← From the Ground Up
From the Ground Up
From Passion to Profitability: How One Florida Company Built Its Business - FROM INC. STUDIO AND CHASE FOR BUSINESS
00:27:32
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- [00:01]
Avery Miles
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- [00:21]
Ben Baer
Hi and welcome to the special podcast series the Experience in partnership with Chase for Business. I'm your host Ben Baer with Ink Custom Studio. And and in this episode, we're going to talk about how to turn a passion into a profitable business, how to manage growth from a couple of different perspectives, and what business owners need to consider when dealing with unexpected adversity. Discuss these topics and more. I'm joined by Bill Bronsard, co founder of aquatic apparel retailer Tuniskin and Chase for business executive Michelle Grace. Welcome to you both.
- [00:50]
Avery Miles
Thank you.
- [00:50]
Bill Bronsard
Thanks for having us.
- [00:52]
Ben Baer
So, Bill, why don't you start off, tell us a little bit about what Tuniskin is and also what sort of led you to start Tunaskin. So.
- [00:58]
Bill Bronsard
So Tuniskin is an aquatic apparel brand. We were founded 2009. It's a passion of mine to be on the water, outdoors, living the aquatic lifestyle. I was always looking for a product that functioned well. I was also fashion forward. So we came up with the name Tuna Skin. One day offshore tuna fishing in the Florida Keys. Definitely started as kind of a hobby and then grew into a thriving business today.
- [01:26]
Ben Baer
What was like the first product and what's your product mix now?
- [01:29]
Bill Bronsard
I mean, we were just coming up with some prototypes, researching fabrics, looking for something that really functioned well, had high upf value cooling effect. Now we've expanded into a full product line of, you know, we have little kids, toddlers, we have youth, we have women's line, we have adult line, we have shorts, we have shirts, we have hats, we have a lot of upf lightweight apparel. It's grown into a big product line. So. So yeah, it started off as a small little company and now we've grown into five brick and mortar stores and a big online e commerce presence.
- [02:01]
Ben Baer
Congratulations on that. The journey of getting there. And we'll talk a little bit more about that during our conversation. Today was a retail brand always sort of in mind to you when you were sitting out there on the boat or sitting on the pier thinking about, okay, this is something we want to do, should we move forward as a retailer?
- [02:17]
Bill Bronsard
It was in the back of my mind to build a business out of this. But at first there's a need, there's kind of a niche to fill. There wasn't anything like it. So we kind of started that way. We started partnering with some different events and fishing Tournaments and, you know, providing our apparel that way for marketing, putting our product on people. And then, you know, it became apparent that, hey, maybe we have something here. You know, people are enjoying this, people are liking it, people are wearing it, people are coming back asking us to be part of more events. And that's when the turning point shifted from kind of a hobby into, hey, this could be a sustainable business.
- [02:52]
Ben Baer
Michelle, you work with a lot of small business owners in your role. Can you just share what your guidance and advice is about turning a passion into a actual profitable business or a business idea? How do you advise entrepreneurs if their passion has a potential to flourish?
- [03:08]
Avery Miles
You know, Tampa Bay region is thriving with entrepreneurs, and we just love it. First and foremost, when you can find someone who's really passionate about what they want to do and turn that into a business. And so we always try to encourage them to be considerate of, like, market conditions, understand that you can turn a passion into a business, but you got to be aware of, you know, what your surroundings are, how it would impact the communities if you decide to put a business or brick and mortar location. Passion projects are one of those things that they're always evolving. And when I think about them and I think about the small business community, I've always said that it's the backbone of America and our economy. And so we're always encouraging our entrepreneurs to follow their passions, follow their dreams, and if you can turn that into a small business, then everybody wins in the community.
- [03:59]
Ben Baer
What is some of the advice when you're talking to the business owners and say, I've got this great idea, Michelle. I wanna do this. I'm super passionate about it. To say, all right, before you make that first step, here's the one or two things you should think about before you do it.
- [04:11]
Avery Miles
Yeah, I would say first and foremost is find your truth tellers, people that will give you honest feedback on what your idea is. We always say that feedback is a gift. But when you can actually connect with someone that you trust and that you share your idea with, you can bounce your ideas off of. And that you can get honest feedback, I think is really important. Someone that will, like, kind of level set you and say, okay, that's a great dream, but let's think about this over here. Maybe it's market conditions, maybe it's supply chain, what have you. So I would say that's probably number one. And then secondly, I think it's always important to consult with a cpa. What does it take to start and run and grow your business? And then what will you need in terms of the financial backing for that too? So those are probably the two that come out in my mind. And then as I think about just like what today is, right. Networking is so important for entrepreneurs and small business owners. That's why we have our event today, so that small business owners can come together, that you can share your ideas with, that you can have a common ground. It's important that you connect yourself with people that have the same interests and goals, even if it is a completely different business. I would say maybe when you're struggling and you don't know how to get through something, a small business owner can always relate to another small business owner.
- [05:24]
Ben Baer
You know, you're not alone. It sometimes can feel like a lonely position, but you're not alone because there are so many out there. And so that network part that you talk about is so critically important. Bill, who are the truth tellers for you?
- [05:37]
Bill Bronsard
You know, I have a lot of friends that own businesses, small businesses. I went to school for business. I have a construction background too. So I have a lot of friends that were small business owners. A father that kind of ventured out a little bit in his later years and started a business bouncing a lot of ideas off of him, picking up the phone and knowing I have some friends that I can ask questions that have been there, done that. Having good mentors is critical in building a small business, because a lot of people have done that. They've been there, they've been through the ups and downs and challenges. And what better person to get that feedback from is somebody that's been there.
- [06:10]
Avery Miles
I love what he said about mentorship. I think that's so important, and I don't think that enough business owners lean.
- [06:16]
Ben Baer
Into that piece of apparel is a very crowded, competitive marketplace. What is it about Tuniskin that stands out to the customers? What's been your keys to success so far?
- [06:26]
Bill Bronsard
We started as putting our apparel into other locations. We started partnering with some bait tackle stores and other place to kind of get our product out there because, you know, we had to move inventory. We got to move product and kind of generate that to keep building the brand. We found that that wasn't the best case scenario because our product just didn't wasn't in the spotlight like it should be. You know, it wasn't featured, it wasn't marketed, it wasn't displayed properly. So we kind of pulled back from that and we wanted to focus on our own brick and mortar stores. We wanted a shopping experience, right? We wanted to find a niche we wanted to partner with a lot of community outreach programs, a lot of nonprofits. We like to put our stores in locations that our clientele, our demand beach towns, you know, fishing towns, aquatic type related outdoor sports areas, you know. So we wanted to build a brand based off of a niche and also bring in that community partnership type thing. That's where we've been successful. You know, you can only find Tuniskin and Tuniskin brick and mortar stores. So it creates high brand value. You know, you can't find it on Amazon. You can't go into Dick's Sporting Goods anywhere like that. We take pride in what we design. We do small batch, we design it in house. And we provide a great service and a great product. And that's what keeps, you know, our clientele coming back.
- [07:43]
Ben Baer
That's an interesting perspective because I think a lot of people in the audience will be like, oh, that's counterintuitive. I want to be in Dick's. I want to be in Amazon. That's where I can get to scale and I can grow. So what made it the right call for you to say no? That's not the approach we want to go with. We want to manage our growth in a different way.
- [07:59]
Bill Bronsard
Well, I looked at some of the successful apparel companies. Lululemon, for example, can't find them anywhere, anywhere else. They're not in Amazon. They're not. They have brick and mortar locations. You go in, they provide a great product. We wanted to focus on that type of business plan. We wanted to keep brand value high. We saw a couple companies that were doing it and doing it well, and we wanted to follow in those footsteps.
- [08:20]
Ben Baer
So, Michelle, for the entrepreneurs that you mentor and consult with brick and mortar, specifically, what advice do you give them when they're sort of going down this brick and mortar path? Because obviously it comes with, you know, its own set of challenges that you have to deal with. When you get into setting up a brick and mortar location, obviously expansion. What's some of the advice that you give to those entrepreneurs that you work with?
- [08:42]
Avery Miles
Bill said it best, right? Finding locations that are walkable, that are meeting the needs of the community. And it's one of those things that it can be complex to find a brick and mortar location, especially as it relates to all the permitting and everything that goes along with it, insurance, what have you. It's a bigger risk for some folks, too, that they're not necessarily willing to take. But one of the things that we highly encourage our small business owners is to really create that experience from the Time that the client walks in to the time that they leave that first class experience in your business, in your shop. And yes, technology is important today. We all need it. Lean into it to help you run and grow your business, but don't let that be what replaces you. Because the communities need the brick and mortar locations. It's what makes our communities thrive.
- [09:30]
Ben Baer
You're growing now. You're at multiple locations. What have you learned from the experience as you've sort of built from that first store to where you are now?
- [09:37]
Bill Bronsard
Location, like Michelle was saying, I mean, that's critical. Knowing your space, knowing your clientele, knowing where you'll thrive. You know, we've done it. We've had some very, very successful stores. We've had some that took a little bit longer to kind of get going, you know, so we stand back and look at what are the economics in that area, what's the driving force of faster growth in some locations and not others. So I mean, by doing it over and over a few different times, you start to kind of catch on and learn what the look is. You know, we try to make all of our stores look kind of similar. We try and give it the feel of, you know, the aquatic lifestyle brand. It goes into a lot of different things. Hiring people that work in our stores that live the lifestyle that, that we love, that they can push the passion of the brand onto the customer. So there's a lot of different things that we look at, a lot of different things that we bring in to make the experience of a Tuniscan store what we want and what we're looking for.
- [10:27]
Ben Baer
Has that process gotten easier? I'm sure it was probably hard to go from 0 to 1 and then maybe 1 to 2. But now that you're at multiple locations, do you find that it's getting a little bit easier as you're sort of moving forward to say, all right, the tried and true methods that we've learned through this process are now getting a little bit better. What advice would you give to folks as they might approach that same journey?
- [10:47]
Bill Bronsard
The first one's always the toughest, right? With anything that's your biggest learning curve is going to be your stepping out and doing it and learning, you know, off of the first one. But we found some great partners with setting up stores. We have a company that we work with that does all of our displays right. We send them all of our floor plans. They come up with our displays. They know what we like, what we're looking for. It all arrives. It's put up, you Know that we've cut the time into half or less to put a store up and get it going. Training, you know, we have training methods in place. My regional sales manager that steps in, he gets, you know, things trained. We've learned the processes that need to happen to get a brick and mortar store up from that first and second location. You know, it's still a constant learning curve, but, you know, 80% of your learning comes from the first couple of locations. You know, then it becomes a lot easier and kind of more of a walk in the park than the first couple.
- [11:36]
Ben Baer
Growing sort of franchises requires financing, requires things that you have to learn along the way to make sure you manage that growth. What have you used and what have you used as part of the Chase for Business platform that you utilize?
- [11:47]
Bill Bronsard
Yeah, Chase has been great. So, I mean, we utilize some equity lines that they've provided us to help grow, to help set up some of these locations, to help with some of the funding of products that are needed to keep growing is a challenge. You're opening more stores, but then you need more product. Both ends are a tug of war. You're paying to put these stores open, but then also that store now requires more inventory, and you got other stores that also require the same amount of inventory. You can't pull from them to rob from Peter, to pay Paul. So all aspects of the business have to continue to grow. Chase has been a great partner with providing a nice source of equity for us to keep putting back in the business, to keep that growth.
- [12:26]
Ben Baer
For small business owners like Bill Michelle, when they're doing this and they're looking for equity, what are some of the things that you advise them on as they're entering into this? What do you and your teams and fellow mentors give to the business owners to tell them to say, all right, here are the tools that we can offer you, and here are the things that you should be thinking about as.
- [12:43]
Avery Miles
I think about just as small businesses are growing, and you hear Bill's story about the first store and then repeating that and what it takes, I think the best advice I would give is to make sure that you understand your financials right. Cash flow is always king, and you need to understand the ins and outs of your cash flow. And when you can do that, you also can know when you need to monitor your spending. It can get away from you really quickly, especially when you're opening up new businesses and new offices. But understanding when you need to hit the pause button kind of pull back a little. Some folks we've Seen grown a little too fast, have really pinched themselves, and it's caused some problems for them along the way. So understanding their financials. I mentioned earlier about making sure that you're in touch with your cpa. That's always important. And when you can understand your cash flow and you are on top of your financials, you know, we recommend if you have a great cpa, first of all, you know, meet with them as often as you can monthly for your financials or quarterly if necessary. But it's one of those meetings that you never want to put on the back burner and deal with it later because what happens is your financials take hold of themselves, and then all of a sudden you find yourself, like, scrambling, trying to make ends meet to get your next office or next location open.
- [14:06]
Ben Baer
Bill, what did you learn as you were growing as a small business owner in terms of the financial picture? You'd obviously had worked in different businesses already, so that wasn't new to you. But obviously this is now a different animal in terms of, okay, growth strategy and the financials that underpin it.
- [14:21]
Bill Bronsard
I mean, that's one of the biggest challenges in growing a business and monitoring cash flow, you know, and making sure you have. You have enough money coming in to pay the bills and to keep purchasing product. We constantly monitor, you know, what's going in and out. I mean, all of our growth has been organic, you know, so we take on a little bit of debt, but we don't start to open a new store until we're comfortable with our financial situation. We don't push the envelope. We don't, you know, take on massive amounts of debt to try and grow the company. We're growing at a smaller pace that is manageable, and we're able to fund that mostly through some of our cash flow. So we watch that very closely. That's one of the biggest things that can sink a company is overgrowth. I see it all the time growing too quick. Hey, we got to open 10 stores. No, you don't have to open 10 stores. Open them to where it's fiscally responsible to open another store, not to take on massive amounts of debt. Grow with a partner like Chase that can help fund it, but don't over fund it.
- [15:19]
Ben Baer
That's a great point. What's that conversation like when you're thinking, okay, I think we're ready for another market? Is there a key question that has to be answered? I imagine there's multiple questions, but is there any sort of key question for you to say, okay, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves.
- [15:32]
Bill Bronsard
Opportunities sometimes present themselves. You have to jump on it, you know, because some of the places that we're looking, we're always looking, right? We're always looking at great locations that we know that we've pinpointed, we've been to. We've had customers come and say, hey, we'd love for you to open a store. I think you guys would be great here. You have a big customer base in this area. We may that and watch that very closely. And we have a couple different commercial realtors that look out for us and say, hey, I got this property. And sometimes you got to move a little bit quicker if you find something that comes up. These locations don't come up very often. You know, if they're in a good space, there's not a lot of space open. So we watch that, but we manage our finances to make sure, hey, we got enough money to open another store. We got enough inventory. We just put in a couple of big orders. We have enough product coming in that we could support another store. When we were first growing, I was looking at the number of stores based off of how much we had to order with some of our moqs to know what we needed to make that work. Hey, we're having to order a lot of product. We need another exit. We need somewhere else that we can move some of this product. So it's time to open another store because it's sitting on our shelves in our warehouse.
- [16:36]
Avery Miles
I was just gonna say, as Bill was speaking, it made me think just about, like, small business owners remaining flexible and adjust to whatever conditions are coming your way, because in just a few short months, things can really get out of hand and get out of the way. So, like making sure that you are flex, having the inventory on shelf and figuring out what you're going to do with it. I think that flexibility and giving yourself that permission to do so is important.
- [17:02]
Ben Baer
All right, we're going to shift gears, talk a little bit about a different topic, which is dealing with adversity, because as business owners, there's the adversity that you try to plan for, but then there's adversity that you're not expecting to have. Bill, Hurricanes obviously an issue for business owners along the southeast and especially In Florida in 2022, Hurricane Ian came through, and you were faced with a challenging situation. Can you share a little bit about what that. What you were faced with?
- [17:26]
Bill Bronsard
Sure. So here we are growing a company. We wake up one day, and hurricane Ian came through Fort Myers. Beach, which is one of our flagship stores, our first store, our most profitable store, and devastated it. I mean, I got there the day after the storm. No windows, no doors, all the inventory gone. It even stripped the drywall off the ceiling. The storm surge was 15ft, and it came right through the middle of the building. They found all of our inventory two miles away in the shrimping docks of Fort Myers beach is where they found a lot of our inventory. It floated all the way there. Two miles away is where all of our inventory ended up. The building was in shambles. We're kind of faced with the decision, right? What do we do? So we just recently had a trailer built for our event. So we partner with a lot of events, fishing tournaments, paddleboarding events. We show up, we open this sales trailer up. It's like a mobile retail trailer. It's set up kind of like a store. So I said, hey, bring the trailer to Fort Myers Beach. Let's get the parking lot cleaned up. Let's set up our trailer there. We were able to not lay off one employee. All the employees went into the event trailer. We started opening every day. People from the community were just coming in droves to support us, and we started the rebuild process. Fourteen months later, we opened the store back up, and all those employees transferred back into the store we were able to open. And ever since, it's been great. That adversity made an opportunity, right, because we were able to be the first retail store back open on the beach. That's huge because you got a big population there. The only place to really shop was us. That kind of presented an opportunity. We were able to rebuild the store exactly like we wanted. We didn't want to be shut down for 14 months, but it worked. Our house had damage, so there was a lot of adversity because we were rebuilding homes, businesses at the same time, but we were able to get back open and continue on.
- [19:18]
Ben Baer
Was there anything that you learned about yourself in that period or you as co owners that you guys learned in this moment? You talked about flexibility earlier. This is the maximum out of trying to be flexible as a business owner. When unexpected adversity hits like this, you.
- [19:30]
Bill Bronsard
Pull from the depths, right? There's a lot of strengths that you could push through. You got to find the opportunity and not so opportune situations, right? And that opportunity was, hey, this is a chance to rebuild the building, make it stand out, make it a beacon of hope for an island that was devastated. And we were able to pull that together, have a great team. My wife is One of my best teammates, she loves designing, so she put her design touch on the store, and when we opened it, it was fabulous. The whole community came out. They supported us. The building turned out beautiful, and it was that beacon of hope that, hey, this community is resilient, you know, so we were one of the first buildings to open back on the beach. So that was a big driving factor to take our brand and tie it in with the community.
- [20:14]
Ben Baer
Important lessons and congratulations on being able to do that. Michelle, extreme weather events, but just unexpected weather and fires, other things, they affect business owners not just in the Southeast, but everywhere in the US what are some of the advice that you give to business owners as they need to think about? How do I need to handle an unexpected event?
- [20:36]
Avery Miles
Before I answer that, I just want to say thank you to Bill. A lot of businesses decide it's time to just kind of roll up shop and leave. To see businesses like Bill's back in the community, relentless, and saying, no, we belong here, we want to be here is important. It sends a big message, not just to the community, but also to the small businesses. So I just really want to say thank you first and foremost. But to answer your question, you know, it's important not only do we help with the relief piece of it, but also preparing for any kind of storm, whether it's a natural disaster or, you know, it can be economic conditions, it can be supply chain issues, it can be a number of things, but making sure that folks have a resiliency plan and making sure that you have your financial kind of nest egg set aside so that you can weather whatever kind of storm might come your way, I think it's always best, especially number one, if you want to talk about natural disasters first, a lot of them we all know, like in Florida, right? June through October is the worst time. So knowing that those months are ahead of you, making sure that you're planning ahead for those, and then as you're paying attention to what the stock market's tell or what have you, just making sure that you're always aware and thinking ahead and planning for, like, something to come. Always making sure that you're prepared. And our bank donated two and a half million dollars to the communities to help out. And we know that that was received well and it helped out a lot of people. So pulling together, no matter what businesses are out there, it's a responsibility to the community for small businesses to come back and for the big businesses to help out.
- [22:21]
Ben Baer
Resiliency and having sort of a rainy day, but also a Plan is important. How has your plan changed since that 2022 experience to influence how you think about it now?
- [22:32]
Bill Bronsard
Yeah, I mean, so we learned a lot right from that situation. You know, we weren't definitely weren't expecting that, we weren't planning on that. We weren't prepared for that. Obviously that was something that nobody's ever seen. But now, I mean, our plan has changed. Right. Last summer, it was kind of a bad storm season. We had a trailer made just to unload our stores now. So we had a couple of hurricanes last year heading towards like the St. Pete, Sarasota area. And we got there a couple days before the storm. Everything in the store disappeared, went into a trailer, went off the islands. Losing all of your inventory, that's an eye opening experience. You can rebuild the building, drywall work, stuff like that and get back. But when you're losing a full store of inventory, that's a big hit. So now if a storm's coming, we go into storm preparation mode. We pull up a trailer, everything in the store goes in, displays, inventory, everything. The store is bare. You know, it goes back to our warehouse and it's safe and secure, you know, so that's one of the things that we learned insurance is, you know, I mean, flood insurance was the only reason we were able to rebuild that store. You know, without flood insurance. It was too costly. You know, that's one of the good things we had was we had proper insurance. You know, being in an area with natural disasters like we have in hurricanes, floods are the biggest causation of damage. You can recover, but stuff like that has to be in place.
- [23:50]
Ben Baer
Michelle, as we wrap up, it's good. As we talked about growth, we talked about dealing with adversity just in general when it comes to mentoring small business owners in today's current economic environment. What are some of the things that you're currently talking to the small business owners and the clients that you work with?
- [24:04]
Avery Miles
Empowering entrepreneurs to pursue their dreams is really important. And each business has a unique factor. Whether they're catering to their communities, whether they're following a passion project. It's a business that was just a concept and now become a large, running, thriving business. So it's not a one size fits all. Everyone has their unique challenges and it's just making sure that they're focusing on their and nurturing their entrepreneur spirit and making sure that they're staying abreast of the community. What's going on around you, how you started your business might change on how you run your business. And how you need to grow your business. So I said it a little bit earlier, but remaining adaptable and flexible is just really key in today's environment.
- [24:50]
Ben Baer
Bill, is there one piece of advice that you, after all the things you've learned at this point in time that you go back to tell yourself as that fledgling entrepreneur that you could share with our audience?
- [25:00]
Bill Bronsard
Definitely keep driving flexibility. It's critical looking at situations, trying to figure out different avenues, different course of action. When you first get started, you think about the big rocks, but the little pebbles are just as important. There's a lot of small things you don't want to overlook, from getting the right trademark marks to, you know, making sure your product is tried and true and designed well and no flaws. There's a lot of little stuff that helps build the brand, builds a business. Also, don't, don't skip those over, you know, and keep driving every day. There's adversity. You know, there's going to be sunny days. There's also rainy days, but there's a lot of sunny days. So keep, keep pushing.
- [25:38]
Ben Baer
Good advice to hear and look out for the big rocks, but don't forget about the small pebbles, too. Great advice to end on.
- [25:44]
Avery Miles
I love that. I'm going to use it.
- [25:45]
Ben Baer
I'm also going to use it, too. Michelle. Bill, thanks for joining us and thanks for sharing your insights with our audience today.
- [25:50]
Avery Miles
Thank you, Ben.
- [25:51]
Bill Bronsard
Thank you.
- [25:54]
Ben Baer
That's all for this episode of the Experience. Thanks again for joining us. I'm Ben Bear for Ink Custom Studio. My producer is Avery Miles.
- [26:09]
Avery Miles
Panoply.