While the online store had taken precedence for a long time, the brand was always the main focus.
A shop (or online store) buys products from multiple brands and sells them to the end-user while competing with all other shops in the same industry, usually selling the same products, and usually within the same country. But a brand can be sold to every single scooter shop in the world.
We had been gaining traction as a brand by releasing innovative products that were designed, tested, and marketed entirely by riders. I had set up distribution deals in different countries around the world, including the USA, Canada, France, Russia, the UK, and Denmark.
I went from trying to sell one scooter at a time to whoever I could get to visit my physical store, to selling thousands of scooters in a single sale to international distributors using an email address and an excel spreadsheet.
We went from being a locally-made handlebar company that made 20 units at a time to having multiple 40-foot containers filled with our product sailing to every corner of the globe.
The growth was life-changing in every conceivable way, and it was due largely to the creative marketing efforts made possible by the time gained back from closing the physical store.
My ability to earn was no longer tied to the time I had available; it was dependent on the products I could design and market on a global scale.
Who would have thought the way to get rich was to just do the thing I loved to do more than anything else. Ride my scooter.
Finding Freedom is meant to be read in the following order:
Petition, Dedication, Conviction, Exodus, Competition,
Treason, Funding, Physical, Virtual, Exponential.