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So Joe Bryant; How do you go from building boats to owning a fantasy football website? (1 Viewer)

BassNBrew

BassNBrew

Footballguy
So someone asked @Joe Bryant in his Bruce Arians thread this question;

Off topic, but is this your only business now?  You don't have the boats any longer?
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to which Joe replied;

Correct. Just Footballguys for me now!
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I googled and got some of the history on Bryant Boats.  But that still left a lot of questions.  Rather that hijack that thread, I'll ask here:

Not many people more passionate about something than football fans...boat guys would be some of the "not many".

I read the online articles.  Obviously building boats and running a boat company are two totally different things.  I would assume that Football is a lot more fun than running a boat business, especially when the economy is slow.  I also used to be in manufacturing and while it was rewarding at times, the headaches outweighed the wins.  My question would be...Is football more fun than building boats.

I know you are humble by nature Joe, but I'm sure many would be fascinated to hear your story about getting into the boat business with your dad, maybe share a couple of funny boat stories or gratifying wins in the boat business, and why/how football became more of an interest and why you went into the FBGs business. 

For those who don't know about Bryant Boats, the company was so well thought that the former Mastercraft CEO said this;

“The Bryant family had exchanged a lot of ideas with other boatbuilders over the years, so they have a great reputation as being a company to share ideas and techniques,” John Dorton says. “They have always put quality first. I know it’s kind of an overused word often. But their warranty expenses were among the lowest I’ve ever heard of, so that tends to tell you that you have a great product out the door.

“Many of their dealers would say it is one of the few boats that would be delivered and they could take it out of shrink wrap and deliver it to customers,” Dorton says. “And they have a raving fan base. I think the company is sort of not that high in being at the forefront of people’s awareness, but the folks that do know them are big fans.”
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Thank you GB. You're kind. It's interesting as I was just talking about this today. With my Dad! He's 79 years old now. and thankfully still in good shape and I try to have lunch with him once a week. 

I also think it's kind of interesting as my background is in two different industries. One in traditional manufacturing with a brick and mortar business making things that cost $50,000 per unit and then one in a business selling digital subscriptions on the internet for $50 a unit. And of course for about 20 years, I did both at the same time. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I did have a good range of business experiences there. 

 
:hat tip:

Kudos, most people can't run one business successfully much less two completely different ones.

 
Joe Bryant said:
Thank you GB. You're kind. It's interesting as I was just talking about this today. With my Dad! He's 79 years old now. and thankfully still in good shape and I try to have lunch with him once a week. 

I also think it's kind of interesting as my background is in two different industries. One in traditional manufacturing with a brick and mortar business making things that cost $50,000 per unit and then one in a business selling digital subscriptions on the internet for $50 a unit. And of course for about 20 years, I did both at the same time. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I did have a good range of business experiences there. 
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So how did you and your Dad get into the boat business?  I assume you weren't sitting around watching the Lions on Thanksgiving and said, hey let's build and sell $50,000 boats.

How did you decide who did what?

Any engineering background in the family?

 
BassNBrew said:
So how did you and your Dad get into the boat business?  I assume you weren't sitting around watching the Lions on Thanksgiving and said, hey let's build and sell $50,000 boats.

How did you decide who did what?

Any engineering background in the family?
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Great question. My dad has been a life long entrepreneur. Except they didn't call it that back then. His father died when my dad was just 10. He has an older sister, my aunt, who is a few years older than him. He said he remembers as a child sitting around the kitchen table helping my grandmother decide what bills they were going to pay and how they were going to make it without his dad. Had to grow up fast. 

He learned how to work with fiberglass which was a new thing at the time. Made camper tops for pickup trucks, and dune buggy bodies and boats. The boats had some success and at 18 he started a business that made boats. I was born a few years later and I grew up around that. 

Fast forward to college for me. I thought I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon. But the MCAT test said that was not to be my chosen path. So I went to work for my dad after college. 

 
I learned the boat business but mostly learned working with and leading people. I'm convinced most businesses are more similar than they are different. In other words, running a boat manufacturing business is not that different from running a restaurant or a car dealership. It's still about providing value for the customer and the people you're working with in the business.

In 1988 my dad sold his original boat business. But the economy of the early 90s caused the new owner to close the business in 1990. Most of what my Dad sold the business for was on a deferred payout so this was bad news for him. 

I was 26 at the time and had lots of opportunities.  But my dad was 48 at the time and all he'd ever known was the boat business. 

We decided to start a totally new boat company together as equal partners and co-founders. That's how Bryant Boats started. 

 
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When I said at the top that I was talking to my dad at lunch yesterday, that's what we were talking about. We boostrapped the company and borrowed what had to have from the local bank. We put our homes on the line for collateral and personally guaranteed everything. It's such a different world today with startups and fund raising and managing tons of money and "burn rates" and "runway" for companies that aren't profitable. 

We had no choice to be profitable from the start as our "runway" was about 30 days. :lmao:   

We didn't bootstrap it because it was cool. We bootstrapped it because it was the only way for us to do it. 

We spent about 6 months tooling up and delivered our first boat on Halloween of 1990. 

And to be fair, when I said above the boats cost $50,000, that wasn't true in 1990. We started way more humbly with a small outboard runabout that was more in the $5000 range without the outboard motor.  Again, on the bootstrapping, we chose an outboard model that we sold to the boat dealer without a motor and the dealer would add the outboard motor because we didn't have money to buy the motors ourselves. 

 
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I can't imagine many folks want to hear about this but if you have specific questions, I'll try to get to more of these later today. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
I can't imagine many folks want to hear about this but if you have specific questions, I'll try to get to more of these later today. 
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I think you'll find that many many people find this fascinating.  I'll bet that most folks are like me and took the "safe" route to a career via college or a trade.  I know that we have a few folks like you who risked so much to start your business but for the majority of us that didn't, I find your thoughts and mentality fascinating.

 
James Daulton said:
I think you'll find that many many people find this fascinating.  I'll bet that most folks are like me and took the "safe" route to a career via college or a trade.  I know that we have a few folks like you who risked so much to start your business but for the majority of us that didn't, I find your thoughts and mentality fascinating.
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Thank you GB. That's kind of you to say. I'll be glad to talk more about this if folks want to hear. I do think about this kind of thing a ton. Especially now with four young adult children who are on that super difficult path of deciding what they want to do for work and such. 

 
I will say one thing I strongly believe on that "safe path" vs "entrepreneur path" is the number one thing I think people need is to be self aware. Know yourself. 

Up until a few years ago, every home I'd ever owned was on the line at the bank guaranteeing business loans along with other personal guarantees. For 25 years, my personal financial situation was closely tied to my business' financial situation. And there were some lean years. I never talked about it here, but 2008 was a bloodbath for the boat industry. For LOTS of people, that worry would be a terrible way to live. And I totally get it. I put zero credit on someone like me being wired a certain way. It's all about knowing yourself. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
I learned the boat business but mostly learned working with and leading people. I'm convinced most businesses are more similar than they are different. In other words, running a boat manufacturing business is not that different from running a restaurant or a car dealership. It's still about providing value for the customer and the people you're working with in the business.

In 1988 my dad sold his original boat business. But the economy of the early 90s caused the new owner to close the business in 1990. Most of what my Dad sold the business for was on a deferred payout so this was bad news for him. 

I was 26 at the time and had lots of opportunities.  But my dad was 48 at the time and all he'd ever known was the boat business. 

We decided to start a totally new boat company together as equal partners and co-founders. That's how Bryant Boats started. 
Click to expand...


So how hands on in the actual boat building were you or did you do the front office stuff?

 
Joe Bryant said:
I will say one thing I strongly believe on that "safe path" vs "entrepreneur path" is the number one thing I think people need is to be self aware. Know yourself. 

Up until a few years ago, every home I'd ever owned was on the line at the bank guaranteeing business loans along with other personal guarantees. For 25 years, my personal financial situation was closely tied to my business' financial situation. And there were some lean years. I never talked about it here, but 2008 was a bloodbath for the boat industry. For LOTS of people, that worry would be a terrible way to live. And I totally get it. I put zero credit on someone like me being wired a certain way. It's all about knowing yourself. 
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This. I can do the work but Im bad at getting the work. Sales is not for me. Is this the case for your compnay early on? Was your dad the worker and you the sales guy or the other way around? Did you hire a salesman? 
 

 
Joe Bryant said:
When I said at the top that I was talking to my dad at lunch yesterday, that's what we were talking about. We boostrapped the company and borrowed what had to have from the local bank. We put our homes on the line for collateral and personally guaranteed everything. It's such a different world today with startups and fund raising and managing tons of money and "burn rates" and "runway" for companies that aren't profitable. 

We had no choice to be profitable from the start as our "runway" was about 30 days. :lmao:   

We didn't bootstrap it because it was cool. We bootstrapped it because it was the only way for us to do it. 

We spent about 6 months tooling up and delivered our first boat on Halloween of 1990. 

And to be fair, when I said above the boats cost $50,000, that wasn't true in 1990. We started way more humbly with a small outboard runabout that was more in the $5000 range without the outboard motor.  Again, on the bootstrapping, we chose an outboard model that we sold to the boat dealer without a motor and the dealer would add the outboard motor because we didn't have money to buy the motors ourselves. 
Click to expand...
I think most small businesses are still bootstrapped. Crowdfunding may have changed that for some but the majority of small business owners don't have a clue about funding a startup. And there are a lot more smart young entrepreneurs coming out of school with startup as their goal that get press. As you said, who even knew what "entrepreneur" was 30 years ago? Now we have Shark Tank.

Love threads like this and there's always value in them. I saw the aftermath of the 2008 rec products sales decline (or cliff fall) by virtue of moving to a small FL boat building town shortly thereafter but I've always been very curious about tales from the inside.  

 
Ron Swanson said:
I think most small businesses are still bootstrapped. Crowdfunding may have changed that for some but the majority of small business owners don't have a clue about funding a startup. And there are a lot more smart young entrepreneurs coming out of school with startup as their goal that get press. As you said, who even knew what "entrepreneur" was 30 years ago? Now we have Shark Tank.

Love threads like this and there's always value in them. I saw the aftermath of the 2008 rec products sales decline (or cliff fall) by virtue of moving to a small FL boat building town shortly thereafter but I've always been very curious about tales from the inside.  
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I agree with the bolded completely.  I would bet the majority of new businesses in this country are someone who does something well and borrows against their house or from family members to be able to do it for themselves instead of for someone else.  As Joe mentioned the stress of being a business owner isn't for everyone.

One of the big problems entrepreneurs have is that running a business is a different skill set than performing the work the business provides. The best plumber in the world may not know much about the sales, bookkeeping and HR involved in running a plumbing business. There can be a lot of learning the hard way in the beginning.

 
Joe Bryant said:
I can't imagine many folks want to hear about this but if you have specific questions, I'll try to get to more of these later today. 
Click to expand...


I'm absolutely fascinated by the story.  ESPN doesn't do those personal interest stories on draft day to  lose viewers.

One hand I would love to ask and hear about you and your dad working together, how you split things up, the difficulties, and how you two high five and reminisce at your weekly lunches about kicking hind end and taking names.  On the flip side I know family businesses can be difficult and that politics forum may not have run off all of your family/friends.  

So rather than ask specifics about the subject above, I'll just ask to share anything you want to share.  Also it's not bragging if it's in a history book.  The bootstrapping and house on the line stuff is part of the story.  Also lowest warranty rate in the business means there's a chapter in here about you finding the special sauce.

I appreciate the time your taking to do this and realize it doesn't generate revenue.  I just took the step you and your dad did at the age of 56 so it inspirational to hear some of the details.  

 
Joe Bryant said:
I will say one thing I strongly believe on that "safe path" vs "entrepreneur path" is the number one thing I think people need is to be self aware. Know yourself.

Up until a few years ago, every home I'd ever owned was on the line at the bank guaranteeing business loans along with other personal guarantees. For 25 years, my personal financial situation was closely tied to my business' financial situation. And there were some lean years. I never talked about it here, but 2008 was a bloodbath for the boat industry. For LOTS of people, that worry would be a terrible way to live. And I totally get it. I put zero credit on someone like me being wired a certain way. It's all about knowing yourself. 
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I find myself nodding in agreement with this. Do you have any examples of what this meant for your personal success? Any words of wisdom on creating greater self-awareness?

 
Tom Hagen said:
One of the big problems entrepreneurs have is that running a business is a different skill set than performing the work the business provides. The best plumber in the world may not know much about the sales, bookkeeping and HR involved in running a plumbing business. There can be a lot of learning the hard way in the beginning.
Click to expand...


Preach.

One (of the zillion) lessons I learned was the best person doing the job doesn't necessarily mean they're the best person to lead the crew doing the job. 

It's common I think in small business to promote the person doing well. I remember having a person in a crew that was fantastic at his job and I promoted him to a supervisor role for that area. He wasn't good at that at all. 

It was a young mistake for me. Now looking back it seems obvious. Leading a team requires a vastly different skill set than doing the actual work the team is doing.

I learned that one pretty quick. But I definitely screwed it up early. 

 
On that note for workers and system, one thing I learned pretty early and I think it makes a ton of sense. A guy taught me, "Design the workflow so an average employee having a below average day can still do what needs to be done satisfactorily". 

That was big. 

One of the biggest things I learned on the shop floor was almost everything was my fault. Meaning, it was MY job to put these folks in a position where they could do well. Sure, they have to have basic competency and show up for work and all that. But most of the trouble in a manufacturing shop in my experience is due to bad process and system. Not bad people. 

 
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Joe Bryant said:
On that note for workers and system, one thing I learned pretty early and I think it makes a ton of sense. A guy taught me, "Design the workflow so an average employee having a below average day can still do what needs to be done satisfactorily". 

That was big. 

One of the biggest things I learned on the shop floor was almost everything was my fault. Meaning, it was MY job to put these folks in a position where they could do well. Sure, they have to have basic competency and show up for work and all that. But most of the trouble in a manufacturing shop in my experience is due to bad process and system. Not bad people. 
Click to expand...
As a quality guy I'm a follower of dr. Deming. One of his points is that most people are doing the best they can within the system created by management. Kudos to you. You were probably much more successful than those that use their position to avoid responsibility for bad outcomes but take credit for good outcomes. 

 
@Joe Bryant

Did you end up selling Bryant boats, or is it still in the family?  Curious when you say you have kids who are trying to find their way if any of them had any interest in the boat business?

 
brun said:
As a quality guy I'm a follower of dr. Deming. One of his points is that most people are doing the best they can within the system created by management. Kudos to you. You were probably much more successful than those that use their position to avoid responsibility for bad outcomes but take credit for good outcomes. 
Click to expand...


Agreed. I was big on Deming principles.

You may have already done it, but touring the Toyota plant in Kentucky is fascinating. 

That's a zillion levels above what we did. But lots of same principles.

 
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Foosball God said:
@Joe Bryant

Did you end up selling Bryant boats, or is it still in the family?  Curious when you say you have kids who are trying to find their way if any of them had any interest in the boat business?
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Hi @Foosball God

Yes, we sold Bryant boats several years ago. I'll be glad to talk on that some too as there were lots of lessons learned there about exiting and priorities and such I'd be glad to share. I won't do details on money but it was nothing like some jackpot exit. (I've found it's not uncommon for people to think I have a lot more money than I actually do. LOL) I bought myself some time but needed to get to work on something else to replace that income. Fortunately, I'd been doing both the boats and Footballguys since 2000 so I knew exactly what I wanted to do. 

And to be fair, Footballguys was a huge reason why I was ready to sell the boat company. 

My 40,000 foot view takeaway there, and it's a big one, is this: "Don't try to squeeze every last drop out of the orange". I'm sure I could have negotiated for a slightly better deal for myself but I was able to get what I thought was fair and not be greedy and it was by far the best resolution for me. 

Lots of good stuff there I learned. 

 
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And sorry, didn't answer all your question @Foosball God, my kids did some work on the shop floor as I think it's great for kids to get a good idea of what physical work with your hands is like, but none of them showed a strong interest in the boat company. 

This thread could also easily branch into parenting stuff which I'm super interested in but my angle on that was I was VERY hands off about trying to steer them in ways they didn't seem to want to go. I worked in a sporting goods store when I was in high school and we had a lot of tennis families that pushed their kids really hard on stuff and I remember even as a high schooler I wanted to not be that parent. It's a challenge of course though as all kids need SOME pushing. That's parenting. But finding that balance is a real trick.

 
Joe Bryant said:
On that note for workers and system, one thing I learned pretty early and I think it makes a ton of sense. A guy taught me, "Design the workflow so an average employee having a below average day can still do what needs to be done satisfactorily". 

That was big. 

One of the biggest things I learned on the shop floor was almost everything was my fault. Meaning, it was MY job to put these folks in a position where they could do well. Sure, they have to have basic competency and show up for work and all that. But most of the trouble in a manufacturing shop in my experience is due to bad process and system. Not bad people. 
Click to expand...
Man you should write a book, maybe call it Extreme Ownership or something 😉

It's funny how successful, happy business owners share that same view, regardless of the business. It's not the people, it's the process or the leadership or the whatever. Good stuff Joe, keep it coming.

 
Joe Bryant said:
Yes, we sold Bryant boats several years ago. I'll be glad to talk on that some too as there were lots of lessons learned there about exiting and priorities and such I'd be glad to share.
Click to expand...
Just at a quick glance of the current Bryant Boats website ... it appears the new owners "bought the history" of Bryant Boats, too. And they presumably paid something to continue to use your father's likeness on their advertising. Or does he still have a minority stake or something, and it was you, personally, that sold your own share separately?

They need to update the site -- it gives Bryant Boats' founding as 1960, but then says "... our 59-year history ..." Makes me think the site has been neglected for a few years.

 
Joe Bryant said:
 Meaning, it was MY job to put these folks in a position where they could do well. Sure, they have to have basic competency and show up for work and all that. But most of the trouble in a manufacturing shop in my experience is due to bad process and system. Not bad people. 
Click to expand...


You would think that Shad Khan would have learned this from his bumper business and applied it to the Jaguars, but alas....

 
FBG26 said:
This is fascinating. I don't have any specific questions, but would love to hear/read more. Great thread topic. 
Click to expand...
Agreed - very interesting topic and appreciate you sharing your experiences Joe. Been here a long time and always wondered about the boat company and how you also managed to run this site.

 
raidergil said:
Agreed - very interesting topic and appreciate you sharing your experiences Joe. Been here a long time and always wondered about the boat company and how you also managed to run this site.
Click to expand...


Thank you @raidergil. I'll be glad to answer questions on that. Running both was mostly a case of having an excellent team at both businesses. Because all of my Footballguys work could be done remotely, it made it easier to blend the two. Plus, when I was younger, there was a lot of put the kids to bed and then work till 3 am type nights. Not advisable.

Ultimately though, I realized I wasn't doing a good enough job for either company and realized I needed to pick one. I chose Footballguys. 

 
Joe Bryant said:
Preach.

One (of the zillion) lessons I learned was the best person doing the job doesn't necessarily mean they're the best person to lead the crew doing the job. 

It's common I think in small business to promote the person doing well. I remember having a person in a crew that was fantastic at his job and I promoted him to a supervisor role for that area. He wasn't good at that at all. 

It was a young mistake for me. Now looking back it seems obvious. Leading a team requires a vastly different skill set than doing the actual work the team is doing.

I learned that one pretty quick. But I definitely screwed it up early. 
Click to expand...
Not to hijack but this is me....I've turned down "promotions" to lead teams because I 100% rather do the work than manage the work/workers...

 
beer 30 said:
Man you should write a book, maybe call it Extreme Ownership or something 😉

It's funny how successful, happy business owners share that same view, regardless of the business. It's not the people, it's the process or the leadership or the whatever. Good stuff Joe, keep it coming.
Click to expand...
I would slightly disagree in that it is also about the people.  Whenever I have done hiring I care more about whether or not the person I was hiring could fit into the culture of my team than whether or not they had the skills to do the job.  I could teach the job (provided they had a minimum aptitude for the kind of work I needed done) but what I can't teach is attitude, work ethic, personality that would fit with the rest of the team.  

A strong process is also key because that is what allows you to teach the job specifics that the person being hired needs to be able to do.  Without that the whole thing falls in but it will also do that if you have toxic people on the team as well.  

This is a really fascinating thread and glad it was started.  Learning many ways to look at something is always a good thing.  I also really appreciate @Joe Bryantstatement that you really have to understand yourself to figure out your best path.  I knew early on I didn't want to own a business.  I didn't want that responsibility or that much time to put in to make it successful.  My dad owned his own contracting business and took a long time to get to the point he was able to take advantage of owning a good business (retired early) but he put in so much time when I was growing up I didn't want to do that to take away from other things that were more important to me.  My dad wanted me to take over the business (but never pushed me to).  He was an electrical contractor (he didn't have an engineering degree) and wanted me to pursue electrical engineering so the business could do it all.  I didn't want it and went the civil engineering route.  It has worked out great for me as I have had great opportunities without having the business owner struggles.  Knowing that wasn't for me was a big benefit so I didn't waste a bunch of years being miserable doing something I wasn't cut out for.   

 
James Daulton said:
Imagine this thread in the PSF.  There would be constant arguments about which president had the best impact on Bryant Boats yada yada.

Yet another example of how separating the forums was a fricken genius. 
Click to expand...
THANKS OBAMA!@!#!#

Sorry couldn't resist 🤣  :P

this was 100% a joke

 
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belljr said:
Not to hijack but this is me....I've turned down "promotions" to lead teams because I 100% rather do the work than manage the work/workers...
Click to expand...
This is seen in the sports world many times over as well.  How many times has a great player been a terrible coach and a borderline player been a great coach.  I firmly believe a lot of it comes from the fact that elite people at something many times can just "do it" so they can't explain how to do it.  Where borderline people had to work to figure out how to "do it" and learn how so they are better at teaching other's the process of doing the action.

This isn't necessarily a direct correlation to the business world because managing people isn't the same thing as teaching them to do something.  However, a supervisor is much better at supervising if they have actually done the work they are supervising.  The same way an engineer is a much better engineer if they have actually done the construction work they are designing.  Knowing that process is invaluable and the best people know the whole process.  

 
James Daulton said:
Imagine this thread in the PSF.  There would be constant arguments about which president had the best impact on Bryant Boats yada yada.

Yet another example of how separating the forums was fricken genius. 
Click to expand...


LOL @James Daulton I'm with you GB.  

 
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