Advice Line with RJ Scaringe with Rivian

27:11Wow, that's amazing. So this is now what you do full-time? No. And that's probably the reason why I'm having a conversation with you guys. I have been working a full-time corporate job since 2012. I'm a fabrication supervisor at a manufacturing company. and all the while I've been working on building my brand. So I've been juggling both for the past about eight years. Is your background in engineering by any chance? Yes. I went to Carnegie Mellon University for a bachelor's in mechanical and master's in civil and environmental engineering. Wow. Right up your alley, RJ. Yeah, cool. Another engineer on a show.

27:53This stuff is amazing. So you're doing, you're making furniture. Presumably you are the one making it. And then you're also going to this other job as a supervisor? Yes. So tell me what your day is like. What's a typical day for you? A typical day starts pretty early. About 9 a.m. I'm in my studio and work for generally about four hours each day. And then come home, shower real quick, and head to work. I work second shift and get off at 2 a.m. And the cycle continues. When do you sleep? Not much. My God. Okay. Lots to dig in there. What's your question for us? Yeah. So my question relates to actually balancing both.

28:37My desire is to build a legacy brand that will endure for many years and make a big impact in the community, in the world, and for my family. And I'm just at that place where revenue is not quite enough for me to do it full-time. And I need to do it full-time in order to get the revenue to where it needs to be to support me and my family and make the impact I want. So looking for any suggestions on how I can position my brand to get to that point. How you can essentially leave your job and do this full time. Woo! RJ, that's a lot of pressure. Are you demand constrained or supply constrained? If you had more time, you could conceivably generate more revenue.

29:24So is there enough demand that you'd be comfortable leaving your job? Not right now because essentially what we've been able to make in revenue without much investment in marketing at all. But we've proven that people want our products and love what we do and we're on the high end. So really it's just a matter of getting in front of our ideal clients and spending the time on the marketing side of things, which is where I'm struggling with time. Kweiju, can you give us a sense of what you make in sales a year right now? Yeah, we are bringing in about$180 ,000 per year. Right. And given your background as a mechanical engineer, I mean, your value is very high at a company.

30:12So I imagine that what you're paid is significantly more than what you bring in in profit after all is said and done. One of the things that I keep thinking about, you know, we did an episode many years ago with Jim Cook. He's been on the show a few times, the founder of Boston Beer Company. And he has this sort of very, I think, important idea about how to live your life. And he says, you know, if you're going to take the leap, you want to think about whether it's dangerous or scary. And a lot of things like leaving your job are scary. But the question is, is it dangerous, right? Is it more dangerous to remain in your job and then wake up at 60, 70 or 65 years old and say, you know, I wasted my life.

30:51I didn't pursue this thing that I really wanted to pursue. And the answer is it sometimes can be more dangerous. On the flip side, if you listen to that episode, Jim kept his day job for a long time. He worked at Boston Consulting Group. And at nights and on weekends, he really learned how to make beer. He looked at beer bottling plants. He really kind of did his market analysis and research for at least a year before he was ready to go. You've been doing this, as you said, for about nine years now, I think. And so it is a significant risk, right? If you were to completely walk away from your job, I imagine, would you have, for example, health insurance?

31:29Would there be another source of health insurance? I would have to find another source for that. That's right. So, I mean, one of the things you could do is save like crazy and take the leap and know that if it didn't work out, you're eminently hireable because of your background as a mechanical engineer. At the same time, you have seniority probably, and you will probably continue to climb up the ranks and at some point maybe recruited by another company and earn more money. So there's a risk here, right? Because I think your business is based on your designs and your work, right? Is there a way you can scale what you're doing?

32:11Yeah. Yeah, well, yes, it is based on my designs, but we do get clients who ask us to make their designs, and they'll come to us with drawings or specs, and we'll do that as well. As far as scaling, right now we're a small batch company, and we pride ourselves in being able to invest the time into making quality pieces with a very close relationship with our clients. So I don't know how far I want to go with scaling it, but definitely to a point where I'm not hands-on with every single detail with the business. I'd like to get to a point where I have a team that can create my designs as one part of the business.

32:56And the other part is I'm focused on the very high-end pieces, like art pieces, collector pieces. So very high-end clients would come and say, oh, this is a piece made by Kwejo himself. And then the other part of the business is running. We're making our standard pieces for clients. You know, in starting a business, there's so many unknowns. And I look back now, I was just talking to someone on the team there at A-Botics or asking me, what was it like in the beginning when it was just you? And I was like, you know, I didn't really, I didn't focus a lot on how it was going to fail, which sounds crazy.

33:32But I thought about how I could make it work. but there are so many ways like it like an infinite number of ways one can imagine the business not working but once i made the decision i was going to go build it and then every every day whether the the the barrier was large or small it was just how do we make progress and so i think the question i would ask i'd ask here is just are you ready for that like leaned in commitment. There are going to be days where you're like, oh shit, this isn't going as I hoped. But you're very employable. We have lots of openings here at Rivian. You're very employable and you're at a point in life where it sounds like you can take this jump.

34:18You're already working around the clock. You're up in the morning, right away working, and you're working until you said 2 AM. You clearly have the stamina to work really hard to something. So I mean, I'm biased, but I would ask you, why not? I'm going to disagree here, RJ. I think you've got to be a little more cautious. How many kids do you have? We have a six month old. Okay. Is it possible? Because we might be able to split the difference here. Is there a world where your company, where you currently work, would be willing to give you a leave of absence, like a six month leave of absence? you know i haven't explored that my role is more hands-on i directly manage my team so not too sure if that's possible but definitely something worth considering but you know i've realized that the value that i've gained in actually doing both even though i really desire to be able to cut ties and focus on craft of glory and i think craft of glory really needs that from me.

35:27But at the same time, being in another manufacturing environment, I've gotten to really sharpen my skills of standardizing processes, manufacturing processes. All of that carries over into what I do. And so I'm very grateful for that. But I also realized that I want Crafted Glory to be a legacy brand. And I can't really do that part-time, I think. But But, you know, by the grace of God, I've gotten this far and I'm hopeful that it's going to go much, much farther. So take Guy's point. And with a six month old, I can appreciate that. Starting with a night out of kids, it's a lot easier sleeping on couches and things like that.

36:07But have you thought about if you lined up like a significant customer or enough revenue? where let's say you had a year of runway of revenue and work that you could then like look at that as the the yes yeah the line through which you'd have to get through so you know okay i'm going to go build enough relationships with enough design firms that locks up business for for 12 months and then gives you the comfort to make the leap yes yes that's actually something my wife and i have talked about frequently and and we've taken some steps in that direction one of which is we're actually going to be at ICFF next month, International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

36:46Oh, nice. Yeah. And we're really hopeful that some good partnerships will come through that. And actually this year we've applied to many grants and we've received many of them. And that is just helping to build that runway, as you said. That makes a lot of sense. And if there was a way to have some kind of contract with somebody that really gives you this year-long runway, then in that case, I would say, yes, take the lead for sure. And it may be that in the meantime, you may want to pause building furniture for a few months and try and focus on seeing if you can develop a partnership. And maybe the trade show is where you find that partner.

37:27Yeah, that's really great advice. Yeah. You said something to the guy which I just doubled down on. So I started a car company. I love to work on cars. And one of my early learnings was in the beginning, I spent a lot of time designing parts. And it feels really good because it's the thing you enjoy. And it's maybe the thing that initially drew you to start the business. But I realized after a couple of months, I was like, well, the company will never scale if I'm sitting at a laptop designing parts all day. And so I quickly realized that so important, like for the company to be successful, I had to go focus on other things, which were building relationships and bringing investors.

38:08And I think there's a really similar dynamic here where as much as you love being in the shop every day, probably the best thing you can do is to go build a really large book of business so you can have the comfort to scale the business as you've talked about here. And bring other people in to do it. Because RJ, I mean, your dream was to build a car company. And probably in your dreams, the idea was you would be sitting at the drafting table and you'd be designing the car. But you can't do it, even though you know how to do it and you've got the background. It'd take like 40 ,000 years. Yeah. Yeah.

38:40It'd take a little while. Just like I can't edit this. I know how to do the editing of the show, but I can't do it. First of all, my producers are much better than me, but I cannot do it, physically do it. So it makes a lot of sense at some point, Kwejo, that you're going to want to focus on the business side and still oversee the design, but you're going to want other people working for you. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we've gotten a taste of that. We have one part-time employee, and I see just with him the value in being able to step back, assign work to him, and then I can do other things.

39:14So that makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate that advice. Quai Jo Son Pim Pong. The company's called Crafted Glory. And mainly, I think you sell on Etsy and you've got a website. Congrats. Good luck. Keep us posted. Thank you so much. Good luck. Thank you. Wow. Some really cool stuff, you know. Super cool stuff. And I think it is true. Like, RJ, you are an engineer. This is what you spent your whole life training for. And at the end of the day, you can't really be in the weeds on the engineering side of the design side. You just can't. Yeah. One of the things in growing and building a business, you have to really recognize what are the things that you can uniquely do for the business that others can't, especially as a founder, as a CEO.

39:57And then the things that others can do really well, you shouldn't be doing them. And also things that you may really enjoy, but others can do well. Maybe you let yourself have it every now and then. It's like a dessert, but thinking very honestly around where you spend your time is important. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

40:30For a limited time, earn up to 200 ,000 bonus points with the IHD One Rewards Premier Business Card. Visit IHD.com slash business card. Cards issued by JPMorgan Chase Bank and a member FDIC offer subject to change. Terms apply.

40:57Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with RJ Skaringe. RJ, let's get back into it and take another call. Sure. Hello, welcome to the Advice Line. You are on with RJ Skaringe, founder of Rivian. And please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, my name is Robert Button. I'm calling from Vancouver, Canada. And my business is ZOA Engineering. So at ZOA Engineering, we design and build products that help people move through the backcountry. And our flagship product is the PL1. It's a portable rope tow system.

41:34So it's like a ski lift that fits in your backpack. I have so many questions for Rob. Welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. And I think you have landed on the perfect advisor here because, Rob, you must be an engineer, first of all. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a mechanical engineer as well. Mechanical engineer. Okay. So let's dig into this. You have built a product, from what I understand, that allows you to ski and then tow yourself back up. Explain how does it work? It's really designed for backcountry skiing. So the way it works is when you're backcountry skiing, normally you're using skins to climb the mountain first.

42:09Yeah. So it's obviously a lot of work. But in this case, you still have to climb the first time. But when you get to the top of your run, you can set an anchor that's either a tree or we provide a snow anchor. And you lay out your line along your run. You lay it out along the run. Okay. Yeah, we use a rope bag. So you kind of ski down with the rope bag the first time. And when you get to the bottom, you leave that loose on the bottom. And the device attaches to the rope. You pull a throttle and it pulls you up. So toes you back up. So how long is the rope? So with the standard package, we provide like a thousand feet, but you can link up multiple lines if you just want to have a longer run.

42:45So basically, for people who do backcountry skiing, you ski, but then you got to hike back up this way. This allows you to basically ski a thousand feet and get towed back up. Yeah, it's basically like a self-tailing winch is what you'd call it. How did this start? Tell me how this whole thing started. I think that it's ultimately something that a lot of backcountry skiers or a lot of skiers in general kind of think how great it would be to have your own lift, have your own private mountain. And I think that's kind of the route for this. I was kind of fortunate enough to have some familiarity with precious motors and controllers and the technology behind it and was able to kind of work it out and realize that this is a feasible thing to do and kind of went from there.

43:28I mean, it's super cool. Rob, what's your, what's the question you brought for us? Yeah, so our product is obviously quite unique. We're kind of the only ones on the market with this. And we have a lot of excitement about it, but not that many people that are really willing to commit to it just yet. And so my question is, how do we go from early adopters to a more mainstream audience for our customer base? All right, fair enough. RJ, we can answer the question eventually, but do you have any questions for Rob first? I guess just as context, I love to ski. And just a few years ago, I started trying backcountry skiing, which is wonderfully fun.

44:09But as you said, you can only do so many runs. I guess it's a stamina question with how much you can skin up and down. So I understand the product concept. Thinking about it, it takes, in terms of product market scale, it takes a part of a sport. So it takes skiing and backcountry skiing. So it's a niche sport within skiing. And then it takes that even further down to say someone is going to do multiple runs. And so like my first question would be, are there ways to broaden the portfolio to have other offerings that could appeal to someone who's maybe not backcountry skiing or other, other like answer your products you could add to it, or if you're only selling to folks who are backcountry skiing, are there other ways to create more attachment for other things into your portfolio.

44:54Yeah, I guess to start, I will say, I think the market for like backcountry skiing is often underestimated. A lot of our customers backcountry ski, by the way, they'll take their Rivian and then they'll go from there. Yeah. And, you know, you do see a number of viable companies that are really focused on backcountry skiing products but uh in our case there are alternative markets for us especially for us where you know we already have customers who are not necessarily back under skiers but will have a property that they want to set up with the lift and this is like sort of a very low cost way to have your own lift and we also have a lot of interest but we haven't really broken into a number of kind of business oriented or government oriented applications so like ski patrol has a lot of uses for this as well as search and rescue and even the military.

45:44So we do have like a number of alternative markets with just this product. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. Have you thought about, so skiing, and I think you're right, the backcountry is probably under accounted for. It's an awesome sport. How do you think about your company from a brand point of view? Do you think of it as a backcountry skiing branded company? Oh, that's interesting, yeah. Because if it's a towing company, there's a really broad set of applications from like hunting to logging to pulling jet skis up on the beach. Yeah, our mission statement right now is that we build products that help people move through the backcountry.

46:19So our focus is, you know, portable applications where we can move people through mountains effectively. And I think that's a lot broader than just skiing. And, you know, that can also encompass downhill skiing without the backcountry element, as well as a whole host of other applications, including stuff like hunting and where we get tons of people who ask, can I haul a buck through? Oh, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah. So, yeah. That's what I was thinking of, yeah. The general outdoor world, but as a tool that can be used in the outdoors and is highly portable, that's kind of what we're looking at.

46:51Rob, a couple quick questions. Tell me a little bit about your revenue. What do you expect to do this year? Or maybe what did you do last year? So this year we're expecting about 200 grand in revenue. So we're still quite small. And how much does the product cost? So it's$1 ,700 U.S. dollars for the complete package that includes the rope and everything you need. So it's expensive, but a lot of people doing backcountry skiing are paying a lot of money anyway. You know, one of these caterpillars to take them up or something, or some people do helicopters. And it's an investment. You make the investment, and then you can do it.

47:24One of the things that I'm curious about, because you asked how do you get more people to sort of try this out or to be aware of it. I mean, there are a number of ways. I was looking at your Instagram and you have about 20 ,000 followers on there, which is a great start. And I know you're putting videos out there. But really, I mean, I wonder whether you have tried out, for example, like pop-ups where people can try it for free at resorts. Have you tried going to resorts and offering people an opportunity to just try it or maybe working with ski rental shops to see people wanted to just rent it for an afternoon?

48:00it's still something we're kind of working on logistics wise for our product it's uh i think a lot of the resorts are still a little hesitant to let us use it on resort and uh so but what we've done is a lot more impromptu kind of stuff just last week if if we run across people while we're skiing we'll let them try out the product but it's definitely a plan in the future to get more people to try it out because we do get great reactions whenever anyone gets to use it rj i know that you did not have to use celebrities necessarily to sell Rivians, but I did notice during the Olympics last year, Martha Stewart was like on NBC talking about how she was so excited to get her Rivian, like she's waiting for a Rivian to come, which is, you know, I mean, she just did that.

48:41She just said that, right, which is a big deal because she's a tastemaker. And I don't think you guys use celebrity endorsements. But Rob, I wonder whether, I mean, in your case, you know, there are, there have to be famous backcountry skiers out there. Have you tried reaching out to some of them? Yeah, we're just dipping our toes in that right now. And it's something we are really hoping to kind of launch into more next season. But I think from my perspective, part of this is about building trust in the product and showing that it's the real deal. So, yeah, it's a big part of our strategy going forward.

49:16Yeah, I think that the idea of getting exposure to it, this is a product that it so naturally links to exposure because the people using it want to take photographs of using it and say, hey, instead of doing 4 ,000 feet of elevation, I did 25 ,000 feet. And I only had to do four of it on my own kind of thing. So I think there's a real opportunity to tell those stories and find some people that get excited about it. I agree. I agree with that, Raj. You know, we did an episode on Whoop, the Whoop band, you know, this wristband that tracks, you know, all these things in your body. And the guy who founded it, Will Ahmed, he – it's amazing how he launched this thing.

49:55He got it on the wrist of Michael Phelps and LeBron James without ever paying them. In fact, LeBron James and Michael Phelps paid him to use it. They paid for a subscription. And the way he did it was by going to their trainers. You know, it's hard to get something on Michael Phelps' or LeBron James' wrist. But if you can get to their trainer and the trainer is using it, he's the one who's going to say, hey, you really need to use this thing. And I wonder whether you can get this in the hands of ski instructors or, you know, race team coaches. As you mentioned, ski patrol. Also, people who are guides.

50:30I mean, everybody I know who does backcountry skiing almost always goes with a guide. Yeah, that's great. All great options. And I think something we'll have to push for going forward. RJ, any last minute thoughts for Rob on how he could get this out of the world? I mean, a lot of the things we said here, which I'm sure you've thought about some as well, Rob, but I do think one of the things I'd spend some time reflecting hard on is what's the vision for the business and what are the details you're willing to be flexible on and what are the things that you really are fixed on? And the reason I raise that is the technology and the product you're developing have lots of other applications as we quickly brainstormed here.

51:18And they're creating a few different surfaces through which you could be successful may be really helpful. But again, you have to really reflect to say, does that fit the overall vision? And I think this idea of like movement in the backcountry fits really nicely. Yes. is it broadens it and suddenly you have appeal across a few different things. And then the question is just how much effort you put into some of those different applications of your product technology. The company is called ZOA Engineering and wow, what a cool product, the PL1. Your own personal ski lift. Rob Button, congrats. Thanks for calling in.

51:55Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, great to meet you, Rob. Do you backcountry ski as well? I'm too nervous. I'm very cautious. I love skiing. I'm a very cautious skier. I ski everything, but very cautiously. You know, once you hit 50, you don't want to fall and break something. Because then you're at a commission. My wife tore her ACL last time we went skiing. So she's at a commission for a year. So there you go. Arji, before we let you go, I want to ask you one final question, which is, if you were able to go back and give your younger self some advice or sort of an observation or encouragement, what might you say now?

52:29What do you know now that would have been helpful or encouraging back then? Well, there's so many things. I'd say there's two things I'd focus on. And there are things I would have probably said then, but maybe a little less emphatically. One is make sure you have the right people around you. And it sounds so obvious. And it's probably an answer you'd see in any question on how to build a business. But it's even more important than it even says in all the business books. It's so critical in terms of your energy, in terms of how you find yourself being inspired, challenging the people that are challenging you.

53:05So I think that's really important. And for me, as a first-time founder and also somebody who's learning how to run a business, knowing when to break those relationships to say, hey, look, this isn't going to work. We need to bring somebody else in for this role. That took some time for me to develop. And now it's so understood. but in the early days, it wasn't as immediately obvious that sometimes I held on to relationships longer than I should have. That'd be the first thing. And then the second thing, being able, like in the early stages of business, the flexibility that you have to adjust the strategy is such a strength.

53:42And it's actually big companies don't have this flexibility. And I think in the beginning, maybe you hold onto an idea as precious and want to protect it because so many people are telling you that your idea or your business isn't going to work, that it's like fight or flight. You decide I'm going to fight to preserve the idea. But I think certainly in Rivian's case, a lot of the specifics of what we thought we were going to do in the beginning weren't the right answer. And once we started to really realize that and have comfort in the strength of being able to adjust our plans, not to say through our vision or our mission out the window, but to say we can be, you know, we can be flexible on the tactics.

54:23It really changed. And then also, what are the things we're not going to be flexible on? Like for us was certain aspects of vertical integrating to our technology stack. But like, if I was making what we first thought we were going to make, the company wouldn't be here. And so, you know, it's interesting just having these discussions today, because I do think for every founder, it's a really important question. What are the things that really do matter? And then if those other things can be flexible, like have the fluidity of thinking around, you know, should they change? Should you approach it differently?

54:53RJ, thanks so much. Yeah, yeah, this is great. Good to see you, Guy. That's Rivian founder and CEO, RJ Skirinj. And by the way, if you haven't heard RJ's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go back and check it out. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. One of the things that is interesting with electrification is it completely changes performance boundaries that we previously accepted. So our pickup, I was on the PCH, the Pacific Coast Highway in California. This was maybe three, four weeks ago. I pulled up to a light.

55:26It was early morning and a brand new Ferrari pulled up right next to me. And the guy looks over at me. I look over at him and said, Hey, you want to see what we can do here? And so we both accelerate quickly off the line and I out accelerated by quite a margin. And we get to the next light and he says to me, I can't believe my Ferrari just got roasted by a pickup. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyroz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them.

56:11You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Iman Ma 'ani with music composed by Ramtin Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Elaine Coates, Chris Messini, Catherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Sam Paulson, JC Howard, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

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