 Hello, my friends. You all know that I love priority bicycles. Priority Coast. Priority Apollo. The priority 600. The great thing about priority, their bikes are amazing. But what's even more amazing are the people behind the brand. And for a long time, I've wanted to make a video about the team and about why I love them so much. And I could do that here on Zoom. But nah, this is a great excuse to go to New York City. I gotta run, get the wallet again, buy a house. So I've worked with a lot of other brands in my career. But priority is different. It's not just a business relationship. They're my good friends. Okay, you be good while I'm gone. And now it's time for step two of the adventure, the airport bus. 20 minutes till I board. There we go. I did it. Whoo. Feels good. It's the Empire State Building. Oh, look what I found. I'm riding in New York City and I feel really good. 174 Hudson. This is the place. All right, let's go. This is Dave in real life. What's up Connor? This is Eddie. Oh my god. So I've never met Eddie in real life till right now. I exist. He exists in real life. And this is the guy behind. He's the guy behind the 600X. If you're loving that bike, it's Eddie. All right, so I have not been in this office before I've been in their old office and Dave's going to show me around. Normally you enter the showroom over here. When you get in pre-pandemic, we had a really solid row of bikes that showed off everything that we're doing. Currently it's we're out of most things. So not a whole lot of bikes over there. We've got our photo studio here where Ben does all his magic. Nice. Video editing over here. A lot of our custom decals come out of here. And then as we round into here, we'll go through marketing, inventory, and logistics to get into our product. Hey, it's Greg. Hey, what's up guys? Hey, it's Connor. Oh, look at that. Oh, I like that. Did you design that one? I did. Yeah, it's me. I like the 80s one. You guys are 80s babies. We're working on shades of purple and shades of red. All of our R&D and product development. You got Eddie. There's my man, Eddie. We've got Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. Nice to meet you. And Cody, of course. Hi, Cody. Oh, did I scare you? I'm sorry. There, nice to meet you, man. How you doing? Cheers, man. Nice to meet you. And our mess of bikes and bike stuff that we're constantly working on. It's pretty cool, man. And now you're here. And now I'm here. Hi, Dave. Hi, Connor. How's it going guys? How did this all happen? How did we get to be here? So I was working in software. I had a one year old and I was traveling a ton and I really was yearning in my heart to do something super meaningful and hopefully be home a little bit more. I was getting a little burnt out from travel and from all the intangible aspects of my work. And I had had this idea of making low maintenance bikes. It had been sitting on my computer in a file and I started to think, gee, maybe now's the time. So I took the leap and I quit my job. I called up my good friend, Connor. That guy, look at that mustache, by the way. Ooh, nice. And I said, anybody with a mustache like that can help. Yeah. So Dave called me and I remember it was a Sunday afternoon. And at the time, Dave and I, so Dave and I have known each other forever. I think it's one of the things we've been really lucky about is Dave and I met as freshmen in college. And we've stayed friends through a lot of different parts of our lives. And so sometimes it can be hard with somebody you know so well, but it's been a great journey. And he called me up and he told me that he quit his job and he wanted to do the bike thing again. And I always knew Dave had this huge passion for bikes. And so my first reaction to him was congrats. Like, I'm happy to hear that you quit your job. Because even at that time, even though we were really close, we hadn't been talking as much because we were both so busy. So of course, he said, Hey, I have a terrible offer to make, which is to help me out. Do you want to do it? And I said, Yes. And so Dave had this idea of this low maintenance bikes. And I had been working in digital advertising and had a very similar feeling of being burnt out and not really sure what the next few years of my life was was going to look like. And Dave and I both had that in common. So he said, Hey, I have this really great idea. And I said, Hey, well, let me it's all right. So he said, he had this really great idea for this low maintenance, everyday bikes that we could deliver direct to customers and have awesome customer service. And I said, Great, well, you work on that. Let me help out with that storytelling. And what we thought was going to be this one low maintenance bike, our priority classic, now our classic plus is now over 14 different models that aren't just recreational and cruisers. We also have commuters. And now because of this amazing partnership with dozer, we have these really great adventure bikes that are literally taking people from a half mile jaunt to grab groceries or coffee in the morning arrived with their family to multi day, multi state, multi terrain trips that still come back to that phone call saying like, Hey, I want to make a low maintenance bike. How do you just start a bike company? So I had some experience in sourcing bicycles and in automating supply chains from my days in software. So Connor and I started working on the branding side of it. And we made a pitch deck on how our low maintenance bikes would be different and why factories would want to work with us. And then I flew to Taiwan. And I met with about a dozen different factories and said, here's my idea of a low maintenance bike. And if this doesn't, I think nine of them told me to get lost. So that left us with three. And then we started working with those three factories to figure out how we can make the best low maintenance bike. Once we got a prototype we were happy with, we went to the Kickstarter community. I want to put together a company to bring a product to market that really doesn't exist today. And we will always be grateful for the Kickstarter community to completely embraced us and helped fund our project. We raised $550,000 in 30 days. And we sold our first thousand or so priority classics. And the rest is a little bit history. You know, we started that got us going. We started producing bikes. We started listening to customers, started improving and adding new models, adding more people, adding more offerings. And the company's been growing very organically since then. Yeah, we'd love to we love to say that, you know, whether it's a bike company or anything, that there's a secret sauce or a secret. And I do think there's things at different milestones where it helps to have some expertise. But what it comes down to it's like a lot of things in life is you just have to get out there and try and start. And so we've done a really good job as a company of just challenging ourselves to try new things and do new things. And if they don't work, we let it go. And I think that's helpful that we have a really supportive environment here. And so like, you know, if we try an idea and it's great, fine, like move on. And because of that, we have found pathways to new models by just listening to what customers say or because someone here is passionate about something. We say, you know what, like, if you love bikepacking, like let's talk about how to make a low maintenance bikepacking bike, like let's make that happen. And I think trying a lot of things, not being afraid to fail, being able to move quickly off of things that aren't working great have all been little pieces along the way that have helped us grow. I would say also extra kindness. Extra kindness. Extra kindness. Extra kindness. It's definitely part of the secret sauce. You know, we get, we get hundreds of customer service emails and messages a day. And kindness is certainly a huge part of that. Being a direct to consumer bicycle company is a hard thing because you know, people are getting their bike and they want to get on and ride. And sometimes they just have questions about it. So, you know, kindness is a big thing of us wanting to let people know that like, we're here and we're real people. And Dave instilled that from day one and saying like, we're only as good as our last review from someone. And we really believe that every day. So our customer service team here is awesome because they can literally be reached on any method of communication, any modern method of communication. We probably have a fax machine somewhere, but they can reach out and ask a question as simple as like, Hey, is this my right seat height? Yeah, send us a photo. Like we'll tell you what, you know, what we think. So, you know, we really do want to be here and present for people every step of the way. So we are 365 from 9am to 10pm East Coast time. You can call, email, text, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We don't have a fax. That is not true. We do not have a fax, do not fax us. Our fastest response is via email and text and WhatsApp. Those get to us quickest. But we're just here to help. And so we've really tried to build out an organization of folks that some people specialize in fit some people specialize in bike maintenance and gear tuning. Some people specialize in flat tires, right? So we've really tried to create a group that can triage whatever anybody needs and get back to people quickly. Our average response time on email is about 10 minutes. You kind of just said, Oh, you quit your job. You went to Taiwan. You made it sound easy, but it's anything but easy. Yeah, I think, you know, I was hearing from you last night and I know this how hard everything you do is yet in your videos, it all looks so easy, right? And even when you look miserable in your videos, you don't ever admit you're miserable, maybe for a millisecond, but then you turn positive. There's nothing been easy about starting priority or running it day to day. It's really, really hard. But we love it. And that's what makes all the hard work worthwhile. You know, I was here till midnight last night. Connor and I are constantly working till midnight or later. It's a really hard business. It's really hard getting a business off the ground. It's really hard making sure that we make great products that our customers love. And by the way, sometimes we fail at that. And so then you got to admit it and you got to fix it and you got to make it right. And it's all really hard. But we love it. And that's what makes waking up every day and coming in here great and talking to all of our customers and all of your followers. That's what makes it rewarding. And it makes all the hard work worth it, right? I probably won't go run an ultra to see how hard that is. But I mean, not probably not. No, you definitely won't. But I think that there's a lot of hard parts of this that people don't see. And it does, I think kind of like your videos. It all looks easy. It's just all really rewarding. Yeah, it feels good. Feels good. We're talking about the metaphor of like if you're not ready for practice, you're not ready for the big game. And I think that's the same thing here is like if we don't do the research, we don't put in the work, we don't test things, we don't try things creatively, we don't tell the story on the video. Then, you know, we're not in a position where somebody should love the bike as much as we do. So I think it's just about showing up every day and like putting that work in and continuing to push so that, you know, when someone has a question, you've got to answer for them. Or if somebody, you know, has an idea that we think is a good idea, we're in a position where we can test it and try it. And that stuff isn't easy. And it's just about showing up every day and doing it. You mentioned low maintenance bicycles a few times. What does that mean? How does it differentiate from other bikes? It's a great question. So when we started the priority classic and every model since then, we look at the bike and say what market are we going after? Who is our customer? And how can we make the bike as reliable as possible? What can we do to take away all the problems that might fail when you're on a trail? Obviously really important in bike packing, but also really important, for example, in our beach cruisers. We make a beach cruiser that is very rust fighting, knowing that, you know, the elements at the beach are one of the hardest things to keep a bike alive. So we really try and look at every single nut and bolt. And whether it's something like the gearing and putting opinion gear box on, or an Enviolo CVT, trying to look at the gearing, how do we make it reliable? Of course, at the heart of every single priority bicycle is a Gates carbon drive, which is the most reliable drive system, far more reliable than a chain, maintenance free, no rust, no lube last two to three times longer. And then it's every little piece, the brakes, handlebar, the seat, make sure it's comfortable, make sure it's going to last a long time. Nothing on a bike is forever. Everything eventually needs maintenance, but we want bikes that are always ready to ride. So whether you're going bike packing, or whether you're a daily commuter, or whether you're just riding with your kids every couple of weekends, we want to make sure that you can put air in the tires and go. Yeah, there's a lot of things about bicycles for everyday riders is a lot of the things that keep people from riding are a lot of the things around the bicycle themselves, right? So a lot of people have the intent and the desire to ride, but what happens? They get a flat and they're like, well, I just, I had a flat tire, this bike is now just going to get slammed in the back of my garage. Or if you're, you don't ride in the winter and you got your bike in the garage and all of a sudden, like holiday boxes and cars and all the other junk golf clubs get sort of put on the back and got this big, heavy clunky bike in the back and you're just not going to take it out. Well, what we want to do from an accessibility standpoint is help make it so that you don't have to take your bike to the shop all the time. So let's put puncture resistant tires on there. We don't want to deal with you having to haul a big, heavy bike out just to go for a ride. So we do it with this rust, rust proof aluminum. So those little things are great. Those little things are just great opportunities to help with the accessibility, make an everyday rider just feel super confident about their bike and being able to get out and do the thing they want to do on it. What are you most proud of with this company? Oh gosh, I think the two things that make me really proud. So I'm going to give you two answers, not one. One is every day when I come in here, the team that we have is just so alive and vibrant and passionate about what they do. It's very rewarding to come to work with people that you want to work with and that want to work with you and that love the products and the people they're working with. And by people, I mean not only internally but externally. They love our customers. They love our products. We believe that any day that starts with a bike ride is a day with a smile. So I love that we do that. That's one. The other thing is that you and I went for a ride yesterday. We saw a couple of priority bikes on the ride. Every time I ride by somebody on a priority bicycle, it gives me a huge smile and it's a lot of pride. So to me, those are just two proud things that make every day great. Seeing our bikes on the street and working with our people here. Yes, it's an amazing feeling to walk into work every day and not feel, we've all been in that situation of a feeling of dread of having to get up for work. I've never had that feeling here. And no matter how hard a day has been or if I haven't wanted to do something, I've never felt like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I can do this. And I think that's a great feeling and experience to have. But even more than that, Dave talked about the team. I think that's the number always going to be that number one thing. But the other thing is that we always have a new challenge here. So every day we come in and maybe it's a creative one because we want to figure out how to tell a story around a bike or we're talking about new models to launch. We've gotten a bunch of customer feedback that they want a different kind of bike and we can get in here and try and figure out how to develop it. So I think that's really exciting that there is always something on the horizon. There's always another conversation to have with somebody. There's always something creatively to execute. And that's just a great feeling to have here in priority. Just to kind of an overarching bike question, you know, you want to put more bikes in the world. You want more people to ride bikes. You said it, you know, every day that starts with a bike ride is a great day. You know, what does the future of priority look like? And where are you going to take these bikes? Where's the innovation going? We're definitely continuing to add a little maintenance bikes all over. So you saw last year with us bringing the Apollo, our first gravel bike and the 600X, our first real off-road adventure bike. We're going to be expanding in those categories. We're expanding in the recreational categories and we're expanding in e-bikes. E-bikes are a big part of the future of transportation, not only for cyclists, but for non-cyclists to get back on a bike or to use a bike instead of a car. So you'll see many more bikes from us in terms of the categories in pedal and certainly the category of electric. How did we meet? People always want to know how we met. It's a pretty cool story. Let's do that. All right, here we go. It was cold winter day in Minneapolis. I'm thinking February 2017. Is that right? January, February? The sidewalk we're riding on is just glare ice. Check this out. It's like ice skating. So we were doing a media event. It was our first media event ever and we chose to do it in a nice warm, exotic location. February in Minneapolis. Riding around Lake Calhoun. Lake Calhoun. The idea was an ice over lake ride. This is fun. Around Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis in the dead of winter. Yeah, to show that the bike would perform and perform well. I tell people all the time, if you can start and end your day with a bike ride, it can't be a bad day. We put together a media event on how you can ride in Minneapolis in the winter and of course having a low maintenance bike that performs well and all weather is a big part of that. Ryan was invited to it and we instantly fell in love. We love it first sight. Love it first bike ride. I think there was just great passion for we love riding bikes. We love bikes that don't fail. We love bikes that you can ride year-round and we instantly connected on that and I think we've stayed friends ever since and we've been super grateful for you to be riding our bikes and giving us your feedback and support and opening us up to your viewers. We're grateful for the support of you and of the Dozer TV community. I think the joy that we saw with you at the event was like, yeah, this is why we're doing it and this is amazing and it set that foundation for a relationship together that was just about the joy of getting out and riding and I think that's really so parallel to everything we've done here at Priority. Nothing has been easy. Everything has been painstakingly difficult but at the end of it you smile and you're like wow all that hard work was worth it and what a great time we had and then we got out on the bikes and they were awesome and we met cool people and that's what it's all about. It really doesn't matter if it's summertime or wintertime, whenever you're on a bike you are smiling. It was meant to be. It was destiny, my man. So this is my man Eddie. Boom. First time I'm meeting him in real life. We talked on the phone how many times? A million times. A number of times. Yeah, a number of times. Mostly just to say what's up. How you doing? You riding your bike today? Yeah, exactly. So Eddie is the brain child, a brain man behind the 600x and a lot of the other innovation here at Priority. What's your background in bikes? Like what brought you here? That's a good question. I grew up messing around with bikes and I mean I like to think it all started with Legos but I was always taking stuff apart in the garage and putting it back together. I would kind of go around the neighborhood and pick up random bikes at yard sales and put them together into monster bikes. I was fixing my friend's bikes since you know pretty early age. So I always kind of liked the mechanical aspect of bikes and kind of the freedom it gave me to ride around my neighborhood and go explore to get out there if you will. So it's always kind of been a passion for me. When I got out of college I was looking for a job and got a job at a nice reputable bike shop here in New York City and kind of worked my way up to the management level. Moved around to a couple different bike shops in the area and worked in 3D printing for a little bit as well which sort of gave me a taste for the product development process and kind of technology and how you can incorporate new technology and innovation into a product. And through a twist of fate I happened to see a posting for a job, my dream job in a lot of ways here at Priority Bicycles and Dave was nice enough to give me a shot. So I came here with a lot of ideas and you know it's been a really great environment where people support you and support your ideas and I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate to be here with such a great group of people and been given the opportunity that I have. And this my friends is the lovely Lauren and you've been with Priority pretty much since the beginning right? Since day zero I've been here since before we launched our Kickstarter. How'd that happen? So friends of friends introduced me to Dave and they said you know this guy Dave has this amazing idea for a bicycle company. Go watch him start this company you're going to learn so much. I thought it was just going to be a fun summer project and a crash course and starting a business. Seven years later I am still here working side by side with Dave and Connor every day and it's been so incredible to be a part of the evolution of this team to grow with the company and the most exciting thing is that we went from being a really small team of just a few of us here in New York City and two people down in our Pennsylvania warehouse to a huge team of really unique fun and smart individuals. Quick Nelson look like you're working. Okay so this is Nelson we were in the customer service yes exactly slams on a keyboard like that so I have not met Nelson in real life until this week it's really cool he's helped me so many times mechanically he's probably helped a lot of you as well and I just want to talk to Nelson about what you do every day how you help people man. So please excuse my horde pile but this is part of my madness that I do every day for instance customers will contact us letting us know like hey you know something is broken or something got bent in shipping so I find the parts and ship it out to them. Hey Benjamin what do you do here? I'm the financial planning manager so I handle a lot of ops related stuff you know inventory purchasing management and stuff of that nature. So I hear you're the guy that knows like when if somebody orders a 600x today when they can maybe get it. Oh yeah that's the number one question when we get our 600x. Great question we get about 500 of those a day but I mean we're trying to crank these out as quickly as we can you know the entire supply chain you know not even for our industry it's just a mess right now unfortunately but you know we're doing what we can. Hey wait a second who are you I haven't filmed you yet? I was hiding. You were hiding? How's it going? What's your name again? Rebecca. Rebecca what do you do here? So I work for customer service I work for I work with Lauren with fleets I work with Eddie on products I try to do a little bit of everything here. Right on cool it's great to meet you. High five. And you also speak Spanish. I do. Yeah it was my first language. And this is Greg. Greg what do you do? What's up guys? I do social media some marketing help out Connor with all kinds of projects. It's fun. Yeah so if anybody sees cool stories on Instagram it's you. That's me right here in the flesh. Right on so what people should like post and post and post and then you'll repost all their posts. Post and post and post tag us at ride priority at priority bicycles and yeah we'll reshare and get it out for the world. All of you are so amazing I love you all. Beautiful New York hotel room I don't want to leave. Now wasn't that better than a zoom call? Now I didn't just go there and interview Connor and Dave and harass all the other employees with my camera we did a lot of other fun things. I actually set up a public presentation on one of the nights and people came from all over New York and beyond and it was really fun to share stories and actually see people in real life. And then the next day we all got on our bikes. We're excited. We are very excited. And rode from Manhattan all the way past Yonkers way out north to Sleepy Hollow. Yes the real Sleepy Hollow from the stories. Yeah. I also got to see Eddie Rock out with his band. He is a man of many talents and went on a great run with Connor and Lauren all over lower Manhattan. Look at that New York back there. Oh my god. And it was just really fun. It was a great trip to New York City. I hadn't been there in two years and the point of this whole extravaganza was to just see my friends because that's who they are. They're truly my dear dear friends and now you know why I love them so much. They're just really good people. I would say also extra kindness. Extra kindness. Extra kindness. Extra kindness. It's definitely part of the secret sauce. And I hope you enjoyed it. I know it was a long video but you know sometimes it takes a long time to tell a story. So thank you so much for watching this. Please like and subscribe and we will see you down the road for another adventure.