Growing Destinations

Pedal Power: Nate Nordstrom’s Journey with New Spin Bicycle Shop

• Experience Rochester • Episode 63

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Rochester, Minnesota entrepreneur Nate Nordstrom has combined his adventurous spirit and love for biking to launch a new business venture. Nate owns New Spin Bicycle Shop, with two locations in Rochester. His passion for e-bikes and adaptive bikes is evident as he showcases how these innovations are transforming lives and enhancing family biking adventures.

Bill Von Bank:

The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.

Nate Nordstrom:

Everywhere we went around town, around Rochester, everybody would say I mean, it was near constantly. It was like if you drove a cyber truck these days. It was like where'd you buy that? Where'd you rent that? What is that thing? Can I try it?

Bill Von Bank:

Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, Bill Von Bank. We're on location at New Spin Bicycle Shop in Rochester, Minnesota. This is one of two development in entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, Bill Von Bank. We're on location at New Spin Bicycle Shop in Rochester, Minnesota. This is one of two locations that has popped up over the past couple of years. I'm joined by the owner of New Spin and local entrepreneur, Nate Nordstrom. Nate, welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast.

Nate Nordstrom:

Thanks for having me.

Bill Von Bank:

Nate, can you tell us a bit about your background and what inspired you to become an entrepreneur?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, a lot of things, I would say. So I was just telling somebody the stories yesterday a little bit. I think, like a lot of entrepreneurs, they could tell you 101 different crazy stories. I'll just tell you a couple of brief ones. But I would say the biggest thing in my life was that my grandfather was an entrepreneur.

Nate Nordstrom:

He grew up as a depression kid and he just sort of learned. His mindset was you got to take care of yourself and so he, he just did all kinds of stuff. He built houses. He didn't, you know, had no experience building houses. He literally just started building houses and he did a good job and developed part of a neighborhood and then they restored Volkswagen bugs and then they had a Christmas tree farm and he's done a whole bunch of stuff. So I experienced that as a kid and I got to be part of those businesses. And then, growing up, I tried all sorts of crazy things. Some of them were more like stunts, but I'll tell you one brief story. So my brother had not as much self-control as I did and we both liked candy and sweets, but I was fine. Wait until we went to the grocery store the next time. Well, he wasn't, so I bought some ice cream and we weren't going for another week with mom. I ate half of it and then I sold it to him at full price because he couldn't wait.

Nate Nordstrom:

So I got free ice cream.

Bill Von Bank:

Oh gosh, so early on you knew.

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, I mean I went door to door at literally six years old selling stuff that I had made or collected at garage sales and I mean I negotiated for like 50 cents extra on the bike I sold and I don't know. There's like a million little things. I bought all the rest of the stuff at a, uh, circuit city that was going out of business in college and then come on parents and said hey, um, I just bought everything at circuit city. Uh, I'll keep it in my room, don't worry.

Bill Von Bank:

Let's fast forward to the here and now. Because you have several business ventures, Can you give us your portfolio?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, so well, I was telling you earlier before we started the podcast too, but my big focus this year is my big goal this year is focus, and I am really just narrowing my time and energy on what to focus on, and a key part of that, then, is just getting the right people in the right places. So I have an assistant now, which is very helpful, but the businesses are Newspin, which we're at now. We have two locations. We sell all kinds of e-bikes and tricycles, even some adaptive assistive stuff for people with special needs, which has been a lot of fun to help them. I have. The first business in Rochester was Brandhoot. We do custom websites and mobile apps. I've been doing that for 13-ish years and then, right about the time we started the bike shop, just a little prior, we launched a software called EasyBoard, and that is actually the best thing we have going, just pure business wise right now, and that's nationwide.

Bill Von Bank:

now it's just easyboardcom and tell us more about EasyBoard. What's the function of it?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, basically it is a software for boards of directors nonprofits typically, but not always to manage board meetings, committees, documents, all the stuff related to board management. It makes it easier, faster, less headache and just better. We have customers in almost every 50, all 50 states and people really love it. Actually, that product was just awarded number one board platform in the whole country out of over 100 competitors just a couple weeks ago, and many of our competitors are very well-funded.

Bill Von Bank:

Congratulations.

Nate Nordstrom:

Nobody has an idea how small we are. We're like five people in Minnesota.

Bill Von Bank:

Well, I mentioned at the top that we are on location here at one of your New Spin shops, so let's take a deeper dive into the world of bikes.

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah.

Bill Von Bank:

And tell us why you opened New Spin.

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah. So I like to try new things. So I was looking online and kind of seeing, oh, e-bikes look kind of cool. And then I saw an electric cargo bike which allows you to haul your kids right on the back. And my wife and I at this point now have five kids.

Nate Nordstrom:

We didn't at the time but I thought that looks like a lot of fun and there's, you know, it's kind of miserable biking with a little kid that doesn't want to go very far and I mean it could be fun, but you're really not going to go on a big bike ride, You're just going to do a small little adventure and then you're done. So I bought an electric cargo bike actually bought two of them online and they were amazing. It was super fun. It was more fun than I would have imagined and my wife, for the first time, really enjoyed biking too, and it really changed our perspective of what a bike is. It's not just like you can go get some exercise or, if you're really dedicated hardcore, you can go commute on your bike. It became all of a sudden like an adventure, mobile and a legitimate transportation alternative for us. I can haul literally 200 pounds on the back of one of these cargo bikes, wow, and still get some exercise, but turn the assist up so that it basically the weight doesn't even feel like it's there. It was game changing.

Nate Nordstrom:

So um bought a couple of cargo bikes, experienced that and then started looking around and realized why does nobody sell these around here? None of the shops sold a bike like that around here, and in fact I looked around nationwide and realized most shops don't sell bikes like that. So I just started doing research, more and more research, and, being that I love to start new things. I just thought somebody's got to do this. And and the other thing was, everywhere we went around town, around Rochester, everybody would say I mean, it was near constantly. It was like if you drove a cyber truck these days. It was like where'd you buy that? Where'd you rent that? What is that thing? Can I try it?

Bill Von Bank:

And when was this?

Nate Nordstrom:

This was probably four, four to five years ago. Five years ago maybe.

Bill Von Bank:

So around 2019, 2020?. Um, it was probably 2018 okay, something like that, all right yeah and then, when did you open the shop? I think it was end of 2020, early 2021 so, more than just something that you and your family wanted her to do, you said okay, there's a business opportunity here for us yeah, I definitely thought that there was a business opportunity and I just I just love these things.

Nate Nordstrom:

They're awesome and when people try them they tend to agree. So I just thought somebody's got to do this and either we can wait for the market to catch up to some of these new innovations or we can just dive in and do it. And we decided to go all in and do it and now we have the exclusive rights to sell these brands. That's kind of like a car dealership a little bit Like. If you work with the brand and you do a good job for them, you own those rights for basically forever, until you're done.

Bill Von Bank:

So you sell traditional and e-bikes.

Nate Nordstrom:

Right, yeah, so when we were just, we had just announced we were going to open and within a couple weeks of that I don't remember if it was right before or right after the local giant dealer shut down. He retired, so we added giant bicycles to our fleet, and we have a couple other brands that sell regular bikes too, but adding giant was a big one. So, yeah, we have probably the largest, the widest selection of bikes in the whole state.

Bill Von Bank:

Wow. So tell us, give us kind of the difference between a traditional bike and an e-bike.

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, so basically, at the fundamental level, an e-bike has a motor and a battery. More specifically than that, there's different kinds of e-bikes. So, which is another thing I became fascinated by, I like to do research and I like to figure stuff out. So I started to realize that there was a lot of misinformation out there in the market, especially online. So we sell and service all different kinds of e-bikes. And just to kind of give you some more specificity, so there's technically three different classes of e-bikes one, two, three. Class one is 20 miles an hour. Uh, class two is 20 miles an hour, sorry, 20, yeah, 20 miles an hour with a throttle. Class three is 28 miles an hour, no throttle. So it kind of goes no throttle, throttle and then no throttle again. Um, why are those classes as they are? I don't really know, and I think part of it comes from european standards.

Nate Nordstrom:

And then also there are very, there's very wide ranges of quality of e-bikes. So you can get something straight from china. And not to knock on china, but like they in general are known for mass producing relatively low quality e-bikes, something that you might buy online from like rad power or blix bikes or there's a button, there's tons of other brands are almost always just straight from china. E-bikes, um, the quality of them and that was my first e-bike experience the quality is not great. They're fun, but you end up having some issues. And then you have some warranty issues and then you can't get help and support and then your battery warranty expired and, no sorry, you got to buy a whole new battery because it's dead now and just it gets expensive and kind of complicated fast. So then I kind of jumped into the world of higher end e-bikes, which typically have a Bosch drivetrain, but not always, and they're a lot nicer.

Bill Von Bank:

So you opened one shop northern part of Rochester and then now you have the second shop in the central part of the city. Two shops relatively close together and not long after one opened. Why two shops all of a sudden?

Nate Nordstrom:

Well, I've got that question before and I might be crazy Probably am the main goal of the central location. It is significantly smaller than the North Store. The North Store is our first store and we've got great storage like warehouse space there, like two levels of storage over there, big, huge pallet racks, a bunch of stuff. So we kind of use that as our warehouse and our main showroom. We also do almost all of our tricycle sales and service out of that location.

Nate Nordstrom:

The central location is really the concept is focused on more of the urban environment, commuters and people that live and work downtown. That is in my experience in Rochester over the past 14 or so years. There's kind of two Rochesters. There's people that live and work in the downtown area and they don't often go outside that bubble and there's people that live outside of that bubble and they don't often go into the bubble and I think that's changing a little bit, I think for the better, but that's just the reality. So I thought that it would be really cool to do a more urban thing focused on more the commuter, the cargo, bikes sort of thing and uh, so far that's proving to be true. Frankly, we could use more foot traffic, but uh, I think we're on the right track and it's been really fun.

Bill Von Bank:

How have you seen the demand for e-bikes change over the years?

Nate Nordstrom:

It's definitely like. So that was the other reason why I opened the shop, is I just? I talked to a lot of experts in the industry across the country and unanimously they would say the only growing parts of the market are e-bikes, and then, within that subcategory, now lately, tricycles. What do you know? Our numbers say exactly the same thing. It's e-bikes and trikes. Now again, we sell and service literally everything and we're very happy to do so, but yeah, it's mostly e-bikes and trikes.

Bill Von Bank:

And then, what types of customers are you seeing more of? Commuters, recreational riders or a mix of both?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, definitely a mix of both. I would say the number one audience that we serve is folks that are at or near retirement. As you might guess, they're the most interested in trying an e-bike and they also have a bit more budget essentially is what it comes down to and they have more leisure time. So we serve a lot of that market. Other markets that we serve frequently are commuters, families like myself and my wife Amy, that love our cargo bikes, and then the adaptive assistive folks, and that's a really exciting fun. Growing part of our business is folks that just need either extra stability or maybe modifications to a tricycle. And why I love that so much is because I mean, we've literally changed some people's lives. They hop on a trike and they're moving, they're getting exercise, they're having fun with their family, maybe for the first time ever, or the first time in many, many years. I've seen it multiple times and it's absolutely awesome.

Bill Von Bank:

Nate, in addition to selling bikes, you also rent bikes here, correct?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, we do. We just started renting bikes maybe a year and a half ago. We have a non-electric option that actually folds up and is easy to put apartment or hotel room if that's what you're staying at for Mayo, and then e-bikes as well. We find that folks when they come to Mayo particularly, and when they're staying for a couple weeks I mean, I would too you got to get out of the house, kind of thing they want something to do and they want to go explore. That ties right into the bike infrastructure around town and that is one of the other reasons why we opened a shop here is because, as the more I explored the trails you know I'm from Nebraska originally, but moving here and exploring the trails, I was really surprised how good the trails are here. There's trails all over the place.

Bill Von Bank:

Nearly a hundred miles of trails.

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, pretty near a hundred miles now, um, and it's getting better all the time, you know, and there's there's areas and places like little gaps and little things that could be improved, of course, but like that, stuff's getting fixed and, by and large, uh, this is a great biking community, uh, compared to most places in the country.

Bill Von Bank:

How do you engage with your customers and the community?

Nate Nordstrom:

So the biggest thing is events. So last year and this year we've kind of just gone all in on events. I mean, I don't have. We're a small, bootstrapped, family owned business. I don't have like massive ad dollars to put up billboards and things. Basically all of our dollars have gone into donating bikes to events around town and kind of being the grand prize or like fundraisers. That's been really good. And then my big green van, which you may have seen around town, I've seen you drive it.

Nate Nordstrom:

You've seen me drive it, hopefully, hopefully relatively well, but it is hilarious. I actually had somebody the other day say oh, I just saw one of your vans around town Like there's only one van, but it's my daily driver, like I don't have another vehicle, so it's a moving billboard. That's been one of the best investments we ever made was that van, and I love it because I can store everything in there and we go on big family road trips. But the third thing, going back to events, is we've done quite a few community events and that has really picked up steam.

Bill Von Bank:

Yeah, that has been fantastic for us and it just takes time and energy, but it doesn't really take any dollars. The state of Minnesota recently implemented an e-bike rebate program. How does that program work and are you a participating retailer?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, so we are an officially approved retailer with the state of Minnesota program. How does it work? Well, if you're wondering, you're already too late. So just a few days ago they relaunched the program. The first attempt at the launch, the website crashed literally instantly. I was on the website trying to just monitor how things were going and it hit 11 o'clock and it was dead.

Nate Nordstrom:

So they struggled to try to keep it up and it was dead. Yeah, 11 o'clock am and it was dead. So they struggled to try to keep it up and it was kind of up, down, up, down, up down and apparently a few people got through and then they ran the program again. So technically there's $2 million allocated this year and another $2 million allocated next year and it's a combination of first come, first serve. Whenever they announced the rebate opens and income based.

Nate Nordstrom:

Roughly 1300 folks got their certificate so far and they should have just found out in the last day or two, or they will shortly if they got the rebate, if they were selected, and then, depending on how many of those get redeemed, the state says in a month they may issue some more certificates. Basically, they just bring in that certificate to a shop. We have an online portal we can go, put in their certificate number and verify that it's still valid and then we apply that discount straight to the bike in person. So we have to get reimbursed from the state and they actually get the bike cheaper. It's up to $1,500. So they could walk out with an e-bike. It's specifically for e-bikes. So they could walk out with an e-bike. It's specifically for e-bikes.

Bill Von Bank:

They could walk out of the e-bike significantly cheaper. What are your future plans for a new spin bicycle shop and are there any new services or products on the horizon?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, good question. So we are just trying to stay consistent and grow what we have. We are also considering ways that we can further support commuters, potentially even bike washing. Having a bike washing station or bike washing service at our central store, which is where we see more of our commuter folks is kind of in this urban area of town. We're also looking at potentially doing more extensive like loyalty rewards programs just to try to build more of a loyal customer base. I mean, the reality is we've got a lot of really good customers, but there's also plenty of folks that will just go with the cheapest price wherever that is, and uh, that's, you know, online somebody that's going to sell it cheaper on Amazon. Usually it depends on what it is. There's a lot of stuff we sell that is exclusive to bike shops, but so that's a thing. And then, lastly, we are looking at well, we already ordered a bunch of disc golf discs, so we're going to do a disc golf just in a few weeks They'll be here, yep.

Nate Nordstrom:

So our new GM bill is kind of an expert on this stuff on disc golf and his son is really talented. So, yeah, we'll be doing disc golf. I even have some pickleball stuff here, but we'll see. We'll be doing disc golf. I even have some pickleball stuff here, but we'll see how that goes. I'm definitely looking for ways to experiment and I've thought we've talked internally about some crazy ideas, potentially at the North Store. The main thing is we need to figure out how to get more revenue in the winter. It's tough. Basically, you lose money all winter so you can make money in the summer and that's just not a great business.

Bill Von Bank:

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their own business?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, good question. So actually I was just talking to somebody about this yesterday too. I think the main thing I would do is assume that you're wrong. So a lot of times entrepreneur type minds like me and many other people you're an idea person. So you'll see something that you think is a problem and you'll come up with an idea. And then the trap that a lot of people fall into is they go build that idea and then they wonder why people don't show up to buy that idea. So what I've learned over the years is, instead of doing that, ask lots and lots of questions, find people with problems, uh, and resources to solve those problems without answers, and then just ask for the opportunity to help solve that problem. And usually you got to start cheap. You know it's a way to get easy, yes, and then as you start to develop your skills, then you can start to charge more. That'd be the main thing. And then the other thing I would say is don't build a business until you've proven the demand. And by proving the demand I don't mean ask some friends and family members what they think of the idea, I mean literally go get some customers.

Nate Nordstrom:

So, like for EasyBoard, we actually pre-sold that to a handful of customers. Before it was even a thing. It was literally just a napkin sketch and I just presented the idea and they liked it enough to actually write us a check. That gave me the sense that, okay, they're actually serious and they actually care about this problem enough and if we make it look good, they're going to like it even better. With the retail bike shop. I mean, it was basically just the fact that everywhere we went around town, people would say where'd you get that? Where'd you rent that? So I actually built an email list. I just decided to make a business card and I thought shoot, maybe we'll never do this idea, but I might as well start building an email list. So I had over a hundred people around town on an email list that I could email as a launch announcement when we opened the shop.

Bill Von Bank:

Smart. So what keeps you motivated and passionate about your work every day?

Nate Nordstrom:

Yeah, I just, I just love working on interesting things. I love doing things that make people's lives better. I love I mean, frankly, I think most people do but I love positive feedback.

Nate Nordstrom:

And we, uh, I think at the moment, um, we're the number one rated just based on per Google ratings, a bike shop in town and our easy board software. You know, just to head one, the number one board management software in the in the U S, number three in the world. So obviously we didn't start that way, but that's always encouraging and exciting and you try to pause for at least a few minutes to celebrate that with the team and then you get right back to work. But I just love doing things that make people's lives better. Yeah, it's, it's a lot of fun.

Bill Von Bank:

Nate Nordstrom great conversation today. It's been fun learning about your various entrepreneurial activities and especially the New Spin Bicycle Shop. Thanks for being our guest on the Growing Destinations podcast.

Nate Nordstrom:

Of course, if anyone's interested, you can find me all over the Internet or LinkedIn. Just look for Nate Nordstrom and you'll find me.

Bill Von Bank:

Thanks, nate. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast and don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.

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