Q&A: Turtlebox

KP: The way you guys describe Turtlebox's beginnings, you make it sound as if building a world-class speaker like you have built is no big deal. Where did you guys learn how to do all of this?

Reagan Fincher (co-founder): A lot of people ask us, “Ok so who is the engineer that got it done?”  And the truth is, none of us is a trained degreed engineer... we're two guys from real estate and two guys from oil and gas.  We can swing a wrench so to speak with woofers, enclosures and electronics, but none of us started out an expert. 

What we knew was the outdoors. We know the customer and how to speak to him. We know what equipment he needs and where the market had trapped him into thinking "this is all there is.” 

That said, it was 2012 when we started. It's been 13 years of "education" at this point.  We put in the 10,000 hours a long time ago, and it's taken many more than that. And many more people along the way believed what we believed, and have given it their blood, sweat and tears as well. We didn't do it alone.

KP: When did you realize, "Oh, other people want this too ... maybe this is a business?"

RF: April of 2012.  We went through a dozen or so first stabs at it in our garage. No idea for a business at all, let alone a business plan. It was just to meet our own need, and rewrite our own experience trying to buy what we needed. Once we had it nailed, the one we liked, and we started carrying it around using it on the bayou, the beach, on sailboats .... people started saying, "Dude, what the heck is that? Please make me one."

KP: As the business started to pick up steam, what businesses (or individual entrepreneurs) -- in the non-audio space -- did you look at to try and emulate.

RF: Over the years and it different seasons we've taken a lot of inspiration from YETI, Apple, Elon, Best Made, Timbuk2, Eno, GoPro and Arcteryx.

KP: I know "live free" is the motto the company was founded on, which I personally appreciate a lot and is as entrepreneurial as mottos get. As the company and business have grown, where are the places where it has become more difficult to live free?

RF: There are many voices God puts in your life, and to "live free" means you are giving those their correct place, authority and priority. Some are way more of a voice than they should be, and some are way less. You get better as you go, and you never quite master it. But you can imprison yourself when you let these get off-kilter. 

Start with the bigs: God, your spouse, yourself (this one is forgotten a lot, what you say about yourself is SO important), your parents, best friends, maybe a trusted co-worker, maybe children. These are obviously way higher on the board. 

And some of us get bad apples, some voices don't belong or don't belong in certain subjects. This is all part of it ... living free in spite of that. Past these major voices .... the more distant friends, family, co-workers, teams … all the way to the social followers.  You can imprison yourself listening to the wrong voices and giving them the wrong weight. 

Living free is always a growing capability. It can be difficult sometimes. Time goes by and circles of trust change, people change. God doesn't change. And that makes his place easy to identify, sometimes tough to maintain, but SO important to keep right. Don't let someone else be a voice of "ultimates" to you. But yes time goes by, people move in and out of certain positions of "voice" to you, and that's where it can get tough. But that journey should be a beautiful one too. Most things of beauty don't come easy.

KP: There seems to be a gravitational pull with companies like Turtlebox and YETI and others like them where, yes, the products are terrific, but there's almost a magic to how much they catch on and how desirous people are of them. What do you attribute that to?

RF: We suppose there is some magic to it, let's say it's 5%, but I would credit the teams under the TB roof that are truly creating the draw. These teams are world class. Seventy people spend all day every day talking to the customer, getting inside his heart, listening to him, building his product, reminding him what he can do or be, making that draw happen. 

KP: At point (if any) did you say, "Well .. we never envisioned this much success," and how has that success affected you in ways you didn't envision?

RF: I remember we dreamed early on about making the product for others like we did for ourselves in our garage, what a joy that would be, regardless of the scale. 

Then we dreamed early about the brand the product needed to thrive, and built that brand around the product. And we even dreamed that Live Free really would help others — because it did that for us — again an idea born in our garage. 

But I'm not sure we ever dreamed the company part — building the team and the organization itself — and the thrill that is to lead.  I never knew what a weight it could be, on the pillow at night you think about it. But in the morning it's a joy to get up, get geared up to fight that day and to lead the teams well — I never dreamed that part. 

It's epic.  

KP: I'm guessing every brand in the world wants to be associated with Scottie, who is one of the two or three most dominant athletes currently. How did your relationship with him begin and develop?

Will Bradley (co-founder): We were at Love One (Thomas Rhett’s charity event) last year and got to talk to Scottie. We ended up sending him some product. Scottie found the product authentically fitting into his life which led to this whole thing happening. 

KP: Why Scottie? There are other, cheaper places to spend your marketing budget. But I'm guessing this was about much more than the transaction. So what was it about him and the relationship you wanted to have with him that compelled you to go all in on it?

WB: Scottie is at the top of his game but believes golf isn’t the most important thing in his life. Turtlebox and Scottie share a lot of the same core values.