Nathan Hadley - Corvette Realm | Ep: 3

In this episode, we sit down with Nathan Hadley, the owner of Corvette Realm, to talk about his journey from being a car enthusiast to running a thriving e-commerce business in the automotive industry. Nathan shares how his love for cars led him to the world of selling parts, the challenges of launching an online store, and how automating inventory management helped him scale from just 200 to over 80,000 parts.

But that's not all—Nathan is also building a race team, using motorsports as a unique way to market his business and connect with customers. He dives into the power of sponsorships, industry networking, and finding the right partners to succeed in both racing and e-commerce. Whether you're in the automotive business or just love cars, this episode is packed with insights on marketing, scaling, and standing out in a competitive market.

Key Takeaways:

• From Hobby to Business – His passion for track driving inspired him to start selling parts.
• Scaling with E-Commerce – Transitioning online helped him grow inventory from 200 to 80,000 parts.
• The Power of Automation – Automating inventory was a game-changer for balancing business and family.
• Marketing Lessons Learned – Early efforts lacked focus, but refining his approach led to better results.
• Racing as Marketing – Building a race team has helped boost brand visibility.
• Sponsorship & Partnerships – Collaborating with manufacturers has opened doors for growth.
• Shop-in-a-Box Advantage – This tool streamlined operations and made scaling easier.
• Know Your Audience – Selling car parts? Go where car guys are!
• Plan for Success – Whether in racing or e-commerce, strategic planning is key.
• Networking Matters – Events like SEMA offer valuable business connections.

Guest Bio:

Founded in 2020 during the pandemic, Miata Realm began as a small online retailer specializing in Corvette and Camaro parts, initially selling on Amazon. As demand grew, the business expanded to Walmart and eBay before launching its own website in late 2022 with Data Here to There’s Shop in a Box, enhancing product offerings and customer engagement.

Now, Miata Realm is gearing up for its next chapter—launching a powersports website in January with DH2T. In addition to e-commerce, the company has ventured into motorsports, forming a race team to compete in SCCA and NASA Time Trials. They are currently collaborating with brands for race team and car sponsorships, further solidifying their presence in the performance and racing community.

Guest:

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Hosts:
Barry Alt, Motorhead Digital

• maximizesales@motorheaddigital.com

Brennan Christman, Data-Here-to-There

• brennan@dataheretothere.com

Jay Funnell, Data-Here-to-There

• jay@dataheretothere.com

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Transcript

Welcome to Year, Make, Model, Money! The auto parts e-commerce podcast by Data Here-to-There. In each episode, we break down the key trends, challenges, and opportunities in the aftermarket parts industry and e-commerce from interviews with industry leaders to tips on streamlining your business. We'll give you the knowledge to stay competitive in today's market.

Barry: It's time to take your business to the next level with Year, Make, Model, Money! Welcome everyone. I'm Barry Alt, Motorhead Digital, and my co-host is Brennan Christman from Data Here-to-There. We're excited to kick off this episode of the Year, Make, Model, Money! podcast by Data Here-to-There. Today we're thrilled to have Nathan Hadley as our guest.

Barry: Nathan is an owner of Corvette Realm and many other businesses. A Data Here-to-There customer, starting with the Shop-in-a-Box e-commerce site product. Welcome Nathan. 

Nathan: Thanks for having me. 

Brennan: All right. So Nathan, for a bit of a kickoff, I always like to get to know the people that I'm chatting with here on the podcast. Best way to do that with car guys is - what was your first car or your first fun car, when did you get it and what'd you like or hate about it? 

Nathan: So my, my first car was a 1991 Plymouth Acclaim with a V6 engine. It lasted all of 10 days. I grew up in the country and got run off the road and flipped it five times on day 10. And then promptly went back to riding the school bus for a while and then ended up with a Dodge Ram minivan that was a DuPont carpet van before that. My first fun car and the first car that I actually bought myself was a 1991 Eagle Talon TSI.

Brennan: Oh, that's awesome.

Nathan: I had a lot of fun with that. That was when I really started tinkering with the car, you know, doing small upgrades to boost, turbo upgrades. Didn't really get to suspension yet, but wanted it to go fast.

Brennan: Yeah, absolutely. Was it the all wheel drive one or the front wheel drive one?

Nathan: No, it was the all wheel drive.

Barry: Oh, really? That's nice.

Brennan: Fantastic.

Nathan: Probably not what an 18 year old needed, but-

Brennan: No, absolutely. Yeah. My first fun car back when I was an 18 year old, I can just barely outdo you. I got this fantastic corporate job, like right after high school. And I went out and I was still living at home working this fantastic job, making a great salary. So I did the best 18 year old thing you can do. I went out and bought an AMG Mercedes used, a couple of years old, some kilometers on it, but 6.2 naturally aspirated V8, like 507 horsepower, thing was a rocket ship. And I was very stupid in that but, you know, no issues luckily. I actually looked at an Eagle Talon recently, a couple of years ago. I was really tempted to buy it. Somebody had one up just for a thousand dollars. I'm like, perfect project car. And somebody snagged it right before I got to it.

Barry: I don't know a lot about those who made Eagle Talons. Was it Eagle? Was it American Motors or was it something else?

Nathan: That was made by Eagle. But it was called DSM or Diamond Star Motors. It was a collaboration between Eagle, Plymouth, and Mitsubishi. So there was the Mitsubishi Eclipse, the Plymouth Laser, and then the Eagle Talon.

Barry: Okay, yeah, now I remember. It's all coming back to me. My first car was a 63 Rambler Ambassador Station. My first fun car was a 340 Duster, 73 340 Duster, 4 speed car, which I wish I still had.

Brennan: Ha ha ha. That’s awesome.

Barry: Yeah it was a fun car back then. We painted the rear ends a flat white. We put lights up underneath and lit up the rear ends kind of old, but now they put all the LEDs and stuff. So I guess we were way ahead of our times, right? But Nathan, tell us how you got started in the automotive aftermarket. Really, how did you get into selling parts online, e-commerce, things like that. Did you work in a shop before? How did you get into that?

Nathan: So originally when I was 19 I had started to get into cars and had drawn up plans with a couple of friends that we were going to open a shop locally. We had put together logos, all of this, and then realized we didn't have the money to fund it, and that promptly went away and, y’know, life went on

Barry: Damn money!

Brennan: Geez.

Nathan: Yeah! So in 2019 a friend of mine that also has a Corvette convinced me that I should come out to Summit Point Racetrack with him. So I went out the first time and did a ride along a couple times in the Corvette. And went out and purchased a Miata, just a couple thousand dollar Miata that I could drive on track and see if it was really what I wanted to do. And after that first weekend, the grin on my face took about three weeks to go away. And my wife looked at me and said, you should go book more of those, but find a way to pay for it. So then I started coming up with ideas and I've had an affinity for cars for years. So I decided what better than to start a parts business. So I, I started doing my research from there, you know, looking around, I found Turn 14. I originally got rejected from Turn 14 because I didn't have a commercial space. But they continued to work with me and we found a way around it or to meet their intent.

Barry: Oh, good. Cause I thought that was a major requirement that they didn't usually.

Nathan: Yeah. I think I kind of wore him down. I kept calling and going, all right, if we do this, does that meet your requirement? And finally they relented and let me get a registered office space. That I could call my commercial space. And then after a couple of years of proven sales, they let me kind of dump that space and go to being a little more mobile. We talk about setting up a shop every now and then, but in Northern Virginia there's a lot of shops around here and not sure we're going to get there.

Brennan: Yeah. Hot rod shops are a dime a dozen in that general area. And then not to mention real estate is such a massive expenditure for a business, rent or a lease is insane. It's such a huge overhead, right? 

Barry: Hosting overhead or rent. It's kind of a no brainer at some point, right?

Nathan: Especially if your virtual space is doing really well.

Brennan: Right. So, uh, recently when you've been moving into that online space and, you know, making the most of it you went with us with a Shop-in-a-Box option. So what drew you to that and what made you think that was the right way to go for you?

Nathan: So for me, I was originally trying to do everything myself. So I had found Shopify and started a page and was trying to take parts off Turn 14 and manually load them in. And I think I got to around 150 or 200 parts that I was manually checking inventory and prices and uploading daily. And quickly realized that that was not going to work in the longterm. I have two children and a wife that enjoy seeing me and, you know, spending hours updating a couple of hundred parts of inventory every night was not the way I wanted to go. Plus it cut down on a lot of the car time. So I actually started talking to a couple of different companies. I actually talked to Dan at Turn 14, who runs their API. And I started looking at, okay, how do I get access to the API? I have a little bit of technical skills and considered trying to build out an integration to work with their API myself, and I quickly realized that I did not want to do that either.

Nathan: So I had originally started with a different API integrator. And then after a trial with them that did not work out I went back and talked to Dan because he was very careful not to show favoritism towards any of the people. And then after the failed attempt, we had a really good conversation and he kind of steered me towards you guys. He gave me a lot of great stories about you guys, spoke highly of your customer service, your Shop-in-a-Box options, and just how your integration was seamless. They have not had any real issues. And that was kind of what led me to you guys. So I built the first website through you guys in 2021.

Nathan: I worked with Alexandra and it was an amazing process. It went really smooth. There were a couple extra questions I had on how to, you know, tweak some of the inventory, how to get rid of some of the special items which she went above and beyond and cleared all of those issues for me. And I've had an amazing site since. And even when I've run into little issues on the website, I've gone back to you guys and you've been happy to help me wherever I've needed it. So it's just been a great experience.

Brennan: That’s awesome.

Barry: I'm still learning how Shop-in-a-Box works and some of the other tools that Data Here-to-There has, but that really solved your problem with the inventory, right? Cause it's pulling everything in from Turn 14 that you want on your website, including dealing with pricing and things like that, right? You're more automated, right?

Nathan: Yes, everything's automated. So they have a Turn 14 integration app, which they've set up through Shopify and it pulls inventory, pricing, sets map pricing to make sure that I stay compliant with all the manufacturers and stay out of trouble. And it updates those daily to the website. It pulls in all of the descriptions. It will pull pictures if you want it to, or as you start to update or change some of your pictures or tweak it, you can change those settings to restrict what it does there so that it won't overwrite any special things you've done. But we went from doing 150, 200 parts in inventory to around 80,000 parts in inventory that we were able to list primarily what you see on the front end of the Web page is a lot of Corvettes and Camaros, but, there are a lot of other brands and products in the back end that are still available through the connections to Google and some of those SEO links.

Barry: Gotcha. Are you able to still use all the features of Shopify, the coupon codes and any marketing tools they have? I know they connect to some email marketing tools and other things like that. You're still able to do all that, right?

Nathan: Correct. So the Shop-in-a-Box is a theme setup, so it still lets us use all of the regular Shopify tools. All the add in pieces. It just manages, like I said, the inventory levels, the price, the content, though we have some say in how it manages the content. So we still use our email marketing program through Shopify. We use an SEO add in. As well on Shopify. And then we're now using a bundle program through Shopify.

Nathan: So we can take the work that Data Here-to-There did with their integration and put those inventories into custom bundles for brake kits, suspension kits. We're just general maintenance kits that we're gonna start offering next month. We're gonna start putting those together to try to make it as easy as possible for the enthusiasts that need to - okay, we're, we wanna winterize our car, we want to get all our maintenance done at one time. Great. Here's one simple thing you can buy so you don't have to worry about it.

Barry: Oh, cool.

Brennan: Just one item, add to cart and you've got all the bits and bobs you need and all those small stuff that people forget. Like, I know I've seen the idea of an oil change kit where you get the right oil. You know, exact amount of it and you get your filter and you get your crush washer and everything. You need to get it all done. So it's the same kind of idea for winterization kit, right?

Nathan: Yep. Especially with the brake packages. It's okay. Here's what we found for, you know, track usage, either with rotors or, you know, DBA rotors, Hawk brake pads, or, you know, some of the other brake pads, kind of putting those things together with the braided lines. Here's your one quick kit. So you don't have to worry about it, especially for the new folks. We've already done the research, take advantage of it.

Brennan: Absolutely, man. If there's a package like that available for the car I have now, I'm actually hoping to get out on the track with my car this year, this coming year, that would be perfect. That's exactly what I'm looking for - like,  rotors and pads and stuff like that. And then I'm going to need some better tires because my tires suck right now. I know a lot about cars, but all of my knowledge comes from the stock side of things. I know everything about cars when they're sold brand new from the manufacturer, right? I know horsepower numbers, I know car figures, and I know which cars are good for the track. Out of the box kind of thing. But when it comes to modifying, I'm still kind of learning. So as somebody who's getting into that side of things with a car that's still mostly stock at the moment, aside from an exhaust, looking to get into track work and stuff like that, where somebody has already done all the research and they're like, look, I know everything about these cars. This is what you need to get started on the track. This is everything. Have at it. That would be perfect. So I totally, totally love your idea there.

Nathan: Thank you.

Barry: Yeah, that's pretty cool. That helps, that helps the confusion of people putting stuff in ecommerce store carts and a lot of abandoned carts, because it's like, I don't really know if that's what I need. So this will definitely help with that. So Shop-in-a-Box also brings you a theme, a look and a feel that can be tweaked, correct?

Nathan: Yes, sir. So we've made a few tweaks. There are a lot of customizable pages. There are feature brands we can do. So we've done sections at the top for featured products for the month where we can change that around to show those we have a feature brand list. So, starting this year, we're actually working with a couple of manufacturers to try to run specific specials. So we'll be doing feature brands with months and their setup allows us to customize that to put those feature brands up front. Just gives us a lot of options between header, footer and then the different setup in the middle of the page as well.

Barry: What do you do now that you have more free time? To focus on other things. Are you spending more time on marketing the business to drive that traffic through it, whether it's through social media, email marketing, other things like that, paid advertising?

Nathan: So we did very poorly in the beginning and I think we've made about every mistake you can think of along the way. So, you know, we ran -starting out- we ran Google ads without any real targeting or knowledge of Google ads and blew some money there. You know, we've tried, we did social media without understanding how to properly do social media. So if you go back through some of our Instagram, you will see quite a few errors in the beginning. And it was also very much a scattered approach of, okay, we're going to try to do as many things as possible and realize that that was not good. It's better to do a few things well than to do a lot of things poorly. And be very consistent.

Barry: Look at the metrics, look at the data, things like that. You need to understand what's working, what's not and adjust, right? And sometimes you have to bring in other people if that's what they do all the time. As you said, you tried to figure it out as you- when you first built a site. So there's other opportunities there in the marketing world too, where you can, if you need it, there are people out there that can help you out with that kind of stuff too.

Nathan: Yep. So we, like I said, we put a small SEO tool into our Shopify page that- yeah. So it's Avada SEO, but it does image compression to help the pages load faster and then just tweak some of the minor things to kind of improve our ratings there. And then we also started a race team this year for 2025 to add to our marketing. And that's where a lot of our focus is going is using that as well as the business to start working more with manufacturers. And we have a couple now that we'll hopefully have some sponsorships to announce within the next month or two.

Barry: That was one of the things that you had submitted about that. And I wanted to ask you about that. Are you driving it? Is that your team or you, is it somebody else driving the car? You, how's that working? And how do you look at sponsors for that?

Nathan: So it is my team, it's four individuals right now. I am one of the drivers. But it's primarily running SCCA and NASA time trials for now. That was how we decided we would start to have a nice space. My car that I am currently building and hope to finish within the next month for a March start is not caged yet. That is on the roadmap, but I can still run time trials without the cage so far. Probably not my best safety choice, but we're starting there. So what we've really done with that is we have four individual drivers. We haven't set a whole lot of parameters around sponsorship. What we've been trying to do is go and talk with manufacturers and understand what they're looking for and how we can best partner with them and how we can make it a successful thing for both of us. So we've started that with several companies but we're trying not to be too prescriptive in what we're asking for. Some are parts availability. Some are discounts. Others are potentially entry fees. And a couple we've talked to want to sponsor 1 car, or, you know, they're interested in sponsoring all 4. So we're giving it a little bit of leeway there. And then as we get started, as we run this year and we're able to produce better results and see how we work with our sponsors, we can start getting a little more prescriptive in those agreements.

Barry: Cool. What kind of cars you got running?

Nathan: So we have two C5 Z06 Corvettes both 2002 one C6 Z06. And one 2015 Porsche Cayman base.

Brennan: Oh, right on. Mixing in a little bit of European with all of that American muscle.

Nathan: Yes, indeed. And then right now when we finished my car and once it's caged, we will probably use that for we're looking at the possibility of starting endurance racing with the four drivers as well.

Barry: Have you looked at ultimate street car challenge otions?

Nathan: I have, we're actually talking about submitting a couple of the cars from the team to that this year.

Barry: Have you seen the GTD class, that crazy frontier, the all wheel drive Nissan frontier that won the GTD class last three years?

Nathan: Yeah I have.

Barry: Yeah we sponsor that truck. So that's why I asked, and we sponsored a C 10 from Level Seven Motorsports and he actually was in on the sponsor promotion side. That's huge for your business. Cause he ran that yellow and white truck in Optima Ultimate Streetcar Challenge, and then the truck went to the owner. That helps build that truck right now he's in the process. So they've been about two years, I think, off the track. And I was just talking the other day and they're building a truck right now that they're going to be out on the track this year. And they feel that that's going to help their business by having that visibility, right?

Nathan: Yeah we've been putting a lot into setting up that plan. We now have our giant tents and some of our other stuff for trackside you know, increased visibility and working the full social media plan to go with that to make the most of it.

Barry: Oh, cool.

Brennan: I get asked this question a lot when I'm working with my customers, other Shop-in-a-Box customers, or just other people looking to figure out what Data Here-to-There is all about. Like, what's the best way to market my website or my store or, how do I get more traffic? And that's always what I've said specifically is if you're trying to sell car parts to car guys go where the car guys are, right? And a racetrack is a fantastic place to find a lot of car guys and usually car guys with money because that's kind of the important part, right? Racetracks marketing is fantastic. But it’s a high barrier to entry. Like I can't imagine your race team is a cheap thing to run, but if you can get out there and get it going, that's a fantastic way to reach a huge audience. But there's a lot of smaller and cheaper ways to do similar things as well. You know, not every car guy has tons of money to go to a racetrack or to send out their own car, but there's a lot of people watching it. And then there's a lot of people still doing, you know, smaller things in smaller communities as well. So you can always go where the car guys are and start finding your community and working with the guys in the community, figuring out what they need and where they shop, and then that'll give you all the information you need, right?

Barry: One of the things that we talk about, because I speak at the SEMA show for SEMA education, and we've talked about this a number of times on stages, understanding where your audience lives. Whether it's online or offline, right? And with Corvettes, it's interesting, and I'm curious what you're seeing. What do you, what are you seeing as far as your average user's age, if you can tell that? Because you're running a lot of C5s and C6s. And I'm just curious. I know what the answer that I know is. I'm curious what yours is.

Nathan: So I myself am around 45, well, I am 45. A lot of the customers for those tend to be my age or older. Yeah we're not seeing a lot of younger people in those cars. Occasionally yes, but not generally.

Brennan: I've got a friend that's like my age, maybe two years older than me. He's got a z06 of his own a c7 z06 that he absolutely adores and I always make sure to bust his balls that his entire owner's club is at least triple his age to double. Like, where do your customers live? Well, if you're selling Corvette parts, they live behind a grill. They've got halfway knee high socks and they're wearing New Balances. Right?

Barry: I didn't say that.

Nathan: Me neither! I said nothing.

Barry: All right. Don't- it's Brennan. When people are listening to this, in the comments, you can bust on him.

Brennan: Absolutely. You can come for me. 

Barry: I'll tell you as a Corvette guy for a lot of years, I get people sending me pictures of guys standing around Corvettes with blue jean shorts, white socks, and New Balances. I own none of those. Okay. Just so you know.

Brennan: You got to subvert the stereotype, Barry. Come on.

Nathan: Yeah, I have none of that, so.

Brennan: Good work guys. You're helping out the community.

Barry: But with that said, it looks like you go from C4 all the way up to C8, but there's no C1 through C3s on there. Is that parts availability or is it just because there's lots of other companies out there that are focused on those that you decided not to have those parts?

Nathan: So it's a combination. It is a portion of parts availability. But a lot of the shops and businesses that deal with C1 to C3, it's a lot of restoration parts, it's less in the performance realm. And we do get calls from time to time for people looking for C1 to C3 parts, but it's usually people trying to find original parts, which is not something we do.

Barry: So by not having that, you limit that time dealing with emails and calls for stuff that you may not be an expert on in the first place, right? I'm in the process of semi restoring my 69, but we're also putting Wildwood brakes on it and we're putting a TKX transmission in it, in our C3. So it's a combination of performance parts, finding those, and then finding some old school parts. I took the center console out. And it flattened out, it was all cracked and went boop! So you have to find that old school stuff too, right?

Brennan: Good luck, yup.

Barry: It's been fun.

Brennan: So Barry, I actually have a question about your restoration there. Are you going more resto mod or more pro touring?

Barry: I'd love to, it's got a big block V8 in it and I don't plan on changing that. It's got a tri power in it and I love the tri power. I might upgrade to a EFI at some point cause I make some tri power setups for that. I'd love to autocross, but if I ever autocross, I'm either getting a C10 a C10 pickup truck to go do that with.

Barry: Or, or a C5. So probably just, you know, rest mod performance upgrades. We had a new steering box going into it. Different steering wheel, retro radio, again, a five speed transmission, so we're not running it 3500-3600 RPMs at 55 miles an hour. If I drive my car for more than 45 minutes, I need to wear earplugs, it's that problem. So we have brakes sitting in boxes waiting to go on and things like that, and we're going to probably end up putting some more performance related forged wheels on it. So it's fun. Nathan, you talk about racing at the track and stuff. We went to UMI performance park. I don't know if you've heard of that. You know, my suspension, they have a racetrack. We went to King of the Mountain a couple of years back. And when I got home, I was like, I need a C5. I found an amazing C5 that I wanted to buy. And my wife goes uh- no, so we didn't go there, but you have to definitely have a plan just like going into e-commerce, right. And the strategy, because it's- if you don't, it costs a lot of money. It will with car racing too, but in the sense of costing a lot of money, you can tell me Nathan what's your thoughts on this, but if you don't get the right parts, you end up buying parts that you end up having to sell used because you went in the wrong direction.

Nathan: Yeah. And I found that out very early on. But before I got into this business, cause you're like, oh, I'll just buy this cheaper part. Like this will be fine. Or I'm going to do these couple of things. And then you end up undoing it all and spending twice as much money and the extra time to redo it again. I'm a firm believer in, you know, get the right part the first time and lay it out. We do have discussions generally with the newer folks getting into cars… like what's your ultimate goal for the car? Okay you're trying to buy this one part, but where are you trying to get to? And does this part actually make sense? And there have been times when I've had to tell people like, look, you, this isn't what you want to buy. As much as I'd like to sell you something, I don't want you to waste your money because that's not a benefit for any of us.

Barry: Oh, absolutely. And you want to support them. Everybody has different needs, but if you can point them in the right direction, you know, and help them understand, you know, wait three months, save that money and buy that right part the first time. It's the same way with web development and especially e-commerce, right? We build websites for a living. Okay. And we've had so many people over the years go, why does it cost so much? Because we cross all our T's and dot our I's and we do a lot of things. Some of it's really boring, but it's things you need to do for SEO, for other usability, things like that. So you have to think one of the first things, and you probably- you answered that with racing. When we work with a customer for a website, we ask, what's your short term and long term goals? Short term is two years. Long term is five years or more. What was your plan with this? Because if you build it over here and your plan is to go really big, well, that's the wrong platform. You may need to be over here, right? Like for example, there's a couple, some DIY platforms out there for building websites yet. I'm not going to name them, but they're really easy to use, but they're really not aligned with connecting with a Turn 14 or things like that. So companies, people would start building on those and manually adding parts kind of like you did with Shopify, but they find out that they can't even integrate Turn 14 in that. Cause I know that Data Here-to-There also has the Slingshot app, right? That can integrate into a Shopify site. But if you start on something that's not going to grow with you, you're throwing money out the window.

Nathan: Yeah we've tried to plan ahead. I would, we'll say I still run into issues and even, you know, being in this several years, I still find myself going back and going, I wish I would have done that differently. Or I wish I would have planned a little bit better, but we're slowly getting there.

Barry: One of the biggest things with e-commerce in general is inventory with parts, it's ACES and PIES, all that information, right? And it's shipping. Shipping. You know, payment processing is usually fairly easy nowadays, but shipping can be a nightmare too, right. And depending on the kind of parts you have. And if you have a company like Turn 14, that's shipping them for you, you don't have to, plus there's warehousing depending on how you're going to do it, right?

Nathan: Yeah. That saves a ton of money. They can warehouse all this stuff. And you know, I keep limited supply here, so that makes it way easier for me.

Barry: You keep a supply there. Is that stuff that you're selling that Turn 14 doesn't handle for you?

Nathan: So it's a little bit of both. So I do have a couple agreements with manufacturers that I have. Found outside of Turn. So one of them is Garvin especially for the catalyst devices for track use. So I stock those here. I stock some common parts here that, you know, I can ship locally or deliver to people locally. So that we're not waiting on that shipping. And it's a lot easier for me to ship those, a variety of those products to myself to be able to have local usage. But it's not a ton of parts. It's what I can go through quickly without my wife, you know, killing me for taking up too much space.

Barry: What's your plan for growth in the future? We've talked about lots of different things where you started, where you are now, but what are you working on any other types of product parts related that aren't Corvette or Camaro? What's the plan for growth?

Nathan: That's a nice segue. So we did just develop a power sports website with Data Here-to-There, which will be launching next week called Powersports Haven to expand into that market with Turn 14, buying Tucker Rocky and taking over that inventory, we were able to access a large amount of power sports and we've been fortunate. So I have a great sales rep at Turn, Frank Noel, that has been educating me on power sports. And then I've found some great people in the community that have raced dirt bikes and done a lot of stuff that have been giving me a power sports education. So they've been slowly getting parts from me, people I know and contacts I've made that, you know, as we've expanded out, one thing leads to another pretty quickly and so we decided to expand in that direction and take the risk and Data Here-to-There has been a great partner in, in making that expansion. Other than that, we're expanding what we're using the racing team for. Some of our advertising, some of our growth there. But our goal for 2025 is to double the business, to try to get more visibility, to partner with more manufacturers and try to build that base. A lot of the manufacturers where we can work together, that gives us access to larger audiences than we could potentially gather on our own. So it's kind of finding that and getting, you know, those manufacturers into some of the areas that they might not necessarily get into in the smaller community.

Barry: Gotcha. One thing that just came to me because we've talked to a lot of Data Here-to-There’s customers that do parts, there's a lot, there's a, you know, you've focused on Corvette and Camaro and you have the power sports, which is a big industry. How do you go up against the Summits and the Jegs of the world though? I'm very curious about that. How do you succeed against those guys?

Nathan: So the nice way to put it is I don't try to compete with the Summits and Jegs.

Barry: Okay.

Nathan: Because I'm not going to win that battle. Sheer size, sheer dollar amount. They have the ability to cut costs where I can't, they have the ability to carry way more inventory than I can. The way that I build my market is through. customer interaction, customer service, talking with those folks and figuring out what they need and spending more time in the community, the areas, the racetrack getting to know these folks and building from there. If trying to compete with the big commerce brands, me as a small company, I'm not going to win that. I can carve out my niche and I can continue to grow that niche and get bigger. And as I grow, I will eventually get to compete with that. If that's where… You know, where we get to, but right now I don't consider that, you know, to be an area of competition that's wise for my business.

Barry: That's a long term goal, right? Yeah. That's not even on the radar at the moment, but if it happens, great, right?

Nathan: Exactly.

Barry: So we got one thing we always ask is can you share a couple of recommendation tips, advice for, to help the audience avoid any, you know, starting an e-commerce site or doing what you're doing, even going racing, right? To promote their business.

Nathan: Yep. So for starting e-commerce the first area of advice is to find reputable partners. There are a lot of recommendations out there on reselling, retail arbitrage, I will say. And in getting into those, you find reputable partners and good partners and partners that will work with you. I got really lucky my first time around because I got to Turn, I got a great sales rep, create people that were willing to kind of have those conversations and guide me and then got to Data Here-to-There that has been a great partner and kind of helped guide me through that, you know, we were successful with the first one. We've come back and done another website now because we've had that great relationship, but it is not fast, easy money. Like, you see a lot, it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort to build this and it is not an overnight thing.

Nathan: For racing? Patience, patience, patience, and seat time. Lots and lots of seat time. It does not matter what you put into a car. If you do not have time in the seat, behind the wheel, and driving, it is not going to make a difference.

Barry: Yeah. Do you have on the racing side, do you have any mentors or any schools you've gone to, to kind of get the basics down? Because you can always be learning, right? But there's some core things you have to know if you're running, if you're on road courses, any racing actually.

Nathan: I started out with NASA with chin track days, doing the HPDEs; got some instruction there. My friend who actually got me into it has not been driving for 12 years and our other friend has been driving for 30 years. And he raced dirt bikes professionally and as an instructor and held a pro license for a while. So he has been an amazing mentor as well. And there have been a couple of times we've been at the track. I'm, like, “Okay, I can't figure this out.” He hops in and I hop in the passenger seat and he shows me some of the things I should be doing. I've learned that way. The other thing you can't see behind me cause it's still all in boxes is I now have a racing sim set up that is in the process of being put together to try to use that to help learn.

Barry: Oh, those are cool. A lot of guys are using those to get track time in the middle of winter and things like that, and just, you know, not beat up on their car. There’s only certain times you can get on the track, right? So definitely a good investment for sure. On the recommendations for e-commerce, one thing that I had heard was that you niched down? Do you spend any time at events like the SEMA show? I know you go to the SEMA show, but what do you recommend for people like that? Are there any other events that you go to?

Nathan: So I've been to SEMA. I've been to PRI. I am a SEMA member. I am a PRI member. I was on the pro committee with SEMA. As for the professional restylers… I actually pulled back from that committee after the last SEMA. I just wasn't seeing as much benefit out of it. It wasn't really aligning with what I was doing as much. But I have been to SEMA three times now. So my first time was 2022. But I am one of those people that goes in, I go through the app, I find everybody that's there. I have lists of who I'm going to talk to and the topics I want to cover. I start sending emails a month before SEMA to set up my meetings and try to make the most of it. I don't think I've ever seen everything at the SEMA show because it is very much a- I take it as a business trip and the goal is to get as much done with all the folks in one location as possible. So this last year we filmed some promo clips with some companies. You know, we started some of those sponsorship discussions at SEMA. I missed PRI this year, unfortunately, but that's another one that I treated the exact same way that, you know. While it is a great car event and I love seeing the stuff it is there about trying to meet with the manufacturers and grow and, you know, we'd go out to ultimate street car, see some of the stuff there. And also take it for a lot of ideas for, you know, what we can do better,. Outside of what we've been thinking, you see a lot of creative ideas there. And that's given us some other areas that we may expand into. We're actually looking at starting to manufacture our own parts.

Barry: There's a lot of guys out there, bubble seven, for example, LJ conversions, a truck we sponsor where they're winning… they have a lot of parts that they have. Especially LJ. Cause they're doing swap kits and things like that. I think if you have specific parts that you can do better than somebody else and that you can niche in there, right? And you can also make a profit with that. We did 37 miles at SEMA this year and I get back and watch social media and go where was that? SEMA is where we met Data Here-to-There, we met Stephanie and Jay back in 2021 at an educational session that I was doing, so that's how far we go back. 

Nathan: So I have one question for you. Between your two Corvettes, which one's your favorite?

Barry: Well, the 69 is mine and the 2013 is my wife's. Have you ever watched Tim Allen tool time? 69 gives you the <car noise>, you know, because it's got chambered exhaust on it. It was just bad ass, but the 2013 for longer drives and things like that. Yeah, definitely go with that, but I'll like it a lot more once we get some of the mods done to it and get the interior. I got the whole interior ripped out right now. And it's just sitting there cause it's been too damn cold to go in and put them… we're putting mat and new carpet and things like that, new radio and stuff.

Nathan: You're putting that stuff in. I'm ripping it out.

Barry: If I was going to go racing, I'd probably… I remember talking to Muscle on the Mountain with Jesse Vaughn from level seven. I said, if I was to do this and go auto crossing and stuff, what would you recommend? He says, go buy a C5. Those cars are not crazy money and they're set up, you know, almost 50, 50 and that would be probably how I'd get a Z, I'd get a Z06. There's actually one here local I'd want to buy, but again, I have to convince my wife.

Brennan: Every car guy has always got the car that they're currently looking at. Like, oh, that would be awesome. I just got to- either I've got to come up with my own disposable income or I've got to convince the wife. Those are always the two stumbling blocks, hey?

Nathan: And that car may change by the month.

Brennan: Oh, absolutely. Yes. I flip back and forth between that and C10. I'm always looking at stuff. We've had so many cars over the years because I get bored with what we got and I'm looking for the next best thing. Anyways, I think that's it guys. Thanks Nathan for joining us today. Can you tell everyone where to find you? How can they reach out to you? How can they learn more about what you're doing?

Nathan: So you can find us- our website at corvetterealm.com or our new website powersportshaven.com. You can find us on social media at Corvette Realm on Instagram. Or our race team website, darkenergyracing.com.

Barry: Nice. I just followed dark energy the other day. Well, thanks for joining us today for the Year, Make, Model, Money! podcast by Data Here-to-There. Don't forget to like, and follow us, and we'll see you next time.

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