Brooks: On here so you see the timer there is gone and then i record on here both for
Brooks: video and just have like a backup recording in case this thing fails for some reason okay so,
Brooks: test test test that's working okay um,
Brooks: welcome to the awesome mountain biking podcast i'm brooks
Brooks: lawson your host aka the mountain biking realtor and you
Brooks: can find all things brooks at brookslawson.com today is
Brooks: march 7th is the date we're recording and i'm
Brooks: with ret jones from station mountain bike park thanks for
Brooks: joining me ret yes for sure um i do
Brooks: want to give a quick disclaimer because i think there was some confusion about the the
Brooks: last podcast i i am affiliated
Brooks: with the awesome ridge riders but this is not an official ridge riders
Brooks: podcast in any way um also i have have
Brooks: no affiliation with any people that i interview and i receive no compensation
Brooks: for the interviews i was wearing a dialed shirt
Brooks: in my last interview but i did actually buy that one and
Brooks: i asked ret for a shirt and he declined so i didn't get one from here either
Brooks: hey no that was um so ret uh you just wrapped up your first and second race
Brooks: at station mountain bike park um i believe is that correct uh.
Rhett: Yes no about to wrap up our second race.
Brooks: Okay you haven't done the second one yet okay soon though yeah um so the first
Brooks: one was the trail party race correct yes correct uh tell me how did that go oh.
Rhett: That actually went really smooth uh putting tape on stakes in the ground for
Rhett: three hours made me really respect a lot.
Brooks: More how.
Rhett: Much work goes into setting up a race and i'm actually like not really looking
Rhett: forward to setting up the next one because i thought it was gonna be easy and
Rhett: now i realized it's actually.
Brooks: Gonna be really hard.
Rhett: But the vibes are through the roof so it was so so worth it i i think it was
Rhett: our second biggest weekend behind opening weekend.
Brooks: Yeah i don't know.
Rhett: If we're ever gonna top opening weekend but,
Rhett: hopefully soon show.
Brooks: Party always puts on a good show.
Rhett: Yeah and uh it's.
Brooks: A good like party vibe for sure.
Rhett: Oh the yeah the vibes are so good and seeing like a hundred people camping that
Rhett: that was cool yeah yeah um.
Brooks: So you told me you've done a few interviews how many would you say that you've done this thus far.
Rhett: Thus far probably around 10 i've done a lot of interviews yeah and.
Brooks: I know when i was there they were like signs up uh for opening weekend that
Brooks: like netflix was shooting or somebody was shooting video or something like that.
Rhett: Oh yeah that.
Brooks: Was for netflix it.
Rhett: Is a hopefully for netflix so the documentary is done you can see it on vital
Rhett: mtb and youtube but we haven't really gone through the process of sharing the
Rhett: documentary throughout all the major streaming sites yet the plan is to get
Rhett: it on netflix if we can make the right connections we're gonna try and hopefully
Rhett: all of these other platforms too and.
Brooks: What other like interviews have you done and what companies and who with?
Rhett: I've done one with BetaCamp, which is like the entrepreneurship camp for high
Rhett: scores that I went to in summer of 2022.
Rhett: I did Singletracks, Texas Monthly,
Rhett: oh there's so many that i'm missing now uh mountain bike action uh trust me
Rhett: there's a lot that's quite a few yeah that's good stuff yeah um.
Brooks: So the reason i want to have you on your on here today i want us to tell us
Brooks: your story like the full story from beginning to end so kind of start with your
Brooks: history with you know biking not necessarily mountain biking specifically,
Brooks: um how did the idea for station mountain come about how did you find investors
Brooks: like the whole story so go ahead i'm gonna let you take it.
Rhett: All right sounds good so it all started started
Rhett: during covid uh my sports
Rhett: stopped no games and i was like i'm bored and i'm in eighth grade and i want
Rhett: to do something fun and some of my friends are mountain biking so i decided
Rhett: to hop on a mountain bike and i was like wait this is so cool and i was on this
Rhett: like crappy 400 hardtail and this is in like march of 2020 and i started riding
Rhett: this bmx bike too for like three months,
Rhett: i decided it was way too hard so i decided to only do mountain biking because like i couldn't even,
Rhett: bunny hop like sucked uh and then
Rhett: i went to angel fire for my second time actually i
Rhett: went like a year prior but i sucked and that
Rhett: angel fire trip is what made me fall in love with the mountain bike and
Rhett: i was like bro i'm gonna do this every single day this is so fun there's no
Rhett: way i'm ever gonna quit the sport like this is my thing like is that
Rhett: the seven days in angel fire like like i just found my love so then
Rhett: then on from june 2020 i started riding every day i started
Rhett: getting into filming i always rode with people better than me
Rhett: i actually started riding at cat mountain like when when I wasn't that
Rhett: good but Cat Mountain made me so good so fast it
Rhett: has and I yeah yeah I spent I'm not
Rhett: kidding I was I was at Cat Mountain like five days a week for like all of late
Rhett: 2020 all of 2021 and I got pretty good pretty quick I was riding 20 plus hours
Rhett: a week racing and I'd and I really fell in love with it so then I got into trail
Rhett: building the first trail I actually built It was Grom Trail at Cat Mountain.
Rhett: It's like a small little single black trail.
Rhett: And I found out that trail boating was really fun and I loved it.
Rhett: But at this point in time, I was like 16 years old, zero entrepreneurial ambitions at all.
Rhett: Like being an entrepreneurial business owner didn't even cross my mind.
Rhett: Didn't even think of it as being a possible future life path for me.
Rhett: And then about two years later, summer of 2022, two things happened.
Rhett: So first of all, I joined Baiting Camp, which is this online program to teach
Rhett: teens about entrepreneurship.
Rhett: That got me really hyped on entrepreneurship. I was like, oh,
Rhett: I could actually make this happen.
Rhett: And I successfully pitched with a group of people to make Ruff Hollow Bike Park
Rhett: in Lakeland, which is no longer a project.
Rhett: Uh but it showed me that this whole making a bike park thing could be possible yeah i actually.
Brooks: Want to hear more about the rough hollow bike because i was like blown away
Brooks: that anybody would number one let you do that or that it stayed standing as long as it did.
Rhett: Yeah so what.
Brooks: Was the process like to get approved for that.
Rhett: Oh so i had a few connections to these
Rhett: dads in lakeway that have been wanting to make a bike park for a while but you
Rhett: know never really got the spark to do it and i was kind of the guy that pushed
Rhett: them over the edge of like hey let's actually go make this happened but they
Rhett: had all the connections to the hoa the neighborhood like i made the pitch deck
Rhett: but they did all the talking i mean i wasn't really involved in founding rough hollow that much,
Rhett: and then we got approval didn't build
Rhett: until november because it was so hot throughout summer you couldn't really find
Rhett: builders i mean it was kind of a hard thing to get started so it was like a
Rhett: six month period between getting the approval and actually building the park
Rhett: and building it I was out there for two weeks straight with two other builders and got it,
Rhett: halfway done and then I just had a lot of other things fall on my plate I was
Rhett: out of town for three weeks and then once I got back in town station mountain
Rhett: pitches were starting and I just kind of decided to move on from rough hollow
Rhett: which in hindsight probably one of my.
Rhett: Biggest l moves bro uh i kind
Rhett: of caused a lot of beef there yeah for leaving a
Rhett: half done project and not being hyped on it because i because
Rhett: i wasn't hyped on it it was like a half finished bike park even
Rhett: though i really should have finished it uh yeah that
Rhett: was that was one of my biggest mistakes i should have finished where i follow
Rhett: i should have showed more respect to that community and the builders there but
Rhett: it once i saw like a potential of raising three million and making the best
Rhett: bike park in texas i didn't really want to focus on rafale anymore so i'm never there.
Brooks: Weren't any problems with like soccer moms in the neighborhood that got upset that existed.
Rhett: Uh a little bit a little bit but honestly
Rhett: not as much as you think that community was generally
Rhett: supportive of the bike park and interesting also i
Rhett: i also kind of feel bad about this the soccer moms always got mad at like the
Rhett: dads working on the project and not me so like i i i never really got any hate
Rhett: they're like oh cool kid cool ambitious kid but they'd like yell the 50 year
Rhett: olds and then it was kind of my fault but yeah yeah so.
Brooks: Gone i interrupted you uh what happened after rough hollow.
Rhett: Uh after rough hollow well i kind of just gradually moved away from it and,
Rhett: didn't didn't really show up anymore and in january like january 1st pretty much of 2023,
Rhett: is when i got all of the entrepreneurial motivation
Rhett: on all the entrepreneurial motivation to go ahead and
Rhett: make the best bike park in texas to you know not
Rhett: like a small 40k park that i work on with people i'm talking like a full-on
Rhett: let's go raise three million dollars let's get
Rhett: 12 employees let's make a for-profit bike
Rhett: park a business like the big real real
Rhett: deal and in like six
Rhett: months before then like in June of 2022 I would
Rhett: have thought that raising money and making a bike park
Rhett: as a high school would have been outright impossible no way I could ever
Rhett: do that right but because of beta
Rhett: camp and mainly because of my mentors at school and my masterpiece program
Rhett: at school which I can get into all of these entrepreneurs in
Rhett: my life told me Rhett you can make a business this has a high score right
Rhett: you can actually go make this bike park happen like i know it
Rhett: sounds crazy but raising three million at your age like you can totally do
Rhett: it like just go ahead and try to reach out to investors just see what happens
Rhett: you know maybe you fail just come on like this is way more possible than you
Rhett: think and after i had like 10 of these really impressive entrepreneurs like
Rhett: telling me one in one-on-one conversations that i should go ahead and try to
Rhett: make this happen i was like man that's crazy i guess i will and do you.
Brooks: Want to name those folks.
Rhett: Name those folks uh The ones that had the one-on-one conversation with you?
Brooks: Yeah, go for it.
Rhett: I mean, I guess so. Salman, he actually invested in the park,
Rhett: was the leader of BetaCamp.
Rhett: He was a really cool, motivational guy, but he wasn't like an old 50-year-old investor.
Rhett: He was like this 24-year-old startup founder that kind of knew my humor.
Rhett: That's cool. Joshua Baer is the owner of Capital Factory.
Rhett: And the way I met him was funny. I actually met his son on like
Rhett: a random trip in the Caribbean and we
Rhett: just started talking about mountain biking they were like wait you live in Austin wait do
Rhett: you know about mountain biking wait your dad is the owner of Capital Factory
Rhett: and then I was like what and then I went back to Joshua Bear and I was like
Rhett: hey I know this is the randomest email ever but like I just met your son I'm
Rhett: trying to like I I have this random idea of making a bike park just want to
Rhett: talk about entrepreneurship but then he really motivated me to go out and chase
Rhett: my dreams of making this bike Black Bar Cabin. And...
Rhett: None of these kids would know me, but I always read online stories about teen entrepreneurs.
Rhett: Like, I haven't spoken a word to them at all, but I read this news story about
Rhett: this, like, girl in Dallas who raised, like, $2 million, like,
Rhett: started a candy business. And I was like, huh, she's in high school. What? She did that?
Rhett: And then Eric Zhu, this kid in California that raised, like,
Rhett: $20 million at 16 years old, like, from a school bathroom.
Rhett: It's a crazy story. you can go
Rhett: look it up and all these other kids who like
Rhett: made businesses as high schoolers and i was like dude that can be me
Rhett: no way that can be me and the biggest one the
Rhett: biggest motivator of them all was at my school
Rhett: alpha it's this tiny private school in downtown
Rhett: i'm i'm the first graduating class it's a
Rhett: startup school it's it's really
Rhett: weird there's like no classrooms no tests and they and the
Rhett: people at that school always drilled this thing into me of like hey you
Rhett: got got to make a masterpiece which is a which is a super ambitious
Rhett: project for a high schooler to do so throughout your
Rhett: four years of of high school at alpha all the
Rhett: students are supposed to make a super ambitious project not just like a senior
Rhett: capstone project like something that is as impressive as being an olympian in
Rhett: high school and they were like ret we want you to go ahead and make this masterpiece
Rhett: happen because they didn't really start the masterpiece program until i was
Rhett: a junior like ninth and tenth grade the masterpiece program just wasn't really
Rhett: a thing and then the the Mastery Program started,
Rhett: and then all these people at my school were like, Rhett, you should go take a huge leap.
Rhett: Like, Ruff Hollow is not it, bro. Like, you need to go raise $3 million and
Rhett: make the best pike work in Texas. You need to make a whole business at the high
Rhett: school. And I'm like, that seems way too ambitious.
Rhett: There's no way I can do that. But these people at my school just kept on telling
Rhett: me and telling me and telling me that it was possible and that I needed to change my mindset.
Rhett: And then I just needed to go out, make a pitch check, message investors and see if it goes anywhere.
Rhett: And I was like, okay, okay, fine. I'll try. So basically, all in all, here's the the summary.
Rhett: After hearing the motivational speeches from hundreds of entrepreneurs,
Rhett: and after compiling my resume, January 1st, 2023, that's when I officially started,
Rhett: put my foot in the ground and said, I'm gonna make this happen.
Rhett: So it started there. So the real story starts January 1st, 2023. Yeah.
Rhett: So then I was like, all right, where do I start? I guess I got to make this happen.
Rhett: So I made a pitch deck, like a 10 slide pitch deck that you can like something
Rhett: on Google slides about, hey, if we make the best bike park in Texas,
Rhett: it's going to cost this much.
Rhett: It's we should do it in Texas because it is the only place in the world with
Rhett: sufficient terrain, a bunch of riders and a lack of bike parks.
Rhett: Parks you go to utah think about it you have
Rhett: so many bike parks yeah you have a bunch of riders you have
Rhett: good terrain but it's saturated you go to florida yeah you have a bunch of riders
Rhett: but there's no terrain and vermont like yeah it's full of bike parks and there's
Rhett: not that many riders like vermont would be the worst place uh so i was kind
Rhett: of adding up the factors and i realized that out of all places in the whole
Rhett: world texas is the only place in a free market,
Rhett: economy with a bunch of riders with the lack of bike parks and sufficient terrain
Rhett: so i was like like all right i think it's only going to work in texas so i'm
Rhett: glad i live here and that's the general pitch i gave to investors so yeah i think.
Brooks: I think spider mountain went far too long without any competition and i think
Brooks: it showed and i think it showed when you came along that i think things changed
Brooks: and it was pretty noticeable at spider mountain.
Rhett: Yeah i noticed that too yeah oh and
Rhett: by the way i don't want a dog on spider no no so oh i
Rhett: gotta say this really quick yeah there's so many people online that
Rhett: are like oh yeah spider mountain sucks bro station
Rhett: mountain is so much better like i'm like i don't believe
Rhett: that and i don't want people to talk about that like all the beef you
Rhett: see between station and spider is all third-party beef
Rhett: like none of the actual crew at station mountain or the actual crew at spider
Rhett: mountain like hate the other park in fact we really support the other park like
Rhett: i will like i have ridden spider mountain a lot and like i raced there and is
Rhett: awesome and like their employees go to station and we talk that's not like like
Rhett: like we're homies and we're not hating on each other at all,
Rhett: but there's all this third party beef that tries to make it a big deal,
Rhett: and I wish those people would just stop.
Brooks: Yeah, I mean, they talk a lot at my workplace about the abundance mindset is
Brooks: like, you know, we're all at my place, we're all competing with each other.
Brooks: But we're really like, we're very collaborative, we work together and help each other.
Brooks: And I think that's super important in an industry.
Brooks: And certainly you and Spider both serve the benefit from each other.
Brooks: Because somebody could come out there for a weekend and spend a day at Spider
Brooks: and spend a day at Station.
Rhett: Which they do all the time.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: I see so many people coming from Dallas and Houston that do the one day,
Rhett: one day or the three day weekend with Reveille involved.
Rhett: And I think it's actually getting more people riding.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: I don't think it's hurting each other's business.
Brooks: There's no good reason for any sort of adversarial mentality, I don't think.
Rhett: No, not at all. But anyway, back to the story. Back to the story.
Brooks: Yes.
Rhett: So I got, okay, I got sidetracked. Okay. Anyway, I made the pitch check and
Rhett: I found people on LinkedIn with both mountain biker and investor in their profile.
Rhett: And in fact, I made a list of every single person on LinkedIn with mountain
Rhett: biker and investor in their profile.
Rhett: It was like 550 people. I messaged every single one saying, hey,
Rhett: I'm a 17 year old making a bike park.
Rhett: Texas is best bike park. Like, here's my whole pitch. Like, here's how much
Rhett: it'll cost. Like, hey, if you're interested, let's talk more.
Rhett: And then I got like 10 responses of the 550.
Rhett: So not only did I technically get told no, like all but 10 times,
Rhett: but just like ghosted. And I was like, man, that's kind of disappointing.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: So the first step, I was so hyped to get into this entrepreneurship thing, and I got 10 responses.
Rhett: Not even anything close to an investor, after getting so hyped to get into the
Rhett: entrepreneurship thing. So that was kind of hurtful.
Rhett: And then, just to add on top, all the 10 investors who were potentially interested
Rhett: said, hey, you need to land, or then we're not going to do it.
Rhett: And I started messaging every single ranch owner in Texas with more than 300
Rhett: feet of vert within two hours of Austin.
Rhett: Which, by the way, took deep research. I got to message realtors as if I were
Rhett: going to buy a property just to ghost them so I could get the contact info of these guys.
Brooks: No, you shouldn't be telling me that.
Rhett: So then I got the emails, phone numbers, and I wrote 123 handwritten on-flobes,
Rhett: cold calls, emails to every single ranch owner that fit the requirements.
Rhett: And not only did these guys not ghost me, every single one, 123 out of 123 said,
Rhett: no, I'm not allowing a bike park on my property.
Brooks: Wow.
Rhett: Wow and then at that point 123 like every single potential landowner said no
Rhett: like 10 guys responded like zero interested investors and like it just sucks
Rhett: because i was so hard to get into entrepreneurship with literally off the bat
Rhett: everyone said no and this was like march 1st at this point like two months went
Rhett: by and i was just like man i think i want to give up,
Rhett: i really did like i wanted to persevere but i mean everyone's saying no off
Rhett: the bat it just didn't even seem remotely possible so i thought about giving
Rhett: up and i went back to my mentors course.
Rhett: And they're like, no, this is the thing. You have to keep on persevering.
Rhett: And they showed me all these like kind of cliche stories about persevering and
Rhett: entrepreneurs and what happens to them in the end.
Rhett: It was super cliche. And I was like, all right, you know what?
Rhett: Okay, I guess I'll try for one more month and let you see where it goes.
Rhett: And then some good news started happening. I reached out to investors again
Rhett: with like a different pitch.
Rhett: I revised my pitch check, made it better. And people started to get interested.
Rhett: And they're like, oh, I actually might want to invest in this.
Rhett: You just need to get land.
Rhett: And then through one of the potential investors, he worked at this company where
Rhett: he knew a guy who could invest in land, like not an already owned cattle ranch leasing from them.
Rhett: This is like outright purchasing land where I would lease from him, right? right?
Rhett: And he's like, hey, if you find me a property that I can purchase,
Rhett: go ahead and do a temporary lease with me.
Rhett: We can make it happen. It just needs to fit these requirements and it needs
Rhett: to make financial sense. And I was like, okay, okay, okay.
Rhett: So I started looking for properties. There was one property in the whole entire
Rhett: Texas market for sale with more than 300 feet of vert within two hours of Austin. That was for sale.
Rhett: So then I messaged the guy and I was like, hey, this is the one property that we should make it work.
Rhett: And he's like, all right, I'll give you a 45k per month lease and I was like
Rhett: what no that's way too high.
Rhett: And I was like man maybe I
Rhett: could squeeze some numbers to make that work and I messaged
Rhett: these other bike park founders for advice and they like laughed and
Rhett: they heard 45k a month so I was like oh okay I
Rhett: guess not so then we I actually negotiated him
Rhett: to do 25k per month plus 40% in
Rhett: equity so that so still really
Rhett: high but the goal from day one was that this was going to
Rhett: be a temporary lease where two things would either happen one we
Rhett: start making enough money to get over 25k a month which actually might
Rhett: happen like we're kind of on track to hit that or
Rhett: we sell the property to a guy that doesn't need
Rhett: a land lease and that's what we're trying to do i
Rhett: mean i think we're going to get over break even but it's not
Rhett: going to look good for investors with the current 25k a month so something that
Rhett: we're trying to get around more but anyway this is
Rhett: a year later back then I was like wait I can get
Rhett: property land lease that is like kind of sort of
Rhett: somewhat doable you know what sure let's make it happen like this
Rhett: is the only way that I can get property I'll just have to cope with
Rhett: the high land lease this is my only option I gotta make it happen so I went
Rhett: back to him and said all right let's make it happen I'm gonna get investors
Rhett: by the property and then I started pondering the situation thinking man I'm
Rhett: about to make a three million dollar deal like Like when literally nine months ago,
Rhett: I thought this was absolutely impossible. That is pretty crazy.
Rhett: So he went ahead and bought the property for.
Rhett: 2.8 million and i went back to my investors and
Rhett: said dude we just got a 2.8 million dollar property like y'all gotta invest the
Rhett: the y'all gotta invest the 350k no way
Rhett: the 350k is hard to get if i get a 2.8 million investor right
Rhett: but no it's super hard to get because everyone wants to invest in land because like
Rhett: worst case scenario you get all your money back right and like 350k when
Rhett: you can go to zero k if it goes worst case scenario like no one wants
Rhett: to invest in that so these investors weren't interested so then i
Rhett: was like i only have 30k right now like
Rhett: only 30k of the 350k that I need and I got like
Rhett: three weeks to get it this is crazy and I was on this three week
Rhett: crunch time now this was in like late May and early June so I
Rhett: did the LinkedIn thing again where I messaged a bunch of people on LinkedIn mostly
Rhett: the same people and I went more
Rhett: than that I went I went on the local mountain biking Facebook groups
Rhett: like I'm an awesome Dallas mountain Dallas mountain biking Facebook group
Rhett: saying like hey I'm a high schooler making a bike park if you know any investors let me
Rhett: know and I way more than that I started going to these startup conferences
Rhett: in downtown because I knew that I needed to do more networking than just linkedin
Rhett: right so i just i
Rhett: was working like 12 hours a day just on my
Rhett: computer like which for me my personality is really weird like
Rhett: i like actually was not writing seven days a week because i because i had to
Rhett: get this done and i was on my grad so i went to all these conferences linkedin
Rhett: facebook one-on-one networking emails all this and basically after learning
Rhett: networking techniques after learning cold email techniques.
Rhett: And whenever someone said no, I would ask them for five connections.
Rhett: I was like, hey, how about five people that you know that might be interested?
Rhett: And I actually, believe it or not, because I learned the hard way,
Rhett: was able to raise 350K within three weeks.
Rhett: I couldn't raise 350K over the course of five months. But once it came time,
Rhett: once I was at crunch time, using these networking techniques,
Rhett: cold email things, and then cold calls, I closed $358,000 in late June, early July.
Rhett: $2.8 million property closed and it happened.
Rhett: And then like one day I woke up and looked at my bank account.
Rhett: I was like, I have $350,000 in my business account and I'm 17.
Rhett: It was so wild. And I don't know, for those who know me, I'm definitely not your...
Rhett: Humorously average dude so i went back like i don't know i guess when i talk to people i don't,
Rhett: come across as that smart for like my mountain bike friends so i went back to
Rhett: them and i was like yeah look at this like i have 350k and they were all like
Rhett: no way they like didn't believe it they didn't believe it at all and then i
Rhett: actually bring me back to the thing in february of 2023 i I told them, I'm going to do it.
Rhett: I'm going to make the best bike park in Texas. I'm going to get investors.
Rhett: And they all called me crazy. And they're like, yeah, yeah, whatever.
Rhett: None of them believed it. And I went back and I was like, dude,
Rhett: there's $350,000 in my business account right now. Do you see this?
Rhett: This is happening. This is so wild. And they're like, nah, bro.
Rhett: Ain't no way that's real.
Brooks: They didn't believe you, huh?
Rhett: No. But then after I talked to them, they were like, yo, no way that's real.
Rhett: And then they're like, dude, it's happening.
Rhett: And then I was full of excitement. I was like, there's money.
Rhett: Money. I have money. This is crazy.
Rhett: And then that kind of happened like right on my 18th birthday as I like closed the investment.
Rhett: And then reality struck and I was like, I have money. Like I have land.
Rhett: Like my life path is going to be completely different.
Rhett: And I realized like I need to go build a bike park. Like I actually need to
Rhett: go live on this property and start making trails.
Rhett: I mean, it was crazy. It was crazy to think that I persevered and that all of
Rhett: this happened going going from a kid who didn't believe that making a bike park
Rhett: was remotely possible or making a business was remotely possible to like having
Rhett: that money in the span of less than 10 months.
Rhett: That was wild. And it was wild to think about. And you know,
Rhett: I'm still definitely not a mature guy at all.
Rhett: And it's just not, not at all.
Rhett: And, uh, and, uh, it's kind of weird to think that like I had that much control
Rhett: and I was like, how did these investors believe me?
Rhett: Seriously i was like thinking this.
Brooks: But well i think a lot of people see like a young entrepreneur
Brooks: like somebody reaching out to them to start a business and you know some people
Brooks: invest to make money and some people invest in things that make them happy you
Brooks: know yeah and i think seeing a young entrepreneur that that wants to be successful
Brooks: and like asking the kind of questions that you are like nobody else nobody who's
Brooks: not business savvy is asking them those questions yeah.
Rhett: And also on that note i want to make some clarification for some people on the
Rhett: story some people hear like oh, he raised $350K.
Rhett: Like, he just got his daddy's country club friends. They're like, oh, he raised $350K.
Rhett: That's because people donated the money. Like, no, these are serious equity
Rhett: investors. These are, like, guys, like, these are angel investors.
Brooks: Well, they were investments, not donations, right?
Rhett: Yeah, like, investments. Like, these are people who have equity.
Rhett: It was, like, $358K for a 20% stake, to be specific, that, like,
Rhett: are all in the bookkeeping and the financials and, like, plan on making their money back.
Rhett: The total family friends investment was $19,000.
Rhett: Like the investment is like serious investors and it's not something that i had like my dad's,
Rhett: connections or anything uh total family friends is like 19k so like this is
Rhett: a legit investment like people that plan to make their money back and will yeah
Rhett: so then it was july and i realized i can't just bullshit this i can't just get
Rhett: friends out here to start making trails i need to like hire builders.
Rhett: I need to go out and get proper trail builders professional and make 23 trails
Rhett: and make a real bike park.
Rhett: So I just started messaging random people that I saw did projects out throughout
Rhett: the nation and said, Hey, can you come here for like a nine week project?
Rhett: Some guys from Alabama, South Carolina and Arizona came over in their vans.
Rhett: And I rented about 100k worth of machines, got seven skid stairs and many excavators
Rhett: to the property, All the hand tools that we needed the buildings the water lines the fuel tanks and.
Rhett: And like 100 more things to the property. And we all sat down.
Rhett: It was like August 28th, to be specific, and said, all right,
Rhett: this bike park is going to open on November 3rd. We haven't built a single trail.
Rhett: I want 20 trails done by November 3rd.
Rhett: Here's my basic idea of how the trails should work. And we got to work.
Rhett: So right off the bat, I sucked at managing, dude. I was a bad manager.
Rhett: I got into a lot of arguments with the builders.
Rhett: I kind of just let them dominate me and take
Rhett: control of me when i was like hey let's build the trail this way and they said no let's
Rhett: build it this way and i like tried to be a little bit pressing with
Rhett: it but no one wants to listen to a high schooler that hasn't really built trails before
Rhett: they didn't respect you no they didn't respect me they're like i'm gonna build this
Rhett: trail how i want to except greg greg dupont
Rhett: is a great guy i love greg yeah shout
Rhett: out to greg uh no he was also
Rhett: very good always keeping the vibes pretty chill but i mean i don't want to hate
Rhett: on any of the builders at all because i totally totally get what their minds
Rhett: are thinking like oh i don't listen to like a high score tell me what to do
Rhett: like i want to build my own trail that's just that's just a trail builder mindset
Rhett: i'm not hating on any of the builders of the project and i really respect them
Rhett: all it was just frustrating,
Rhett: because i wanted to get my bike park done and the thing is that i sucked at
Rhett: managing i couldn't tell people what to do and.
Rhett: I just, yeah, I just let them take advantage and take control of me,
Rhett: which I don't, I mean, I don't mean that in a negative way towards them.
Rhett: It's just what was going on.
Rhett: And it wasn't going well. So we were like three weeks into building.
Rhett: Trails weren't being built as I wanted to.
Rhett: The tech trails weren't coming along. I wasn't really even, I wasn't,
Rhett: I wasn't even able to be there that often because I had to be at school like four or five days a week.
Rhett: So I told my school like, hey, look, Station Mountain, it's not being built as I wanted to.
Rhett: And I want to make the best bike park in texas i need to be at school never
Rhett: for the next nine weeks yeah and then how.
Brooks: Did that go.
Rhett: Yeah well actually they were they were supportive of it because they were like
Rhett: oh this kid's making some serious progress on his masterpiece so we need to
Rhett: have like an advertizable student for a future to show that our first class
Rhett: is successful yeah sure we'll we'll we'll let him do it.
Brooks: They sound like a very progressive school.
Rhett: Yes very very interesting interesting school.
Brooks: Very interesting school.
Rhett: And also, on that note though, there's still a lot of other really cool masterpiece projects at Alpha.
Rhett: I don't want to act like I'm like the only one or the first one.
Brooks: Tell me about some of those.
Rhett: Yeah, so some girl's making a teen dating app. Some other girl's doing a bunch
Rhett: of like cancer research stuff and she's going pretty far and like has a bunch of hype on social media.
Rhett: And some other girl's becoming an author, like writing all these newsletters
Rhett: and books and stuff, you know.
Rhett: Projects like that. And we only have like eight people in our first class.
Rhett: We only started the Masterpiece program like a year and a half ago.
Rhett: So it's still really in its beta stages, hence why not that many projects,
Rhett: but it has a bunch of potential.
Rhett: But when it comes like real Masterpieces, yeah, I'd say I'm like the first one
Rhett: to make a real Masterpiece, but like a bunch more in the future.
Rhett: And I don't even feed that as like a flex or anything.
Rhett: But anyway, back to the story. Yeah, so I said, all right, so this is like mid-September.
Rhett: And I was like, hey, look, not going well with the builders.
Rhett: I need to be there. Just let me be there.
Rhett: And they're like, okay, okay, sure. Go ahead and live at Sage Mountain.
Rhett: So then I was able to start working five or six days a week.
Rhett: And then building started to get better. And a good reason why is Steve Gonzalez.
Rhett: So he kind of noticed what was going on. And he's like, Rhett,
Rhett: you're like my lost son or something like that. I don't know.
Rhett: And he's like, I don't know, maybe like a nephew or something.
Rhett: And he's like, I need this kid to succeed. Like, I see my 18-year-old self in you.
Rhett: And he's like, I see that you're not managing that well. Look,
Rhett: I'll be your project manager.
Rhett: Let's get this done. And Steve was so supportive, bro. Like,
Rhett: Steve, like, kind of went away from his normal current life to literally just
Rhett: help me at Station Mountain.
Rhett: He didn't like the job, but he pursued through and he helped out so much throughout those eight weeks.
Rhett: So I really don't know what I would do without Steve. And I really want to give
Rhett: a big thank you and shout out to him for kind of saving the whole project and getting it together.
Rhett: I really don't think we would have built station mountain successfully he seems
Rhett: like a really great guy without Steve yeah yeah he's cool.
Rhett: He's interesting. Very interesting character. But yeah.
Rhett: So he came in. So I love that. And then builders started to listen to him.
Rhett: So I tell Steve what to do. So he'd tell them and the builders actually listen.
Rhett: Yeah. And then the lines are actually starting to come together.
Rhett: And now since I was there all the time, I could just focus on the single track
Rhett: tech trails because I was really good at building these single track tech trails on a machine.
Rhett: Like I'm okay, but I'm not as good as a professional builders.
Rhett: And Then started to crank out more and more trails like that.
Rhett: And then most of the Alabama builders left in early October.
Rhett: So at this point, okay, it's looking way, way better than it was in mid-September.
Rhett: We made so much progress in three weeks.
Rhett: See, you've got stuff down. I started building more tech trails.
Rhett: Like, we have four weeks until opening.
Rhett: It's looking pretty good. And I still sucked at managing.
Rhett: Like, I was not acting like a boss. I was just acting like a kid that didn't put his foot in the door.
Rhett: And that's one of my biggest mistakes. I wish I was able to be more assertive.
Brooks: Well, live and learn.
Rhett: Yeah, live and learn indeed. Learn a lot. But then we came into a problem where
Rhett: we had to get so many logistics set up.
Rhett: We had to get a trash system set up, port-a-potties, work on the septic. We need to buy tractors.
Rhett: We need to get trailers built, shuttles built. we needed to set up the containers
Rhett: with like the AC and the planks you need to get rental bikes
Rhett: you need to make a shop I mean the list goes on and on and on and
Rhett: I just wasn't even able to build trails anymore because I
Rhett: had to do all this online work I had to order all this stuff uh I had to set
Rhett: up all the online systems the payment system and for the last four weeks of
Rhett: the project I wasn't really putting any shovels in the ground because I just
Rhett: had to uh set up all of the logistics but I got to work and I made a whole list
Rhett: of like 500 things I need to get done by opening and just one one by one, every single day.
Rhett: I got these tasks done, all the boring chores.
Rhett: But the mission was in mind, so even when I was doing the boring chores,
Rhett: I was like, oh, this is so fun because the grand mission is so cool.
Rhett: And finalized the trails over those four weeks, and then the vibes were getting better.
Rhett: I was like, oh, we're two weeks away from opening, but ever since August 28th,
Rhett: it's actually gotten better, and we slowly, slowly got better and better at building.
Rhett: And November 2nd rolled around, and it was kind of like a last day build panic
Rhett: of like oh we have to get everything set like the shuttles weren't working and
Rhett: all this and all that but we got it set and then,
Rhett: We opened on a Friday on purpose because there's less riders on weekdays.
Rhett: So we could have like a basic opening day with November 4th being the real opening day.
Rhett: Like a test run. Yeah, like a test run opening day. And I told everyone when
Rhett: they got here, I was like, look, it's not going to go smooth on opening weekend,
Rhett: but I'm so glad you're here and supporting the park.
Rhett: And everyone was like, yeah, I don't care at all. And yeah, I was there.
Brooks: I think it went well.
Rhett: Yeah. And like, yeah, we had minor issues on opening weekend,
Rhett: but it went smooth. And it was like probably like the best weekend of my life
Rhett: to see like all those people there. and I was like, bro, how did I generate all this demand?
Rhett: Like I was a high schooler, like, oh my God, I have a business now,
Rhett: like I have customers, like I have employees, I have people at the bike shop,
Rhett: I have people driving shuttles, I have builders, like it was a real thing.
Rhett: And I was astonished. I was so astonished.
Rhett: It was crazy. So then as I also look back in the build process,
Rhett: I want to give a huge thank you to my ranch neighbor, Justin,
Rhett: which a lot of y'all might see around Station Mountain.
Rhett: All of the ranch maintenance tasks, such as fixing the well,
Rhett: building the road, road uh seating you know random ranch related maintenance
Rhett: tasks justin helped with that the whole project because i actually remember
Rhett: back in july i was like flagging these trails,
Rhett: and this old ranch dude stopped by and he's like
Rhett: i was like oh i'm about to get a talking to but he was the nicest guy
Rhett: ever and he's like hey i'm your ranch neighbor what are you doing i'm like oh i'm a
Rhett: kid making a bike park and he's like no way and then
Rhett: he's like i'm down to help you in any way possible look you might get some stingy people
Rhett: around here but i'm on your side and like i'm down
Rhett: to help you anyway for this bike park and since then he's been working every
Rhett: single week on ranch main it's still up to this day and he's been super nice
Rhett: super inviting to his home he's a super funny guy he has a son garrett eight
Rhett: year eight years old didn't know what mountain biking was five months ago and
Rhett: it's like one of the best eight-year-old mountain bikers i know now he rides
Rhett: there all the time because he lives right next to the bike park,
Rhett: and so on and so forth but that whole family has been amazing i i also don't
Rhett: know how i do this without Justin so that was cool did.
Brooks: He volunteer for the whole thing.
Rhett: No paid I mean we didn't really get that many volunteers yeah that was cool
Rhett: and then so I guess the other builders to mention,
Rhett: Dial Dirt is like the crew from Alabama that came and they built all of Sunny Fat Pits like the whole,
Rhett: top to bottom run that was that was their trail
Rhett: and again I want to specify when I say
Rhett: like I got arguments with the trail voters and whatnot
Rhett: it's not like i disliked them like i totally get the reasoning for not wanting
Rhett: to listen to high school like there's nothing wrong with that at all and i totally
Rhett: get it and they built a sick trail and like it was uh very successful and couldn't
Rhett: have done it without them because like the 75 hitch trail is like the most essential
Rhett: trail at station and that took a bunch of work like that bottom part crazy amount
Rhett: of work and a lot of skill too.
Rhett: Uh and alfonso is a guy from arizona that came he's super cool he built the
Rhett: el cinco line in Byrne Park, and I,
Rhett: greg's whole crew was but was the rest so greg built like the rest of the flow lines at station,
Rhett: and then and then the tech trails were mainly me so
Rhett: and then we had a few others there's a guy named
Rhett: jonathan there builder from houston he was cool he
Rhett: was the best guy listening to me and i
Rhett: think jonathan was one of the most like underplayed at builders at
Rhett: station uh huge respect to him and this other guy named logan that actually
Rhett: stuck around for like four months after too uh old spider mountain builder in
Rhett: fact and he he he he always had the best interest for the park and the best
Rhett: interest for me the best interest financially so that meant a lot and,
Rhett: i don't know there's a bunch of other guys i think like look look i'll be honest
Rhett: i could go on for 10 i could go on for an hour thanking people to be honest
Rhett: i could go on for so long because there's so many people to thank there's so
Rhett: many investors to thank but like if you're involved at station mountain like
Rhett: i didn't have beef with you that's all i'm gonna say like i and And I'm very
Rhett: thankful for everyone's help. I'm not like a hating guy.
Rhett: And there's so many people involved, like all the investors too.
Rhett: Dude, there's so many people to thank. But yeah, so many people made this project.
Brooks: Can you talk about some of your larger investors and like what their backgrounds
Brooks: are and what they usually invest in? Is it, you know, have they invested in
Brooks: like mountain bike and sports stuff before?
Rhett: Yeah. So no, not really. So the biggest investor is a guy named Scott.
Rhett: And he is actually a plumbing truck owner, a plumbing company owner in Dallas.
Brooks: And he first i met him we were parked next to him he seemed like oh that's cool
Brooks: was he out there on the little blue e-bike yeah yeah yeah.
Rhett: He's super cool i don't know if it's blue but he has an e-bike.
Brooks: But yeah uh so he uh.
Rhett: First heard about the idea in June off of one of the Facebook posts.
Rhett: His friends sent him a Facebook post. And for some reason, he just knew this
Rhett: is going to be successful. I'm going to invest in this kid. I know this is going to be successful.
Rhett: He told all of his friends and his business partners and his insurance guys,
Rhett: like, I'm going to give 100K to a 17-year-old.
Rhett: And they all laughed at him. They're like, are you crazy?
Rhett: No, you aren't. Like, I'm not allowing you to give 100K to a 17-year-old.
Rhett: Are you crazy? And he's like, I just know this is going to be successful.
Rhett: Let's and gave 100k to a high score and he got
Rhett: called crazy and stupid by so many people but he
Rhett: did it anyway and he's like ret here's the
Rhett: money i just know this is gonna work so super super
Rhett: cool guy and he's also like huge beard full of tattoos not
Rhett: your standard investor at all yeah he's also a really
Rhett: funny guy yeah and the netflix maybe documentary that we filmed uh he has a
Rhett: famous quote and he's like well i gave 100k to him and then i thought is he
Rhett: just gonna spend this on hookers and blow the valid question yeah but i see you had like a pitch.
Brooks: Deck and you had a plan and you had a business.
Rhett: Plan yeah maybe i'm undermining this i was spent 300 hours making a really good
Rhett: pitch deck i made an in-depth pnl very in-depth pnl like i'd a lot of bookkeeping
Rhett: i spent a bunch of time perfecting my pitch deck to make it as good as possible,
Rhett: hence why i raised the 350k in only three weeks it's because i wanted to make
Rhett: that pitch check way better than it was back in january uh and so on like yeah
Rhett: maybe i'm undermining it a bit there's still a bunch of work that went into it so.
Brooks: What kind of progress have you made since opening and what are your plans for the future.
Rhett: So since opening we have
Rhett: been pretty up and down but overall
Rhett: profitable like all four months since opening have been profitable by
Rhett: a by a significant amount too we've spent thirty thousand dollars on stupid
Rhett: things that we should not be spending thirty thousand dollars on like a broken
Rhett: tractor broken decision was that broken elasticity i don't know a group group
Rhett: minded we were also super over employed bro build crew was over employed,
Rhett: overpaid we were over employed for the first few weekends so the expenses are
Rhett: through the roof and And I was like, why are we breaking so many things?
Rhett: Why am I paying so many people? So then I got it figured out and...
Rhett: Dude, if I went back to November 3rd, I could have gotten us to March in literally
Rhett: half the expenses. So super high expenses. But I think those are just growing pains.
Brooks: Hindsight's 2020, right? I know. Everything's easier to, decisions are so much
Brooks: easier to make looking back on them.
Rhett: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So,
Rhett: and then on the revenue, just really up and down. So here's what's weird.
Rhett: No change in weather, no change in event. It's not like another event's going on in Texas.
Rhett: Like no change at all. Like one weekend, we'll have like 50 people and another
Rhett: weekend, we'll have 250 people. It's just like that random.
Rhett: And like the revenue, like if you look at the bookkeeping, it's like up,
Rhett: down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
Rhett: And it's kind of hard to track and I can't get projections off of it.
Rhett: I know that month by month it's been decently profitable, but then that ties
Rhett: back to the whole thing of with the land lease right now, we are not profitable.
Rhett: I think we can get to above break even because we can also do youth camps in
Rhett: summer, like a thousand bucks a kid, 40 kids, that's 40K in a month. That's crazy money.
Rhett: And I think we can get above break even for the land lease for sure.
Rhett: But I'm trying to give my investors a good return here. here.
Rhett: I'm trying to give them the returns that I promised, which I don't think we'll
Rhett: be able to do with the land lease.
Rhett: So the big thing that I'm really, really focusing on right now is selling the land.
Rhett: Because if we can get a buyer, we will be able to have no land lease,
Rhett: ensure a great future for the investors,
Rhett: ensure a profit for the current land investor, the guy who bought the land,
Rhett: and the guy who buys a property is going to own a sick property with the bike
Rhett: park that's increasing in value and has a bunch of benefits.
Rhett: It is literally a win-win-win-win situation if if we sell this property.
Rhett: So right now, the current goal is to sell the property.
Rhett: It's going to go live in a week or two or maybe like three weeks.
Brooks: So what kind of buyer are you looking for? Is it going to be somebody like an
Brooks: investor, like a business owner?
Brooks: Or is it going to be somebody who just lives on the property and lets you take care of everything?
Rhett: I'm looking for anyone that would buy the property.
Brooks: Yeah. There's probably a specific kind of person that's going to want that kind of property, right?
Rhett: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you're a purely financially interested investor,
Rhett: investor like if you invest in the S&P 500 or something
Rhett: else you're going to make a better return year over year
Rhett: because that's just how land works like look land value does
Rhett: increase and yes you will get a percentage of profits if you buy this land but
Rhett: no one no one really wants to do it for purely financial reasons so we're taking
Rhett: a little bit of a different angle and saying okay so here let me back up a little
Rhett: bit if this was the cattle meadow hunting property that it was back in June,
Rhett: it would be able to sell at its value of $3 million within like,
Rhett: 45 days 60 days just like as a normal ranch property in texas would know the
Rhett: listing price is 3.175 million so i don't know if we're gonna sell it at 3 million
Rhett: or lower we'll see that's more,
Rhett: uh logistical stuff if you're interested in the sale let uh reach out to me but yeah reach.
Brooks: Out to me i'll help you.
Rhett: Yeah yeah that's more logistical stuff on the numbers every three 3 million-ish,
Rhett: probably higher, maybe lower.
Rhett: But now, because a bike park is operating on a weekend, someone who would otherwise
Rhett: buy the meadow cattle hunting property is now not going to buy it, right?
Rhett: Because they're like, oh, no, they're running a bike park on Saturday and Sunday.
Rhett: Now, no, that sucks. I'm not going to go spend the $3.175 million anymore.
Rhett: But here's the thing. Look, I'm going to give you free ranch maintenance.
Rhett: So if your septic tank breaks or if the road needs maintenance, I got you.
Rhett: I'll give you free ranch upgrades. rates if you want cows for free i'll do it
Rhett: if you want your pond stocked if you want the grass seeded if you want fish
Rhett: in your ponds i will literally pay for all that and do it all for you uh if
Rhett: you want free access to to the bike park i hope that's obvious that you'll get it,
Rhett: uh and if you want a percentage of profits yes like a percentage of weekly profit
Rhett: or weekly revenue i like i will totally do that and i'll just hand you a check
Rhett: every week and a huge list list of other benefits as well, like free animals,
Rhett: we can do hunting rights for you, we can cover all the insurance and liability, obviously.
Rhett: So there's really only one downside to buying the land, which is,
Rhett: look, we're going to have a running bike park on Saturday and Sunday.
Rhett: But other than that, completely private to you, if that is weak,
Rhett: the house is always private to you, bike park or not.
Rhett: And the upper 40 acres that we don't touch are always private to you and quiet
Rhett: and you can't hear the bikers or see the bikers like it's like just your private
Rhett: 40 acres. and I hope that someone who's.
Rhett: Sees a list of benefits and realizes that it outweighs the one con of a running
Rhett: bike park on Saturday and Sunday.
Rhett: So I'm seeing a buyer that sees this property as a kickback property,
Rhett: where they don't want to deal with ranch maintenance.
Rhett: And if they want to get ranch upgrades, they don't want to pay for it.
Rhett: They just want to kick my property that they can go and enjoy life on.
Rhett: That's the type of buyer that I'm looking for. And on top of that,
Rhett: the kickback property owner is going to get some money back.
Rhett: And it's still a sufficient return, a return that's going to beat inflation,
Rhett: a return that's like, you know,
Rhett: year over year, year making financial sense maybe it's not a great
Rhett: investment but like it's really
Rhett: not that many downsides to the land sale and from
Rhett: the realtors and brokers that i've talked to it's looking pretty likely that
Rhett: we'll we'll be able to sell within 12 months but i'm looking to
Rhett: sell within three months and worst case scenario we don't sell look bike park's
Rhett: still going to be more than make even hopefully we get the bike work to be to
Rhett: be more than profitable i just want to give my investors a sufficient return
Rhett: and when you take away 25k a month it makes investors returns way better yeah.
Brooks: I don't i don't think i would consider a bike park at my house a con personally but.
Rhett: Yeah uh.
Brooks: So you mentioned something to me in a text yesterday that's happening in south
Brooks: texas is that something it's a done deal or something you can talk about.
Rhett: Oh yeah i'll talk about it yeah so i think it's like a 90 chance that i'm building
Rhett: a bike park for spacex in like like three weeks so i had a mutual connection
Rhett: to spacex well basically a guy from my school was talking with a guy who knew
Rhett: a guy that worked at spacex.
Brooks: That's how business works right.
Rhett: Yeah and the guy who knows the guy and the guy who knew the guy that knew me
Rhett: was like wait isn't there that one kid at that one school that's like making
Rhett: a bike park and the guy that knows me was like yes there is a kid and then they're
Rhett: like hey look we all just moved from california and we're used to biking and
Rhett: now we live in the most boring town in Texas and like life here this town is kind of lame,
Rhett: can we get something fun here and like have that kid maybe go over here and he's like yes bro that,
Rhett: That would be such a good idea. Let's go send an email to my boy Rhett and see if he's down.
Rhett: And I'm like, yeah, of course I'm down. SpaceX wants me to build a bike park
Rhett: for them and make their life more fun there.
Rhett: And like, yeah, that's the dopest opportunity ever. So I visited SpaceX three
Rhett: days ago and it was a really fun trip.
Rhett: Got to the whole property, met a bunch of amazing people at SpaceX.
Rhett: And I think I'm going down there again in three weeks to make this bike park happen.
Brooks: That's by Brownsville, right?
Rhett: Yes. So flattest land you'll ever see. And just a jump park, like 9th Street.
Rhett: But more for mountain bikes is I guess the best way to describe it.
Brooks: It's smaller.
Rhett: 9th Street, same property size.
Rhett: Just imagine those jumps but instead of 60 degree loops, 30 degree loops.
Brooks: Looking forward to it.
Rhett: I know. I really am. That's cool. Now, if you want to talk about future opportunities,
Rhett: I'm down to get into that. Go for it. Cool.
Rhett: Now that Sage Mountain is fully open,
Rhett: I guess this is my first time I'm publicly saying this, but I don't really plan
Rhett: as being like an entire 100% devoted full manager to Station Mountain in five years.
Rhett: Like I plan on passing it off to a manager and kind of gradually getting less
Rhett: day-to-day involved at Station Mountain, just like a bunch of people do with
Rhett: other bike parks and other ski resorts.
Rhett: There's nothing wrong with that. To go chase my dreams of doing something bigger.
Rhett: I really, really, really want to make the world's best bike park I do I want
Rhett: to make the next Whistler I want to make something better than Whistler I think
Rhett: it's a huge opportunity Because think about it If you're Vail,
Rhett: And you have a summer bike park It's very average And there's hundreds of average
Rhett: bike parks in the US That don't make great money Such as Vail Bike Park itself Or North Star.
Rhett: Or Angelfire, Taos, like all these other bike parks.
Rhett: I mean, maybe not Angelfire, but they're getting like 200 riders a day and they're
Rhett: kind of at break even. They just do it as like a summer marketing program.
Rhett: If someone gets hurt, that's a $20 million lawsuit.
Rhett: If they're going to get $2 million, they're going to put that towards snowmakers
Rhett: instead of their bike park.
Rhett: Like, you know, running a bike park just doesn't make that much financial sense
Rhett: for the ski resort industry because bike parks don't get that much demand. demand.
Rhett: So many ski resorts are very closed to making good bike parks.
Rhett: But, here's the thing. There's a difference between an average bike park or a good bike park.
Rhett: Like, there's not much of a difference between an average and a good bike park.
Rhett: But there's a huge difference.
Rhett: A huge difference between a good bike park and Whistler.
Rhett: Like, Angelfire, in my opinion, is way more fun than Trestle. And I.
Rhett: They're not getting that many people because they're great. Like they're a great
Rhett: bike park, but they're not amazing.
Rhett: Like this is good versus great versus amazing. But Whistler,
Rhett: because it's so amazing, because it's just the outright definitive world of
Rhett: best bike park, is literally, not even kidding, getting 30 times more demand than Angel Fire.
Rhett: They pulled in 300,000 people during their Crankworx weekend.
Rhett: They added $50 million to their economy in one week because of their Crankworx weekend.
Rhett: They're getting more people during these summer events and their winter events.
Rhett: Their hotels and restaurants are booked during the summer the total
Rhett: economic impact on the canadian gdp and the whistler slash squamish gdp for
Rhett: biking is like absurd it's through the roof and veil resorts actually owns whistler
Rhett: and they're making bank through whistler and they focus on whistler and they
Rhett: know that like they're going to get their money there and the amount of money
Rhett: and demand and all that that whistler makes is crazy and whistler is one of the few.
Rhett: Summer towns other than aspen and a few others that you
Rhett: can go to and see booked hotels and booked restaurants it was
Rhett: rare to see that in the summer at any other resort so
Rhett: my pitch is to go to the ideal
Rhett: resort is park city and say look i know you don't
Rhett: want to make a mediocre bike park i get it i don't i i don't recommend that
Rhett: but if you want to go all in and build 150 trails build a huge indoor woodward
Rhett: style facility build like a 1000 hitch jump line not a 75 hits like 1000 hits
Rhett: It's like a crazy amount of World Race Cup tracks.
Rhett: If you want to get World Cup races here, like if you want to get all the pros
Rhett: here, if you want to maybe hold like a hard line here, like I'm talking like
Rhett: if you want to go all out on you're going to make the outright,
Rhett: definitive world best bike park, I guarantee you, you're going to make so much money.
Rhett: And I guarantee you, your hotels and restaurants are going to be booked and
Rhett: your summertime won't be that depressing. I mean, there's so many benefits.
Rhett: So my goal is to convince a resort to allow me to make the world's best bike
Rhett: park. Not just a bike park, but the world's best bike park. Outright definitive,
Rhett: better than Whistler Best.
Rhett: And these resorts, such as Park City, are the perfect place to do it.
Rhett: They have a huge base area.
Rhett: So think about Park City, huge town in the base area.
Rhett: And they get a bunch of people visiting there just for like hiking and having
Rhett: fun in the town. They're right next to a giant airport.
Rhett: There's already a bunch of mountain bikers in Salt Lake City and a bunch of
Rhett: bike trails in the Utah area.
Rhett: They have a really good mountain full of lifts, like 3,000 plus feet of vert.
Rhett: And it just baffles me. I'm like, why aren't you making a good bike park?
Rhett: I mean, they literally just have cross-country trails.
Rhett: And they're like, oh, liability, ooh, insurance. And I'm like,
Rhett: but you don't understand.
Rhett: Like, here, think about it. I'll make a shell company. So I'm gonna go ahead
Rhett: and raise your 30 million necessary to make this bike park.
Rhett: I'm gonna handle all insurance and liability. I will pay for your lift cable
Rhett: decay. I will pay for your restroom usage, your parking lot usage.
Rhett: I will pay for literally every single expense even related to the bike park that you can think of.
Rhett: You don't have to put any money towards this. If we get sued, they sue me, not you.
Rhett: You don't have to deal with us dealing with any of your facilities.
Rhett: We'll pay for literally all of it.
Rhett: Worst case scenario, nothing happens. Best case scenario, you're making bank.
Rhett: I'm just asking you to allow me to make a company that's going to build a bike
Rhett: park on your property and we'll give you like 50% of profit or something super
Rhett: high. I mean, how can you not turn, like, how can you not say yes to that offer?
Rhett: And my goal is to send this pitch to 50 plus ski resorts and hope that one says
Rhett: yes, just like I did with Station Mountain Investors and Land Investors.
Rhett: So maybe instead of 123 out of 123 saying no, it's 49 out of 50 saying no.
Brooks: Yeah. Well, you get something to refer back to, like, look, I already built a bike park.
Rhett: Yeah. Because now I have much more of a resume than Ruff Hollow.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: Much more.
Brooks: Well i we refer you know when we're talking
Brooks: with the city and like trying to get parks built and stuff like that we refer back
Brooks: to bentonville all the time because they have
Brooks: managed to make an attraction out of the middle of nowhere in arkansas yes like
Brooks: it's it's walmart town there's not anything else there but people from are constantly
Brooks: moving from austin to arkansas and that city's all in on that and they you know
Brooks: they obviously are making money from it and they're They're obviously investing
Brooks: and getting more people living there.
Brooks: And I just don't see why the city of Austin can't see that same kind of growth
Brooks: and just kind of, they're not super supportive of mountain bikers, I don't think.
Rhett: Yeah. Yeah. I see that same thing. But same with almost all cities.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: Bentonville is just built different.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: Yeah.
Brooks: Well, I think we need some kind of massive investor to start building trails like that around here.
Rhett: Maybe so. So, well, I tried with public land a while before I kind of coped
Rhett: with private land when I had the initial idea for Station Mountain,
Rhett: but it's just, it's almost possible.
Rhett: It also takes way too long. No one wants to wait 10 years.
Brooks: Yeah.
Rhett: Yeah. No one.
Brooks: Lenny Manant, I think we got a pretty good time going here. Is there anything
Brooks: else you want to talk about before we wrap it up?
Rhett: Anything else I want to talk about? Hold on. There actually might be. Let me think. Oh, yeah.
Rhett: Well, I also want to clarify something that I've been getting some hate for
Rhett: sometimes of me seeing Station Mountain as a selfish thing as a way to make money.
Rhett: Bro, all right. This whole time, been a volunteer project. I haven't pocketed
Rhett: a single dollar from Station Mountain ever.
Rhett: Not during the whole building process, not during me being out there.
Rhett: I work on Station Mountain, computer work plus trail work plus riding 60 hours
Rhett: a week, and I haven't made a single dime.
Rhett: I don't plan on it. I reinvest everything back into the business.
Rhett: My goal with Station Mountain, the reason why I want to be profitable,
Rhett: is only for the investors.
Rhett: I see Station Mountain as an entrepreneurial stepping stone to my future.
Rhett: My goal is to give a return to my investors.
Rhett: All my equity, I always reinvest. I don't care about it.
Rhett: And the only reason why like, I have these big entrepreneurial billionaire-esque
Rhett: dreams, like to make the world's best bike park or even do something more than that.
Rhett: Like the reason why I have these dreams is specifically because like,
Rhett: I want to help people out. Like I want to use my money towards charity.
Rhett: I could live in a van if I want to do. Like, if you ask like,
Rhett: what do you see your 50 year old self to be like?
Rhett: I see myself as like a billionaire that lives in a van.
Rhett: Seriously. That's like my ideal future. I could really, really care less about
Rhett: anything to do with money, but my overall life goal from a more.
Rhett: A real standpoint is i want to make the maximum positive impact possible so
Rhett: i want to like make as much money as possible to go donate as much money as
Rhett: possible towards like maximum impact.
Rhett: Uh philanthropy so like not something like mountain biking where
Rhett: like the impact per dollar is pretty low like something like malaria or
Rhett: hunger where like you're getting a really good impact per dollar so like my my
Rhett: life goal is like use this money towards charity just
Rhett: like a really high impact per dollar thing and i don't
Rhett: want to like make any money to like get lamborghini's or
Rhett: fancy cars or anything but yes i do plan on
Rhett: making as much money as possible from the world's best bike park that's the goal
Rhett: of entrepreneurship it's the goal of business and the golden thing about entrepreneurship
Rhett: is that making a business can actually benefit society like i guarantee this
Rhett: world's best bike park will benefit society but no for all the people that are
Rhett: saying oh you're chasing entrepreneurial dreams you want to be selfish because
Rhett: you want to use your money you're you're paying yourself compensation.
Rhett: No, I'm not, that's not any of my goals.
Brooks: I mean, even if you were, there's nothing wrong with wanting to have a business
Brooks: and wanting to be profitable, I don't think.
Rhett: No. Well, I definitely do want to be profitable, but.
Brooks: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's nothing wrong with taking money home.
Brooks: Everybody has a job, everybody has, either works for a business or has a business,
Brooks: and I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, you know? Yeah.
Brooks: Oney Ray Ritt, it's been a pleasure speaking with you. I think I can tell,
Brooks: and I think probably our audience can tell what a smart guy you are and how
Brooks: driven you are and um it's exciting to see somebody so young working so hard
Brooks: and making things happen um do you want to share any kind of socials or carding
Brooks: information station mountain website instagram all that follow at.
Rhett: Station mountain bike park on instagram follow at ret rides my personal riding
Rhett: page that's where you can get all your info.
Brooks: Awesome well i am brooks lawson this has been the mountain biking awesome mountain
Brooks: podcast uh you can find all things brooks at brookslawson.com all right thank
Brooks: you have a good one thank you peace.