He’s been moping publicly about barely breaking even for 20 years.
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To me, it doesn’t seem like it should be a niche, but in fact it’s a micro-niche. That’s never been more obvious than it is now. The thing is, I think all this stuff–from steel frames to friction shifters to lugs and saddlebags–should be the universal defaults. You should have to look hard to find an unattractive, tight-clearance, impossible-to-be-comfortable-on-for-more-than-a-minute carbon road bike. Instead, it’s oi vey up the wazoo.
Quit trying to be “right” all the damn time. As Tarck Bear Consulting LLC, says, “folks want options.”
That’s his schtick as a grumpy old man. Asking for loans isn’t.
If his P&L and balance sheet are what it sound like, no bank is going to sign off on a loan without some co-owners with deep pockets.
I bet he vastly overvalues his biz. Spoiler alert: it ain’t worth bupkiss.
By loans I mean the “we’ve got temporary cash flow problems so can you buy a gift certificate to cash in in the future but we’re not in financial trouble honest” solicitations to the faithful.
Yeah, imagine explaining the business model to a loan officer. “We barely break even selling $2-4000 bicycles with 40 year old technology, along with rolls of twine and cups of beeswax. Can we have $500,000?”
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And artisanal axes, plus books on the paleo diet; don’t forget those!
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“We are a bicycle company which recently spent an enormous portion of our capital on a retail location focused exclusively on selling artisanal axes and a small handful of books.”
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I don’t know, if it was presented as “we have a internet business that does $3m in sales a year and our best sellers are twine and beeswax” I’d want to know about your marketing secrets.
And if it was “We’ve been steadily earning $3m/yr for the last 10 years. Last year we barely broke even because we invested $200k in complete bikes. By eliminating custom bikes and their assembly we’ve cut our labor costs by $100k per year. We’d like to borrow $500k to introduce two more lines of complete bikes which we believe will reduce labor costs further while increasing our average profit per consumer sale”, that doesn’t sound too bad either.
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There’s obviously a bunch of areas of low hanging fruit when it comes to righting the ship. But with Grant at the helm it’s a non-starter.
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Step: 2 Reach out to POC / influencers / folx
Step 3: Market Riv to a younger generation who want to live dat dirt bag grav grav lyfe.
Step 4: Break even? Oh wait that’s crust bikes
I reckon Q should buy riv
I wonder what he would actually value it at? Realistically it’s not worth much more than inventory - liabilities because it doesn’t appear to be particularly profitable and it’s brand recognition is only waning.
I bet I could scrape together $50k in investors easily enough maybe even $100k.
Relocate to east coast and set up shop in some cheap warehouse space in south richmond.
Revamp / modernize lineup.
Move all production to one factory.
Add an ebike.
Get distribution for a dealer network through some third tier parts company like Action or Downeast.
Profit?
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I would really like to know how much money has been sunk into the “Silver” brand. Do the Silver cranks generate more sales/profits than the Sugino jawns they’ve been selling for 20 years?
Lol, it’s worth more than 100k.
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And getting rid of the goddamn stupid double top tube
Sheesh
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Sort of. I would say more than that. Is it actually valued at that much? Is there some special sauce that makes his 100k business better than any other 100k bike business or even investing that money into a net new business?
That special sauce is grant which is also the problem.
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Sell frames and builds with fenders, disc and baskets. Make them look nice, Riv paint and head badges are pretty nice to look at. Use lugs if you can make the numbers work. Embrace index shifting. Embrace dick breaks, they’re nice in the rain, you know, practical. Do your long wheel base thing, why not? There’s a huge space between friction shifters and carbon wonder bikes to exploit by making a nice looking bike that’s practical. And practical has to include not chasing down friction shifting re-enactment parts from a diminishing (are there more than RIv?) companies. It also means he’s going to have to move a away from the dookie dread bar wrap marketing cuz that’s not selling bikes.
$8900 profit a year is worth ~$340k in T-bills for starters.
Shit, they sold what, $200k in gift certificates in one shot ?
Cheaper than a Riv (but less exclusive?)
fancy surlys are super popular in japan according to blue lug.