Whatever Propels You

Participating in the war. I didn't feel so great about it. I didn't feel like there was a good purpose there. I didn't feel like it was warranted, and ultimately I didn't feel good, and I felt like I needed to do something positive to kind of counteract some of the things that I felt like I offset in this world. That war would be the 2003 Iraq war, and Chris Nulti did go on to do something positive. He built propelled bikes, an electric pedal assist bike company, aiming to change the way we think about transportation. This is the Passion Economy. I'm Adam Davidson. And this week we're talking to someone who came back from war with a serious injury that forced him to abandon his career plans, and to spend a lot of time on a painful recovery process. But that process gave him inspiration. Instead of giving up, he took the lessons he learned from that injury to create a new business. So let's dive right in with the background. So I grew up on Long Island in Huntington area, so it's Suffolk County, kind of relatively suburban town, but you know, I grew up on kind of the rough side of the tracks pretty much. Yeah. What did your folks do? So my dad was a sales rep. He was a manufacturer sales rep worked in the sporting goods industry, fishing equipment, different stuff like that, and that was my initial exposure to retail. So I ended up traveling around with him to visit different retailers throughout the tri-state area, met many retailers throughout my life just traveling around with him, and that sort of thing. So he represented big brands. Yeah. So he worked for Penn Real's fishing company. He worked for transport backpacks when they were really hot in the kind of 90s and stuff like that. Chris had this exposure to business, to sales, and that seemed like a decent way to make a living to him. But there was this other side to him too, a really creative side. Chris seemed to be trying his hand at just about everything. So growing up, I used to be really into drawing cartoons and stuff like that. I'd just something about that I really enjoyed it, and it was pretty good at it. I guess it was one way that people were kind of impressed by that, and I enjoyed impressing people. And then I got into other sorts of art, whether it be photography, pottery, whatever. And somehow when I was in high school, this was a time that big pants were really popular. It's a little bit embarrassing to say, but this is, I end up making some pants for myself. And at the time, I was in a technical high school for graphic design, and my teacher saw my pants. She was like, "Oh, I really like those pants where I was like, oh, I made them." She was like, "Oh, well, there's a fashion program up the street. You might want to check that out." And I said, "Sure." So I walked up the street or the driveway to this other building. And I was like, "This is pretty cool. To be frank, one of the things that was a little bit attracted to me was that I was the only guy in the class and I was 30 girls." And I said, "This is a good odds also." So this could be interesting. And I tried it out. And I really enjoyed it. It was just, I guess that's one of the things that's been rather consistent in my life. I like trying new things. I like having new experiences. I like learning things and bringing those different ideas together and making them into something, you know, being resourceful, I guess you could say. Yeah, because I mean, it's one thing to kind of like them and buy them in a store. Like it's for a teenager to actually, like, did your mom have a sewing machine or how did you. Yeah, my mom had a sewing machine. And I guess, you know, probably my grandmother was a little bit more inspirational in that, where she would create all sorts of stuff, you know, actually, probably even before this, there used to be these pants called Skid that skateboarders. And they used to skateboard. And that was kind of the pants you wore. And she would make her own version. I mean, again, we didn't really have much money, but she made some pretty cool pants. And she was always doing stuff. And I think that that was part of this, like, inspiring thing to just be creative and create things. Like if something doesn't exist, you can make it, you know, and I guess that's even my life today. All these things are like, okay, we can figure this out, which explains his first experiment with bikes. So from an early age, I was always into bikes. You know, I remember my older brother and I, he's about two years older than me. We both had these GT performers in there, BMX bikes. And we were just so excited about these bikes and would ride around and make jumps and go off them and all that sort of stuff. And for me, I think that that was one of the more special and memorable experiences of my childhood. And so I've always been kind of entrepreneurial. Somehow I came across these police auctions that they sell all sorts of goods, whether it been stolen or who knows what, but basically they can't return it to somebody and they sell things off at a really cheap price. So I came across these lots of bicycles that were for sale. And I figured I'll buy them and restore them and sell them. Many of them made their way out into the community, but a lot of them ended up sitting in my mom's backyard for a while. But it wasn't because of laziness or lack of follow through. He got pulled away. I joined the military, which was kind of a crazy jump, but basically I was looking for some direction in my life. And it seemed like a good thing to do, helped me pay for school, didn't really have much money and seemed like a good way to, yeah, just maybe find myself a little bit. And I ended up joining the Army Reserves at the time. It didn't really have any anticipation of of going overseas or doing anything like that, but basically two years after I joined the military, I'm getting called up to go to Kuwait. And then shortly after that, I was in Iraq for the start of the Iraq War in 2003. Like many hundreds of thousands of young Americans, you joined the Army Reserve expecting, you know, I'll do a week and a month and a couple of weeks a year and, you know, proud to be serving your country, but very little thought that you'll be called overseas. And obviously the Iraq War, I forget the exact statistics, but it's hundreds of thousands of reservists who were called over. Absolutely. Yeah, I was like the majority of the force over there seemed to be reserves and national guard and that sort of thing. Yeah. And so what did you do? So you were there for the ground war? I was. Yeah. So I was in transportation, transportation specialists, 88 Mike, as it's called, as your specialty. And I drove fuel trucks specifically. When I first got over there, it's actually on Thanksgiving 2002. It was very memorable experience because I had a hot dog dinner for Thanksgiving in 2002 in Kuwait. And just interjected by coincidence, I moved to the middle east on Thanksgiving 2002. I moved to Amon, Jordan. Wow. And I remember my first day, I grabbed a schwarma sandwich and was just eating it, walking around, looking around. And everyone's like looking at me really angrily. And I was like, maybe they hate Americans. And then later that day, I realized it was Ramadan and everyone was fasting and it was cool for me to be eating. And I never again felt like anyone hated Americans. I felt very well treated. So you had a hot dog on Thanksgiving. It was even a schwarma. It was a pretty wild experience. But basically, we kind of knew that the war was going to happen way before because we were unloading all the vehicles and tanks and everything else. And we're also building up fuel on the border. So we were preparing for the war for months before it started. And then once it actually happened, you know, this anticipation building up for months. And then once it started, you know, we were just all in just doing it. And this is, I mean, having covered the war. This was something I didn't fully appreciate. But the supply chain, the logistics, the fuel, the water, this is, I would say as important to American military power as the bullets and the bombs because, I mean, all those tanks and humvees and armored personnel carriers, they're not the world's most fuel efficient vehicle. And, and if you want to fight a war, you need to have the fuel to fight it. I mean, that, and so we go as far as the fuel will take you, right? Yeah. And that, that was our thing. Basically, we would, we'd be going back and forth to quate to grab fuel, bring it back, and just kind of, that was our runs. And we did it pretty constantly. And you were a target, right? Because that's a pretty sweet thing to blow up if you're the enemy. I would say so, yeah. And quite frankly, we were not very well protected, unfortunately, but that was just our reality. Most of the time I was driving by myself, which technically, I don't even think it's legal, but, yeah, so definitely some pretty trying experiences there. And then you were injured. Yeah. So I actually injured myself, kind of right before the Iraq war, while I was in Kuwait, we're driving these like, basically tractor trailers off road, more or less, because there's not, I mean, there are roads, but many times we're riding in these very, it's, yeah, it's kind of drive riding off road. And we ended up riding off the road into like a ditch. And I really banged myself up because these trucks, they don't really have suspension. So it's not the same sort of comfort that we're used to in other vehicles and even vehicles that have good suspension riding off road. It's pretty rough. So somehow I injured my back. And my biggest issue is that I never really got appropriate help for my back, because one thing with back injuries, it's not always so clear exactly what the underlying issue is. You know, you could take an X-ray and everything looks fine, but there could be other damages. And that was my case. So I ended up having like five bulging discs in my back. And so my back was pretty much in spasm the whole time, where it was all locked up on me. And ultimately, I stayed, though, for a variety of reasons, one, it was this kind of like push on sort of thing to I didn't really have any sort of appropriate diagnosis. So I was encouraged to stay and just do kind of lighter duty. And so could you walk and yeah, I couldn't just didn't want to carry heavy stuff. Yeah, I was recommended that I don't carry too much, but also like anytime I was in the vehicle, I would hurt myself, but I would still do it. And yeah, looking back on it probably wasn't the smartest thing. And I probably could have advocated for myself a little bit more. But I stuck with it and did most of the missions and everything like that and ended up coming home with the rest of the rest of the company. So you finished your tour. I did finish my tour. And but now you know you're further damaging your. Yes. And then that's that. He is back from a war where he was always in a lot of danger with an injury that made it hard for him to work. And he's trying to figure out what to do, what he can do. What Chris does, that's after the break. Chris didn't get back into bikes right away. And I think that's an important thing to hear. Chris spent years trying different things, building skills, and eventually that path led to bikes. When I came back, I realized I can't really use my physical body in the same way that I used to. I actually used to manage a garden shop on Long Island. And so although it did, I did have to use my brain to a certain extent. A lot of the work was physical as well. But I really couldn't do that same job. And at this time, computers and e-commerce was kind of becoming a thing. And ultimately, I ended up getting exposed to this company on Long Island that sold luggage. And they had this growing online business. And that was really interesting to me. Again, something new, something I could learn, something there. And so I ended up getting a job there, just doing like basic stock stuff because I didn't really have that much experience with e-commerce. But very quickly, I ended up becoming the person that more or less managed their online website. And I grew it quite a bit. I mean, we started, when I came there, they were doing about $2 million a year on their website, which is pretty considerable at that time, around 2005. And within a year's time, we were doing about $4 million with a lot of the research. I would do a lot of research on my own, just learning more. And I thought that this was kind of my path forward. I'm just going to self-educate myself about this and make it happen. And then ultimately, I ended up working with them for a while, and then I started my own business, kind of offering these services to other businesses, building websites, marketing them. So you're learning both the technical skills of web design, but also like the marketing side. Marketing and I guess that over that period of social media is becoming more and more. Absolutely. And one of the things that really made this very interesting to me, I heard somebody say that the internet is kind of a democracy, or technology is a democratization of the tools of commerce. And I thought that was a really interesting thing. And that was really appealing to me to make businesses accessible to people that wouldn't otherwise know about them. And so that kind of motivated me into this. And I guess for me, I wasn't as interested in the technology. I was interested in like what it can do. And I started to see what it can do. And I became really encouraged by that. So, you know, that is basically the central theory of this whole show is the idea that so many Americans are understandably concerned about globalization, outsourcing, automation. But those very same forces, they do take away jobs, but they also give new opportunities. And they specifically give opportunities for someone with a particular passion, a particular thing to find those people who share that all over the world. So you don't have to just walk around central Long Island or something trying to find your customers. Like your dad had to like, it sounds like he had to physical, like all of his customers were within driving distance. That's right. Physical interactions were critical there. And actually one of the thing, I forget the name of the book, but Bill Gates wrote a book about this and talking about, you know, just a future. And how technology is going to change things. And all the disruptions that are going to happen. And for me, I've always really been pressed by a lot of these concepts. But, you know, I guess in talking about what I was just saying about building websites for people, helping them market their businesses, for me, it wasn't like, oh, this is a great business. I'm going to like make loads of money, selling this to people. For me, what it was, this was an education. And I was getting paid to learn. And I think that that's the opportunity. You know, I think that that's really where we're at today. And then it makes more sense for if you don't have a specific career path or a field or or more so a sustainable career path, there's an opportunity to who knows, you know, like you can go in turn for somebody or whatever, like you just got to kind of lose your pride and say, you know what, like this seems to make sense. I'm going to learn about this. I'm going to go all in and see where this goes. And where this goes for Chris is propel bikes, a thriving electric pedal assist bike company. I know I've said this before, but it's important to repeat. Chris was paying attention. He's a curious guy. He likes to learn new things. And he's watching the world around him and seeing opportunity everywhere. We probably are all surrounded by incredible business ideas. They're presenting to us all the time, but we've already got a job or we think it can't possibly work or we're just not paying enough attention to those opportunities. None of that stopped Chris. As I said, I always enjoyed cycling and some of my friends were getting into cycling and going out for different tours and stuff like that. And I really wanted to do it, but I felt one, I was not like, I guess my cardio health was not at the level where I felt comfortable, and two, I was a little bit concerned about injuring myself again. I had this challenge where I would start to work out or build my muscles up, but then injure myself again and then it kind of going to a spasm or whatever. And what was the underlying condition? There's bulging discs. I mean, I just defined as five bulging discs and degenerative disc disease. So basically, I would move my back in a certain way or lift something heavy and end up, my back would be kind of locked up. So. And that's I mean, it was pretty, it was, it was really bad. I mean, fortunately, today, I'm in much better shape than I was then, but at that point, you know, I didn't really know like, you know, is this just going to be this endless back and forth of like trying to improve, but then hurting myself and just so I should I just like give up and just, you know, live a more like sedentary life. And a friend of mine had an electric bike and I was like, well, that's kind of interesting. I wonder maybe that could be helpful. And so ultimately I tried that out and that seemed to work really well for me. It's well, you know, I could kind of control how much effort I'm putting into this. So I ended up building one for myself. Actually, oddly enough, ended up becoming, it was a police auction bike that I used and I converted or a new police auction. I think actually this was a new police auction bike. Gotcha. You hadn't learned your lesson. I didn't learn my lesson. I didn't give up on the police auction bikes. And when you say an electric bike, just so we define it. Yeah, so my first electric bike was pretty rudimentary is basically just a motor with a battery and a throttle on it. So you just kind of twist the throttle similar to a mo pet or scooter and you can choose to allow the bike to fully take over, you know, the motor to fully take over or you could, you know, just ride it like a normal electric bike. It looks like a normal bike. It is a normal bike. That's right. It's not like a mo pet or anything like that, but it has a little motor that either helps you or replaces you, you're pedaling. Exactly, right. And these days, the bikes that I sell are very different, but those days, yeah, that was one of the main technologies that existed was throttle. And you still see them a lot on the market, but really these days, we really focus on what's called pedal assist. So basically you pedal the bike, you always have to pedal the bike, but it just provides assistance based on your input as opposed to potentially fully taking over all of your, you know, with the throttle, you could not pedal if you don't want to. And so that first one you try and is it right away like, oh, this is pretty good. Yeah, I was taken back pretty quickly by it. And I was really excited. You know, this is maybe opening up some new possibilities similar to how a bike opened up possibilities for me when I was a young child, you know, and I don't know if I fully grasp the depth of it at the time, but certainly I was excited about it. So you make this first rudimentary one and you're biking around with your buddies and so, you know, as I was doing research for this first bike, I came across only a few companies out there that were involved in this thing, but then I recognized that many other places throughout the world, electric bikes were actually quite popular even at this time, which was 2011. And I was really interested in that and having somewhat of a mind for business and at this time doing quite a bit with e-commerce, I was like, well, I think I want to get involved in this business, but I'm not really sure how, you know, I didn't really have much money to do that, but I did have a lot of experience building websites, marketing businesses on the web and I figured maybe I can just start a website and I can try to put some money together and I could start a business and then eventually with the hopes of having a store. And so ultimately that's what I ended up doing. I actually got a small loan. There was an SBA back loan for like $20,000 and I bought about 10, 15 bicycles from a couple different manufacturers and I started a website and started to sell online and started to market the business online and so these were someone else was making full electric bikes and that's right. Yeah, to start out, we were working with about three different manufacturers. Now we have quite a bit more, probably about 10 different manufacturers we work with. And less fewer police auctions. No police auctions these days, no, no, I'm all giving up on that for sure. But yeah, basically I started the website and people started to find us and occasionally people would come to visit us. Sometimes we would just ship the bike kind of site on scene and people didn't get to see the bike beforehand and we just built up over time. You know, our first year we sold a decent amount of bikes but the next year we pretty much tripled in size and we were kind of like tripling in size every year and I was really getting excited about it. But at the time it was kind of just a fun thing to do. Then something happened. The business really took a turn once I decided to go all in. After the break, Chris goes all in. Chris wasn't necessarily proud of the work he did in Iraq. He grew frustrated by American dependence on foreign oil and he wanted to offset that. And politics aside, this is something we all can learn from. He wanted to be a positive force in the world. He thought he could make the world a better place and he thought that would make him feel happier, more fulfilled. And that is a key component of the passion economy. We don't preach on this show. Make as much money as you possibly can. I mean, we do celebrate businesses that do well financially. But businesses that do well financially because their founders really want to do whatever it is they are doing. And if what's driving you excites you if it fulfills your creative passion or fulfills your sense of purpose in the world, if it allows you to be a critical thinker, but also fulfills this greater desire to be good. Well, that probably will inspire you to work harder, to stick with a problem a little longer, to overcome obstacles, bring some extra value to the table. And I started thinking about how can I help people and not hurt people and just these different ideas. And ultimately, I ended up somehow that all kind of came together. And I said, yeah, this makes sense. Now I can do this, but I'm going to do it with a new focus now in a new perspective. And it's around bikes as transportation. And this is so key. Chris says it's so casually. It almost slips right by bikes as transportation. And you might be thinking like I was like, uh, yeah, bikes are a form of transportation. But Chris is talking about something much bigger here. Really, this is a totally new market riding for longer distances, maybe carrying more weight, making them more comfortable, safer, that sort of thing. And trying to make the bicycle just more competitive with other forms of transportation, largely cars. Because I think that electric bikes can replace most small car trips. And really the concept of using an over 2,000 pound vehicle to transport a 200 pound person as opposed to a 50 pound bicycle doesn't really make too much sense, especially in a place like New York City, for example. Do you help design the bikes at all? So through this process, we've gotten to learn quite a bit about the industry and quite a bit about what people really need. And sometimes that's not always so much just what's on the market. And I think that's one thing that's really worked pretty well for me is to not look at just what exists, look at what should exist, and try to help make that happen. And so we've been fortunate to actually work with a lot of companies and help inform their product decisions in the way that they build and evolve and improve their products. And ultimately, like giving customer a better experience. So you have, you know that there's some population out there that either actively wants or will want as soon as they understand it. Absolutely. You understand the product really well, and also what's potential in the product. And then you're sort of your physical retailer, your web retailer, you're a bit of a manufacturer in the sense that you're influencing the manufacturing process, you're an educator, and it's and it sounds like you're not, like you're focusing on that relationship between the person and the bike, you're not, and then you'll go to whatever business arrangement serves that, which also strikes me as a kind of 21st century passion economy, approach as opposed to a 20th century. Here's my role in the supply chain. It's really specific and narrow. Yeah, I think the reality is that the old way of doing things doesn't really work anymore. It's clear. I mean, and if there's a market that has not really evolved yet, it's really set for some form of disruption and it's ready to get shaken up. Chris saw this whole. It wasn't just that people like him who might have trouble riding bikes because of an injury could now ride bikes because they had this electric pedal assist. Yes, that's true. But he saw an opportunity to widen his net, to sell electric bikes as a replacement for the car. People who might feel perfectly comfortable riding for a few miles can now ride 10 miles, 15 miles, 20 miles. They can make the bike their central mode of transportation. He has a good head for marketing. He has experience in growing websites and online sales. And this time, he actually profoundly cares about the product and the message. But Long Island, where they'd been running the retail location, just didn't really fit with this new message. And so ended up making the decision to move to New York City. And that was a big change. So one thing we used to actually be called Long Island electric bikes when we were in Long Island and in 2015 we changed our name to propel. And at this time electric bikes in New York City, they were kind of looked down upon. They were seen as illegal actually because there was a law that was created years ago that said that anything basically with a throttle was illegal. But I saw this loophole. I saw that pedal assist bikes were technically not illegal. But they're not explicitly legal. But for me as a person with this like drive and passion for this project, I was willing to take those risks, which is a big risk. I mean, at this point, I had a business I was doing a million dollars a year. And it could have stayed on Long Island and continue to operate how I was. But ultimately, I wanted this to be bigger. I wanted to have this like big impact. And I felt like the best place to do it is a place that needed the most which from my perspective was New York City. You know, traffic was terrible pollution, all these sort of issues that exist here. And I felt like they could really benefit from electric bikes. And at this time, the bike infrastructure was starting to come online more and more. So more bike lanes and it was getting safer to bike. Biking became more of a viable option where I grew up on Long Island. I mean, if you biked for transportation, you're kind of looked down upon people will look at you like, we can't afford a car. What's wrong, you know, where in New York, it was more of an acceptable form of transportation. It was a real cross section. I have a few different questions. So you're still online and you have physical retail, is that right? Yeah. So through this experience, we really had to redefine the way that we conduct ourselves as a business. I mean, if most people looked at my business when I started out, they would say, this is not a financially viable business. It doesn't make sense. The market's not big enough. But again, like I was passionate about it. I believed in it and it said, I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to figure it out. And what he did was pretty simple, honestly, because Chris isn't a manufacturer. He's not inventing the newest, most innovative electric bike. He sells them. So what value is he bringing to the table? Well, it's the name of the show. So maybe you figured it out. He's bringing his passion. He's bringing a vision for what electric bikes could be, how they could fit in your life. He's bringing a passion for figuring out his customers and what precisely they need. And then bringing that to the manufacturers to help them refine their bikes. So they listen to him when he says, let's make a safer bike. Let's make a come for your bike. He's essentially this little bouncing ball of passionate energy in between customers and manufacturers who almost certainly would not be able to find each other or certainly not find each other in this full way without him. I would write a lot about the bikes. And that was a lot of how I marketed the business, but also provided value to people. And quite often people would visit us. And we'd spend a lot of time with them testing bikes. That sort of thing helped them to understand this market. These days, that's a very big part of our business. It's kind of inspired our process today. One of the things that we do, we have what's called matchmakers. And we basically try to match people to the right bike. And so we don't really look at it as like sales so much. It's more about educational process. And I think people really appreciate that. One of the things I learned a lot from working on the web is that people like to shop on the web because they don't really get bothered. Nobody's pushing them. They can kind of educate themselves and go down these different paths of learning and everything like that. And so we try to create an experience in the store that's very similar. So there's no pressure and just kind of take your time. You want to test bikes. And so I think of my business today actually in a lot of ways, like a physical representation of our website as opposed to the other way around where most businesses say, like, well, I have a store, but I also sell online. So we largely started online. And our stores are kind of a way that people can just have a more immersive experience with what they're already experiencing online. I guess what I'm learned from this whole experience is just you really need to be passionate about it to stick with it, right? That's one thing I learned because my business has been really challenging. Actually, you know, it might sound like we just had this like amazing road. I mean, my first year opening in the city, they gave me a fine for $25,000 for selling motorized scooters, which my bikes were not even that. Fortunately, I got it taken care of, but I've had a lot of these like really difficult experiences kind of trying to grow this thing and trying to build it. But through sticking through it, things kind of came around as I thought they would. And ultimately, like, we have a really nice business. The reality is like the amount of energy and effort that I put into this thing is maybe not totally warranted or justified or whatever, but because I'm passionate about it, because I believe in it so much, I'm willing to do that. And I don't feel like drained by it. I feel, you know, the more I do, the more I feel excited and interested. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah. And I think that that's that's really what I wish for everybody. I think that that exists for everybody. But there is something out there for everybody. But most people, I think, might be scared to take that jumping off, right? Whatever that is, like say you're really into headphones, like whatever, who knows, you know, and it just, but you can't, you kind of can't wrap your head around how you can make a career out of this thing. How can you make money? Or but today, like with the web and everything else, like there's ways to do it. There's definitely ways to do it. The passion economy is a three uncanny four production. It's hosted by me, Adam Davidson, and produced by Lena Richards. Our music is composed and performed by Casey Hallford. Our sound engineer is Jean Montalvo. Our executive producer is Laura Mayer. If you want to learn more about the theories in this podcast, check out my book aptly named The Passion Economy.