realities of bringing it to life from a, investment perspective.

Blaine 9:46

Got it. No, that makes a ton of sense. And just having that exposure, seeing different, seeing the creative process that's happening across brands, seeing all the different, types of companies that are running all these different sorts of creative projects and bringing them to life like, clearly you're not, you're picking up, you're absorbing some of that ethos and then having the operational acumen, I guess start, start to put in place. So as we move forward a little bit, you guys are together, you identify a problem. You think there's a space that you can start to disrupt. and you mentioned you started going to Kickstarter, right? So like, what was like, what was that process like in terms of saying like, okay, this is gonna be real, and we're gonna like spin up our own project, put this on Kickstarter. Like what, what happened then?

Max 10:31

Yeah, totally. So I think that, like, given this simplicity of the idea, it was hard to have a real conviction about it, right? Like when you think of something novel and new, it's like, God, that's the world's best idea. But when you think about reprising something sort of old and tired, like wrist and ankle weights, like it felt, it felt viable. And there were like some good aspects of the idea going for it, but it was hard to sort of like bet the farm on this idea, like, would people be interested? Would they fundamentally care? So there wasn't like a bravado at the outset about like, we're gonna change the world. I, I, I think we've had some of those revelations since in terms of disrupting this ultra serious industry. But at the time we were like, how do we both test the idea and raise the $40,000 we needed to fund the first production run. And Kickstarter was kind of the perfect solution for that. Like, we would get real market feedback if there was interest in what's effectively, pre-ordering the product, like, could it be viable in market and then let's raise the money as well, because we didn't have another kind of mechanism to do so. So, we ultimately raised, I believe it was like $55,000, on Kickstarter, which was enough to fund the first production run of, 3000 units of ball of Bangles that were at the time delivered to our second story walk up in Brooklyn. So the logistics associated with shipping weights, wasn't, wasn't something we thought through at the time. but it effectively 6,000 pounds of wrist and ankle weights that we've had in our apartment in Brooklyn.

Blaine 12:16

No, that, that's a really good point in terms of the logistics. I mean, during like the pandemic, I think a lot of people order, I'm sure this was a massive, boon for your guys' business, but like even myself, like I ordered weights and I, I remember the Amazon lady, like coming up to my doorstep, I'd ordered like some kettle bells and she comes up, I'm like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like, let me come out and help you bring those in, they're heavy. Right. but you guys, at least aren't, aren't at the, aren't at the high end of the spectrum in terms of weight. So that's better, but what are some of the, well actually before we get there. So in terms of when you guys, you're, you're running this first production run on Kickstarter, how'd it turn out, right? Like from the design to the actual product you receive, like you were saying, like taking a bed and making, three thou going from zero to like call it 3000 units. Right. Like that, that's definitely, it has to feel like you're jumping in the deep end a little bit there. So how, how did you have conviction that, like, this was the product that you wanted to, you were cool with making that first production run and, and how did it turn out? Yeah,

Max 13:25

So the Kickstarter campaign, I think, was the middle of 2017, just to put a kind of time stamp on it. and at the time we had a prototype of what we knew that we'd wanted it to look like. And, and that prototype was really developed from a series of subsequent sketches where we get like closer and closer to what we wanted it to look like a lot of, frankly, like MacGyvering other products that we had. So like cutting up materials and, and swatches of things, as reference. and then ultimately having somebody render it in 3d with like the appropriate sort of like weight spec. So it's like, Hey volumetrically, it's gonna be this big it's this it's made with steel bars. Like it's gonna equal one pound. And that was kind of the target. So we had to kind of right size the design to achieve that. the Kickstarter campaign was then, kind of composed with that prototype. So we'd, we had a model friend here in LA that, allowed us to, to shoot her, wearing the Bangles, doing a series of activities. We wrote all the campaign descriptors and really just kind of took it one step at a time. I, I would say that because our background wasn't in product development, like we, we didn't really know what, what we didn't know. Right. And there's this anecdote about, like, you may not know how to sell your car on Craigslist, but you know how to clean your car and once you've cleaned your car, you know how to take photos of it. And once you've taken photos of it, you can figure out how to upload them. Right. And even if you kind of get stuck at each step, your willingness to take those steps and to be stuck and still figure them out is really what's critical here. And so we just embraced this incredibly iterative process where we mostly didn't know what we were doing, but we were gonna figure it out anyway. And so we ultimately launched on Kickstarter and Kickstarter used to be this platform where people could sketch an idea on a piece of paper and take a picture of that piece of paper and put it on it. People would invest in it. But now there's like a heavy studio component of just like smaller shops, launching products on Kickstarter that had, all the advantages from a team perspective. So we were certainly naive about, those dynamics and we launched it without any other marketing support. I mean, we effectively just reach out to everyone we knew, and thankfully we got over the line with it, but it was really, the result of this kind of like iterative, imperfect process that got us

Blaine 16:01

There. Awesome. And then what was the, what was like, so you have these 3000 units, right. Were, were they all like pre hold out with Kickstarter or were, did you actually have inventory that you needed to like sell through at that point? What, what was that like?

Max 16:15

Yeah, so, Kickstarter essentially hedged our personal bet, right? Like we, we weren't out of pocket for it. We'd obviously spend whatever little money we had on the prototype. but the, Kickstarter campaign, the goal was essentially what we needed to fund the first production run with the factory MOQ. and it was a 3000 unit minimum. And, at the time we didn't even know the degree to which we could negotiate minimums, and how much flexibility we had there, but I think we had, pre-sold, let's call it a third of those. and then, launched a, a Shopify store, and started taking orders from, from retailers. And I think early days, just as we embraced this kind of like iterative, experimental process on Kickstarter, we did the same thing on the brand side. And so, we, we took like more sort of traditional kind of expected fitness images, but then we also like photographed people wearing ball Bangles while also wearing heels. And what we saw was actually that tension and leaning into sort of fashion, was way more resonant, than, somebody doing, their, their yoga practice in, in Bangles. And so that's kind of the early, revelation associated with, the brand trajectory. and yeah, we started taking orders and selling through the remaining 2000 unit balance.

Blaine 17:51

Yeah, no, that's that, that's really cool. Just in terms of the context that that sets like. So you have the Kickstarter that funds the production run, you're able to, sell a thousand of those units on Kickstarter. You have 2000 left, and now you start opening up some of your DTC channel. You spin up your, your Shopify store, as well as, doing some of those other initiatives and being able to start owning your own creative and really creating the brand, and the digital brand. Now that, that is bah. So why don't you walk me through the next phase, which is, where do you go between there when you've got your first production run to, shark tank. And, I'll let you talk a little bit about it, but you guys are one of the, the most amazing shark tank stories where all the sharks wanted to get in on your deal and all of that, but why don't you walk me through, the first batch of sales? Like how many orders cycles were you going through? Like how long was it before you show up on, on shark tank?

Max 18:49

Yeah, totally. So, from the time the Kickstarter campaign was successfully funded to the time we started shipping product, it was probably a year that went by. and I think that people, certainly we didn't understand how long product development truly takes, especially when we were being more like qualitatively directive about how to change things. It wasn't like we were sending back, STP files and like saying like, here are the adjustments we've made as it relates to the, the 3d file and the like corresponding materials. We were kinda like, could it be a little bit more round <laugh> and, and a little bit more purple. Right. and so it took a long time. So the sort of dozen prototypes we went through took about a year, before we were finally happy with the finished product. and so we started shipping in mid 2018 and we actually found there to be like, just the really kind of positive reception to the product. So we started going to trade shows and people would, there's like a, kind of a tactility to the Silicon over mold we use that feels really kind of supple and luxurious. So people would reach for it and really kind of drawn to it. And then when you said, Hey, this is a new school wrist weight, and they put it on, there was this like disproportionate joyous reaction. people were like, oh my God, I absolutely love this. And we found that there was just that kind of phenomenon in a bunch of different channels. So one of the early, like these of Balo was that if, 20 people were in a yoga class and one person was wearing them that 19 others would take notice of it. And that same thing started happening on social where people would, take photos of themselves wearing the Bangles post workout. And all their friends would be like, well, what is that thing? So we, we found a lot of like early organic sort of movement on social. And in fact, we had two buyers, one from goop, Gweneth fros company, and then the other from free people, the urban outfit, our own company, that were early adopters from a retail perspective. And so rather than be like, we're a DTC business, we gotta own the customer relationship. We said, Hey, for a brand that folks don't otherwise know, being in retail, add instant credibility and instant discoverability to the brand. And by the way, it's not paying for, acquisition because we don't have any money. We've thrown it all at production. Instead they're paying us albeit maybe a lesser margin than we would enjoy, on our.com to, to, project it to the world. And so we kind of embraced this retail DTC, Amazon omnichannel model really early and found that it was this very virtuous ecosystem, but essentially from the launch of the product in mid 2018, through our eventual shark tank appearance in early 2020, we were just enjoying like slow sort of sustainable growth. I think we went from about 400 K in 2018, our first year to 2 million in 2019. and so there retailers were coming on board, we'd get more and more traffic on Amazon, the.com. Then there was like, the word was starting to get out. So we would occasionally be, be written about in publications. We would see influencers talk about, B trainers, celebrities. There was a lot of like early holy shit moments with, folks that we would never otherwise expect to be sort of like, dawning ball of Bangles, absolutely loving them. So that was kind of, the pre shark tank days.

Blaine 22:45

No, the thing I really like about what you said was fr because of the form of the product and the nature of it and the situations in which people wear it, that kind of fed the cycle. So your guys' rationale was let's definitely go for retail. That gives us more eyeballs that give, that puts us on more, arms and ankles and more yoga classes in more social media sort of settings where our product by nature is recognizable, right? There's certain products, whether you're D to C or whatever that just aren't so photogenic and so immediately recognizable. So understanding that very quickly, understanding that the form factor was a major differentiator for you. You're almost like a fashion accessory, a fashion fitness accessory, if you will, to really be able to start catapulting that growth. I think that's a really important thing to be able to pick up on. so that takes us up to, so you guys are kind of doing this really sustainable organic growth between a mix of, you've done your Kickstarter. Now you're doing retail as well as some D to C stuff. and then, so what, why don't you tell us about shark tank? How did you guys get the call? What was, what made you say hell yeah, let's do this. And then what was the experience like when you guys actually went into, record and get the deal

Max 24:04

Done? Yeah, totally. So I think that everyone and their mother will tell you to go on shark tank. The second you start a company, it's just this thing that happens. and actually, a close friend of our family said that to us. And, not long, like after that Natalie applied and actually we got fairly deep into the, casting process before we got a call, when we were expecting to fly from New York to LA to tape the following week. And they said, we can't tell you why it was a closed door meeting, but we've decided that, it's not the right time. And so it's, it's sort of like getting broken up with, and you know what they'd said instead, which is very much like someone saying, Hey, maybe we'll get back together. They said, we'll call you next year. And we're like, no, you're not, but sure enough, they did. So it was actually a year later that they called us and we made it all the way through and then ultimately got the opportunity to pitch the sharks. and the show is very accurate. the experience of the show is accurate to how it's portrayed in film, right? There's no informal interaction with the sharks. There's no, rehearsal. You just kind of go down, in this incredibly terrifying sort of moment of walking down the tank and you pitch the sharks. And then there is a kind of business negotiation that follows. So, you, you spend more like 45 minutes to an hour arguing for the viability of your business. And ultimately, we had all five sharks participating in, in the deal. Everybody had offers. There was like a hell of a lot of, sort of amazingly nerve wracking banter. and then we ultimately made a deal with mark Cuban and Maria Sharapova, who was our guest shark at the time?

Blaine 25:59

What, no, I remember, I, I remember seeing the episode, and I think there was a lot of like chat going on between you and Natalie, like as, as the deals were like getting thrown on the table. So what were, what were you guys talking about, like whispering to each other? and how were you thinking about your decision making when you had all those potential deals on the table? Like, what were, what were the key drivers for you for wanting to work with mark and Maria and what were some of the other dynamics going on? at that time?

Max 26:28

Yeah, so we did as much scenario planning as we possibly could. So we literally had friends come over, in the week before we pitched the sharks and just said, pepper us with questions. And, if you've watched the show, there are probably a dozen questions that are regularly asked what was shocking when we were actually, there was that, there were a lot more technical questions that are ever, shown on the show. And so we'd felt, especially intimidated by, these five ridiculously wealthy people, peppering us with questions and, and frankly, they're also like all talking to you at once, right? Like it's difficult to have a conversation. What

Blaine 27:07

Were some of the technical things that they asked? Cause yeah. Like, because clearly you guys go in there for like an hour and then they edit it down. Is that how it

Max 27:14

Works? Yeah, exactly. So look like, if now they don't seem as technical at the time. Like we were asked about factoring, which is like financing PO financing POS that have been written already. So like inventory financing and it, for us at the time, like we were like, we either have products sitting in our apartment or we don't have product. Right. And we can, I, we either have the cash to order new product or we don't like, everything was really binary. and so it just gets a, a few layers deeper than the show really portrays because they're trying to, I don't know this for a fact, but presumably they're trying to make like entrepreneurship, like accessible and understandable to a really broad audience. and so Matt and I were just, we did a bunch of scenario planning, but then, plans can go to shit. Right. So when we were getting offers from the spokes that we had watched, we were like real shark tank enthusiast. We'd watched every episode for the 10 years prior. and then all of a sudden you have like Damon talking to you, making you a deal and telling you about the value that he could add to your company. it's a, it's a pretty intimidating position to be in. And so we tried to just slow play our hand and stick to, the scenarios that we'd outlined. And they actually spoke amongst one another, quite a bit as NA and I were talking. So we didn't have to ask them to sort of talk ourselves, which comes with some inherent risk. And when they finally seated the floor to us, we were able to kind of present back the scenario that we, we would be happy with, which was, in the event that we had two sharks, involved, we would do a deal for 30%, for 900 K. and ultimately mark sort of stole Maria from Lori. And they were, like were, were down. And so I think we came in looking for 400 K investment and left with 900K. We've given up more of the company, but I will say that there's so many intangibles associated with that deal. Like Maria's been in photo shoots for us. Mark spoke with us at a South by Southwest panel earlier this year. Obviously there's incredible media value associated with the show. So it really sort of propelled us to the next level. So where in 2019, we did 2 million in sales in 2020, we did 16! So it was like kind of an 8X relative to the prior year.

Blaine 29:52

Wow. That's they always talk about the shark tank effect, but that's, that's awesome to hear in terms of a, just being able to get a deal done and be in a situation where you kind of had your pick of who you wanted to work with. And the fact that Maria Sharapova happened to be on may, maybe that's why they had you waiting. Maybe, maybe they, they knew deep down and they were like, oh, let's just wait till, we have the right sharks on the, on the table for these guys. But so why don't, and the other reason we're really excited to be able to have this conversation is I think one thing that you've done that resonates with myself with a lot of other entrepreneurs who are gonna be listening in here is like, what you were saying is like, you were like, we're building this business, we're putting in the capital that we have, we are, once we sell out, then we're gonna order more and we're gonna keep doing it like this. Right. So what did, when, when you go from, the two you were at to 16, what were, what were some of the growing pains that you went through? How did that year go? Was it, was it easy for you guys to handle or was there, a lot that you had to figure out on the operations side of things?

Max 31:01

Yeah, no, I think, as a business scales, it also scales in complexity. and so, the really simplistic way we were doing things early days just didn't, didn't scale. And so 2020 was absolutely wild. obviously, Bala as a fitness brand, sort of benefited from, the fitness boom in the context of the pandemic where folks were trying to stay, fit from home. and so, what it really looked like was like my wife, myself, my sister-in-law, and brother-in-law living in a house together trying to run this business, when we were frankly like terrified to leave our homes. Right. And so, we didn't otherwise have a three PL ahead of shark tank. And so we spent the first two weeks, after the shark tank airing sending all those orders out. And so we ultimately ended up shipping 75,000 units of Bala Bangles ourself by hand, like lifetime, right. So we waited a long time to have a three PL we didn't actually run a single paid ad until December of 2020. So that 16 million year was entirely organic. We barely sent emails, like all the things that DTC brands do as table stakes, like we had not yet done. Right. which was an amazing sort of gift on the one hand. But, it also came with its own like kind of challenges and complexity of when we were ultimately ready to start doing those things. and so, man, what were the challenges? <laugh> I think there was, supply chain delays were wild at the time and we were sold out for probably 35 to 40% of the year. and so there's, there's obviously like a romance associated with scale, but it's also really capital intensive to scale. So we would get these kind of inbound POS from major retailers and they'd want $500,000 worth of product, right. Or a million dollars worth of product. And the, the turn from needing to, like, pay your suppliers, the deposit for that product. And then ultimately receiving the product, being able to ship it to the retailer. And then the net terms that the big, the big folks have, like sometimes that could be, six plus months, right. So you need to have that cash for those six months. And so there was just a really steep learning curve about like funding, the success, the business was enjoying, which was incredibly stressful. It's like some days we'd have like 10 bucks in the bank and the next day we'd have like $2 million in the bank. And it like, and it literally, the ebbs and flows were so dramatic, so it was pretty wild keeping up. And the other thing is that through 2020, it was just five people. So it's myself, my wife, my two sister-in-laws and their childhood friend, because we didn't know if the bottom was just gonna like fall out beneath us. Right. Like we had no idea how sustainable the business would be. And we were really learning on the fly. So there was a, real, we were really conservative about hiring or spending money, because we just, felt like we were, dreaming in, in a, in a big way. And that, what happens when we woke up. So, a lot of challenges you could tell I'm like, <laugh>, I'm like shaking. I'm like thinking back to just how wild those times were, but, yeah,

Blaine 34:57

No, absolutely. And I think what, what saying just about like the whole financing component of these businesses is like, that's one of the trickiest parts, cuz now you're, you're dealing with the, the logistics of bringing in product, matching it to orders and then you guys are the ones, that have to make sure that, like you're saying, like, you don't want a situation where you're like, oh wait a minute, we don't have the money to finance that product. So we can't fulfill this order and all that sort of thing. So, but that leads me to my next point, which is the fact that since you guys have done that since you guys have built this brand, it's really opened up all these sort of opportunities. So what I love about what you guys have done, you started with a real like marquee flagship product that's super recognizable. And that kind of got you into, in terms of like building the brand into everyone's, households onto their Instagram feeds into major retailers. I mean, I, I even remember, I think I bought some Balla bands at like anthropology you guys sell there. Right? Yeah. so, so, so like you guys have had, have done that amazingly and now from there you're able to start to build out all these other experience and invest in all these other experiences of the brand. rather than saying, oh, let's just stick to this one thing, which I think is a very exciting point for all of businesses. Once you set, once you've grown up, you've, you've figured out those operational hurdles that we kind of talked about and now you're like, okay, now let's start investing in new products, new offerings, new opportunities, different ways to grow the brand. So what were some of the first new initiatives that you guys decided to take on? Yeah,

Max 36:34

I think like one of the, one of the big ones, which is maybe less of an initiative, but is kind of the crux of our strategy was product diversification. So, with Bangles, there were some accidental kind of innovations, like we'd introduce silicone to this space that was just traditionally like kind of like, steel like, and, and, and TPE, and just like these materials that didn't actually feel all that premium are all that luxurious. And so, we started looking around and asking ourselves like really simple sort of philosophical questions, like why do all dumbbells look the same? Or, is there a better form factor for some of the things that exist already? So we launched what we call the power ring, which is effectively a weighted steering wheel, which is just a really ergonomic alternative to a kettlebell or a dumbbell. And in the case of a dumbbell, it's not designed to be held with both hands when a map base workout calls for a weighted prop. So it's like, there's all these modalities that have sort of become really popular over the last 20 years or so, but the equipment hasn't kept pace. So we've sort of said, how do we design products with premium materials with beautiful design, but that are also designed in a really nuanced way to accommodate the kinds of workouts people are doing today. And so that became sort of the core strategy is like let's B everything, right? Like let's invent new products, but that let's also introduce meaningful improvements on existing products. And that was the sort of the, sort of paradigm shift from we single products company to, we can be sort of the Lulu lemon of, fitness equipment and accessories, right? Like we can bring a Glossier sensibility to this super serious sort of like CrossFit centric, fitness space. and we can do it through a beautiful product and a playful irreverent brand. And so then the initiatives that you are alluding to are the things that we feel like start to kind of amplify and scale the brand really meaningfully on the strength of brand and product. And so we launched a popup in Soho in Manhattan. it's actually live through the end of the month. It's was a six month popup it's right on spring, spring street, just across from Allo yoga and adjacent to, the, the Nike flagship down there on Broadway. we are expanding internationally by way of distributors. we have launched Bo size, which is our content, platform@bosize.com, which is sort of primarily a mechanism to educate folks on how to use Balla products. Because even if they're familiar, fitness is one of these things that left to your own devices, you might spend 10 minutes doing the things, and then you're like, but I'd intended on working out for 30. What do I do with the remaining 20? And so we wanted to make it as easy for folks as possible to do so. these are things that just kind of brought in the funnel, and keep folks in the ecosystem, but, but more importantly, like we're excited about this potential to really destigmatize this space and make it more inclusive and kind of accessible and inspirational rather than exclusive and intimidating and, cost prohibitive. So, all of the things that we get excited about at a brand level are those things that we feel like, sort of deliver on that like bigger, broader mission.

Blaine 40:23

And yeah, I, I think when you talk about like that broader mission and like bringing everything together, what really like stands out in, the way I think about it is if you had been starting your business called in like 2018 and you were like, I just wanna start a fitness brand. I wanna start another like ale brand, like an ALO yoga or like a Lululemon. It would be like really, really hard to like enter the market. So what's really cool is the fact that through creating a totally different product and an adjacent space in a place that hadn't been disrupted, all of a sudden you've been able to come in, be able to capture that same, like mind share and build up that same sort of brand equity as some of these like really major players in the fitness space. And then you start to roll out your own versions and your own takes on fitness classes, on studios, on products and all these other things where all of a sudden like you, like, if you guys wanted, for example, I don't, I don't know if this is in the roadmap, but like if you were launching more apparel or all these other things, like you would be able to capture market share there, which I think is so fascinating because had you just started as like another ath leisure company, it would be a really hard road to scale to this sort of, brand that you've been able to build.

Max 41:37

Totally. It's funny because we get that question a lot of like, who do you see as your competitors and, frankly, there aren't, there's really nobody trying to like blur the lines in the same way that we are, but, the point of entry matters, right? Like, so there are, there are big mega brands that could start leaning into our space and, I'm, I'm sure they'd be successful at it, but there is an inauthenticity to that approach. And I think that there, again, we've talked about kind of the Genesis story. It's like, we didn't realize how massive the opportunity was kind of hiding in plain sight. we sort of tripped over it, but we really do think that, fitness, accessories, and equipment and the products you're actually working out with should be as beautiful and elevated as the, their environment or, what you're wearing whilst doing those activities. And so that's what we're super psyched to, to kind of keep building.

Blaine 42:36

Cool. And then why don't you talk to us a little bit about, funding, right? Like at this stage, you guys have done upwards of 50 mil in, revenue with only, literally only taking money from shark tank, which is, which is insane. It just goes to show if you, and the thing that you had mentioned about like you guys in the early days, you guys weren't even advertising this, this was all organic growth, some shark tank, publicity, some juice from shark tank, some tailwinds from the pandemic. And, but really it was building a good product and building an organic brand with the creative that really told that brand narrative. And it was, you were able to like really capture something, with the public. So why don't you tell us a little bit about, your funding plans moving forward and how you're thinking about continuing to invest in, in your own business as you grow?

Max 43:26

Yeah, totally. So, if we flash all the way back to the beginning, because we needed to sell one pair of Bangles in order to buy two, sell two, to buy four, we had to be ridiculously efficient. and it's probably why we did a lot of things, the wrong way or not at all. Right. because, unit economics needed to make sense. And, as the side project, it was something that, the side project we'd intended it to be. we just remained as conservative and efficient, for as long as we possibly could. I think now we're at, a point at which we've, we've proven product market fit. And I would even add to that, we've proven product brand and market fit. and we think there's a unique, unique opportunity to make Bala, the next great global fitness brand. So we have decided to raise some money after having you mentioned it, but, north of 50 million in lifetime sales with the 900 K we'd received on shark tank. and so now we're looking for folks to, to come on board and help us get to the next stratosphere. and we've got quite a few exciting things we're working on, continuing to expand into, into new products, particularly that those that helps kind of expand the total addressable market. we are expanding internationally, so we've identified distributors in some major markets as well. and then we have some sort of IRL experience, thoughts as well. So, there's a lot of exciting things happening at ball and we're, we kind of just kicked off a fundraise all of 48 hours ago.

Blaine 45:13

I mean, the thing that's really exciting about this space is I think traditionally, right. if you think about businesses, especially the ones that go and raise VC, it's like you have to have a really big idea and then you start, right out of the gates. You're like raising venture, you're building things up and going after a really big opportunity, but like the fitness market and the market you're in is a massive opportunity, right? Like when you think of all the different parts of it, whether it's the physical products that you're using, which you guys have, like really started to dominate that space, whether it's the apparel component, whether it's the, the classes component, the studios component, the beverages com like it's a massive, massive industry. And what I think is like really exciting about the position that you guys are in is the fact that you started with a, a flagship product. You built out a business sustainably where you, you weren't spending this. Wasn't just like lighting on money, money on fire to build a business. It was like growing it very organically. And now you're in a real position with experience with brand to start tackling a really, really massive fitness industry, with all of that reputation, with all that cash that comes with everything that you've built so far. So I think you guys are in a really exciting, position and so far listeners who might want to keep up with you as well as Balla, as you continue on this journey, where can we find you? are you on, Twitter, LinkedIn socials? Like what? Just shout it out.

Max 46:37

Yeah, totally. So Bala is shop.com. ball size is either shop.com/ball size or baize.com. I probably am most, reachable via LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram, at M kiss limits. and yeah, I, get in

Blaine 47:00

Touch sweet. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show, max. It was awesome hearing about you guys, and we can't wait to run it back as you guys continue to grow and scale and release all your exciting new products. Awesome.

Max 47:10

Thanks for having me.

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Max Kislevitz - Cofounder of Bala
Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io
Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel