In the fourth chapter of the 'Building the Brand' series, I take you through my return to the U.S. after a nine-month training rotation in South Korea in October 2016, this chapter details the pivotal moments and lessons learned in expanding Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN). From moving into our second warehouse to the trials and triumphs during the transition period, the emphasis is on the commitment and mindset necessary to achieve success. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 01:30 Recap of Chapter Three 05:46 Lessons Learned from Going All In 08:36 Returning to the U.S. and New Beginnings 12:32: First Warehouse/Transitioning Out of the Military 18:20 Early Challenges and Team Expansion 24:19 The Struggles of Opening a Gym 36:13 Realizing the Need to Focus on BPN 38:51 Sharpening the Axe: Preparing for Battle 40:08 The Rollercoaster of 2017 40:57 Documenting the Journey on YouTube 42:11 The First Taste of Financial Success 47:47 The Cash Flow Nightmare 59:33 Meeting Steph: A Life-Changing Year 01:02:25 Expanding the Team 01:05:21 The Power of Content 01:08:08 A Shift in Focus: Health and Wellness 01:15:07 Forcing Growth: The New Warehouse 01:21:47 Overcoming Challenges: The Internet Issue 01:23:13 Conclusion: A Year of Transformation Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio FOLLOW: IG: https://www.instagram.com/thenickbarepodcast YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness
Chapter 1: What is the focus of Chapter Four?
Previously, on Building the Brand. First platoon, Bravo Company, 212 Cav, titled The Misfits. That was my platoon that I was assigned to. I was the platoon leader, leading 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers there. And this was a very intimidating environment to walk into. Here I am, this brand new second lieutenant expected to lead that platoon.
And that's where I truly valued the responsibility of being a leader. Every other part of my life, I turned off. It was army number one, BPN number two, creating content number three. BPN sales slowly started to growth. No, it was so slow over such a long period of time that it was really hard to recognize the wins and the results, but you could feel the momentum.
And I learned at that point that every time I seeked discomfort, I experienced some sort of new level of growth. And within the first 90 days of being in South Korea, we went from doing $2,000 a month in revenue to $10,000 a month in revenue. My nine month goal was accomplished in 90 days. I filmed the video and it was just me documenting my day. It went from 5,000 views, maybe to a million views.
And the YouTube channel went from 30,000 subscribers to 80,000 subscribers. The exposure that video brought me in the brand was like I said, pivotal, but it wasn't the one video that did that. It was the probably over a hundred, maybe hundreds of videos before that one. You just got to get started. I didn't know how to build an online following. I didn't know how to build a business.
I didn't know any of these things. It was just doing and then learning from my mistakes. And with each additional day, each additional YouTube video, how do I do this a little bit better? South Korea in the nine months I spent there provided me a huge key that was pivotal for my life.
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Chapter 2: What lessons were learned from going all in?
So if we view life as this opportunity to collect keys, by the end of this life, we want to be a key collector of these different experiences and perspectives and ideas and outlooks. And that's how I now view opportunity, discomfort, hardship. The reward is the key. And these keys that we collect to unlock opportunity. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
This is another installment of our Building the Brand series, the multi-part series, and this is chapter four. I'm titling chapter four, Go All In. And where this chapter starts... is when I came back to the United States after a nine-month training rotation in South Korea with the Army.
So it's October of 2016, and I'm boarding a plane leaving Camp Casey, South Korea, heading back to Central Texas. And at this time, A few weeks prior, I believe it was a few weeks, my brother Preston moved from Pennsylvania to Texas. He quit his job. I asked him to quit his job, which he did on the spot. He packed up a U-Haul with all of our inventory and he moved down to my house in Texas.
Chapter 3: What challenges did Nick face upon returning to the U.S.?
And at the time, I purchased a home in Texas with a VA loan. It was a brand new three bed, two bath house, Temple, Texas. I paid $130,000 for this home. No money down. Like I said, VA loan. I think my mortgage was like $900 a month. And a few weeks before getting back to the States, pressed to move down and was operating the business out of that home. And during that time,
He also found a warehouse and he signed a warehouse lease for us. 2590 Oakmont Drive, Round Rock, Texas, 78665, suite 420. It was 6,000 square feet. It was perfect. It was perfect. We signed that lease. I signed that lease when I was in Korea in my boxers, in my barracks room. Preston facilitated the whole thing. We landed back in Texas. We hopped on buses. Those buses took us into Fort Hood.
I got off that bus and my mom was there. My dad was there. Preston was there. They greeted me, we hugged, felt so good to be back home. And there was just like this excitement. It's so hard to even explain what it felt like and how powerful it was, but there was this excitement. One of being back in America, seeing family, being able to touch family again, people you know and you love,
But this excitement of this next chapter of life is going to be so much fun. I mean, we just signed a lease for our first warehouse for BPN. Four years prior, I was establishing the LLC in Pennsylvania in my parents' kitchen and then building this business in my college apartment. And here we are. signing a warehouse lease, 6,000 square feet. I never thought we would get to that point.
Chapter 4: How did the transition out of the military impact BPN?
It almost felt like I was dreaming. And all I wanted to do after getting off that bus and hugging my family was go straight to that warehouse. So that's what we did. We got in the truck at Fort Hood. We drove straight to Round Rock and we went and looked at the warehouse. And there was just like this energy that was crawling all over me. And there was so much excitement.
And I just wanted to do everything right there. I just wanted to go, go, go, get started, start filming, documenting, creating, building all the things. And it was actually tough to hold back and restrain myself, but I knew it was going to be a long journey, a long process. Because there was so much happening at this time in my life. October of 2016 was,
coming back from South Korea, signing this warehouse lease, and then starting the process of transitioning out of the military. So I had a four-year contract with the army and that ended up getting me out of the military. Like my last day active duty service was May of 2017. So there was obviously some time between landing back in
in the States and then officially transitioning out of the military. But the transition process of leaving the military and going back to being a civilian is actually a pretty long and drawn out process. There are certain classes and courses and requirements that you have to go through, accomplish, achieve in order to successfully transition out.
So my transition out of the military pretty much started as soon as we got back from South Korea. So during this time, I'm transitioning out. We're preparing to build out our future HQ and warehouse, creating all this content. And like I said, the energy was so electric that It was pure passion and excitement for this next chapter, this next journey.
And as I've described in the previous parts of this series, there were certain parts of my life where I realized that I was in the driver's seat. I was in complete control of the outcome. One of those first times is when I landed in Fort Benning, Georgia. I made the drive from Pennsylvania after graduating college to Georgia. I pulled into my apartment complex.
I sat in my truck and I realized the things that I accomplished while I'm here, it is my responsibility. I have to own that. I am in the driver's seat. The second time is when I made the drive from Georgia to Texas and I pulled into my apartment complex and I thought the same thing. I'm in complete control of the outcomes I experience and I am responsible. I have to own that.
This was another one of those moments where I get back from South Korea. I go see this warehouse that we just signed a lease for that we really didn't know if we were going to be able to afford. And we didn't know the future success or failure of this company until And I've realized in that moment, I'm in the driver's seat. I'm in control.
And I have to be accountable for the outcomes we experience or do not experience. The wins, the losses, the successes, the failures. Pure accountability. And if you are not willing to take pure accountability seriously, I promise you, you will never achieve the outcomes you want. That's when I was able to go all in.
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Chapter 5: Why did Nick decide to open a gym?
many, many miles. After multiple marathons and triathlons and ultra marathons, running has become a significant part of my life. But I truly did commit to that. When I got back from South Korea, I committed to never running a day of my life again. Because I thought bodybuilding and powerlifting was going to be the future for me and this brand and BPN as a whole.
We were going to be a strength bodybuilding brand. Now, shortly after getting back from Korea and moving into the home that I owned with Preston, Joe Pivots ended up coming down to Texas. Joe was technically our first employee after me and Preston. And when I was in Korea, like I talked about in this last chapter, I had two phone calls that were pretty significant.
The first call was depressed and to tell him and ask him to quit his job, move to Texas, which he did. That's a call that I made. A call that I received was from Joe Pivots. And I went to college with his brother, Jonathan. We were in ROTC together. And I met Joe briefly when I was at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, going to school there.
And I met him actually in the library at IUP because he wanted help losing weight. So I wrote him a diet plan And because his brother was Jonathan and me and Jonathan were in ROTC together, Joe was familiar with BPN and me starting BPN in college and then building it while I was in Korea. And I got this call, this random call from Joe one day when I was in Korea.
And he said, I see what you guys are doing online. I want to be a part of it, which was one of the most random calls I've I ever received, especially not knowing Joe much at this point in my life. And I was like, you know, we got nothing to lose. So I told Joe, once I get back from South Korea, come fly down to Texas, meet me in Preston.
We'll show you the warehouse that we just signed a lease for. We'll show you what we got going on and we'll see if it's a good fit. So shortly after I got back to the States, And me and Preston were living in my house together. The small house was probably 1,300 square feet total. Joe flew down from Pennsylvania to Texas. And we went and we showed him BPHQ, the warehouse.
We talked to him about the plan. We showed him where we were packing orders out of this one small room in this home in Temple. And he said, I want in. I want to join. I told him, Joe, I can't pay you much. I'm not even paying my brother right now. I'm not even paying myself. We can pay you a little bit, but until we get this company off the ground, I can't promise you much.
And we can put an air mattress up for you in this house and you can live here with us as we build this thing. And it was no questions asked. No questions asked. He said, I'm all in. He went back home, packed up his stuff. A few weeks later, he was living in Texas with me and Preston. It was me, Preston and Joe living in this home in Temple, Texas. I was transitioning out of the army.
Preston and Joe would go to the warehouse and start working on it during the day and And they come back at night and I would come back from the army and my day of training and working about five, 6 PM. And then we make the drive to our warehouse, which was about 30 to 40 minutes away from temple.
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Chapter 6: What led to the decision to close the gym?
And we knew that if we closed the gym, we could spend more time on the supplement business. And if we could spend more time on the supplement business being BPN, then we wouldn't need the money that the gym was bringing in. And we could cover those costs with the additional money we were making from BPN. And it felt really risky. It felt really tough. But it felt right. And that's what we did.
We closed the gym. We let our members know we were closing it, which there weren't many. But from the outside looking in, all these people who were kind of watching the journey thought we were failing. It's like, oh, well, here's Nick. He went and started this company while in the military, left the military because he wanted to go all in on this company and build this gym.
The gym failed, closed the gym. Oh, the supplement company must be next. I'm sure from the outside looking in, that was the perception. That was the thought. That's what was going on. But no, that was not it. I was just sharpening my ax. Erwin McManus talks about this, and I love this concept of sharpening your ax when you're in a time of a lull.
It could be between a down period of your life or a transition. In this case, close the gym, preparing to go all in and build BPN into its full potential. It's this transition period, which feels like a lull. And that lull can sometimes feel counterproductive or inefficient, but really it's when you are sharpening your axe and you're preparing to go into that next season of battle.
And from the outside looking in during this lull, it's, oh, this is failing. This is falling apart. No, it might be a little quiet right now, but it's quiet because we are sharpening our axe to go attack this next objective. We're preparing to go back into war. And that's honestly what it felt like closing down the gym.
We closed the gym, sharpened our axe, and went back into attack the back half of 2017. And it was a game changer. It was a complete game changer because we hyper focused. Now, 2017 was easily the hardest year of my entire life. The most stressful year of my entire life. It was the year that I transitioned out of the military. It was the year that I stopped getting paid by the military.
It was a big learning year, but it was also the most fun, rewarding, fulfilling year of my life up until that point. I wish that I could go relive 2017 tomorrow. I would go relive 2017 all over again. And one of the best parts about documenting this entire journey on YouTube is that I can go back and rewatch some of these videos we created during that time, which I do often.
There was so much passion that was just getting started. And we were learning and trying and winning, but also failing at the same time. And we documented and shared everything on YouTube, the entire journey, the entire process. I mean, every day it was film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat. Film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat.
Seven days a week, every single day. It didn't feel like work. Did not feel like work. It felt like Christmas morning every day I woke up. It was me, Preston, and Joe. Filming, working, editing, working, training, editing, working, uploading, sleeping, and repeating. And 2017 was the first time I actually took money out of the business. That's when I started paying myself and Preston and Joe.
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Chapter 7: How did documenting the journey on YouTube influence growth?
Preston and Joe will be people who are in my life forever. I mean, Preston's my brother. Joe is essentially a brother as well. And there's no way I could get to where we are today without the two of them. 2017 ended up being a really big year for us. That was the first year we did seven figures in revenue. And that was organic. Without paid advertising.
That was mainly just from building a brand online. And when I say online, primarily YouTube. I believe YouTube is still one of the best places to build a brand and build a business. It's the second biggest search engine after Google. Content there is evergreen. You can build a community. You can build an audience. You can share stories. It favors long format content, which is hard.
And it was so powerful for us. building a brand from 2014 when I picked up that camera and I spent my last $500 to 2017 and beyond. We did a million dollars in revenue by building a brand on YouTube with zero paid advertising. And even when we started doing paid advertising for our first time and working with an agency, it was complete sunk costs.
It was this agency that took all this money from us and delivered very few results based off these horrible ads they were running with no strategy or direction or thought. It was a painful experience and learning process. But 2017, we did seven figures. I remember crossing that $1 million revenue mark. being completely mind blown. Completely mind blown.
And my dad called me shortly after we did that. My dad was really, I don't want to say pessimistic, but he was very cautious of what kind of success we expected to experience in building BPN. And when we crossed the seven-figure revenue mark, he said, you know what? This might actually turn into something someday. And hearing those words come out of my dad's mouth felt really good.
I don't want to say my dad doubted me as we were building BPN, but he definitely had doubts in what it could potentially be. do for our lives. And I think once we crossed that seven-figure revenue mark, he realized we were on to something. And I think he also realized we were on to something because we had the whatever it takes mindset and attitude.
We were willing to work and work and work to build this thing into its full and true potential. Now, what made 2017 the hardest year of my life is that cash flow was an absolute nightmare. And just because we were doing seven figures in revenue does not mean seven figures in profit.
You know, profit is your revenue minus cost of goods sold, expenses, overhead, everything you spend to keep the business going. building, maintaining, operating. And what made cashflow so hard for us in 2017 was one, we had no finance person in the business. The way that I viewed the health of BPN at that point as a young, inexperienced entrepreneur is I would log into our bank account,
And if it was positive, we were good. If it was close to negative, we weren't good. And we had to do something very quick, very fast to make a change. I mean, I remember vividly logging into our business bank account and I'd close my eyes and I'd slowly open one eye because I didn't want to see. Sometimes I was like, all right. We're good for another couple of days.
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Chapter 8: What was the significance of the year 2017 for BPN?
And if you didn't pick up, I left you a voicemail. Sometimes those calls lasted 30 seconds. Sometimes they lasted 16 minutes. I'm not joking. But those were our two strategies for bridging the gap. between moments of tight cashflow in 2017. And I'll tell you, it was the hardest, most stressful season of BPN. I would lay in bed at night, not being able to fall asleep no matter how tired I was,
trying to figure out how we were going to keep the business alive for one more month. Not because we weren't selling product. That wasn't the issue. And I'm fortunate for that reason. But we were just having such a hard time managing cash flow because all of our money was tied up in inventory. And for any young entrepreneurs listening, I just want you to know there are options.
We had so many options that we didn't know were available. or accessible at the time. You can establish a line of credit with your bank. You can finance inventory. You can do a lot of things. You can take out these small loans. But I and we didn't know those options existed. So we just kept thinking, if that money isn't in the bank, we don't have it.
Which taught us to be very disciplined with our spending. And it instilled some really strong principles and values around money and overhead and reducing costs. I mean, that was a huge benefit for us. It taught us out of necessity how to be disciplined with cash and expenses. But at the same time, we potentially made things a lot harder on ourselves than we potentially needed to.
As hard as 2017 was and as busy as it kept me, Preston, and Joe, I also happened to meet Steph, my now wife, in 2017. And the way we met is that she was working for a military news network called Rated Red in Nashville at the time. And I was living in Texas.
And shortly after Hurricane Harvey came and went through the Houston area, I decided to ruck march from Austin to Houston to raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims. So I announced this ruck march that I was doing and we were raising money and And at the time, Rated Red picked up the story. And Steph picked up the story.
And we had to connect and hop on a call to talk about them covering the story and supporting. And that's how me and Steph first started talking is through that experience in 2017. And just like I decided to go all in I had the opportunity to go all in on BPN when I left the military. After meeting Steph, I went all in on that relationship.
I knew early on after meeting Steph, I was going to marry her and went all in in pursuing a relationship with her. just after meeting her briefly and then connecting and spending time together. And then about a year later, she ended up moving down to Texas. And she was a big part of building BPN alongside of us and supporting the mission and everything we did.
But I have to include that in the hardest, most fun, passionate year of my life, of going all in and building BPN, that's also the same year that I met my now wife, who is the mother to my two children, my daughter, Charlie, who is just over two years old, and my son, Nico, who is just over two months old. So we wrapped up 2017 with a big win. We finished crossing the seven-figure revenue mark.
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