The Power Up ⎯ SN.03/EP.01
How A Personal Project Inspired A Million-Dollar Brand
Tuned Up Custom Rods turned ice fishing into a serious sport. John Burback, owner, shares, “The category was already there. But it was all very inexpensive and kinda cheap products. We took it to the next stratosphere. Built super high-quality products and what we really brought to the forefront was being able to customize it online really easily and then deliver it in 4 weeks.”
Burback focuses exclusively on providing the exact ice fishing rods and equipment their customers need for a 100% tailor-made experience, from colors to handle material. Each rod that is purchased is hand-built, customized, designed, and tuned in-house at their store in Coon Rapids using the highest-quality products. This market and approach have allowed them to reach 1 million sales after just a few years.
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About The Business
Business name: Tuned Up Custom Rods
Founded: 2010
Owner: John Burback
Location: Coon Rapids, MN
Website: https://tunedupcustomrods.com
Sales diversification strategy: Storefront, e-commerce
About Our Guest
In high school, John discovered that the current market for ice fishing rods didn’t quite fit his needs. That led him to experiment with the supply chain to build a custom rod for himself. When all of his friends started showing interest in the exact specifications they wanted for their own rods, John used it as an opportunity to turn his passion into a career.
When John’s business partner married his sister, Tuned Up Custom Rods transformed into a true family business. John’s secret for running a family business is keeping it separate by treating it as a real job. He credits their dynamic success due to the fact that they are both drivers pulling their weight and moving the business forward.
Full Transcript
Sean (Thrive): Hello everyone, it’s Sean from Thrive with another episode of The Power Up, where I meet with successful small business owners and operators to learn about their business strategy so you can take their insights and level up your own business. Once your business is ready to expand, knowing where to start can be overwhelming. Our guests have some creative solutions for how they’ve tackled tricky problems and turned them into growth opportunities.
Now, let’s dive into today’s episode.
Our guest today is John Burback. He is the owner of Tuned Up Custom Rods in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. Tuned Up focuses exclusively on providing the exact ice fishing rods and equipment their customers need for a 100% tailor-made experience, from colors to handle material. Each rod purchased is hand-built, customized, designed, and tuned in-house at their store in Coon Rapids using the highest-quality products. This market and approach have allowed them to reach one million sales after just a few years.
Are you ready to get started with us, John?
John (Tuned Up Custom Rods): Absolutely.
Sean: Alright, so my first question is just tell us a little bit about how you got into ice fishing rods.
John: The story starts back when I was in high school. I found a need for making custom ice rods kind of like non-existent. There was no supply chain, there was no evolution of ice rods, they were really in their infancy. So I kind of created a need for it.
Found that my friends really liked it throughout high school, started building throughout college, kind of continued to grow and grow and grow, and then met my business partner when I got married to my wife, who is my brother-in-law. Then we kind of expanded the business from there. He was the sales driver, I was the one designing and creating all the ice rods.
What we learned is that creating a great design comes with a utopia of demand. That’s what we were blessed with, customers that really embraced the custom ice rod because it was very, very different than the status quo of ice fishing. Then, for the first five years, came the ice fishing boom, and then it took off from there.
Sean: Very cool. I am not the biggest fisher in the neighborhood, but if you were to explain to me the difference between a traditional fishing rod and an ice fishing rod, what would be some of the core differences? I’m curious.
John: So a traditional fishing rod is usually six to eight feet, and longer rods. Ice fishing rods, you’re trying to capture that six-foot or seven-foot rod and make it into a three-foot rod or a little shorter. There are some complications with that, making a rod short but also high performance, and then have the same feel as your open water rod.
So say if you have a fast-action rod, which means the tip loads up faster than the whole rod and makes it more sensitive, you want to build that into a miniature version as an ice rod. A couple of years of development.
Then the materials are very different as well because you’re dealing with extreme temperatures.
Sean: Interesting. You kind of talked a little bit about it, but am I hearing that you guys created a new category of rods? Like ice fishing rods weren’t necessarily a thing back in the day when you were in high school, and then you started this category of new rods? Or you basically innovated within an existing category?
John: Yeah, I wouldn’t say we created a whole new category. We kind of pushed the envelope with the category that was already there, but it was very inexpensive, kind of cheap products. We took it into the next stratosphere, built super high-quality products. What we were really at the forefront of is being able to customize it online really easily and then deliver it in four weeks.
We worked really hard at building a business model that was repeatable and then expanding on that and other lineups as well.
Sean: Okay, so I want to go back to the customization and e-commerce side. That’s something our audience is always curious about: how to build a highly customized online business. But I do want to go back to a point you briefly mentioned: your business partner is your brother-in-law, did I catch that right?
John: Yes.
Sean: Is there anything you put in place when you set out on this with your brother-in-law? Like provisions or safeguards to keep the family safe and protected, and business is business? How did you guys think about that? I know that’s kind of a gray area sometimes.
John: Yeah, doing business with family is always interesting. We were able to keep it pretty separate. So the business part of it, what you really have to do in my mind is set up boundaries and goals, and treat it as a real job. If you’re responsible for this, take ownership of this part of it.
The biggest thing is you have to have two people who are drivers versus one who’s a driver and one who’s a passenger. Make sure both people are drivers, and really make sure the relationship is solid. Then having a mutual third party sometimes to resolve conflict is a wonderful resource.
Sean: I bet. That probably can’t be your wife, I would guess?
John: No, absolutely not. She’s the one living with us and the one who grew up with us. Doing business with family can work out very well. It just really requires both parties to put 100% effort into it.
Sean: Great. So let’s go into the e-commerce customization business. You guys are obviously doing everything in-house and building the rods. How did you go about setting up the online shopping experience for the consumer? Tell us a little about that.
John: That’s been a long road. We started off with WooCommerce, did all kinds of different platforms. Shopify is the one we landed on now.
The biggest thing is you have to have an infinite number of options on our website because you take a rod, then pick out thread colors, about 100 colors, then pick out the trim color, also about 100 colors. The combinations add up to millions of different combinations. Then customized writing, multiple handle choices, and stuff like that.
Managing that inventory and the whole thing has probably been our hardest task. Building a fishing rod feels easier than actually running the company part.
Sean: Interesting. So you’ve expanded into having rods in stock and moving inventory from a warehouse to the storefront over the years?
John: Yes. We’ve done some amazing things with the technology available over the last couple of years. I feel like technology caught up and made it a lot easier.
Sean: Are you using any Shopify apps for customization?
John: Yes, we’re using Infinite Options. We basically build a dummy item and rinse and repeat the item multiple times. Like our color choices are all standard for the rods, so it’s easier to have that as one option.
Sean: I think I see it here. It’s like a blue logo with a couple toggles, about $13 a month?
John: Yeah, it’s basically like having another person.
We’ve tried many apps. Thrive is the other driver for inventory, which has been really good. It builds assemblies, bundles, and handles the rod as the sum of its parts, which is a big task.
Sean: So Infinite Options is the front end allowing the consumer to customize the rod, and Thrive manages the parts on the backend?
John: Yes. Thrive manages all the parts, and we use it more like a master spreadsheet in the background. We don’t use it instantly; we close it out once a month because it would take more time doing it for every rod than once a month.
We kind of know what we’re building throughout the month.
Sean: How do you think about the financial side of the custom business? Are you looking at profitability and sales of specific components or as a whole? I imagine you have a huge warehouse with many products. How do you avoid overstocking or not selling products?
John: That’s the tough thing. Also, in our industry, weather dictates what we sell; it sounds weird. This year, we didn’t have a long ice season; it was about four weeks instead of 16 to 18 weeks. So instead of selling certain panfish rods, we sold more walleye rods to Canada.
Our whole business model was thrown off because we had set goals for how many panfish rods and walleye rods we would sell, and that was completely gone. Demand planning is an ebb and flow. We have dealers that stock and custom Guide Series rods for certain guides that we build in the same color. We try to get all the information early in the season; most dealer orders are due six months in advance for pre-planning.
Sean: Are you doing anything with white labeling? Like creating custom rods for brands to resell with their logos?
John: We haven’t done a lot of resale like that. But for photo shoots, companies want brand-neutral rods, so they have us build rods and put their company logo on them.
Those rods are for photo shoots and marketing campaigns, but don’t advertise another brand. Usually, it’s easier and cheaper for companies to order rods and have product placement than Photoshop logos.
Sean: How do you go about marketing and finding customers?
John: We do a lot of social media marketing, Facebook, Instagram, and large email campaigns.
We released a new Open Water series that took off. With the lack of ice in this region, people are excited about fishing again, so we’re trying to take advantage of that.
Sean: Is any specific social media working better?
John: Instagram works better than Facebook. Facebook’s algorithm is not as user-friendly for business as it used to be. There’s a lot of spam and noise. We tell customers the worst way to contact a customer is through Facebook Messenger, people don’t always read messages.
Sean: Are you using Facebook’s e-commerce shopping platform?
John: We tried, but haven’t had much success because it doesn’t work with some of our options. It’s easier to drive people to our website.
Sean: Makes sense. Someone couldn’t pick their thread colors on Facebook.
John: Exactly. It could work for standardized stocked rods, but probably no more.
Sean: Thanks, John. Let’s wrap up with five rapid-fire questions we ask all our guests.
Number one: What’s your fastest-growing sales channel?
John: Open Water sales.
Sean: What’s that?
John: Regular fishing rods, not ice rods. Our most growth potential is in Open Water rods.
Sean: What’s your favorite resource to grow your skills or business? Blogger, YouTube, book?
John: I do a lot of Joe Rogan podcasts. I like the business ones, how people develop, have setbacks, and come back stronger.
Sean: What piece of tech can you not live without?
John: Dual cell phones.
Sean: Explain.
John: I have a shop phone and a personal line. I use them differently, to have either a personal connection or a business connection with customers.
Sean: People buy the brand, not the product. If you have an angry customer, do you give your personal line?
John: Yes, sometimes just to say, “Hey, I mean it.” Others answer the business line. That personal connection changes how people think.
Sean: Last question: What advice do you have for business owners ready to grow?
John: Manage your cash flow appropriately.
Sean: Great advice. Thanks so much for joining us, John.
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