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#205: Specialized Bikes – Staying Ahead of the Trends

#205: Specialized Bikes – Staying Ahead of the Trends

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 Mike Sinyard dropped out of school at 16, toured Europe on a bike and became the Specialist no one knew they needed. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not-so-secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [ECO Office Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. I'm Dave Young, and that's Stephen Semple. We're talking about empires and business building and all of the things. And the subject that you whispered in my ear just as we started was Specialized mountain bikes. Mountain bikes is not my area of expertise. Specialized is a brand name or are we just talking about mountain bikes in general? Stephen Semple: No, Specialized is a brand name, but they do more than mountain bikes, but where they're really known is mountain bikes. Dave Young: I kind of thought that they were a- Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: Yeah, which is first of all, Specialized is a strange name for a brand. Stephen Semple: It is. Dave Young: Like calling yourself exclusive, okay. But I'm anxious to hear more. Like when you and I were kids, mountain bikes didn't exist. It just wasn't even a thing. Stephen Semple: They did not. No, they did not exist. Dave Young: There were bikes and there were road bikes, racing bikes, or you had a bike with just the usual kind of fat tires. Stephen Semple: Yes. And even before the mountain bike came along, you had a period of time there was the BMX bike actually predates the mountain bike. Dave Young: But more for kids and early teens. Stephen Semple: Yeah, exactly. So it was founded by Mike Sinyard in mid 1974 is when he started this business. So- Dave Young: It does go back a ways. Stephen Semple: Yes. And he didn't start right away building mountain bikes. That does give you an idea where the mountain bike trend happens. And today they have like 1,300 employees, they do half a billion in sales. And he started selling parts for bicycles. And it really wasn't until the mid 1980s that they became a big force in the mountain biking space. And the interesting thing that we're going to be talking about is they made some decisions along the way that almost put them out of business. Dave Young: Okay, love that kind of thing. Stephen Semple: That's the thing that really jumped out at me on their whole story. So Mike grew up in San Diego. His dad was a machinist in the Navy. His mom cleaned houses. They didn't have a lot of money. They didn't go out to eat, they didn't do all those sort of things. They were just a very basic household. He did poorly in school. He was in school in the '60s and had ADHD and really, again, not much known about that back in those days. And so he moved out of the house, dropped out of school at age of 16, and what he would start doing is he would go to flea markets and he would buy things, then resell them. And what he figured out was live cheap. So he had lived in a house with lots of roommates, was doing this living cheap thing, going to flea markets, buying stuff, reselling it, and eventually he decides to go back to school and give school another go. And he attended San Jose State University. And one of the things that happened is remedial programs started coming out and that's what allowed him to go back to school. And he basically did remedial everything. Like every class, every class was a remedial class, gets out of school, gets a job at an airport refueling planes, and he decides to become a pilot and started in an aviation program, got his pilot's license. Which,

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