Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Gardner.
Hi Ryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I owned an affiliate network and was driving traffic for offers online. People would come to me with a product or a service and I would put it in my affiliate network and publishers would pick it up and promote it. We had a guy approach us that owned a product called L-Arginine Plus and he asked if we would team up with him and gave us 50% of the company. We went from selling $250 a day to $3500 a day within 3-4 weeks. We then purchased a domain name called L-arginine.com and immediately started ranking first because it was the exact match domain for what people were searching for online. Then we read an article in Sports Illustrated that said MLB bans Deer Antler Spray. Deer Antler Velvet Extract is an ingredient that helps you recover really quickly. They felt that Deer Antler Spray gave an athlete a competitive edge. We went to GoDaddy and looked up DeerAntlerSpray.com and it was available for $8! We then talked to a manufacturer that developed Deer Antler Spray and thought we were on to another product like L-Arginine. Come to find out that a lot of people didn’t read the article, or if they did, they just were not interested in Deer Antler Spray. About eight months later, right before the Super Bowl, Baltimore Ravens star Ray Lewis, got accused of taking Deer Antler Spray. After that, every few minutes ESPN was mentioning Deer Antler Spray. We sold all the bottles that we had in inventory that day! The very next day we got a call from GNC and asked how fast we could fulfill 30k bottles! Deer Antler Spray is not a banned ingredient but certain groups just don’t want their athletes to take it.
After a year or two of selling Deer Antler Spray, we wanted to expand our supplement line and decided to launch a non-proprietary pre-workout. We stuck with the deer theme and called it Bucked Up! We use clinically-proven ingredients at their clinical dosages. Our products taste great and their ingredients are proven to be effective. We quickly became the best selling pre-workout on the market and even today we sell hundreds of thousands of bottles each month!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We believe in failing quickly and not everything has been smooth sailing. I remember when we launched Energy Drinks back in 2019…we produced 200k cans. When taste-testing the drinks, they were phenomenal and thought we had it dialed in. When we launched them at Fitcon Expo in Utah, there were some people that complained about a bitter taste. We looked into it and went back to the drawing board to figure out how we could improve them. We’ve learned a lot from our failures — they’ve made us resilient. We will always look for innovative ways to provide premium products to our customers.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We started in 2016 with a small product line and now have over 500 products available. We have grown exponentially and have doubled our revenue each year. Our brand has turned into a lifestyle brand where people feel like they are a part of something bigger. It’s become a community — no matter where people are along their fitness journey, we have something for them.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Best thing I like about our city is the support we get from the community. They have really helped us and supported us throughout the year. There is nothing not to like about the city we are in.
Contact Info:
- Website: buckedup.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/buckedup
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Buckedup
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/buckedup
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BuckedUp
