Interviewee
LeGrand Crewse, President, CEO and Co-Founder of Super73, the electric motorbike company based in Orange County, California. “This has been the very definition of brand strength, influence, coolness, and fun- beyond what I’ve ever experienced,” shared the founder.
Transcript
LeGrand Crewse: You know, my background actually was all business formal training, but funny enough, by being so obsessed with electric transportation and specifically two-wheel transportation, the engineering piece in a lot of ways has been self-taught and that I've had to learn obviously how things work, certainly as it relates to my industry and, and to the vehicles that we build.
Elisa Muñoz: Did you always have this interest in motor bikes or this kind of transportation?
LeGrand Crewse: Yeah, in this space. So, you know, going back to my childhood, one of the memories that has been with me from the moment it happened was when I turned five years old, I got my very first bicycle like many kids do. And, that was my ticket to freedom. And at that point I just became obsessed with, with my bicycle and, and that carried through, you know, throughout my childhood. And so even as a teen, I, you know, got more serious about it. And so I actually did some, some mountain bike racing that was a big mountain biker when I was in, in high school and, and kind of a teenager. And so, so again, I had a real big passion for this sport specifically of, you know, mountain biking. And, and then again, that just kind of carried through adulthood and it's obviously a much longer story, but eventually that's kind of what led into electric bikes. And then as anything, you know, one thing leads to another and next thing you know, I'm riding motorcycles and becoming obsessed with all kinds of all things, you know, transportation related.
Elisa Muñoz: And how did you and your cofounder come up with this idea?
LeGrand Crewse: So initially, you know, like many companies, there was, there was kind of a lot of people when we got started and I think very quickly, you know, it kind of, it eventually got down to a few. So if you look at, you know, how we began and, and where we ended up. Now the current makeup of the company, there's really three of us that kind of run the show now in terms of being in charge of the major parts of the business. And so that would be myself, Aaron, and, and Michael. And what we kind of all brought to the table were very, very different skill sets, you know, that ultimately really meshed together and what created the company and the brand and the success that we've had. So myself, I certainly brought more of that, that product experience, operations, manufacturing, you know, the engineering piece if you would.
And then of course the business background, which is my formal training and Aaron Long was more of the brand specialist. You know, he was big into fashion, you know, he definitely knows what's cool out there much more than I do, you know, he brought that factor, that sneaker culture, that cool factor in a way. And then Michael has brought this viral marketing piece. So his background was that he was a creator on the Vine platform. I don't know if you remember that. I do. So he was, he was a creator on that platform and, and, and so really kind of understood how to communicate with kind of younger people through social media. And so, he's been instrumental in a lot of the viral marketing content that you've seen from us. So again, the three of us kind of brought these very different pieces together that really fit in and ultimately created the, the, the company, the brand that you know.
Elisa Muñoz: And something that 's really unique about your brand are the fat tires. What else would you say that it's like a key factor in order to build a motor bike?
LeGrand Crewse: Yeah, so the fat tires are, are something that I've been obsessed with ever since I first saw one on a bicycle, and this goes back over 10 years. And so, you know, me personally, again, I've always just been a big fan of flat tires and there's kind of two things that you get with fat tires besides of course looking super cool, right? But you know, one, like you mentioned, is if you are uncomfortable on a two-wheeled platform, whether it be a bicycle or a motorcycle, the fat tires do add some stability. You have more contact area on the ground. And so that's an important piece of, you know, feeling comfortable on a bike, especially if you don't ride all the time.
But then the other piece is those fat tires, they also provide a lot of comfort because they have a lot more cushion for, you know, the tire to move. And so in an urban environment where you have, you know, the roads in Southern California are not so great all the time and you know, there's a lot of things in the road and obstructions and bumps and everything like that, so it really helps to smooth out the ride. So it kind of serves, you know, more than one purpose. And again, it's become kind of an identity for, for our brand as well.
Just jump in with both feet .If I look back and I think about what my biggest regrets are, really it's not having the courage to jump into starting my own business earlier than I did.
Elisa Muñoz: And how do you feel the brand has changed in the last couple of years talking about ergonomics?
LeGrand Crewse: It's interesting. We started off with a single, single bike. Today we have 10. And what we've done is we've kind of just expanded the scope of our product in terms of who it's for. So initially, like I mentioned, we had tried to build something that was for us, you know, 20, 30 year olds and, and, and something that was cool and that we'd, you know, get us around kind of our urban area or suburban areas. Fast forward to today, and we just announced about seven months ago now, in fact, right behind me here, if you can see it, we're going to be making an electric motorcycle now as well as some youth products. So we've really expanded to cover what we say is everybody from the youth to the youth at heart. And I'm closer to the youth at heart now, so it's, but it's, but it's been a fun journey.
Elisa Muñoz: And I mean, I'm curious about branding, let's say like why is Super73? Like where did the name come from?
LeGrand Crewse: Yeah, I would say that's the, if it's not the number one question, it's usually the number one and number two question that we get asked. So it's, so the super 73 name actually had a very humble beginning, but initially we didn't start the company thinking we're starting a company. We started just making a product and we put it on a Kickstarter and we said, you know, we'll sell, I think the goal was to sell enough so that we could each get one, right? That was the goal. So we actually named the first product super 73, and then of course that eventually became the company name.
And the reason it was super 73 is when we built the first bike, we kept using super as, you know, adjectives to describe everything we were riding. We were like, Wow, this is super cool, it's super fun, it's super fast. And you know, so we just kept using the word super. And so we said, okay, super. We need to call it super something. And I think initially we thought maybe super bite, but that doesn't work. So then we, we, you know, we kind of settled on, okay, we're gonna do a number and, and ultimately what we settled on was the 73. And the 73 actually has some significance and I, I wasn't around in 1973, but, but if you go back to the history books, what you'll see is that 1973 was a really pivotal year, especially here globally, but really here in the US that was the height of the oil crisis when gas prices spiked.
And what happened is there was this big shift in the country to move to smaller, more personal forms of mobility. So in southern California specifically, there became a movement towards these small format two-wheeled vehicles like mopeds and these minibikes. And, and so part of the inspiration of the first bike that we built was these, what they call taco minibikes. We heavily modified it and, and you know, obviously created something unique, but that was the basis of the first bike. So we thought that Super 73 had, you know, had some significance in terms of naming the actual product.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing. Now, did you have any challenges when it comes to the procurement process during the pandemic?
LeGrand Crewse: Yeah, the last two years, well, I guess now we're going on two and a half years has been incredibly challenging from a supply logistics and, and, and cost standpoint as well. You know, we haven't been immune to what's going on. I mean, everybody obviously across all industries has, has suffered. And so, so yeah, it's been a really, really big challenge. But, we've risen to the challenge. One of the things that was, I guess a byproduct of, of the pandemic is we had quite a bit of increased demand, you know, people being stuck in their homes and wanting to get outside. Cycling was one of the few things that you could actually do. And, and especially with the roads empty, a lot of people wanted to go out and, you know, explore their neighborhood and their surrounding areas. So we had two things happen.
We had demand increase at the same time that supply became a huge problem. But we've, we've really expanded our workforce quite a bit. We've invested quite a bit in our operations. We have our own design engineering team in house here in California. We also have our own r and d kind of lab where we can rapidly prototype and, and create, you know, product there before we ever do mass manufacturing. And so what we were able to do over the last two and a half years is when we ran into a challenge with certain components, we were able to, in actually several instances design around the issue to then, you know, not have, you know, a huge supply problem.
Elisa Muñoz: What has been the biggest technical challenge that you guys have managed to solve?
LeGrand Crewse: One of the, the, the biggest challenges that we've, that we had, and I I don't think this has completely gone away, is that, you know, we've created a new segment in the industry that we're in. And one of the challenges with that is that really nothing in terms of components and process really fit our vehicles or what we were trying to accomplish. And, and what I mean by that is, you know, this is, I'll give you kind of a few different examples. So one from a component level, you know, we build a very different looking e-bike, right? It looks more like a kind of, you know, little bit of a Modo bike and it's just kind of this combination of things.
And so you mentioned the tires, the fat tires, well, the tires that were on the market that we wanted to use, fat tires. And there were some that, you know, kind of met our criteria in terms of the size and everything. But when we tested them, one of the problems we had was that those tires were made for, you know, very, very inexpensive kids' bikes that had low speeds and so at higher speeds, the tires wouldn't hold up very well and they weren't safe. So, we actually had to design our own tires. We partnered with a, with a tire manufacturer, and we actually designed our own tires. All of our tires are our own design because there was just nothing on the market that worked for us. And, and, and I wish I could say it was the tires, but it's almost been like component after component after component that we've, you know, run into. And we've said, okay, there's nothing and we're not willing to compromise on our vehicle, so we're just gonna have to create it. And, and so we've, we've, we've taken that approach and then that even extends into the assembly process of how the bikes are put together.
So even at the manufacturing level in terms of how to run the line and, and how to orient the bikes, we had to come up with different processes because what was existing just didn't, you know, didn't fit. So yeah, we definitely had a lot of challenges in terms of, you know, figuring out how to even build our own product. But again, we kind of always had this mindset that, that, you know, one, nothing is impossible and two is if it's gonna compromise our product, then, you know, we're just gonna have to create something new and, and figure it out.
Elisa Muñoz: What advice would you give to future entrepreneurs or people starting in the industry?
LeGrand Crewse: I think the, you know, the best advice to any entrepreneur, one that I think I probably got at some point is, you know, just jump in with both feet until you do, You just won't, you just won't know what you have. If I look back and I think about what my biggest regrets are, really it's not having the courage to jump into, into starting my own business earlier than I did. You know, I was 31 years old, so I already had a dozen years, I guess. And as an adult working for other people doing other things, I always knew that I wanted to start my own business and it took me over a decade to get the courage to actually do it. So, you know, again, my, my biggest advice is that if that's the path that you want, if you want to create something new, like just do it. You know, who cares if you don't know how it's going to work out? I had no idea. Electric bikes, I was obsessed with it, but I had no idea how to make money at it. I had no idea how to create a market or do any of that. But until I dedicated, you know, myself completely to that cause there was no way I was gonna find out. So that would be my advice.
Elisa Muñoz: Such a great piece of advice! Thank you so much for taking the time LeGrand.
