BUCKED UP THE #1 PRE-WORKOUT BRAND: 9 FIGURE EMPIRE IN 10 YEARS || RYAN GARDNER || EPISODE 084

The Code To Winning

Ryan Gardner, CEO of Bucked Up, shares his journey from growing up on a farm in Clearfield, Utah, to building a nine-figure empire in just ten

Key takeaways

• The foundation of Bucked Up's success lies in its deep expertise in digital marketing and traffic generation, which was applied to product development.
• Strategic hiring—like bringing on the former CEO of Dr. Pepper—accelerated distribution and market penetration.

Main topics

• From farm to multi-hundred million dollar company
• Marketing-driven product launch strategy

Notable quotes

The code to winning is work hard and never give up.

Conclusion

Ryan Gardner's story exemplifies how a combination of marketing savvy, strategic partnerships,

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Essentially, we were born and raised on a farm in Clearfield, Utah. So going from a farm to running a multi-hundred million dollar company, it's been quite the journey. But we did everything from sales floors. We learned how to produce leads, drive traffic online. We had our own affiliate network where we had a thousand publishers driving traffic for different products or services. off to the races with doing our own thing and that's what's led us to Bucked Up. Nice to meet you. I'm Ryan, the CEO for Bucked Up. We just wanted to call you, tell you how much we appreciate you. Speaker 3 (0:39) Because it's our mission to give you the absolute best pre-workout out there. Let's go. Speaker 2 (0:55) Ryan Gardner founded Bucked Up in 2016 and has been the managing partner and CEO ever since. Under his supervision, Bucked Up has gone from a local supplement brand to the number one best-selling pre-workout, available in over 100,000 stores worldwide. Speaker 1 (1:11) And then we started going to expos and we saw that pre-workouts were really popular. And we were like, well, what is a pre-workout? We didn't even know. But we are marketers, right? And we were consulting and telling people how to run their business and kind of how a website should look and how the branding should look. So we just applied what we had learned in the past and applied it to coming out with a pre-workout, sticking with the deer theme and call it Bucked Up. Speaker 1 (1:40) grow a full line of supplements, not just pre-workout, but everything from protein. Now we have energy drinks, protein drinks, creatine, creatine candy, all those different products. So we have a full line of supplements now. People Speaker 3 (1:54) don't fully understand the back office of how these things kind of work. Like when you sign a person, because sometimes they sell something and they get a commission. With partnerships, how does that actually work in terms of- Speaker 1 (2:04) Yeah. So right now we have over 100,000 ambassadors. Wow. And they get paid, like you said, when they drive a cell or somebody uses their code or they have a unique link that we're able to track and it comes back to them, they get paid a commission. But with a sponsored athlete. Speaker 3 (2:23) What's your mindset when it comes to risk and creativity in branding? Speaker 1 (2:28) Well, look, our forte is marketing. We came from a marketing background. online driving traffic, building out funnels, call them click funnels now, but we were doing these landing pages a long time ago and optimizing the data as it comes in. But, you know, we were always big on marketing and our companies revolved around marketing. We actually hired the former CEO of Dr. Pepper. His name is Gil. Speaker 1 (2:54) And we hired him to help us build out our distribution network. And because he knew the network from working at Dr. Pepper and other places, he knew how to build that network and had relationships with those people. We got our drinks into a lot of different places with Gil. Gil was the most expensive employee that we hired. But look at us now. I mean, we. We're on pace to sell 60 plus million energy drinks and protein drinks. So it's been amazing to have a guy like him in our organization. Speaker 3 (3:29) The code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow with an amazing guest right here, Utah's very own. Talk about like Ryan Gardner's journey as well. Bucked Up, which started in 2016, used to be just a local supplement company. It's now the number one pre-selling workout in 20,000 stores worldwide. I've been excited to get this interview going. I've been trying my best. Without further ado, the man. the myth, the very legend himself, Ryan Gardner. Speaker 1 (4:02) Hey, well, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Speaker 3 (4:06) Appreciate that. Appreciate that. No, and I've always, like I said, when we started off, I was just very impressed with the journey that you guys have accomplished in the short space of nine years. I want to just talk a bit more just about, like, you know, Ryan Gardner. Like, how did this all begin for you, sir? Speaker 1 (4:22) Well, you know. I've told this story a bunch of times on different podcasts, but essentially we were born and raised on a farm in Clearfield, Utah. So going from a farm to running a multi-hundred million dollar company, it's been quite the journey. But we did everything from we were on sales floors, we learned how to produce leads, drive traffic online. We had our own affiliate network where we had... a thousand publishers driving traffic for different products or services, and then off to the races with doing our own thing and doing our own products and services. And that's what's led us to Bucked Up. Speaker 3 (5:05) Okay. And so was that always the vision in the beginning when you and your brother Jeff started? Was that always the vision in the beginning? No, Speaker 1 (5:13) no. Everything just happens. And at the very first, we're just driving traffic for people. And then we said, man, why do we keep building everybody else's business? Why don't we do our own? And then the next guy that came in saying, hey, I want you to drive traffic, within an hour or two, we owned 50 % of the company. Wow. So we just said, hey, we're only going to drive traffic for our own products. And he goes, well, let's be partners then. And so we did. And that kind of started down the road of owning our own stuff, right? And driving traffic to our own products. And then we bought a domain name, deerantlerspray.com. And we read an article in Sports Illustrated that says deer antler spray is banned in Major League Baseball because it gives an athlete an edge. And they don't want to have anything that gives an athlete an edge they shouldn't be taking, right? So, you know, we bought deerantlerspray.com. And, you know, a couple months later, Ray Lewis got accused of taking it right before the Super Bowl, and then we were off to the races. GNC called us within, you know, three days of that whole debacle and said, how fast can you fulfill 30,000 bottles? So we were selling thousands and thousands of bottles a month later at GNC's. Wow. And then we started going to expos, and we saw that pre-workouts were really popular. And we were like, well, what is a pre-workout? We didn't even know. But we are marketers, right? And we were consulting and telling people how to run their business and kind of how a website should look and how the branding should look. So we just applied what we had learned in the past and applied it to coming out with a pre-workout, sticking with the deer theme and call it Bucked Up. And we had the vision in mind to grow a full line of supplements, not just pre-workout, but everything from protein to now we have energy drinks, protein drinks. We have creatine, creatine candy, all those different products. So we have a full line of supplements now. Speaker 3 (7:24) So that's, that's amazing. And I think one of the most amazing thing about that, it's not just the fact that it's built a brand. It's almost like a household name everywhere you go, wherever you see Bucked Speaker 2 (7:33) Up, Speaker 3 (7:33) you know, you're associated with pre-workout, but it's more than just that, as you just touched on, right? Speaker 1 (7:37) Yeah, exactly. You know, what was funny is BYU said, oh, when we first started, we went to BYU and said, hey, we want to do a sponsorship. And they're like, now Bucked Up will never be at BYU just because of the name. And now that we're more of a household name, now they're like, okay, hey, we want you to sponsor. And we're like, I thought we would never belong at BYU. But that's where we are now. So it's now become more of a household name. Even when we started Bucked Speaker 3 (8:08) Up Speaker 1 (8:08) and we came up with the name Bucked Up, my parents didn't even like it. We're from Utah here, and we're raised very religious. And so we couldn't say anything with the F word. freak and fetch and flip, you know, like stuff that would mean a different word. But so, you know, even the name Bucked Speaker 2 (8:27) Up Speaker 1 (8:27) was really hard for a little while. But now that we're more mainstream, it's, you know, we've kind of passed those things. You know what I mean? Speaker 3 (8:35) No, I love that. And I think another big thing that you guys have been very good at, it's not just the partnership, it's the collaboration. In your opinion, or like in what do you think most... people overlook in terms of collaboration, whether it's athletes, retailers, influencers that people don't know about. Speaker 1 (8:51) Yeah, like, look. So we've gone through the school of hard knocks on this, and you've got to figure out how to activate with that athlete or that person or that sponsored athlete collaboration, whatever it is. You've got to figure out how to do something that helps the whole picture. Because, like, for instance, you can just give a guy money for NIL. But what is that going to get you in return, right? But things like a Bryson DeChambeau, for instance, right? We're going to be coming out with some drinks with Bryson DeChambeau with his name on it, and they're going to be a really awesome hydration drink this next year. And that's how we're going to be able to monetize working with or collabing with a celebrity or a sponsored athlete. That's how... That's how we do it. You know what I mean? And so, you know, his name will get us into doors. Like, for instance, Dick's Sporting Goods says, yeah, we'll bring it into all 800 stores as soon as it's available. So, you know, those are the different types of collaborations. But, you know, like when you're working with an NIL person, how do you make that work? Exactly. You know what I mean? So that's what you got to think about. You know, we've done some partnerships with people, but we're like, how are we going to make this work? fighters, we've done just influencers, social media influencers, but how do you make that work? With Bryce Hall, we did a flavor collab with him, and that worked out for us, because we were able to get it into GNC. He came to GNC's openings and stores, and we did a lot of activation with him, and it was great. So that's kind of how that worked out. Speaker 3 (10:38) No, I like that. And obviously with... influencers and affiliates, it's a little different compared to when you do a bigger partnership like approaches as well, right? Can you walk us through like what determines the right brand or athlete to kind of fit your ecosystem as well? Speaker 1 (10:53) Well, we're kind of edgy, right? Even our name's kind of edgy. So we need somebody that's a little edgy as well. We did do a sponsorship with Conor McGregor. Speaker 3 (11:03) I was going to get to that. Speaker 1 (11:04) And the thing is, is he was maybe a little too edgy. And he made some comments, and so we had to kind of discontinue that on his Twitter, that we had to discontinue the relationship because we had big companies saying, hey, we're not going to touch you if you have Conor McGregor. So that's kind of how that one kind of ended because he made some comments, and they didn't want to get canceled. And Speaker 3 (11:30) to be fair, they... That one was signed, sealed, and delivered, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. It was Speaker 1 (11:35) signed, sealed, delivered. We had been working with him. We came out with a flavor. He came to Utah, did a production day, a meet and greet. We took him to Temple Square. We took him to FamilySearch. We took him to the BYU game. It was pretty big news. So we got a lot of eyeballs. The issue is that he was maybe a little too edgy. But someone like Bryson DeChambeau, where he's... edgy, he's really good at social media and getting eyeballs, that's what we're looking for. Speaker 3 (12:06) Okay. No, that makes perfect sense. Because I remember, I think when you were doing that tour with Conor McGregor, my friend texted me. He's like, I Speaker 2 (12:13) think Conor McGregor's at In-N-Out. Speaker 3 (12:15) We did. We were at In Speaker 1 (12:18) -N-Out. And Speaker 3 (12:18) he's like, you came with a bucked Speaker 1 (12:20) up Speaker 3 (12:20) car and everything. I'm like, whoa, this is real. And so I think everyone was anticipating that. So I think it's amazing how far... You've come in terms of just the brand that you've built and the people that you've attracted, that the fact that you're big enough to even say, no, we're not going to continue this relationship. Speaker 1 (12:39) Yeah, it was a tough thing to do because Connor was awesome. He stayed at my house for four days. It was great. He's an awesome guy. I wouldn't say anything bad. He is who he is, and he goes with it. You know what I mean? And you've got to respect that too. You know what I mean? But when it came to a business decision, I mean, personally, I love the guy, but when it comes to a business decision, we had to make a really