#092 - Get ready to be inspired as we have a fireside chat with the dynamic Chris Ratterman, founder and CEO of Shady Rays. We take a deep dive into Chris's entrepreneurial journey, exploring the highs, lows, and everything in-between. We talk about the parallel between business and fitness with starting on a new journey and tips on finding success without getting discouraged or burned out.
Chris's candid revelations about stepping into a competitive market without prior experience are nothing short of enlightening. We learn about his innovative strategies to take on new challenges and how a positive mindset played a crucial role in his success. Get ready for a power-packed episode filled with insights, anecdotes, and a whole lot of inspiration - all from the CEO of your favorite sunglasses brand!
Topics Covered:
Starting on a journey and navigating a new business or fitness goal
Why runners should consider investing in quality sunglasses
Importance of UV protection for runners and what to look for
How Shady Rays is giving back to the community
Today’s Guest
Chris Ratterman
Chris Ratterman is the Founder and CEO of Shady Rays. Shady Rays has become the fastest growing eyewear brand in the U.S. according to the 2020 INC. 5,000 list. He holds a BSBA in Marketing and Finance from Xavier University and an MBA from Indiana University Southeast. Chris was just named 2023 winner Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
“Inspire to Run Podcast is truly inspiring!” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move toward the healthy life that they desire. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
#092 - Get ready to be inspired as we have a fireside chat with the dynamic Chris Ratterman, founder and CEO of Shady Rays. We take a deep dive into Chris's entrepreneurial journey, exploring the highs, lows, and everything in-between. We talk about the parallel between business and fitness with starting on a new journey and tips on finding success without getting discouraged or burned out.
Chris's candid revelations about stepping into a competitive market without prior experience are nothing short of enlightening. We learn about his innovative strategies to take on new challenges and how a positive mindset played a crucial role in his success. Get ready for a power-packed episode filled with insights, anecdotes, and a whole lot of inspiration - all from the CEO of your favorite sunglasses brand!
Topics Covered:
Starting on a journey and navigating a new business or fitness goal
Why runners should consider investing in quality sunglasses
Importance of UV protection for runners and what to look for
How Shady Rays is giving back to the community
Today’s Guest
Chris Ratterman
Chris Ratterman is the Founder and CEO of Shady Rays. Shady Rays has become the fastest growing eyewear brand in the U.S. according to the 2020 INC. 5,000 list. He holds a BSBA in Marketing and Finance from Xavier University and an MBA from Indiana University Southeast. Chris was just named 2023 winner Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year.
“Inspire to Run Podcast is truly inspiring!” <– If that sounds like you, please consider rating and reviewing my show! This helps me support more people — just like you — move toward the healthy life that they desire. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode!
Hey, my friend, how do you tackle something that's new for the first time, without any experience, without getting discouraged and without burning out? Well, today I had the pleasure of sitting down with Chris Radiman, founder and CEO of ShadyRays, and Chris shares his entrepreneurial journey and advice that we can apply in not only our professional lives, but also in our health and fitness journey as the CEO of a sunglasses company. We also spend some time talking about why sunglasses are important, what runners should look for in sunglasses and how ShadyRays is given back to the community. Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to Inspire to Run Podcast. Here you will find inspiration, whether you are looking to take control of your health and fitness or you are a seasoned runner looking for community and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. Now here's your host, richard Connor.
Speaker 1:
Hi everyone, welcome to Inspire to Run Podcast. Today we have a very special guest, Chris Radiman. Chris is the founder and CEO of ShadyRays. Shadyrays has become the fastest growing eyewear brand in the US, according to the 2020 Inc 5000 list. He holds a BSBA in marketing and finance from Xavier University and an MBA from Indiana University Southeast. Also, Chris was just named 2023 winner of the Ernst Young Entrepreneur of the Year. Welcome to the show, Chris.
Speaker 3:
Excited to be here. I look forward to talking with you further.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, of course. Well, you have an incredible background. I'm really excited to share a lot about why you started ShadyRays. Like what was your journey? Like? We're talking about mindset to help our listeners, whether they're thinking about running and fitness, or even entrepreneurship and business. I think you have a lot to offer here. Also, talk about your company, what it offers in how you support the running community. I also noticed that you're doing a lot of good things for the broader community and you're giving back. There's a lot of great things that I'm excited to talk about here.
Speaker 3:
Sounds exciting, ready to jump in.
Speaker 1:
All right, let's do it. Let's just start with your journey, as just roll back the clock a little bit and tell us where were you in your journey when you decided to start ShadyRays.
Speaker 3:
ShadyRays was founded, really in a side bedroom in 2012. At the time, I was in brand management, corporate marketing, but at a pretty important inflection point in terms of consumer media. That was the point in which Facebook was starting to really take hold. Twitter was becoming more mainstream, instagram influencers were starting to become a thing. I was learning the ropes of marketing and marketing strategy, but I really wanted to get into the weeds and grow and build.
Speaker 3:
I was always attracted to sunglasses as a really cool product that I was excited to wear and buy as a style accessory, but one that I always felt like was overpriced. Of course, it's nothing against other brands, but I couldn't afford them myself. The Oakleys and the Raybands of the world. It always stuck with me that you do these amazing things outside but you're wearing a $300 piece of plastic on your face. I decided to build a lifestyle brand around outdoor adventure, outdoor activities, outdoor sports like running and cycling and other sports, and all the things that people love to do outside, specifically around a sunglasses brand that serves those communities. And that's what I did, starting from really humble beginnings.
Speaker 3:
In the early days, my father shipped all of the orders out of his formal living room. Product was on a card table product, was sitting next to the fireplace on a card table and he put them in garbage bags and drove them to the post office every day, every day that there were orders not every day even had orders, but I don't come from experience in the eyewear, so it was really learning and talking to customers along the way and just iterating as we go, and that's been the story of Shady Ray's. And now, 10 years later, more than a decade, it's pretty crazy to think we've built up an amazing team that's located throughout the country representing a lot of different lifestyles, and we have our fulfillment center where we ship every order around the world, right here and right outside of Louisville. Kentucky is where I am.
Speaker 1:
I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that, chris. A lot of what you said was around mindset and I wanna dig into that a little bit more, just hearing your story about where you started right, starting small your dad was helping you which I've read about you online. I love that story about how your family came together to form this company and I think, when we think about either whether it's fitness, running, business we have to be perfect on day one Well, I can't be a runner necessarily because I'm not a runner today. And same thing in business. So I can't be an entrepreneur because maybe I don't have the experience of an entrepreneurship or in business. So I love what you said about kind of starting small and then building from there. In 10 years later, look where you are.
Speaker 3:
It's been an exciting ride, and mindset you're right, mindset is a huge part of it, and so I'm always thinking about the ways that I can set myself up to do the most productive work, energizing work, and have the right sprints against projects and balancing that out with the right type of fitness, the right type of meditation and whatever's gonna keep from burning out and keep the ideas flowing. And that's a, I would say, for me at least, a constant battle, but something I'm very cognizant of.
Speaker 1:
For sure. And I'm really curious about shady rays and how you came up with this idea. So you mentioned that you like sunglasses and you saw a need or you saw a problem that you wanted to solve. Did you go through some sort of ideation process to say, well, here are all of the things that I'm interested in and hot, and then you just narrow it down on this or this was just an idea. One day You're like you know what, I'm looking to make a change in my life and I'm just gonna go full speed ahead.
Speaker 3:
So I was always very entrepreneurial, and so I was the person that was always sharing a new idea with friends and family. That could be anything under the sun, right, and a lot of bad ideas, maybe some good ideas, some ideas that ended up happening that I wasn't part of, and so when I came up with shady rays, I did have that context in my head of here are some other options, but I didn't really start to execute something until shady rays.
Speaker 3:
I mean, shady rays was the first thing that I was like said okay, I have a brand, get the trademark, get the website, set up social media accounts and let's go and let's figure it out. But I definitely was thinking about ideas in lots of different areas, which gives you context to say like, how big could this thing get, how much opportunity does this have? How much competition is this area? It's kind of like when you're looking for a house and you see the one right away, you don't know if it's really the one, but as you see a lot of options that are not, then you start to recognize when you have a winner. Although I never assumed it was gonna be big, I never assumed anything, it was just this is a great platform to start and learn and build from, and that was my mindset.
Speaker 1:
Love it, love it. And did you have to overcome any kind of barriers to get started? Or, like you said, you had an entrepreneurial mindset, you were ready to go. Or like, did you think am I gonna be successful at this or am I gonna fail at this? Or any fears or worries that prevented you from getting started that you had to overcome?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I think there were a lot of fears or insecurities in terms of did I have what it takes to put something in a market that was relevant in iWare that I didn't have experience in? I think the way I got through that was just taking steps forward and putting things in market and then just trying to rapidly learn as much as possible. I certainly had a lot of roadblocks. I had not had experience with supply chains, working with overseas manufacturers, and I'll tell you a story. We brought in one of the very early shipments of products right to my parents house a couple containers and what is the biggest problem you can have with sunglasses and a product that are supposed to let you see great and shape and protect your eyes Warped lenses. So all of these products look great. We had a warped lens as you couldn't even see, and meanwhile we drained the bank account to buy that product, and so there's a lot of landmines in the early days, but those were things that you just kind of are able to develop the processes against. Especially in that case, the manufacturer was able to reproduce that product, thankfully, because I didn't really have a lot of recourse and we got back on track. We were able to sell enough to just keep moving and have the cash flow to keep going.
Speaker 3:
But there certainly is a long road. When you do a little bit of Google research and you go out there and you find manufacturers, you learn about importing and how to do that effectively and pass customs and have labeling requirements, and so I look at it as number one. You can't think about an end goal or a timetable or a dollar revenue goal. You're going to get to Like I never thought about a revenue goal. All I thought about was just tackle the next thing and just put it on market. The curiosity of wanting to put more things in market and see what happened, like that, was what kept me going, and I don't think I would have kept going if there was some sort of financial target that was in the near term because, as I said before, I didn't pay myself for five years. I mean, it was a lot of just investing and back. But what I learned along the way were the things that people were looking for and what they wanted and the colors that they wanted and the shapes they wanted and they want these features.
Speaker 3:
They want a sport wrap, and what did they do for? Running is very big for us. Fishing is very big for us, right? All these things you learn in this hyper real time social media environment and that we use that. We use that just to kind of build the plane as it's in air.
Speaker 1:
For sure, and you know that's really interesting. First off, there's a lot of crossover again between business and fitness and a lot of what you're saying, and I'm just wondering. So, being in corporate for many years myself, it's interesting that you said you didn't really have a revenue goal, because that's like the exact opposite of how it would be in corporate. Right, you always have a revenue goal, you always have financial targets, and so it's kind of interesting that you're able to overcome some of those early challenges where if you did have those targets set and you didn't meet them, then you would have been discouraged and decided, hey, this is not for me or this isn't working. So that's really interesting how you kind of approached that and it led to your success.
Speaker 3:
Well, we took a different approach than some brands, especially the brands that are most often the new. So what we did not do is go raise venture funding, have a lot of money in the bank, drive to scale, have additional series of funding fundraising and maybe not be profitable initially but be able to build out the team early and again. That's a great approach for a lot of brands. It's just not the direction I went. So it was. For us it was bootstrapping, figuring out along the way. We weren't accountable and still we have no outside investors to any external metric or a 30-day P&L and these kind of things. And now we're sophisticated and we have those targets and we plan accordingly and we have a finance team and see if we're right back into it.
Speaker 3:
But in the early days you don't have enough. I don't think you really have enough of a base to set those things up with any sort of reliability. And so they say the scene of the accident from a business plan is when you put it in execution, because it's hard to determine in a boardroom what's going to happen in the real world. So that's why we always think about go to market plans, do innovation as minimum, viable products and things we can put out in the market and the market will tell us what works. And if we can react quickly and know how to execute, then we'll build from there.
Speaker 1:
All right, all right. So you talked about the communities that you serve or the customers that you serve. You talked about running. So it's a running podcast, so let's talk about that a little bit. So I was mentioning to you before this conversation that. So just a little bit about me.
Speaker 1:
So I've been a runner for many years. I ran in high school but took a number of years off, got back into it just a few years ago, mostly through obstacle course racing, but also through road races, and a good friend of mine calls it my midlife crisis. But through COVID I started to run outdoors. A lot more Gyms were closed and when they opened I didn't feel comfortable going. So I'm running outdoors in the summer, in the winter, it just didn't matter. I was out there and I was just saying to you I've been wearing sunglasses in a long time. I'm like, wait a minute, I should be wearing sunglasses just in general, but especially for running. So just tell us a little bit about that. You talked about serving the running community Maybe not unique, but what's specific, I would say, for the community in terms of your offering and how we should think about this.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this. We have a lot of runners in our brand community, and so there are a few things that we found are very important, and that goes for our team as well. Number one it's important to have the variety of frame shapes that people look for. So you have a lot of runners that look for a lightweight, tight grip, more aerodynamic wrap frame. So for us, we have one called a Velocity, and it's a smaller to medium fit. It's really great for a more functional lens for runners and it gives you peripheral vision that's very, very tight on your eyes, so that's great. More of what we would call a crossover frame for us is a little bit more lifestyle in terms of its look, but has the functionality that you would need to running. So for us, it's called our cascade frame. It's a great unisex frame, but it has a lifestyle look with a lot of non-slip features. So you have the rubber nose grips and the build.
Speaker 3:
That's just met for a lot of different terrain, running into different areas and different speeds. Our difference really, now that's how we kind of build wide variety for runners, but our differences especially when you think about under $100 space, is in lens quality and lens performance. So we are all about building high quality lenses, polarization, color enhancement to give people a really hyper effective view from optical clarity, color enhancement and blocking glare as we're running.
Speaker 3:
So that's really our difference, and so for us, we're just about to launch actually we're a couple of weeks away from launching our color rush version of our lenses and we'll have that in our cascade and that is our best quality color enhancement and very specifically it pops especially reds and orange colors and yellows and pinks. So if you're running, you're going to see any kind of signage, you're going to see brake lights or lights on bikes, you're going to see it different signs of the road that are more red in nature in a hyper fluorescent type of way. We also just think that our lenses allow people to see the world in a beautiful way, so just enjoying the view and the performance of the optical clarity that is truly probably the the number one reason people come to us for running is because we're giving people the optical clarity of a high performance product that's much more expensive in a variety of frames. Sport wrap to lifestyle that people are looking for.
Speaker 1:
I love that. I love that, and that's probably been a deterrent for me, because there's certain types of products that I've seen on the market not yours that don't really appeal to me. So I like the fact that you have that variety, that, for someone like me that may not want something like that, I have some other options to choose from, with also the benefit of having, you know, really good visibility and good clarity through the sunglasses.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, I mean there's a you know, listen, there's a lot of different things that and that that people need when they're running in different conditions. You know it's hot, you have lenses that can fog, so that's a consideration in our design, like I said, the lightweight, the tight grip and the strong performance of the lenses. I mean there's a lot that gets wrapped up into it, but it's something that that that we do and focus on, because you know, the other thing if for us is we do lost or broken, so people lose it, they drop it, they break them, we replace them and that's kind of our reason for being, and so for us, pack the quality in, but if you lose them or break them, we we hook it up. And and of course, we got a lot of fun stories of people that have been out running and Including trail running and and had some funny stories there.
Speaker 1:
Well, I can only imagine. I have some funny stories that don't even involve sunglasses, so I can't even imagine what that's like. And you know, funny story, just not even running related. Just a long time ago, probably the last time I Were sunglasses outdoors, I was out golfing and I had my glasses and you know, I, for whatever reason, I decided I needed to take them off and leave them on the the seat of the golf cart. Well, you can only imagine what happened next. So that's probably part of the reason why I haven't worn a glasses instead.
Speaker 1:
But it's something that I definitely have to check, you know, check back into. And this is great information for our community, because we're here to not only help inspire and motivate Folks to run, but also give them the tools to be successful Right and help them along that journey. So we have a variety of topics on the show and it's just so cool we haven't had this topic on, but just to kind of raise a level of awareness. Number one you need to wear sunglasses when you're out doing your runs. And then here is a really great solution for our community.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and and and really you know I just enjoy Talking about our product and connecting with you and your community. So I'm not here to sell product but it. I think people do underestimate generally the need for UV protection when they're out in direct sun and Running, especially for long distances. So from a coverage perspective and, of course, the UV protection perspective, really important. So, whether you are a shady razor or something else important to consider and I'm the, and I always tell people like that sometimes you have to be really careful on the lower price Items that you might get it. You know, the not more non-branded commodity stuff. Not everything has the UV protection you're looking for. So you're thinking about your running gear. A reputable brand that has UV protection is important, but but always like to emphasize that point too.
Speaker 1:
That's a really great point. So are there different levels of UV protection, just like your sunscreen, like different SPF, or is it just you have it or you don't have it?
Speaker 3:
It's generally it's you have it or you don't have it. So you're looking for UVA UV protection, 100% UV protection, sometimes called UV 400, and and any sunglasses that say UV protection is usually going to be UV 400 slash, 100% UV protection. But Very important to get that because you can put the tint on On on glasses and you would look as though it's blocking the rays. But not every pair does, but you know the most reputable brands do. It's kind of like this, the lower-priced commodity stuff that you can kind of run to problem with, but I think that's.
Speaker 2:
That's important.
Speaker 3:
Obviously there's a large price range and gap and kind of different options out there and there's other great brands too. But, like I said, I think what we're trying to do is just give people Package is much, quality in the lenses is particular and frame from durability, but but the whole package and we got to keep it under a hundred bucks because that that's our MO is like a great person I'm glad to, should be under a hundred bucks. That's what we believe, and so that's been our focus.
Speaker 1:
Love it. Love it, Chris. This is awesome. I love you know the information that you're sharing with us. This is very informational and you know, I know, that you and your company gives back to the community. So you know, let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:
You know the work that you're doing, why you're doing it and, yeah, so being a brand that that works for purpose and do good in the world has been very important to us from the onset. A couple big milestones we've reached we've donated 25 million meals to Feeding America. That's fight hunger. In the US, we've picked up more than four million bottles and throughout the oceans worldwide through a partnership that we have shared all organizations there. But our most recent Endeavor is our series impact program.
Speaker 3:
So we have a selection of charities that we work very closely with directly and it really is about helping people through their life's most challenging moments. And one of those organizations is called the rock solid foundation incredible organization. They are Serving children that have been diagnosed with pediatric cancer and our pediatric oncology patients. They're going play sets for children. We've done one as a team. They were giving ready bags to families once when a child is diagnosed from the hospital. We have a partnership with the organization out of Colorado called first a sense. They do it outdoor adventure trips for people that that have cancer or MS or other other other Illnesses similar to that, and our team is going on those trips, spending time volunteering.
Speaker 3:
But it's about giving people incredible moments where they can Not think about, not think about their diagnosis for a moment. That's what the founder of rock solid says. When they give a play set to a child, at least for that moment, well, they're not thinking about, they're not thinking about cancer. That's this direct quote. So it's it's very inspirational, but for us it's just about being able to be able to do good through our work and then, as we scale, then we can scale the good that we can do, and and so that's been pretty powerful. We work with the foundation. We have a program of them coming up, I, as well as various other organizations, best Day Foundation in San Diego with autism, and so there's a variety of things that we try to do, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to be an authentic brand that cares about doing good, and we want that to be integrated into all the, all everything that we do Love it, love it.
Speaker 1:
Well, thank you for everything that you do and you know again congratulations on all the success that you have in your business and how you're serving not only the running community but the broader community by giving back. So, chris, what's next for you and what's next for Shady Race?
Speaker 3:
Oh man. Well, we're right here, getting through summer, that's our big peak time. So all of these conversations about what's next, that's what we're getting into here soon, talking about next year. But we're just trying to continue to innovate, push our quality forward, come out with exciting new products, really set the pace where we can with new innovation. All the programs and team goes along with it.
Speaker 3:
We're continuing to build our team across the country, which has been really exciting to bring people into our mission and how we're looking to grow, and it's just been exciting ride. So we're just we're continuing on that path. But we want to be the most loved sunglasses brand the price sunglasses brand in the US. We want to be one of the leading brands, not the leading brand, but the only way we do that is if we can serve customers and serve a community and stay super tight in conversations with these different communities and people that we serve, and so that's what we're trying to do every day. So we're just showing up every day trying to put something better out in the world than we did yesterday, and if we do that, we'll have some wins and we'll have some losses, but hopefully, on the whole, we'll be moving forward to do some amazing things.
Speaker 1:
Awesome, awesome. So, chris, as we wind down here, what is the one thing you would say to our community to inspire them to run with sunglasses?
Speaker 3:
I love that question. I think the number one thing I would say to inspire the community to run with sunglasses is it really just give it a try and see how you feel. At the end of the day, it's gonna be unique to each individual person, whether they want to wear them, whether it feels natural, whether it's gonna work. I know everybody has their unique rituals and running is such an important sacred moment and activity for so many people. But I would encourage them to try a polarized, color enhanced lens, like our Colorush or any others that they're excited to buy in the market and just see how it feels, because I think there's a lot of great options out there to give you the protection that you need.
Speaker 3:
And I would argue I'm a little bit biased, but you're gonna see the world and you're gonna have your view of your run. It's gonna look a little better, it's gonna be easier on your eyes and you're gonna look good doing it. So it's worth a shot. And if you take a shot at ours, if you don't like them, well, we'll pay to ship them back. So it's really no risk if you're someone that doesn't wear them normally, but of course, we think it's a piece of the puzzle. Like you have your shoes, like you have your running gear. We think sunglasses is another important piece there.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. Thank you so much, chris. I really appreciate you being so generous with your time speaking with me about the work that you do and how you're supporting our community. So how can our listeners find you and follow you online?
Speaker 3:
So our full collection is on ShadyRayscom. Everybody can check that out. We are on all the major social media channels Instagram, instagram at ShadyRays, twitter at ShadyRays and you know first new customers get 20% off. It's a great place to follow everything you have going on. You know our email list. We send out new launches all the time and different information, so we'd be excited to have your community check us out.
Speaker 1:
All right. Well, I'll put this information in the show notes to make it easy for our listeners to find you and follow you. So with that, thanks again, chris, for coming on the show and have a great day.
Speaker 2:
Thanks for having me, that's it for this episode of Inspire to Run Podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community and also please rate and review. Thanks for listening.