Advice Line with Sadie Lincoln of barre3

27:01Sadie, this is making me think of like, well, bar is Pilates meets yoga meets ballet. It's skee-ball meets cornhole. Yeah, and fun. Good old-fashioned fun. Yeah. So, Andrew, how did this idea come about? So it was back in like February of 2020, actually. So we've been working on this for quite some time. I was actually on the way back from a business trip, and I just sat down on the plane, What were you doing at the time? Consulting. I still am consulting IT stuff. So I was on the way back from a business trip, sat down on the plane and just put my mind to coming up with a yard game. I'm pretty sure I must have seen the Shark Tank episode on Spikeball the night before in the hotel.

27:45I always watch Shark Tank. So I set myself to come up with a yard game, started to think about the methods of play and how there's a lot of tossing. There's a lot of throwing, but there's not a lot of rolling. So almost immediately I thought of skeeball and essentially to turn that into a multiplayer yard game. Right. And there you go. And so how did you you started to kind of design this concept? Right. And then and then what? Like, how did you where did you find like a manufacturer in China or somebody somewhere and say, hey, this is my design and can you make this? It's been a long road. So at first we worked with a local design company, Objects Design, here in St.

28:29Louis. And we started to make a prototype and promotional material. And we say we, you and a partner? My parents. Your parents. That was the first test when I got home from my trip, actually, was to convince my parents that this was a good idea. I'm someone that has ideas left and right. And, you know, I always pitch them and they always get shot down. But this was one of those ideas where, you know, they were actually like, hold on, this actually might be something. So, yeah, we started to work with Objects Design to create the prototype, the initial promotional material. And we were going out to all these large toy companies just to license it out.

29:05And we worked with them for probably a year and a half or so and sent our prototype to different toy companies. And they loved it, but it's more so a matter of the price point. And that is for$269 currently. It just wasn't working out. So we never ended up landing a deal. And ever since then, we started working to get it built from the ground up ourselves. And how much does one set come with two of these launch platforms? Yep. Yep. There's 33 components if you include all the beanbags, the two ramps, the four legs to support the two ramps, and then the two game modes for each ramp as well. So 33 components.

29:44And we also include two carrying cases. Obviously, portability is top of mind when you're thinking about a yard game and taking it camping or to the beach or whatever. So we have all of that and shipping included for the contiguous United States. Got it. Okay. Sadie Lincoln, I want to bring you in with some questions before we get to Andrew's question. What do you think? Well, first of all, congratulations. You are the definition of an innovator. Thank you. And an entrepreneur. I love it. Yeah, I do. I'm looking at your website. And your branding is very clear. It's very playful. And it does look like a toy.

30:23It's plastic versus wood. I'm just curious what your choices were with the materials and how you're manufacturing it. And if wood versus plastic, if there was a cost differentiation. So we did actually have wood prototypes built probably two years or so ago just to actually start getting the word out, right? Put them in social bars. And we understood that some people might want that wood more of a luxury item, right? Certainly from the cost perspective, it was almost$500 for the wood versions and then all the man hours associated with that. So that was a big consideration. It still might be on our long-term plan to get nicer wood versions and bars.

31:06But as far as reaching the mass markets, we decided to do, you know, blow molding. that way we could produce them at scale and shipping is still insanely expensive, but a little bit more manageable. Right. Got it. Okay. And what's your question for us today? So my question is, what advice do you have around selling our premium priced game? And how can we convey the value better to convert more customers? Sadie, I'll start with you. Yeah, sure. Well, how I look at value, there's like the value of the experience, the emotional value of something. and then there's the value of the actual product and how it's presented.

31:45And those are two different things. And I'm a 52-year-old mother of children not too much, you know, a little younger than you. And I know I value if they want to do something with me, I'm going to do it, whatever it is, because I value my time with them and anything that brings kind of multi-generations together. And I value this wholesome aspect of playing games. We play pool together. We play ping pong together. I think someone like me, and I'm not alone here, we value time like that, playing games with our kids. So something that they relate to and we relate to is valuable to us. So there is a consumer like me who has money, who would spend that kind of money.

32:34And it is considerably more. I mean, I think this is probably twice what we paid for our cornhole. But it's two games in one. It's portable. There is this kind of fun playfulness of it with the solo cup design and everything that I see here on your site. I love that. Yeah. Andrew, who is your target customer here? Is it fraternities? Is it like, you know, I don't know. Who do you imagine playing this game? When I first started, I imagined myself, right? Right. You know, young, young adults, maybe from college all the way up to, I don't know, people play still in their backyard. Right. So that was part of my initial struggle, especially when you start to get and consider the high price tag.

33:16Right. Because that made me second guess. When I realistically looked at myself, I was like, OK, would I really be willing to spend two hundred and sixty nine dollars without having tried this game first? And I was like, probably not. I need to probably play this game and make sure I like it first, even though we have a satisfaction guarantee. Right. And so I started to kind of lean more towards businesses, wherever you see cornhole or maybe extreme tailgaters that are out there every week supporting their teams. I still see that as our target audience. I just feel like in order to reach them, we first have to reach businesses to where maybe our other consumers can try the game first before they make their own purchase.

33:59Yes. And one thing I guess I have a question for you around is have you thought about kind of piggybacking on other valuable experiences that people with money enjoy, like pickleball, you know, donating these to pickleball experiences where older people, younger people are playing together and they could experience it. Another one that just jumped in my head as you were talking is KOAs. Yeah. Campgrounds. Yeah. campgrounds but rving like we we're a big rv family we just love it um and we have so much especially when the kids were younger we'd go into these guys van life hashtag uh pretty much except we're we're not that cool we get like the motorhomes got it okay i imagine you in a really cool like wooden paneled van life oh no no no i'm all about the convenience and the fun of it Got it.

34:53All right. Refrigerator, the beds, the whole thing. And, and, and RV sites, you know, where there's like ice cream and socials and a pool and ramps, you know, and they usually have a store attached to it, by the way, where you can buy what you just experienced. So I don't know, have you have you and your, your team, your parents talked about how to introduce this to that audience or those kinds of experiences? Yeah, so our plans were to donate approximately two to three a month, just given the high cost of the item and our cash flow. And it's only our investment that's supporting all of this. But I will say, I don't know if you guys saw last week, we actually went viral on an Instagram reel from one of our micro influencers we sent the game to, who's all about tailgating.

35:47Luke Lork from Tailgating Challenge. How many views did it get? I think it's at 24 million views and over 11 million accounts. Wow. Wow. Oh, that's great. And how many conversions were there? How many things did you sell? In the last week, I think we sold around 150. Awesome. And we only had 250 in our inventory. So far beyond our initial projections and expectations. So that was just a stroke of luck, I guess, that we went viral. Yeah. Yeah. And a great, great for momentum. I mean, obviously, you know, that's one off and, you know, you're going to have to figure out a way to keep that momentum going.

36:26What I want to I want to sort of I mean, I think Sadie made a really important suggestion here, which is about tribes. Right. And if you heard our we I'm assuming you heard our spike ball episode on the show. Oh, yeah. Multiple times. And what, you know, what they did was they found, I mean, it was accidental, but they figured they found out just looking at, you know, customer data from the online sales was that it was like interesting groups of people are using this like youth Christian youth groups, Amish people, Mennonite communities. So, you know, that's where they initially went, because that's really where, you know, you begin to get momentum.

37:04I mean, and the other thing that Spikeball did, which you have to do is a demo, demo, demo, demo. You know, they went to they were in Chicago. They were on Lake Michigan and they would just set up Spikeball games all around the lake. I would just play this game at a park and you identify a couple of cool parks. And I mean, you start in St. Louis, but eventually you want to go beyond there and just find crowds of people and just set up the game around there and start playing it because you need to build awareness, right? Before people are going to put, you know, 250, 260 bucks down, they need to see it.

37:39And obviously that Instagram post is super helpful, but you also want to do a lot of grassroots stuff as well, as much as you can do. And eventually you're going to start to see who is, is it people in RVs? Is it people in campgrounds? Is it church groups? Is it youth groups? Are there fraternity groups doing this? So I would really think about a strategy around just getting this out there and just playing the game and letting people see it. I totally agree. And how aggressive do you think we should be? Because we have so many people that are actually reaching out to us that are asking for donations of our game for their religious group or their middle school or their, you know, whatever nonprofit or military group, whatever it may be.

38:27So should we go beyond our initial estimates and cash flow with the two to three estimated a month? I don't know if we should be extra risky at this point in time. I think I'd be curious to hear what you thought, Sadie, but I think you need to be really strategic. You know, if it's a one-off church group, no, because unless, you know, it's a church group with 25 ,000 members, you know, and they're really going to advertise what this is. I think you have to be really strategic with the freebies for now, because obviously you're a tiny company, you're financed by, you know, you and your parents.

39:07Sadie, what do you think? Be strategic, then give generously. I think knowing who is like of those people that went on the influencer site, you said it was how many hits did it have? Over 24 million. Amazing. How many people came to your site and then the people that came to your site and bought ramps, do you know about them? How old they are, household income, what their other interests are? Did you capture their email? I would start to, you know, maybe you've already done this, but a lot of consumer research about who's actually buying this. or who needs to buy it. Like I think about like, I'm so out of ideas for like the dudes in my life, frankly.

39:47They're hard to buy for. I can think of my son, my father-in-law, you know, my husband, they would all love this. Like, but how do you get in front of me, right? But you don't know that unless you know I would actually buy. So whoever's buying, try to get in front of more of them. And truly I would continue. So parallel path, one thing I really encourage you to figure out and keep asking yourselves, is there a way to redesign ramps using less expensive materials? Is there a way to lower your costs? Over time, there will be because you'll be able to scale efficiencies. You'll have better partners.

40:24You'll have higher volume. You'll be better at inventory. All those things that everybody in retail struggles with, by the way. and you can benchmark it with other groups who have done a similar thing and learn from them. All those things are very important to consider right now while you're capitalizing on the amazing momentum and marketing that you have going. Absolutely. Yeah, that resonates with a lot of feedback we got because there's a lot of comments on a viral video, as you can imagine, both good and bad. But a lot of people were saying like, I wouldn't pay more than$50 for this. And And it's like, well, shipping can cost, you know,$60.

41:03But we are actually starting to put together like a light version or a base game set where it will only be one of the two games. So it gets like the base starting point down for people to see if they like the game and then have the add-ons. And I don't know. We think we might like take the shipping out of the price. So not bake it in. The research says to bake it in, but with our kind of price tag, I don't know if this is maybe something we treat a little bit more or a little differently. You can test it. Yeah. Fail fast. Yep. Try, test, fail fast, try it again. And you get to wear, maybe think of it as, you know, a game for yourself as the innovator that you are.

41:44Just keep innovating, keep trying. There are a lot of different kinds of materials you can use that look more premium, that look wood, that aren't wood, for example. I think just continuing to explore and have fun with it along the way is going to take you far. For sure. For sure. Andrew Pizzullo, Ramps Game. Good luck, man. Thanks so much for calling in. Yeah, thank you guys for having me. It's an honor to be here. Big fan of the show. Appreciate it. Thanks. Can I keep thinking about skeeball? Did you ever play skeeball as a kid? like at Chuck E. Cheese or one of those kinds of places? You know, that's one thing I haven't played.

42:21Oh, that's right. You didn't grow up. You grew up in a, I remember from our story. You, yes. Cornhole is. You were a commune. Yeah. I'm more of a hippie girl. Yeah. That's probably why I was asking about the materials, like the wood, the organic feel of it, I think would be cool. But on the other hand, I like that it's playful and it's more like a toy and it's probably easy to clean and light and flexible. Yep. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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44:43Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking calls with bar three founder Sadie Lincoln. Sadie, what do you say? Should we take another call? Let's do this. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line. Hi. Hello. Hello. Welcome. Please tell us introduce yourself. Tell us where you're calling from and a little bit very briefly about your business. I'm Randi Pink from Birmingham, Alabama, founder of Ruffner Treehouse Village. Ruffner Treehouse Village is a nature-centered community space meant to foster connection in the predominantly Black Eastlake neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama.

45:28All right, cool. Thank you for calling in. Welcome to the show. Randi, Tell me a little bit more about Treehouse Village. It's going, it's a, it's a, like a, literally a village of treehouses? Yes. It is at the edge of a nature preserve in Birmingham, Alabama. And it will be four treehouses all themed around Birmingham history, literature, elders, and the maps that built Birmingham. So it's a nature-centric space for people in the lesser served side of Birmingham to go and explore and connect and enjoy. Wow. Okay. So Randy, right now, I guess you own some land near or in a nature preserve. And I guess the plan is to build these tree houses where the community can kind of come together and learn.

46:26learn. And so how did you come up with this idea? Back in 2020, my now ex-husband asked for a divorce right in January. And I had a newborn baby at the time. And then the pandemic hit. So I started to visualize a place where I could go with my young children. And that place did not exist, especially outside of the wealthier side of Birmingham. So the Treehouse Village concept came to mind and I conceptualized it. But as a recently divorced mother of babies, I didn't have the money or the resources to do that. Um, so as soon as Zillow posted the perfect plot of land right at the edge of the tree, where I wanted the tree house village to be, um, I opened my email and my agent inserted$30 ,000 into my bank account.

47:34I write young adult novels and, um, I got a$30 ,000 advance. Wow. So I immediately purchased that for twenty four thousand and started building my 401c, started building a board, beautiful board of people and a very small group of employees. We haven't built it, but we are working toward that with the land and fostering it as best we can right now. Wow. Okay. And tell us what your question is, the question you brought for us today. So my question is, in purchasing the land and starting to conceptualize building on it and making it happen, I ran out of money before I was able to publicize it. So I turned to TikTok and immediately went viral on TikTok about three years ago, which was wonderful and exciting and all of that.

48:44But I started to realize at some point that I myself, Randy, became the treehouse village. And at some point, reality hit. I was at the Shell station pumping gas and somebody drove by and said, hey, there's the treehouse lady. You know, it was it was great. But I would love to transition myself out of just being the singular face of that business. And any tips on that would be my question. All right. Sadie, I want to bring you into this conversation. First, any questions that you have for Randy? Yeah, one question I have is being the face of Ruffner Village, is that depleting you? Is it hard on you?

49:36Oh, that's a good question. It is. I would like to take a step back from that. Because as a single mother with kids, I kind of want this just to be its own community space and not me be the face of it. And you're an author of multiple books. Yeah. Yes. I write young adult historical fiction. I've been doing that for about 15 years. Yes. That's so beautiful. Well, I'm just going to experience Cher based on when I started Bar 3 16 years ago, I didn't have a studio. It was just me. And it was the first time that I put myself in the arena. And if you haven't read Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, you must read it.

50:31there's this part about being in the arena. The brave ones are in the arena and there will be people throwing like tomatoes at you, but they're not in the arena with you. If they're in the arena with you, it's worthy of a battle, right? But there are a few of us that step out and say, I'm going to be in the arena. I'm going to start this new thing based on a problem I am solving that I am directly experiencing. And that's vulnerable, right? It's also what attracts people to what you're building, both and. And over time, I did become the face of Bar 3. And to this day, I'll walk into a restaurant and people will say, Bar 3 instead of Sadie.

51:14But I think there's something really beautiful about that. And I've learned to really surrender to it, that they care about the woman behind the business. And it isn't Sadie Lincoln. That's not what it's about. And your beautiful village isn't about, isn't you, but you're holding the container for it. You're holding the vision for it. Just like you writing a story, those are your words. And then whoever's reading it gets to go into their own world with it. But you built the book, you wrote the book, and it is about you. And especially before you actually have a product that people can experience, it's really only about you and your story.

51:56And so I guess I hope that helps a little, but I will say that it changes. It's a phase. Eventually, when you have your beautiful concept built and people are there experiencing it, it will be about their words and their stories. I think that's fair. And I appreciate that perspective. It's very beautiful. And I do know that you've been through it. I've heard your episode. It was very inspiring. So thank you for sharing that advice. Well, I'm not alone and neither are you. I think it can feel lonely. You can feel like just you, but you're the voice of many in your community. And I think sometimes you scratch your own itch and it turns out to be a whole bunch of other people's itches too.

52:44And they just need one brave person to come out and paint the vision and the story and inspire other people around it to make it happen. Yeah. Thank you for that. It's valuable. Randy, and how are you, I'm just curious, how are you, are you raising money for the project now or are you going to finance it yourself? Well, I've been financing it myself through book advances. But I had through the attention on TikTok, a lot of my followers, they're kind, they're lovely, they're wonderful. And they were like, you need to open a GoFundMe just to, you know, stop spending your own money. So I did that for a little while, but mostly it's been, it's been me and grants in the community.

53:37A lot of followers on TikTok have reached out to the city of Birmingham like, can y 'all help this lady? They've been trolling the city. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's for sure creatively approached and just trying to figure out what works from day to day. And what's worked the most has been community support. Randy, do you have a concept that you're inspired by that's similar to what you're doing that's been proven? I look to, honestly, people like you who came up with something outside the box and different and kept pushing. One of my heroes is Janice Bryan Howroyd, a black woman who... Yeah, yeah.

54:34She was on our show several years ago. She started the famous Beverly Hills Staffing Agency, Act One. Yes. She's wonderful. Just pushing through starting small and creating something incredible in that space. And male-dominated spaces. She's very inspiring. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's an awesome story. Janice is really, really inspiring. Yeah. And do you have a community of people who have the experience in building a nonprofit and building a structure in designing experiences? Do you have thought leaders in those different arenas that you have not had experience in? Oh, that's a good question. I do.

55:19I'm a writer. So, yes, I have to hire, not hire, but bring those people in. I have architect on my board and teachers, nonprofit leaders. And I belong to a few nonprofit groups just in Alabama. But one of my goals is to get into the Harvard Business Certificate Program to try to really get some good information from there. But yeah, I'm working on it. It's still for sure in its infancy, but working on it every day. I think that's so valuable. Well, I can tell your superhero power is storytelling. And that's something I enjoy doing as well. And after 16 years of building this big company of mine, one thing I've learned is the power of surrounding myself with people who can complement that.

56:19In the early days, I had a really hard time building trust with people because I go right to my heart, to vision, and what's possible in the future. and people who are literal and need data and analytics and proof, you know, had a hard time listening to me and trusting me. But once I started to bring along folks that naturally talked in that way and could really help me prove out my concept, I was able to set myself free as a storyteller. And I hope that for you, I hope that you bring that along. Of course, I've also grown as a professional. I've learned to bring my own data and to balance out my strengths, but not by losing or weakening what's already innately in me.

57:04And I just, I really hope that for you because I think you're really gifted and your idea is so beautiful and so inspiring. Really do. Thank you. Thank you so much. Randy Pink, the concept is called Ruffner Treehouse Village. Randy, good luck. Thanks so much for calling in. Thank you. Thank you so much. um sadie when you you know i mean obviously you were in a version of these you know of where all these founders were you know back in the day and if if there was a way for you to kind of go back and and give yourself some advice that you know now that you have now what what would you say to yourself i think what i would say to myself is exactly what i would say to all them but truly to myself, I would say, believe in yourself enough to know that you can attract the very best people around you to help you grow bar three into what you want it to become.

58:01You deserve the best marketer, the best finance person, the best operator on the planet. Like aim for the very best people you possibly can. And part of them being the very best is finding people who respect me and my unique strengths that may be really different than theirs. I really think all of us as founders, all of us as innovators who put ourselves out that who we surround ourselves with is a game changer. And I kind of wish I knew that a little earlier. Sadie Lincoln, thank you so much for coming on to the show, onto the advice line. It's great having you back on the show. I love it. So fun.

58:45Thanks for having me. And by the way, if you haven't heard Sadie's original How I Built This episode on the founding of Bar 3, you should definitely go back and check it out. It's an awesome, amazing story. And you can find a link to it in the podcast description. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at GuyRoz.com. Each week, it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And 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 about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them.

59:30And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibtid.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Carla Estevez with music composed by Ramtin Arableu. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Chris Massini, Devin Schwartz, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Catherine Seifer, Kerry Thompson, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

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