On this episode, I share an inspirational entrepreneur story from an interview I did a few years ago. At the time, this interview was geared toward my Composites Weekly podcast audience highlighting a startup company that had designed some new carbon fiber framed backpacks.
The company is KUIU, an outdoor performance hunting gear manufacturer started by former NFL player Jason Hairston.
Jason played professional football back in the mid ’90s with the San Francisco 49ers and then went on to the Denver Broncos. Unfortunately, as with many players, injuries shortened his career.
Jason’s story doesn’t come without tragedy though.
In 2018 not long after my interview with him, Jason took his own life.
Little did I know at the time, that he had been suffering from CTE, a degenerative brain disease found in some former athletes, military veterans, and others with a history of brain trauma. The disease was confirmed after his death. It just goes to show, that no matter how successful someone has become, we don’t know the struggles they deal with behind closed doors.
Jason left an amazing legacy of a company that was built from one of his greatest passions.
The company did $43 million in 2020.
Some of the biggest takeaways from this interview is Jason’s dedication to quality to make his company better. There’s also a really great lesson on using scarcity to drive customer demand.
Jason once said, “Within our company, we have to be remarkable at everything we do,” He referenced Seth Godin’s 2002 book Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.
“Whether it’s the product, whether it’s the brand experience, whether it’s the way we answer the phones, the way we address customers, the furniture that I put in the office.”
He built a culture around handwritten thank-you notes, which he wrote regularly. Each of Kuiu’s 11 representatives, plus their showroom manager were required to write at least five thank-yous per day, but they often would write more. They were sending up to 40,000 paper thank-you’s sometimes in a single year.
KUIU is obsessed with engineering the world’s most innovative performance hunting gear, and you can learn more by visiting https://www.kuiu.com.
