We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ron Holmes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ron, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

When you have an idea to create something, or to provide a service it’s important to remember you dont know what you dont know. Selecting you partners/owners/team members you have to have diversity. Im not talking about bringing on someone how things they are a cat. I mean if 3 of you have the same background, the same skills, and the same passion for the company it is not going to go very far. You need diversity in the senior leadership. Overlapping skills and abilities are important. But you need an ideas person, a NO person and a balance person (the one that revives all the info from the other partners and finds the middle gourd). My first small business ventures were with the wrong people. First we all had similar backgrounds, but ZERO business development knowledge abilities, just a lot of Veteran bravado. This coupled with something that took time to see, I had aligned myself with morally bankrupt and godless people. We we started RYKER USA we had the correct 3 you need in the ownership on a company. Im the idea guy and the referential authority on how to develop and use our product. Our CFO is our NO guy, he makes sure we stay on task/budget and are getting the best outcome, also has an MBA. Then we have are in the middle guy our CEO also an MBA guy and knows how to start a company, and what ti takes to keep the lights on. Then it’s time to get to work and learn. No matter how prepared you think you are you’re not.

Ron, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Both of my small business are Service Disabled Veteran Owned. On the RYKER USA side I invented a weapons accessory that is first to market. Prior to retiring from Marine Special Operations on 2010 I had multiple surgeries leaving me with anchor stitches in both shoulder’s and screws and fishing line in each elbow, combined with an inch of hight loss. Post military service I went into the government arena. We were doing a lot of shooting and I was experiencing constant pain and numbness in my support arm while shooting rifles. I always say that my super power is being left handed. I had a me problem I created a solution and now we have a few patients, a company that now has over 12 products, we own the side of any rifle in the firearms industry, we have strategic partnerships and much more. Now that all sounds fine and well, but it has been a very long road and we are still grinding it out everyday. We know it was not going to be easy, and if we don’t get out there and introduce the world to our products then we have no one to blame of lack of success than ourselves. Our biggest struggle has been marketing on all platforms. The prejudice towards the 2d Amendment that is strangled by the all social media has made it difficult to self promote. SO we attend 8 to 12 high end vendor events a year along with offer firearms training for civilians, law enforcement and military, all forces on the RYKER METHOD of shooting. On this journey there are things you cannot write into a business plan. We have received hundreds of letters from clients thanking us for giving them something back. These letters are from people who have been wounded in combat, or had some other physical injury that has prevented them from shooting. These letters have been inspiration for our company and motivation for us to continue to lean in and change the world one grip at a time. We have created a few things on accident and found things the same way. AN example would be speed, accuracy and stability are all improved with the RYKER METHOD. We have scientific data to support the heavier the gun, the higher caliber, full auto or suppressed you will noticed the benefits instantly. The RYKER METHOD eliminates recoil, fatigue, and removes the support hand from the excessive heat the rifle puts off.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

As I mentioned previously, you have to have the correct team to grow your brand. You must align in many ways and different in many others. Two of the principal owners retired from the US Navy and I retired from the US Marines. We have vetted a new strategic partner who is from the Navy side but spent his time with the Marines. We also have an investor that has no military background but a background as a general contractor and farming. We have a lot of diversity which has helped us weather the unknown. All of our ownership understands the balance between personal and professional relationships. If the goal is to create products that add value to people’s lives then we all have to listen and not get our feelings hurt when our idea was not the best.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

The firearms industry is an interesting space. There is so much unscrouplious behavior, everything from stealing ideas, trying to sabotage companies or products because of personal issues. Basically there is a lot of negativity, unsolicited hate and unhappiness. The industry is STARVED for new ideas and products. However when you provide them with said change often it is received with uneducated responses. I also envision a priest throwing holy water on a demon as a reference. When we launched we had obvious delusions of grandeur and thought we were going to be driving bentleys by Christmas with a September launch.. This was not the case, instead we were met with hate and prison rape. We were met with industry sabotage. Combine with we hired a marketing firm that sold themselves as the premier in the industry. What we found out was they were big but their reputation actually hurt our launch. I had reached out to a friend in the industry, the owner of Sons of Liberty Gun Works, and he gave me some great advise. He said as weird as it sounds you have to embrace the internet with love. SO we started an internal embrace the hate campaign. We engaged with every person that left a sideways, thoughtless, shitty comment. Once we started this, the word spread and we actually started growing our fan base. We know our product is not for everyone, we say all you have to do is try it. SO we grind , we do our best to remain innovate, forward thinking and provide the best customer service out there. We are not going anywhere.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.rykerusa.com
• Instagram: @rykerusa
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• Twitter: @rykerusa
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