We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Eric Olson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Eric below.

Eric, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Way back in February 2006, I got an email from the Minnesota Home Brewers Association (of which I was a member) from one of our fellow home brewers. He was in Belgium and snapped a picture of a 16-person bike with a barrel on the front that he saw parked on the street. I’d never seen anything like it before.

I zoomed in and barely made out the name “Het Fietscafe” on the angle iron supporting the roof. Did a Google search and found the manufacturer was in Holland. Sent them an email asking if they would give us instructions on how to build one–thought it would be nice for the MHBA to have one for parades and parties.

They said, “no.”

So I asked how much one would cost. Their response was “well, we’ve never sold one in the U.S. before but it would be around $40,000 including shipping.”

No way the beer club guys would pitch in that much for a parade float.

So I started looking into it as a business. (I was a business professor at a community college at the time.) No one was doing it in the U.S. There was no historical data to base anything on. So I put together some numbers–total guesses, actually–and reached out to a couple people I thought might be interested in being business partners.

In July, we flew to Amsterdam and met with the manufacturers. Zwier and Henk–really great guys. While we were there, they asked if we would be their U.S. distributors. Six months later, we had an international distribution agreement all signed.

In March of 2007, the first bike arrived. Zwier and Henk even flew in to help us unload it out of the shipping container. We held the inaugural outing on April Fool’s Day 2007 across the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis.

Since then, we sold over 150 bikes in over three dozen markets across the country and spawned several kn0ck-offs.

As Oscar Wilde said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I started the industry, I suppose. Pretty proud of that.

I’m also really proud of the unique service we provide. We create an environment where people have a lot of fun. Events like bachelorette parties, birthday parties, reunions.

People have met on PedalPub then gotten engaged. Some have even gotten married. We were even mentioned in a 94-year-old woman’s obituary because she got her family to pedal her around her old neighborhood in Minneapolis.

The PedalPubs themselves are works of art. Incredibly well-engineered and beautiful. I can’t take credit for that though. All thanks go to the brothers, Zwier and Henk.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

It was a combination of savings and a small home equity loan. Don’t expect anyone to give you money for something this crazy!

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Do whatever Stacy says. No, seriously, LISTEN to your employees. They are your feet on the ground. They know what’s going on. Do the little things that they appreciate like making improvements to your business, even if it costs a little more.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pedalpubstpete.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PedalPubStPete