Meet Stephen Fitzgerald | Founder of Rodeo Labs

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephen Fitzgerald and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephen, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Rodeo Labs has a unique story. It started as a local cycling team with no intention of becoming a business, but the team took off pretty quickly when it was started in 2014, and the interest in our ongoing story led to a pretty great audience and community who wanted to be a part of what we were doing in different ways. Some people wanted to ride with us. Some people wanted to wear our jerseys or shirts, and other people wanted to buy the bikes that we were riding and experimenting with. I realized that one of the most difficult parts of starting a company is building awareness and interest, and we had that in spades, so after careful thought over the course of a year I decided to let Rodeo be a business as well, and to see where it wanted to go. In a way Rodeo hijacked my life, but I’m very glad that it did.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?
There are a huge number of bike companies and bike builders in the world, and it is extremely difficult to build a bike brand that survives or thrives in the modern world. Competition is beyond fierce, margins are difficult to hold, and making a product that stands out in a saturated market is a really difficult thing for a small company to do.

Rodeo Labs is set apart by a few factors. The first is our total dedication to experimentation and creativity. Our hunger to create and innovate helps us create products that are driven by real world function and then set apart visually through vibrant design and paint. Making a highly functional product makes sure what we do is relevant and up to the task, and giving our products distinct visual styles makes us interesting and engaging to the people watching us.

Another key ingredient to our success is our total dedication to our customers and patrons. We lean hard into the relational side of each transaction. We take the time to talk and listen to our customers. We make sure we are available and solution oriented if things go wrong with our products, and we don’t abandon customers when things get tough. I’m always surprised when people thank us for picking up the phone, when picking up the phone is one of the simplest and most critical ways that we interact with the people who chose to support and patronize us. We treat our customers like family, and they treat us like family in return.

We don’t look laterally at other companies in our industry for inspiration. There are plenty of other brands out there that we admire, but when it comes to designing and creating excellent bicycles, our inspiration comes from riding passionately ourselves, and it comes from the real world testing of our bikes that we do here in our very own Rocky Mountains.

Lastly, Rodeo is a frugal company. This may not be a sexy thing to be these days, but we keep an extremely careful eye on income and spending. We don’t afford ourselves luxuries like slick camper vans and posh offices. We spend incrementally and re-invest our profits on constant self-funded growth. After eight years these simple ideas have resulted in a company that runs in the black year after year.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
For our cycling oriented guests we would start with a small (by appointment) tour of our headquarters near Sloan’s Lake. We would probably walk them over to Slo-Hi coffee for a delicious coffee to start the day. (SloHi brews and pulls shots with Huckleberry Roasters beans). After we get them set up on a bike we would take them on a ride to South Table Mountain where they would get great views of the city but a great sense of being out in nature away from it all at the same time. For lunch we would recommend they head to Portside to sample their delicious menu and enjoy some Rhino people watching. If they were interested in a bit more riding we would recommend a spin down south on the Highline Canal Trail. On the way back up the Platte bike path we would detour over to our friends at Bear Creek Distillery to sample some of their award winning homegrown and locally distilled Colorado spirits. Our final stop would take us back to Rhino for a happy hour at Our Mutual Friend brewing where they always have an eclectic and refreshing mix of their own Denver brewed beers on tap. If we’ve worked up an appetite we would order up a Redeemer pizza to pair with our beer. Off the bike? Hit a Rockies game to wind up the evening!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My shoutout would go to Jordan and Gabe Sharg. Jordan is a member of Denver’s business community via Trailbreak Partners and was probably the first person I reached out to to ask: “Could you help me figure out if building Rodeo Labs as a business is a good idea”. Jordan introduced me to his brother Gabe. Together they helped me round out a business model and they helped to make sense of that nebulous question. It is a huge thing to put your career on hold and go after a different dream, and you need smart people around you to help you make that decision wisely.

Also deserving of a shout out would be my friend Peder Horner who on the very first day of Rodeo Labs sat down with me and said “if you’re starting a cycling team, I’ll be on it”. Just having that single voice of support was so critical in not feeling alone in the endeavor.

Website: https://www.rodeo-labs.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rodeolabs/

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Image Credits
All images credit Rodeo Labs