When we built the Standard Bike Repair Station for Avery Brewing, it was difficult. It was time consuming and physically exhausting to drill into the heavy metal plate. Instead of building the base first, like the prototype, Ryan tried to build the frame first. Then, when he was finally ready for the metal plate, he ordered the wrong size, which took an extra week of “waiting around”.
The prototype was built in one week of sleepless nights.
Have you ever “invented” something?
We built the base to “look strong”. Before we had sold the first one, Ryan knew that “in order to make a sale, it needs to look like it can do what ‘the sales guy is saying it can do'”. Built from scratch with the help of McGuckin’s employees and their impeccable selection of hardware and organization in parts and supplies for the Avery Brewing Standard Bike Repair Stand. ”
If your repair stand is used by less than 100 people, there won’t be “that much stealing”. Materials will dwindle over time. How “highly functional”, the repair stand operates through a pro-longed period of time depends on “customer interactions”, “thieves”, “crazy situations”, “operations management of the repair stand”, “number of users”, and willingness to engage within the behavior of the stand and re-upping the materials and maintaining the machine.
When I approached Avery Brewing with an email, I was going in with knowledge that they had a “budget of one thousand dollars for an employee bike repair stand”. Understanding that “innovation” & “employee amenities” were “all the rage”… and “a thousand dollars is a lot of money,” I came to the conclusion that I was the “one for the job”.
After securing a meeting via the email, Ryan showed up on a Wednesday afternoon at 2:30. He biked from downtown Boulder to Gunbarrel, 6.8 miles away. Some people, namely Brian O’Connell. via morning coffee at The Cup that “I don’t do enough miles as a bike shop owner”. The only answer I ever give: “I don’t own a car. I own one bike. I live in the bike shop, which is where I work. Public transportation like Ego CarShare, Uber, buses, planes, and hitchhiking round out all the travels that walking and limited amount of cycling won’t cover.”
By the time Ryan got there, he was “on time” and “mentally prepared”. He felt vigorous and happy even though “getting told ‘no’ would be ‘hard'”; that thought was not allowed to cycle in his mind. “Yes” is the only way to think. Years on the high school golf team dreaming about the nine holes I was hours away from playing down to the individual shots and ideal scores taught me that “visualization works.”
