Chapman Grubb ('10)

An update on the entrepreneurial life

When last we spoke, Chap had launched rerouted.co to provide a way for outdoor enthusiasts to buy and sell quality used clothing and equipment, reduce environmental impacts, and support nonprofits. Here, he gives an update on developments in the past several months.

Christian Fulghum ‘77:

Boom, we're running. Happy Friday!

Chap Grubb ‘10:

Oh yeah. I mean, not that I know what a weekend is anymore.

Christian:

Okay. So we're having this talk this morning because the last time we talked was several months ago, and that's a lifetime in the world of an entrepreneur. So, I'd love to hear an update on what's going on with your start-up, rerouted.co.

Chap:

A lot has happened since then. I guess the biggest, most monumental thing is we jumped on a business accelerator and went through a three-month long program. A bunch of mentors, a bunch of resources down here in New Mexico. It's called Activate New Mexico and they did fantastic work. The whole goal was to help us put the pieces of our idea together in a way that was presentable and appealing to investors. And the culmination of that accelerator was a pitch in front of five different investors. We did it all virtually because it started on March 30th. I learned a lot! I mean, I was in zoom meetings 24 hours a day all day. It was insane.

But, at the same time, it was such a valuable experience. We got connected to a community of investors. I’ve realized that while we serve an outdoor based community, we are very much coming into being a tech business. Because we’ve developed this platform that's fundamentally different than what anybody else is doing. That's what sets us apart from Craigslist/E-bay and it's that platform that allows us to make these professional level exchanges that are instant, fast, easy, and clear over a system that's notoriously unclear and unreliable, which is the Craigslist/eBay used gear exchange.

Christian:

Did you decide to accept any investment, or have you held off on that? What's the status with outside investment?

Chap:

Yeah, we're still actively seeking the right outside investment. We're speaking with a number of different, smaller VCs, early seed-stage rounds or investors. And we've got a couple angel investors that we're talking to as well. We're kind of in-between this angel/VC space because we, both the founders, have invested our own capital. So, we've grown to 500 accounts. We did 250 sales last year. We've been moving product. We've shown some traction and success, proving the concept. We're just at kind of a grind stage where we're putting this beta platform through its paces. As I said, we're becoming more of a tech company, and we're designing and building this tech platform that will facilitate this exchange across the board.

Christian:

So right now, you are still looking for the right investment?

Chap:

Honestly, right now, what we're hearing from all the investors we're speaking to is that we need to continue to show traction. We need to continue to get people to sign up, get people to do business with us, to engage with our social media accounts, to sign up for our email list. Because the whole idea, the root, Christian, that we talked about last time, was facilitating access and education to the outdoors. That was the core mission that I had. And that's why used outdoor gear has always been our focus. What's changed is we realized we can make this exchange, this used gear platform so much better and so much easier and more available to everybody than it's ever been done before, if we're willing to combine with the technical resources that are available to us.

I think you know me well enough to know that computers are not my forte. That is not where my skillset is. That's not what I like to do. My technical co-founder Jonathan Maple, my CTO, he's fantastic. He can help take my vision and make it function technically. We’re asking our customers what they want and need and building that. We want it to work beautifully for all our users.

Christian:

Yeah. I will say that all of the successful entrepreneurs that I've ever known have been really smart about knowing what they're good at and what they're not good at, and getting the right person or persons involved to take care of those things. The end result is a much stronger, more diverse and robust team. So that makes perfect sense to me.

Chap:

Have you ever, Christian, heard the guy that invented Tofurky talk about his company?

Christian:

No.

Chap:

He's such an old school hippie. He had been living in a Treehouse where he paid $25 a month in rent for 10 years while he built this company. They didn't turn a profit for years. He was making enough to pay his employees and overhead and that's it. So he had a really interesting story before he hit it big, but one of my favorite quotes he said was, "I always wanted to be the dumbest guy in the room. That was always, my goal was to surround myself with people that were way smarter than I was." And I love that. I love that mentality.

Christian:

Yeah. I've heard Bill Gates say the same thing. It's 'hire the smartest people you can get,' especially in things that you don't know about or aren't passionate about personally. Learn from what other people can teach you. And more importantly, learn from what your customers want. So do you still see that the focus of the business hasn't changed, it's just that the facilitation behind the scenes is what's different?

Chap:

Yeah.

Christian:

Are you looking for other kinds of talent or mentorship or any of that stuff, or do you feel like you're overwhelmed in that regard?

Chap:

No, absolutely. Like we just talked about, I want all the smartest people around me. Anybody that's interested, please, please, email if you’re interested (email is at the end of this article). I'm all in on anybody that has thoughts that wants to talk to me about this. One of the most exciting things that gets me going every morning is the opportunity to talk to the customers, to talk to the people that are using the platform that have thoughts about what we're building so that I can take and shape and form it into something that's really, really, really special.

 

What I do want to add about the smartest people though, is Christian, you know that I've got two other Overlakers that are on the staff. Right?

Christian:

I think that happened kind of after we did the interview. So remind me, who's on board.

Chap:

Brian Schoening ’12 is in charge of all of our content, our podcasts, making sure all the videos come out right, making sure all of the kind of production value is of high quality. He really has come on board in a much bigger capacity as of the past three months. And then Madeleine Wilson ’12 has been absolutely crushing our social media. So, if there's any reason to go follow us on social media, it's because Madeleine is a superstar, and she rocks it. And honestly, since she took over three months ago, we've doubled on every platform. So she's absolutely phenomenal and her content is the highest of high quality social media content.

Christian:

Your business model seems very timely, very on point for people who love the outdoors, who are saying, “Why should I buy something new when I can buy something perfectly good used for less money, which is also more environmentally sustainable?” I don't think there's the resistance there might've been to this business model in the past. My son's an avid outdoorsman, who has trekked all over Asia and the American wilds in search of fossils. And he loves buying good quality used gear, so he's the perfect customer for rerouted.

Chap:

I just really appreciate the Overlake community for being so supportive so far. I am enjoying participating in the Overlake Alumni Connection group on LinkedIn, interacting with fellow alums in a variety of professions. Like most entrepreneurs, we depend on word of mouth to sustain ourselves, and we’d love to have our Owl friends support us along with all the other alum-owned small businesses out there. We’re offering gift cards this year for people to give to their favorite outdoor lovers!

 

You can reach Chap at this email if you’d like to connect with him directly about rerouted: chap@rerouted.co

And we are still looking for more Overlake alum owned small companies to list in our growing directory:

 

https://www.overlake.org/support/alumni/business

 

Please support your local small companies, including Overlake alum businesses!