The Retail Journey
Welcome to the Retail Journey where we will cover important topics, interview industry stakeholders, and address emerging trends as we journey through our mission of helping our listeners thrive in retail. Your hosts for this show are CEO James Harris and CGO Charles Greathouse.
The Retail Journey
Charting Retail Success Through Family Fun: Flybar's Andrew Mull
As we journey through the winding path of retail adventures, Andrew Mull, the savvy head of sales at Flybar, joins us to unravel his tapestry of experiences. His rise from Michigan's retail roots to the forefront of Walmart's sales floor is a story of grit, innovation, and a keen eye for what shoppers truly want. Through engaging tales, Andrew paints a picture of his transition from the foundational lessons at United Legwear to the thrill of capturing a Walmart buyer's attention with a unique baby company venture he started with his wife.
In an industry where the giants often overshadow the up-and-comers, Andrew's insights are golden nuggets for anyone eager to carve out their own success story. He brings to light the formidable challenge of introducing a premium brand into the mass market, revealing the behind-the-scenes strategies, and the relentless persistence required to thrive. Andrew's narrative serves as a beacon for budding entrepreneurs, highlighting the joy found in creating products that resonate with customers' sense of fun and delight.
Closing the loop, we step behind-the-scenes into Andrew's personal world of tastes and music. His preference for the beats of R&B and rap adds another layer to the multifaceted life of a retail maestro. Reflecting on the exhilarating sprint to launch a new children's bumper car at Walmart, Andrew leaves us with a sense of awe at the pace and passion required to turn a simple idea into a reality that brings joy to the aisles and to children's lives. Join us for an episode that's as much about the rhythm of business as it is about the music of life.
Hello and welcome back to the retail journey podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Charles Greathouse and I'm James Harris, and today we're talking to Andrew Moll, head of sales for the sporting goods and toy company Flybar. Welcome, andrew, thank you. How's it going?
Speaker 3:guys.
Speaker 2:Going really well. I've been looking forward to this conversation, as you know, for my four or five months of trying to find a time where it worked, and now it's working. You're a first remote podcast, so this is exciting Welcome to always like to spin it.
Speaker 3:I always like to put a spin on things for you there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels like we're back in 2020 trying something new. It's different, but I'm into it.
Speaker 2:So we're not in our pajamas this time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got real pants on today. Yeah, that's great. Well, andrew.
Speaker 2:I've gotten to know you over the last few years and you've got one of the most fascinating retail stories you know not to diminish the life story, which is pretty fascinating too, but just where you started, what you've done, how you've pivoted. I'm really excited to dig into that. You want to maybe start out with your background. How'd you get into retail at all?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, so both my parents worked at Meyer in Michigan where I grew up, lived in Michigan for 21 years of my life, so always was a part of retail. Mom and dad had me in the offices a lot, so just kind of like embedded in my blood I guess. And you know, through high school was, you know, always out doing fun stuff. I really care about school and that really stayed true through college. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:You know it was very consistent with that and I've learned that life and didn't know what to do, didn't know you know what I wanted to do, where to go, anything. So actually moved to New York City. My dad had moved there but I moved for an opportunity to work at United Legwear Legwear Company, hojri Socks, they did Puma, error, walk, a bunch of other brands Now they're massive now. So I had the opportunity. I was let's see, it was 2007,. Six 2007 when I moved there I was like 21 years old. So for every time to be in Manhattan and I learned everything about retail and wholesale and that's basically where the guts of everything that I learned, foundation that I built and stand on and the ethics that were instilled. And Isaac Ash, the owner of that company, was the best and it still is, you know, one of the best mentors I've ever had.
Speaker 3:That led me to California for a while just working random wholesale jobs and things like that, and through that baby company, my dad had done something over in New York again and I decided to move back. So I'm just moving back and forth again, just not knowing what I want to do. Yeah, yeah, living, living the fun life, if you will. And then when I moved back to New York, new Jersey my wife now at the time girlfriend, fiance we decided that we were going to do New Jersey for a while, built a little business with my father, ended up doing our own thing. My wife and I we started a baby company and that baby company was based off the Rattle Sox. We saw a void in the, in the in baby. We were having a child, our first, and we were, you know, just indulged in everything baby and we saw Rattle Sox like what a cool thing it would be. So we built a company on that.
Speaker 3:So socks at Rattle, yeah, exactly, yep, and basically man, any format you can think of golf, space, football, aliens, I mean we went, we went to the extreme with it. We put got it in Nordstrom. It was a very high end brand, if you will. You know two pair of socks and a beautiful gift box. We wanted it to be very premium. So we were in gosh. You know 1000 Mountain Pop stores through the through internationally and over five years this was built that company up and our ride on, inflatable ride on, is what we got noticed for by the buyer at the time at Walmart and he brought me in and loved it and from there on, like Walmart was my life. I knew at that point like I wanted to figure out Walmart in the biggest way possible and that was that was the goal and that basically led me to my next adventure with 5R.
Speaker 2:So you said that that's what made the buyer notice you. So the merchant reached out to you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it was. I had been pitching for a while, showing this product and really getting no attention, you know, probably not the right person at the right time, and I had seen that there was some competition up there. And you know we had started, you know, kind of. We had started this product line ourselves and really had a lot of passion into it and creativity, so that buyer saw that like, so they saw the uniqueness in us. So it was basically how do we bring a very, you know, a special team out in the pop brand at you know, a higher retail to mass? And that was the challenge, you know, and trying not to hurt you know what I've built, in a sense, with my my hosiery line, socks and other accessories, so that that item, though, took us to the next level, and we figured that, we figured out how to do it. That's really cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So you went coast to coast to coast, maybe a couple of times you started in the middle, and then you've landed in the middle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so we were. We started like I said, my wife and I grew up in Michigan. We moved to Cal. I moved to New York first, and then we moved to California together, back to New Jersey together, back to California together, and now we are in Arkansas, hopefully for a while.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no doubt it's not a bad place to be.
Speaker 3:Well, Walmart.
Speaker 1:Walmart is a I mean it's been. It's an awesome place to get to build you know business. It's an awesome culture here in North West Arkansas. I've never spent a ton of time around Meyer but as a merchant had a ton of admiration for how Meyer operated. It kind of feels like there's quite a few analogies between you know how we moved to similar. You grew up with a sort of Meyer background and then getting here into the Walmart world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, definitely, and it's a lot of the same culture honestly, like living in in Sanerton, batonville area, right, you get that like nostalgic vibe of you know Sam Wall and and that was very much so in Grand Rapids, michigan, with Fred and Lena Meyer. They were very connected to the company. Their kids, you know, still are to this day and you know they've built a great business around it. Great, you know format and they did it well and, yeah, it definitely is is a retailer to look at and and they've done it well. Yeah, it's definitely helped me through the years look at things differently for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean a lot of folks are try to sell something to Walmart, hit that, no response, no interest, which it sounds like you hit and you kept hitting it and then you persevered. I mean, can you, can you talk to us about the, the mental state there? What's your wife and you, your company, your baby, all the?
Speaker 3:puns intended.
Speaker 1:And then you know, pursuing Walmart, not necessarily getting it, and then eventually getting into Walmart. Tell us about it.
Speaker 3:Yes, so it was really. It was tough. You know, like that first one is like one it's. You know, I had some experience with masks coming from New York, but I had been focused on specialty and that's where we built the business. So, you know, get into that mindset again. You know you got. You have to put that hat back on. You know, it's persistence. Honestly, I think that persistence really is the biggest one that I've found in in, you know, timing. You know, is it early in the morning, is it on a Monday? Is it on the Tuesday, wednesday? Kind of learning the pattern and schedule. And that's what. Literally, we dissected it. You know, we found that we were getting responses on Tuesdays versus Mondays and vice versa, and we played it and we even even did the attempt of hey, literally we flew there. We're here, we're here for other appointments.
Speaker 3:you know I love it so much that whole game right and like.
Speaker 2:I was at that today. Yeah, it worked out once.
Speaker 3:It didn't work out. It didn't work out one time.
Speaker 1:It worked out once.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, but different tactics, but I personally believe persistence, like honestly persistence and just making sure that you're offering the best, keeping it short and simple and sweet. You know, don't give them a novel like that. That's what I've learned. I, especially with this, is short, sweet, bullet, like to the point, bullet points. Come on, don't have time, man. Everyone's busy For sure.
Speaker 2:Well, and you didn't just persevere in it with another email or phone call selling the same thing. That didn't get their interest. The last time you persevered with innovation and that got that, got the result.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, there was a. You know there was competition on the floor and we showcased that we were better, we could do it at, you know, equally or better price and better packaging, better visual and in the bar at the time believed in it. And you know, we proved it and you know, through that, through that path, is what got Flybar to recognize my little company, waddle, if you will. And yeah, to that next level is where it went.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, what advice would you give to yourself, you and your wife, the early stage entrepreneur or pursuing white space with a massive retailer? What's the advice you give, knowing what you know now?
Speaker 3:Knowing what I know now, the best advice would be it takes time and you have to under, you have to mentally consume it that it's going to take time. It's not going to happen overnight and an email may not come in and a phone call may not happen. But you just have to keep believing that, like it's going to happen, you will get through. At some point in time Someone will respond, which I believe Walmart hands down through my experiences is one of the best retailers in responding Eventually, whether that's immediately or not, everyone's different. But don't give up and literally don't read into it.
Speaker 2:Just keep pushing yeah, there's a human on the other side of that email or phone call that might have a few things going on. Take us into current day. You started at a single item in Walmart, other items elsewhere. You got a little bit different portfolio that you manage sales for now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So on five are amazing company, amazing owner, saul Wall-Henler. He acquired five are original Pogo stick company. So the company was built on Pogo sticks, 100 year old company itself. Saul's been running it for the last seven to eight years, I believe, and through that time it was Pogo stick and innovation and so on and so forth. But Saul likes to travel. Saul is always looking for the next thing and he was in China and saw some production being run of the animal hoppers that were headed into Walmart and he said he was blown away that a small supplier like myself had gotten into Walmart. So we had one of his members of the team reach out to me and when I first got the call I didn't really think much of it and months later we ended up connecting. But that's how he had found me. And then next steps was he wanted to bring me on board. How do we can I, he acquire? What does that look like? You know a certain different situation. So we started that adventure.
Speaker 2:That's really cool and the thing I admire most about FlyBars and organization is Pogo sticks are iconic toy like such a cool toy. But a lot of times companies can get stuck in the thing that used to be cool. You know that it still is, but it isn't quite the cultural phenomenon it once was. But you all are now in quite a few new categories, both sporting goods and toys, that are really cool.
Speaker 2:And like front, front of front. So how has that transp-? I'm sure, at some point after Saul came into the business, that there had to be some transformation to take place to even be able to pursue innovation outside of what you've been doing, sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Saul was big on finding, you know, companies to acquire, to kind of build the foundation, which you know in hindsight is an amazing idea right, and it worked into his favor. With this, he had, you know, swerfer, which is an outdoor brand, a really premium line of swings and different types of Swerff in the air. So Swerffing and Swerffing in the air type of deal. That was Saul's first company. Then came Kim Waddle, my company, and then after that was a few other brands and licensing in between, and so all of those things kind of compiled and in turn we expanded the portfolio.
Speaker 3:So how do you compliment the PogoStick? And it was masters of bounce. You know we want to be the masters of bounce because PogoStick you bounce hoppers, you're bouncing on. And so we identified all the items that would fit into our world that made sense and started to establish, you know, business around that. So I did a great job of establishing an item on Amazon. It was PogoHopper and the thing has a bazillion reviews. I mean it is literally like the. It's crazy it has so many reviews and that we got it into Walmart by using you know the reviews of that. So it's just we different product lines you've been able to get into and it's been super fun, and that's led now from sporting goods all the way down to the RC, so it's a different product every day. I believe that five are. There's nothing we won't look at, but we try to focus more on the outdoor sporting and power ride on foot to floor items, if you will. Awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I know several merchants that got to start their careers and in the space like this, I got my first buying desk. I got to buy adult incontinence. Just a different experience. I got to leave. I have friends that were buying video games, getting to play games, getting to play with toys, and I'm just helping America not leak so much. It's a very different view.
Speaker 2:You need the product. You're grateful for it.
Speaker 1:I mean you can just about get passionate about anything when you're buying, to what Walmart stands for helping people save money and live better, like there's a significant amount of living better. That goes on because of that category and what it means, but you seem to have found yourself in areas that are really fun.
Speaker 1:And you get masters of bounce, like what an awesome, like, yeah, let's go look for things that are gonna make you bounce, gonna have fun. I mean even like behind you we've got Bowser, we've got a couple of really cool things going on. It just seems like you've found yourself in a situation to get to have fun and then bring fun to life as a career. Like, what advice do you have to the kids out there that are thinking their options are you know? Yeah, Right.
Speaker 3:I mean I definitely have found my fun spot right. If you will, I'm a kid at heart. I'm a huge boy collector in a sense. Love Lego, so you know the interest is what drove me.
Speaker 3:You know I love, you know, when it was always the interest right like we were having kids and it was baby and we were so indulged in it and, you know, created amazing products. Because you live it, you're experiencing it in the moment, you know what's working, what's not working. Well, you know what should happen, what so on and so forth. So it's been a cool journey through finding you know the home right. What's my retail home or supplier home? And I was lucky enough to kind of spin it off baby into toy and then a toy company found me, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, get to grow with your kids too, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like go after it Like. I think if I would have had more guidance through retail or, you know, in today's world, social media. You know back 10, 15 years ago, like you know, you didn't know anything about anything.
Speaker 2:Oh, trade magazines at best, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So like I would say, go for it, because like you can do it right. Like if you want to work for Hasbro, if you want to work for Matel, if you want to work for MGA, you want to, you know, do something at a smaller level Disney licensing you can do it. Like there's opportunities, there's ways to do it. You just have to put the work in, like that's up. Like I think that's the biggest, that would be my biggest thing is put the work in. It's worth it, it pays off. It's hard but, man, like if you don't put the work in, it's not going to happen. So you got to believe in it. Put that work in and stuff will start to happen.
Speaker 1:I feel like that same advice applies to merchants. There's some things where it's like, hey, the category is where it is and it's going where it's going, and well, if you put the work in, you can really change trajectory.
Speaker 1:You can bring excitement, maybe not overnight but overnight, and it's not going to be yeah for sure not overnight and there's going to be no's, many no's along the way of like nope, can't do that, or you're going to have to say no to things that just don't fit in the strategy. But actually going for it, I feel like I don't think I've ever regretted going for it. You either learn a ton about why it wasn't right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like don't let the no's deter you, like let them encourage you, like that's how I got it. Like when I was told no, like all right, cool, that's another challenge. So how do we change that?
Speaker 2:But yeah, so you have a unique experience of, you know, having been a co-owner of a brand doing business at Walmart, but being the face of the company to Walmart that was a, you know, small business. Now you're the face of a much larger business to Walmart. How do the two compare in terms of working with Walmart small and much larger?
Speaker 3:Both really stressful, I would say Honestly. I think you know, in my mind, in my mind personally, less stress because I work for someone, I don't work for myself, and I think that that's the biggest thing Me. I was kind of I was thrown into ownership in a sense. I didn't want ownership, I didn't want to run a company and financials and profit and loss and balance that's not me, like I never. I hated it. And that's where really fly bar compliments because Saul is that he loves that stuff. So that was never my world.
Speaker 3:That was the hardest part is managing people, managing money, plus trying to figure it all out, right, like you're running your company. And then you're also like trying to figure out how to get product and sell and you know merchandise, market, blah, blah, blah. Working for fly bar it's a whole new set of challenges, right Like it's responsibilities, being accountable. You know performance, making sure you know there's numbers to hit, maintaining your ability and relationships in an environment that's ever changing. You know, like making sure that that you know how do you do that the best way and not lose your footing.
Speaker 3:So it's just a lot of different types of challenges, I would say, you know equally are stressful. I don't know if one's better than the other. I personally like the fly bar side just because yeah, I never want to manage money. I was never interested in it. So I like talking to people and you know, figuring out things, products merchandising that's what I love.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you mentioned working for Saul, and I've been in the room with both of you and seeing the way you work together and compliment one another is really it's really pretty powerful. But you also are both focused on product development. That's kind of the place where you're both involved and then you've got. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So like Saul, I should say I'm involved in product development because I put myself there. You weren't invited, Right? It's the same with Saul and to a certain degree, we're both our worst enemies. That's what I love about Saul. He loves product and so do I, and that's where him and I just like it's explosive when we're together. You know, find a new thing or find or go on a tangent over something crazy. It's always super exciting and energetic with Saul on that front. So yeah, we would definitely share the passion for product, but they like to keep us out of there in certain times because we tend to add a lot more work.
Speaker 2:Yeah right. Yeah but you got to pick what's going to win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard at least bits of a story about you know taking something from concept to reality and short periods of time. You probably have a couple examples, but you know, tell us about, you know, the journey when the retail journey ends up getting really short. Yeah, it's time to execute.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's always fun when something like that happens or it's an opportunity, right. And you know, we had seen, we had been monitoring an item a bumper, car, a six volt that had been in the market and we Walmart has their eyes on it. Yeah, a lot of everyone really did at the time and we were challenged with getting the item in store in insane short period of time. It was basically about a four month period, three to four months at most. Once we started, once we got the details and started running like that's what we were going into production almost like immediately. So it was really, it was fun, it was awesome, it was very stressful. You know there's a lot of things you got to get done on the Walmart side to make sure that the item can flow through the process. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:And you know, on the supplier side, where you know we have to check all of our boxes and make sure that you know this product can roll and do all the things it needs to do compliantly. And it was a challenge but we accomplished it. And what it did is it took an open stock item that was on the market and that business and that quick reaction and that quick speed to market got us the opportunity to develop a very unique bumper car that only Walmart has. It's exclusive to them, the silhouette of it, and we based it off of a retro vibe with a modern twist and it's been a hit and we've grown substantially. It's an amazing item. It's really I like to look at it as a ride on that never existed for the market.
Speaker 3:Really Right Back when I, when my kids were you know three and one and or seven and ten, like they rode the mini quads and you know the four, six volts that you know are for outside. Really they have no turn radius. Well, bumper car has a full 360 turn radius. So we've brought an item to the market um, one that would not bring them to the market. We've we've provided the item abroad. Basically everyone has access to it to an item that they can fit in their home and use every day and bring it outside and still have fun. It's universal, um, it can navigate, you know, the hallways. It can navigate the living room space. Um, it can run into furniture and that hurt it. It's got bumpers, so it's really just a super universal in-home product. Um, that that resonates very well with the one to four age group.
Speaker 2:So it was a hit and and five are executed it well and um, we've been, we've been doing great with it and that's also so much fun a strong item I mean, I believe I had a conversation with you maybe a year or so ago and I think I asked you something about your process for product innovation and you I don't recall exactly what you said, but we're looking to create joy, do?
Speaker 3:you remember, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we put putting smiles on kids faces, you know, like that's what, that's what we want, we want, we want to bring them to smiles. Like, if you're not smiling when you get a five-hour product, then you know we didn't accomplish or we didn't, we didn't do our job right. So, um, every product, you know that that we leave, that leaves our building.
Speaker 2:We, we want smiles yeah, that's a lot of fun. All right, I think, uh, I think we're time, or it's time, for our lightning round. Just a handful of questions that uh, uh, we we ask most people that are on here. Um, first one we we'd like to lean into failure, or at least to do so quickly and learn from it.
Speaker 3:So watch your biggest retail fail that you're willing to share oh sure, u p, c, u p c, that good old check digit man, if you don't know you there you go get that, that's fun.
Speaker 3:There's a useful tip to anyone out there make sure you know your u p c's. That was a very, very uh uh novice error that's a mistake. You make one time you, you do right and then you never do it again. And we did um, it was fixable, uh, thank god, um, but it was terrifying when you walk into the store and you grab your item first time ever oh, no, ever. You're walking up and I just wanted to see it say pink unicorn, right 1499, and it said nothing oh, not on fun I called my good friend at the time and I was like what does this mean?
Speaker 3:and he said you are screwed it means not good, yeah, so uh the god, the buyer was very awesome.
Speaker 1:We got it all fixed and uh it was a great learning experience but those it hurts there's a bunch of. I mean, there are others out there that have experienced this pain, and there's some things you just you can't learn till you're in store. That's one you can check beforehand.
Speaker 2:I've experienced that my heart rate has changed and I'm sweating from totally 12 years or whatever.
Speaker 1:Uh, terrifying, maybe more recent biggest learning from 2023 biggest learning from 2023?
Speaker 3:um, follow up quicker. I think time goes. Time is going by too quick. Yeah, I think there's opportunities being missed by the day. Um, with the speed of everyone's movement and how social media and everything works, like the trends go fast and everything happens fast and you just you have to, you gotta move quick. Like that is that is my biggest thing move fast yeah, and what um?
Speaker 2:what are you most excited about for this year? Year?
Speaker 3:most excited is glow um led. Glow like look fly bar, you'll see it. We got some fun stuff, but led is a big part of our, of our future um in the product lineup, so we're super excited about that one.
Speaker 2:It makes everything better yeah add light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's lit you're welcome literally awesome books or content like what's on your listening or reading list man, I am a non reader, which is terrible.
Speaker 3:My wife does that all for me. Well enough for both of us. I should say I'm, I'm, uh, man, I'm, oh, I'm a. I'm a chris brown guy like which is really crazy to say because I'm 38 and I feel like that's very juvenile but, um, I'm a rap, I'm a, like a r&b rap guy at art right. Um, yeah, that's that's andrew that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Well, man, I appreciate you doing this so much. I've been looking forward to this for a long time I appreciate it, thank you and I appreciate everybody for uh listening to the retail journey. We invite you to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode, and you can find all of our episodes on high impact analytics dot com.
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