How John James of John James Properties Is Helping Clients Through His Full Service Real Estate Firm

[00:00:00] John: So this year, live shopping will be our second largest channel behind our website, which is absolutely, astonishing to just, we didn't know what we were doing, 10 months ago when we launched it. and here we are with it being a big channel. So just kind of diversifying sales channels and riding this one out , to the next exit.

[00:00:17] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale of Business podcast. My name is Hector Santhe Esteban, and I am your host for today. Our special guest is Mr. John Roman, and he is the CEO of battle box. They are a direct to consumer e-commerce, like awesome, rugged, outdoor, like cool shit brand.

[00:00:33] Hector: And so, we're gonna talk about all, the things that came along with building that and some cool things with, with regards to live selling. So John, thanks for hanging out with us today.

[00:00:41] John: Hey, thanks for having me. I love that description. just cool shit brand that's

[00:00:45] Hector: I was trying to bucket it or put an umbrella and I was like, as I was through the website, I was like, oh, this is just a bunch of cool shit.

[00:00:52] John: Yeah, that's accurate. We're gonna trademark. Cool Shit.

[00:00:57] Hector: Yeah, it's yours. send me a box of royalties. and that's it. John, tell us the story of the brand. 'cause you guys have had a, I'm sure a number of downs too, but it seems like some really cool things where, you, you know, a lot of maneuvers and a lot of acquiring and reacquiring and, catch the listeners up on, on the highlights of that journey.

[00:01:16] Hector: And then a little bit about, where you guys are at now.

[00:01:18] John: Sure. so, so yeah, it goes back to 2015. Which was a completely different time in e-comm, e-commerce back then arguably was a little bit easier. It's,it's changed and it's become quite competitive in the last decade. So 2015 was also this period of time where subscription boxes were like the coolest thing ever.

[00:01:42] John: And, everyone had one, some people had multiple. And that's battle. Box's origin story was that my ex-business partner, my co-founder, he, wanted an outdoor gear. Subscription box because his fiance at the time was getting birchbox, which was this golden child, billion dollar valuation back then.

[00:02:04] John: And it was, women's health and beauty products. And he'd see her do this unboxing each month when she got it. And he was like, man, I want that feeling. Went online, couldn't find it. turned out he wasn't alone in, in the want and desire for an outdoor gear. Cool man. Shit. Cool.

[00:02:22] John: Shit subscription. And I came in initially just as an investor and invested, And wrote a check about two weeks, two and a half weeks after launch. And it was, the right timing combo with subscription box, something that didn't exist in the marketplace with, the ability to acquire, customers back then on Facebook for less than $5 a piece.

[00:02:44] John: So it quickly became, a tangible business. 2015. I think we did, a tad over 4 million in our first year. So it was like pretty quickly we're onto something. I came on full-time in 2016 and, off to the races. So, so a little bit different than your traditional D two C brand that we have such a focus on content and community building.

[00:03:07] John: So. Really that serves as more of our top of funnel. While traditional meta ads and traditional ads at this point are more of our, there's some top of funnel, but for the most part it's mid funnel. Getting people into, that are already thinking about making the purchase and kind of knocking 'em over the edge.

[00:03:23] John: So, other highlights. 2020, we got, our Netflix original TV show Southern Survival, which, is literally just a commercial for battle box every episode. not sure how it got the green light to, to be what it was. It's a great show, but I mean, it is literally battle box, front and center. The premise of the show is we're testing gear to determine if it goes in the box.

[00:03:49] John: So it's, it really is just this amazing commercial for us of what we actually do. So that, that helped combination of, that's pandemic time. So people were already stuck in their house and,buying, so e-comm is already kind of going up into the right, then we drop a Netflix original show.

[00:04:09] John: I think six or seven months after Tiger King to kind of give you that timeframe of everyone was just, in their house watching Netflix. So combination of pandemic and Netflix show. We just saw super growth when we were already growing. And at that point,it was time for the exit and, One of our partners, the guy that came up with the idea, didn't really wanna do anything anymore, didn't wanna work, it didn't make sense to buy him out because we didn't know, how much further growth we were gonna see and, getting a loan as a, as just a individual, in my other business partner, paying a six X EBITDA just doesn't make too much sense when we don't see like some kind of magic unlock that was gonna quadruple.

[00:04:54] John: The business for a better payback. So we found a partner that made sense. it was a spac. So we sold, he was my old partner, was able to leave day one. He wasn't needed. and we moved forward as a publicly traded company that comes with its own challenges. at no fault to the spac, but, 2021 timeframe.

[00:05:13] John: SPACs are,beginning to have a little bit of trouble in the markets and that's what happened. They went, to no fault of their own. Financials not really changing, but their market cap went from, I don't know, it was like 160 million to, I think it,it might have gone down below 10.

[00:05:28] John: It might be below 10 now. And, All of that just allowed the opportunity for us to buy the business back. And,it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. They got a cash injection and we got our baby back, and now we're building it again. we're seeing great growth again. We had,

[00:05:46] John: last year,we're mature, so it might not be as exciting as some to hear,10% year over year growth. But for us, a decently sized eight figure company, that's significant revenue. And, we're on base to do 10% again this year. the membership, the original, part of the business is subscription box, which we don't even call it subscription box, we just call it membership, is still growing.

[00:06:09] John: It's not growing as fast, as it's very matured, but we're getting the exponential growth on all these additional sales channels. So our Amazon, business is, getting great growth. it's significantly growing. We launched whatnot in April of last year. And it's already surpassed all of our other channels.

[00:06:28] John: So this year, live shopping will be our second largest channel behind our website, which is absolutely, astonishing to just, we didn't know what we were doing, 10 months ago when we launched it. and here we are with it being a big channel. So just kind of diversifying sales channels and riding this one out , to the next exit.

[00:06:45] Hector: I downloaded it and I found myself. very overwhelmed with how, like out of place I felt, from, for a lot of, reasons. And so I'm very excited to hear about that.

[00:06:56] John: did you download it because of the Super Bowl and Mr. Beast and all that, or,

[00:06:59] Hector: no, I downloaded it, I think it was actually Gary Vaynerchuk.

[00:07:02] Hector: I saw one of his posts and, he Alzheimers about something and so I hadn't heard about it though, so I was like, I'm gonna at least, see what the fuss is about. So I want to come back to that, but I'm curious, before we, we sort of get off of the story of battle box, it, it seems like you guys just, I mean, like, I'm saying from the outside and from the story right so far is like, oh, you just went up to the plate.

[00:07:25] Hector: Oh, home Run. like wrapped it up. World Series, home Run. were there moments where you guys were, where there was uncertainty or were there moments where, you know, things you had to make certain decisions that ended up either paying off or not?

[00:07:39] John: yeah, it, so there, there's, there has been a lot of hits, a lot of home runs or triples or doubles.

[00:07:44] John: But, yeah, there's definitely challenges along the way. we didn't have a strong financial leader, in the organization for the first several years. And,by. I, we had a CPA that was doing our taxes and super talented CPA, but,my ex-business partner to know, not in a malicious way, but would give them, the exports of the files, but not the full understanding of the business.

[00:08:10] John: So, if they're making a decision as a accounting expert, but they're not given all the variables of data. They're, you can't expect their advice to be sound. So we made some. In hindsight, extremely idiotic decisions, when it came to building a property, getting company cars, because the CPA's like, oh, you wanna get your expenses down?

[00:08:34] John: get your expenses up and your profit down. Do this, do that, do this. And,businesses aren't necessarily that. black and white ones and zeros. So we made some questionable decisions that caused, ridiculous cash flow issues. the, this whole membership, the subscription box, which is still, 70, it'll be 75% of our revenue this year.

[00:08:54] John: It's still a large part of the business revenue forecast, six months out. And go to production manufactured runs, which cause, which, cost capital cash for. We're having to, put cash sometimes in when we're not even going to do that renewal for another four or five months. So 160 day floats, seven products in each box on average.

[00:09:18] John: Like it's a very cash intensive business and we didn't do ourselves any favors. So we had a couple. a couple of times where cash was super tight. We didn't have to do layoffs or anything like that. but there was definitely a time where we weren't making payments on stuff on time. we got lucky.

[00:09:33] John: We found a great,hire that is, is now actually one of my business partners at the time. He came on just as an employee, into the CFO role and he whipped it into shape pretty quickly and, That was probably a such a, such an important hire that if we didn't do that, if we didn't find that hire, I don't think we would've made it.

[00:09:56] Hector: Yeah. I think, A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of founders, they have certain personalities and certain talents, and it seems like a lot of times that person ends up being distinct from the person who's innovative and problem solving or, building product.

[00:10:11] John: Yeah. That, and that's what it was. my old partner was very idea guy, innovative guy. I'm not ever gonna ask him to balance my checkbook. Right? Like, not that side of the brain. And it's not a bad thing, but I think it, it's, typically it's, it is that right? The extremely creative idea, creative geniuses, if you will, they're really good at that, but there's gonna be an area where they need, they need some help.

[00:10:37] John: and with certainty, that's where we needed some help. So it worked out luckily.

[00:10:41] Hector: Well, for sure. And it's good, it's great to hear that you guys are, finding the right people and sort of, moving them up and in, into, higher positions than the company. when we get back from break, I'm curious, we talked about, Whatnot and live selling. I would imagine that over that time you guys have had to make a number of pivots, and a number of adjustments, with regards to technology and marketing and such. And so, we're gonna get into that a little bit more, right after this quick break.

[00:11:05] Hector: Hey, today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media, and we are a podcast and media production company.

[00:11:09] Hector: Well, we're actually like the fractional media arm of your company because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a product, a passion, a mission, a message, something that you're trying to get out to the world, but you might not have the time, the team or the tech skills to be able to do it.

[00:11:21] Hector: If that's the case, we can help go to amplify media.com. That's A-M-P-L-A-F-Y media.com. You can also check the show notes for the link. And with that, let's go back to John. So, John, I'm curious, before we get into some of the tactics, I'm curious, as a, as an organization, you guys seem to be utilizing lots of, and that's the right, way to, to, say it, but be utilizing.

[00:11:43] Hector: Different methods of getting the word out there and spreading awareness. you talked about meta ads and Netflix and what, whatnot. What's the driving philosophy behind all of that? Because it's not like you guys are like Netflix people or meta people or whatnot, people. you seem to sort of evolve as things do.

[00:12:02] Hector: what sort of things are you guys talking about, internally that allows you guys to make those pivots and adjustments?

[00:12:08] John: Sure. So, so really any decision we're making for the business, there's two pillars that matter most, and we take them always into consideration. oftentimes when you, when traditionally you wouldn't think that you would, and that's content and community.

[00:12:22] John: so, we're very unusual in the sense that,we're a small team, a small company, but we have, four full-time video editors. a content coordinator that, that manages the team. we have two full-time creators that are part of the team. So, you don't, if you just take the four video editors, content manager, coordinator, and the two creators having seven full-time that are focused purely on just content is very unusual.

[00:12:51] John: so it's, But it's all done. And the community aspect is obviously very important, but at the end of the day, if you're trying to break it down all into a metric on what we're trying to accomplish, we're trying to lower our blended cac. We want our blended customer acquisition cost to be as low as possible.

[00:13:07] John: do we have to advertise still? Absolutely. Will. We probably always have to advertise, unfortunately. Yeah. but we want that blended CAC to be as low as possible. 'cause that just allow, that allows scale. and it allows us to, to get into, in front of as many eyeballs. As possible. So every, everything is content driven, even whatnot.

[00:13:27] John: We, we treat it like content. we run 65 shows a month there currently. we're hoping to double that soon with another channel. But, we're taking the same approach of making it fun. if you look at our content, a lot of it's educational, most of it's educational. a little bit of funniness in there, but we're not really ever hard selling.

[00:13:47] John: Anything. we're just talking the talk, walking, the walk of being avid outdoorsmen and preparing for the worst case scenarios. And by just educating and talking through that, the rest kind of, kind of falls together.

[00:14:03] Hector: Yeah. What have you guys learned about, this whole live selling?

[00:14:07] Hector: I've been loosely following it. And, one of the things I see that when they're doing it in, in Asia or China and Japan, I'm like, okay, this probably coming at a certain point and it seems like it's already taken whole over there. What have you guys learned since, sort of, I don't know if you'd say either dipping your toe or if you guys have jumped in, but,since that's happened.

[00:14:26] John: Yeah. So to your point, like you, you hear and see and read about China and live shopping and it's been that way for 10 years, right? like I would argue that where we are today is where they probably were about 10 years ago. And for the last half decade or longer, everyone's talking live, shopping's happening this year.

[00:14:46] John: This is gonna be a thing. And it just, it came and it never came. And, This is, the first time that I genuinely believe, and I started feeling this way in the beginning of 2025, that it's actually here now and we're gonna see this ramp up,of live shopping being will we ever be the huge.

[00:15:03] John: channel that it is in China, possibly not, right? Consumer behavior, consumer buying is a little bit different, in North America and other places compared to, China. But I do believe that it's going to start growing and it's gonna grow exponentially. I think, just using whatnot as. As the example they, there's other platforms, right?

[00:15:24] John: TikTok has even, done a, taken a couple shots at it and technically are there. I don't know if they're gonna win, but whatnot raised money twice in 2025. In the beginning of the year, they raised a couple hundred million at a, I think a five and a half billion dollar valuation. And then in, I think October or November.

[00:15:45] John: Of the same year, last, same year, 2025, they raised again at an $11 billion valuation. so you've gotta think when there's that much money being thrown around, there's some strategy you would hope around it. Someone sees something to write hundreds of million dollar checks at an $11 billion valuation, which is just crazy to me.

[00:16:07] John: so surely they're reading something on the tea leaves that this is the opportunity. but it's, yeah, it's just an interesting time.

[00:16:15] Hector: I would imagine that most businesses look at that and go, okay, that's not for me. for the ones that do Right. Is there.

[00:16:24] Hector: What do you think is important for them to sort of understand the landscape of the platforms? whatnot. I, from my understanding it's just like a very unique sort of experience. Obviously TikTok has its own thing. I think Amazon has been trying, it's like, is it a landscape sort of thing?

[00:16:39] Hector: Is it that, okay, well actually live selling is the same re regardless of where the platform is, but you know, here's some key principles. Are there some things that you've sort of taken away since you guys have started?

[00:16:52] John: Yeah. So. a couple ways I look at this, one of the big things is, so, you're on TikTok and you're swiping, you're ingesting content, for entertainment purposes.

[00:17:02] John: you're not necessarily in the mindset that I'm ready to buy that I want, oh, I like, I'm watching someone dance or someone with a prank. I'm not thinking, man, I really wanna spend some money right now. And then tiktoks all goes like, oh, wait, look, here's this $20 tchotchke. Do you wanna buy it? And then you swipe and it's like interjecting it in.

[00:17:21] John: And I'm sure the algorithm is at least like trying to find the right times to show it. But then you go to whatnot. What whatnot is shopping in entertainment. There's, you're, if you're, if you've downloaded the app, if you've opened up the app today and you're going, you are already so far further along in the buying cycle.

[00:17:41] John: than just a random TikTok user. Like arguably, if you open up whatnot, you're looking to buy something and be entertained. it's the flip flop, right? arguably if Amazon can never figure out. Live shopping. They've done, half a dozen iterations now and they keep missing the mark. But if they can figure it out, they have the same thing, right?

[00:17:59] John: You don't open up Amazon and be entertained. You buy Amazon, open up Amazon to spend money. So if they can figure it out, or maybe they acquire whatnot, who knows? no many can acquire an $11 million company. But Amazon is absolutely one of 'em. So maybe that's the play. You've gotta think.

[00:18:14] John: So it skipped the, our generation, if you will, this QVC home shopping network. Right. But our parents' generation were a part of it. And,they'd watched tv. Then pick up the phone and call and order something. It was these, eight to 12 minute segments. And then our generation was just like, I don't know about that.

[00:18:36] John: Like, it's kind of weird. and this is the new generation. This is their QVC HSN And it's solved the problem because we've seen with TikTok, right? it's just brain wrought, swiping, ingesting. Very short attention spans. QVC 12 minute pitch doesn't work anymore, but whatnot basically has incorporated the swiping that's YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and TikTok into shopping.

[00:19:04] John: Credit card on file, you swipe like you would on, on a dating app or a social media platform to make a purchase. And it's auction based for the most part. So it's competitive, it's a gamification, with high intent buyers. It's they've, it is just it. that is it. And that's not unique to what's working in China, right?

[00:19:25] John: it's the same thing. They just have more apps and it's already just further along in the behavior journey.

[00:19:31] Hector: Yeah. It's, it's so, so cool that you guys have really dove into, dove into this in such a,I think a smart way, right? I think you're one of the few I've heard talk about blended cac, but I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

[00:19:42] Hector: 'cause we're in the podcast world. That's where we, but, and for us, the hardest thing to sort of, you know, was attribution, right? And it's like, it, they're like, we know it's working, but we can't. And so that, that idea of, putting it all together, having, a holistic view of how the content is coming together, I think is,really brilliant.

[00:20:00] Hector: I've got, two questions, left for you. The first is if people want to, find out about you, find out about Battle Box, where's the best place for people to go?

[00:20:08] John: so yeah, you can just Google Battle Box. Spell it however you want. it is B-A-T-T-L-B-O-X. No E but, if you Google it, you're gonna, you're gonna find it.

[00:20:17] John: You go to any, social media platform, you're gonna find us too. We have, over a million followers on TikTok. Close to a million on YouTube, close to a million on Facebook. we're on Instagram. we're on X. I think we're even on Pinterest. So, find us there. we're all channels.

[00:20:33] John: me, LinkedIn is probably the best place to find me. I post content pretty regularly and then, online, queso, dot com is my blog. It's, Probably 80, 70% written by me, 30% by guest. guest articles. And really it's about best practices, e-commerce, entrepreneurship. But the big pieces that I think we have this.

[00:20:58] John: Almost toxic world where like people just post the wins and to what, you referenced earlier just the home runs and the reality is, yeah, I might get a home run, but I struck out nine times prior and there were learnings in those strikeouts. And I think overall people don't do a great job talking about the losses.

[00:21:17] John: 'cause that's where the goal is. the gold is absolutely there. And if you can harness those learnings and find out what you did wrong and apply it,that's where the win comes. And I think people love to share the home runs, but there's not often times the recipe isn't in there to get the home run.

[00:21:33] John: Right. The recipe was left back with those nine strikeouts. So very intentional with the content of kind of showcasing. What went wrong and how we corrected to then go, right. I, on there, there's, it's a seven or eight part series now. I was literally writing an article on every step of our whatnot journey, from the first month where we didn't know what we were doing to, we have a gentleman named Cameron that runs whatnot for us.

[00:22:00] John: And he has a full-time team that supports him. So it's the whole journey of that from making and we made a lot of mistakes along the way.

[00:22:09] Hector: Yeah. We'll link that up for, you listeners as well. you may have answered it, and I appreciate that answer so much, but I'm gonna at least, give you the opportunity to, change or adjust it.

[00:22:17] Hector: But, in your opinion, what is the, secret to scaling a.

[00:22:22] John: Going, just doing it. which I don't want it to sound like a cop out, but I think, so many times there's paralysis, by analysis. People just wanna make sure that they get everything right. And that, every, everything, every I is dotted, every T is crossed.

[00:22:41] John: And I think you just gotta go and understand you're gonna make mistakes. Learn from those mistakes, pivot. you're not gonna get everything right the first time or the second time. there's times you do, but I think you just have to go. I think scaling a business, at least it's very cyclical. We care about scaling something profitably for several years and then we don't.

[00:23:03] John: and then we do again, right now we're in the chapter of scale profitably. but, 20, 29 we might say, oh, just scale. Who cares about profits? so right now it's scale profitably. I think you looking at, blended acquisition costs, is key to, to scale effectively and profitably.

[00:23:20] John: I think. Can't think, you can't look at just one platform or one source. You have to look at it holistically. Attribution is tricky. you're ingesting content, for entertainment purposes.

[00:23:32] John: you're not necessarily in the mindset that I'm ready to buy that I want, oh, I like, I'm watching someone dance or someone with a prank. I'm not thinking, man, I really wanna spend some money right now. And then tiktoks all goes like, oh, wait, look, here's this $20 tchotchke. Do you wanna buy it? And then you swipe and it's like interjecting it in.

[00:23:51] John: And I'm sure the algorithm is at least like trying to find the right times to show it. But then you go to whatnot. What whatnot is shopping in entertainment. There's, you're, if you're, if you've downloaded the app, if you've opened up the app today and you're going, you are already so far further along in the buying cycle.

[00:24:11] John: than just a random TikTok user. Like arguably, if you open up whatnot, you're looking to buy something and be entertained. it's the flip flop, right? arguably if Amazon can never figure out. Live shopping. They've done, half a dozen iterations now and they keep missing the mark. But if they can figure it out, they have the same thing, right?

[00:24:30] John: You don't open up Amazon and be entertained. You buy Amazon, open up Amazon to spend money. So if they can figure it out, or maybe they acquire whatnot, who knows? no many can acquire an $11 million company. But Amazon is absolutely one of 'em. So maybe that's the play. You've gotta think.

[00:24:45] John: So it skipped the, our generation, if you will, this QVC home shopping network. Right. But our parents' generation were a part of it. And,they'd watched tv. Then pick up the phone

[00:25:00] John: and call and order something. It was these, eight to 12 minute segments. And then our generation was just like, I don't know about that.

[00:25:07] John: Like, it's kind of weird. and this is the new generation. This is their QVC HSN And it's solved the problem