Trail Racing's Disruptor: How Rob Goyen Revolutionized the Texas Running Scene
DFW Running Talk_ Rob G - The Business of Trail Running – 2024_10_24 09_54 CDT – Recording
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Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Welcome to DFW running talk. I'm Chris Detzel. So let's get started.
All right, welcome to another DFW running talk. I'm Chris Detzel and today we have a special guest Rob Goyen. Rob, how are you? I'm doing well. How about you? I'm good, man. So I saw you a couple of weeks ago and I was really excited, we just started this podcast. I was like, man, I got to talk to Rob, get him on this podcast and here you are.
Rob Goyen: Yeah, no, I appreciate it. I for someone who spent a lot of time and years on podcasts, doing them, hosting them, being on them. It's been a break for me to be on a bunch. It's fun to be back and chat all things show running for sure.
Chris Detzel: Yeah. And that's why I want to. Dive deep into is you know, you came on the trail running scene.
I don't know like Several years ago and I was like who's this rob guy and you're just and you started to kill it Like I think you in my mind like i'm not a hardcore trail runner, Trail runner die kind of person [00:01:00] i've been in that community for quite a while and I remember from my thoughts around trail running was more Trailer 50 Ks, a hundred milers and things like that.
And you changed that a little bit, or at least. From my point of view and I think from others and then you brought in 5ks 10ks and all that stuff But before we start talking about that Let's talk a little bit about your background where you come from and those kinds of things and then we'll get into that
Rob Goyen: yeah, I mean my My role of how I got into trail running was like a journey.
In sobriety I've been sober now for 12 years. So that would put my last date of drink in 2012. So I, I was a really big guy at one point, 350, 60 pounds plus, and was drinking and doing all the wrong things in life. You could say and a lot of just running a lot from childhood trauma and and ended up finding running my wife.
Yeah. My current wife now, she was, I met her, she was working out and, and I found, I found the enjoyment in [00:02:00] running and I was walking on the treadmill. I can remember walking on the treadmill. And seeing this guy that was doing an iron man and he was talking about how like he had all these problems in life with drugs and alcohol and how he felt like he got the same thing out of running, it's like the, the dopamine fix, so someone who's that way as ADHD, like it clicked for me. And I started walking, started running, and then ended up just by chance finding trails. I was running the Memorial Loop in Houston, if you've seen it, right? It's three miles, it's boring at times, but I was running, it was a rainy day.
Yeah, it was running in a rainy day, and I saw this little fence off that led me into the forest. ~ ~And I jumped in there and I thought I was a kid again. I called Jeremy Hanson. Who's local Houston guy. One of my good friends, I called him and I said, man, I don't know what this is, but I found something.
He was like, what did you find? I was like, trails. I don't know what this is. I feel like I'm out in the woods again. And and I think a week later, Jeremy joined me for a six hour. Run and we were just guys that were running and hiking and [00:03:00] walking. And we thought it was the coolest thing ever.
And our original group name was the dirty bums, which we can't use anymore, but we call that because I used to fall all the time. And we would eat, we were in like cargo pants and, eating sandwiches out of the back of the trunk. We had no concept in like 2011, like what, like trail running was, and it wasn't a popular sport then either.
It was it's very niche, right? So long, not long story short is it, we ended up starting the Houston area trail runners. Jeremy and I, a friend of ours named Hoseam, my wife. And then subsequently I got sober around that time and running trail running and being active has always kept me sober, which is great.
And from hosting mock trail races, which is what we were doing in 2012 and 13, we're essentially like going to like chaos races or other people's races, dames races. Yeah. We were making mock loops and Memorial park, like a five mile loop, and we'd put an aid station. So we were trying to get.
The Houston [00:04:00] people that were racing to say Hey, let's make a mock race. You like once every couple of months. So we would get used to eating and nutrition and how it feels to come in and out of an aid station. And and yeah, like Larry Kosen. ~ ~A good friend of mine as well. He he ended up asking me if I wanted to go to Brazos, Penn state park.
This was in like 2013, ~ ~November. He asked me if I wanted to go and pitch them on a free race. And right in the middle of this conversation with Larry's about to start ophthalmology school. I don't know what happened. Larry says I blacked out. I think I did, but I blacked out and ended up pitching them on Mike, a 50 miler in the spring and a hundred miler in December And the park was literally like the guy his name's David Heidecke.
He he was just yeah, if you pull the permits, like you can do whatever you want. Of course, I grew up going to browser spend. And then I left that conversation. We get in the parking lot. I'm like geared for my life. I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. I can't wait to tell my wife.
And we get down the road like five minutes and Larry calls me, he goes, man, I don't know what you just did, but I can help with that. [00:05:00] He's I went to ophthalmology school. I thought we were talking about a free race, you're in here talking about 600 people at a real race. Like Rob, I didn't sign up for that.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, and and I got that
Rob Goyen: I blacked out. I want to go
Chris Detzel: back you blacked out like you're pitching this guy Yeah, got it. And you just can't remember it hardly, but yeah, I just
Rob Goyen: I got overcome with enthusiasm of got it like that So excited. I really want to do something and I always had all these ideas from, from my time volunteering at races and my time, like putting, seeing people do races.
And so I had all these ideas that I just hadn't unleashed on somebody. So I think I just, I blacked out and went for it. I swung for the fences and that's the, that is the story of trail racing over Texas. We started trail racing over Texas one, 2014. And Braz has been, we put on two races.
That year one was a, a multiple distance five K or probably 10 K, 25 K, 50 K, 50 miler. And then that, that December was brass has been a [00:06:00] hundred number one, which at the time was probably a half full 50 miler and a hundred mile.
Chris Detzel: So let's dive into that because I'm really interested in kind of the business aspect of it one and then two is that kind of look forward and looking at what you've done.
And to really help, I feel like you've helped some race directors and they've changed their philosophy and things like that. But as you started putting this together, when did you think, okay, Hey, this is a business now. And maybe we go through that journey.
Maybe you say, okay, I got, I get this one race up and did these things. But then I was like, how do I make some money? Like we don't do this for we, we love the sport, but Live you've got to make a little bit of money and you've got to invest into the sport and things like that Can you walk through some of that and just some aha moments and things?
Rob Goyen: Yeah, but i'll be super frank I never didn't treat it like a business the first race we ever put on. Yeah. I I treated it that way. My mom was a cpa so growing up my mom had a rule that you didn't go to bed if your books weren't done I still stand by that rule every [00:07:00] day I'm a guy who works during the day, takes a break in the afternoon.
And then I work from nine to 12 every night. I have every night of my life. I look forward to it. The quiet time, which if you were a runner, I got a bed at
Chris Detzel: nine. So it would be rough
Rob Goyen: nine to 12 guy. I answer all the emails at nine to 12. That way no one can respond back. That's a, it's a tactic I like to use.
Yeah. But it's also a chance for me to catch up on my book. My, my parents were both entrepreneurs. I owned a tax business at the same time that I started trot. So I had another business that I was running as well, but yeah, I never didn't treat it like a business. And I've been very open with that from the get go.
And I've tried to express even now when we have. Conversations with race directors is that if if you run it like a business you can produce a better product to me if your mortgage depends on how you treat the people at your races, you treat the people a lot better I that's my own philosophy and I also think in our sport and this is this is the important [00:08:00] part I'm, not saying you have to get rich off trail running I'm, not saying you have to make some crazy living but I will tell you this It's really impossible to put on trail races if you're bitter If you're bitter at the job you're doing, especially in a service industry job, everyone, and you have to get used to the fact that, and it, it's, it takes time, but you have to get used to the fact that your hardest day working as a race director is everyone else's vacation.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, that's right. Everyone is
Rob Goyen: there to have the best day they can have, and it will be the worst day that you have. I see that work wise. Yes, there's enjoyment. So my philosophy was always, how do I do the things up front? That would be staffing wise. That would be monetary wise, whatever the business side of it.
How do I do everything correctly leading up to that race? So that my interactions with people at that race day. [00:09:00] Whereas like that, I could present to them the best version that I could. And that is where obviously a lot of people know, when I race direct, it's hugs and high fives, right?
There's, I love to give hugs and high fives. There's a lot of reason even though all the
Chris Detzel: sweaty people it's
Rob Goyen: it doesn't make a difference I've had it all down my back. I've had i'm sure i've had the sweat i've had the i've had it all. Yeah, there's It's why people used to go. Why do you wear a hoodie? I was like, it's protection.
I'm protecting my body From your later. Yeah, another one. It's a layer I've had it all run down my hoodie and I can get another hoodie and I don't want Of that down my back. , it's designed, it was designed that way by me because I would tell people the people that cross the line are the people that are paying you the money.
And if you're a race director out there and you can do the way you want to do it, but if you're not standing at your finish line, you're not hugging people and giving out handshakes, [00:10:00] then the last thing they remember from when they leave your race is maybe a volunteer doing it, which I understand at times, but at the end of the day, I looked at it like, this is my community.
These are my people. You paid me you didn't pay anybody else when you paid that money went right, minus some fees We're right to my check to recount.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Rob Goyen: so I You deserve to get the best of me and I'm I've prepped all of these days to give you the best of me So it's just super for me.
It's super important. And like I said, my parents were entrepreneurs my mom in a Daycare, my dad ran a telecommunications company and I watched how they And so I was grown up in a service household. So I watched the way they treated their customers. I watched the way that at times my parents were treated unfairly by those that they worked for.
I saw that the, the way that, that looked and felt and ultimately like I'm raised in a service position and my job is to service people. And I've always said that, like the person that race directs, if you [00:11:00] want to be successful at it, at the end of the day, you have to have a service.
It's hard. You are a servant of that
Chris Detzel: day. Yeah. I feel like, so we'll get back into this because I think it, cause I've got lots of questions about, how hard all, you're doing, what are going to turn out, you're doing a lot of things, right? You're looking at swag. You probably had a business around creating swag.
You. You know you sell it then you have to have a warehouse to put it all in and then you also bring I mean you're traveling all over texas, basically and so i'm sure you have this big trailer then you have a warehouse and then You know, then you have the swag stuff and then you have a lot of stuff, right?
And then you're trying to market it and then you're trying to you know And then you gotta actually put on the race and then you gotta take down the race. And yeah, jeez I don't know Like it's a lot of stuff, you know that you have to do and so I do think there has to be some love For the sport because I mean you just mentioned, you loved it because of what it's done to you and helped you get [00:12:00] over, some things that you're going through in your life, but Talk about all of that all the things that you have to do, and even if you do make money geez, you know It's a lot of work and effort.
Rob Goyen: Yeah, I think the interesting part for me is that You and I'm not going to say this is an equal parts, but I equally love my first love in life is business. My wife asked me out on the day, that's a true story, right? So what I would say, you would never would have asked me out.
You were too busy crunching numbers
Chris Detzel: and
Rob Goyen: in my mind, that's the way my mind works. Like last thing I do before I go to bed is crunch numbers. I wake up and crunch numbers and it's just the strategy of business. I just love it. It's my first love in life. So to me, I look at it like. I loved having a trail racing company not only because of the experience that runners got but I liked the puzzle pieces of How to run a company like I never hired people to do swag for me.
I manufactured my own swag. I [00:13:00] Signed a contract with a screen printer. I've imported stuff overseas for two decades now so yeah, some of that is scale, right? We started with two races It was my wife and I right? I mean that's all the people that were there You And I always tell people scale when it busts at your seams never scale Assuming your company's going to grow and you're hiring and the hope that you can grow right let work hard enough So it busts at the seams when it busts at the seams you hire somebody because as a business owner Especially and i'm a small business owner, right?
Like I
Chris Detzel: yeah
Rob Goyen: when I had the tax company, we had 40 employees but truth is like I'm a less than 10 guy, right? And a lot of that's because I love the work. But the reason I save it is because you want to run as lean as you can for as long as you can, so that you can, so you can scale properly. So it was Rachel and I for the first.
I don't know, four or five years. So we started with two races and then the next year we went to seven and the next year we went to 11 and then 17. Our [00:14:00] warehouses look the same, right? The first warehouse we had was our upstairs in our house. The second warehouse was the upstairs in our garage.
The third warehouse was a 10 by 10. The fourth warehouse was a 10 by 30 and we could get everything in there, but it did, but it was an outside storage unit. So we were having to like Ian buckets in the corners. If we were in there working or Rachel would have to go behind the trailers that they were there and be like, and then around.
So some point past that, and I still remember we decided to get a warehouse like, and that's the right, I'm on the same warehouse block as we were right now. I have another warehouse, but this one was like 2600 square feet. I had an office and a restroom and a huge thing. And I remember visibly with Rachel, like emotionally shaking at the thought of adding like 1, 700 a month.
Which at the time was more than our [00:15:00] board Yeah, we were putting on all these events Like we'd gotten hoa calls about washing shit in the front yard Like that big 26 foot u haul truck didn't even fit in our driveway when we were trying to load stuff So half of the nose would be out there and the trash people couldn't get by and like We were busting into scenes like we cut it Do any more from our home and we got a warehouse and then when we got a warehouse.
Like my focus on racism is always how do we get them out into the public photographer? You know along the way we hired helica who came on and did social media So she entered all my social media accounts my newsletters Of course people always used to say I have the worst grammar in the world, but I do So she fixed that I adjust to that Yeah, i've seen it.
I was like did he was he asleep or something? I just I type like I speak You And then I don't ever go backwards.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Rob Goyen: So once I've written it, I'm like, it's good. It's not good. I just let it roll. [00:16:00] So who
Chris Detzel: cares?
Rob Goyen: Yeah. Like they'll, my runner, I
Chris Detzel: think people are like, Oh, that's just Rob being Rob.
I guess. I don't know, but
Rob Goyen: yeah, it wasn't, it's just, my brain would work like this is done and I would just be moving on. And we, we just added pieces, took my wife and I well documented five or six years to have a baby. So when we were really close to having that happen. We hired Amanda and we added these pieces on to scale it up.
And you're right. At one point in this equation, we were doing 17 races a year and two for Red Bull or one for Red Bull and two helping, but it was every other weekend from August 1st through the end of May for years on end. Yeah. Yeah. And it was. It is the quintessential, start your week very, very regimented, pack your truck, get to the venue, mark your course, put the race on home the same night, wash your stuff, go pick up shirts.
We would, I would be ordering shirts as I'm driving to the next race. Like it's, and as much as it sounds [00:17:00] chaotic. Like in all the years we did it We only had a couple of like shipping issues where metal didn't get here or whatever But the truth is that the cadence and the rhythm was because like we had a great team world class And everyone was selfless but at the end of the day we all had jobs and roles that we did and everyone did those jobs and roles well and that's You know one of the biggest reasons why the community flourished as well and I would tell people all the time I, like when we were smaller, this sounds crazy, but when we were smaller, I felt like we, I felt like we put on better of it.
So that, that may not be true, but it's just a feeling.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Rob Goyen: I feel like when we had four or five of it, we put on better events because obviously like we have four or five, like for instance, I think the best races in the country for the most part, this obviously like it says nothing to do with my job, but I'll just sign up.
But I think the best, I think the best races in the country are a lot of times races where it's their only race for the [00:18:00] year, and like a Western or broken arrow or rut or some of those races where it's the only race they put on. Because they. They can put everything into one event, right?
They make that thing feel like it's UT, like UTMB, right? UTMB is a
Chris Detzel: marathon, road race, put everything in that
Rob Goyen: Houston marathon is once a year. If you have 13 Houston marathons, it wouldn't feel that special. No, it feels special. Cause it's one, but I would tell people. My job has changed at 17 to actually not put on like the grandest race that there is.
My job is to produce the most consistent experience that you get every time you show up. And I don't also treat our events as races. I try to treat them as events. So I don't, I want to make a memorable experience in your life on that day. I don't want you to just say, Oh, I went to another one of Rob's races and it was okay.
I never wanted that. I wanted you to walk away. [00:19:00] And feel like it meant something to you because I'm a product of the change of trail running and, and trail running changes people's lives, both physically, and then also and all the people that I've met that have been buried because of our races or have kids because of our races, like it's a connection point of the community that, that means a lot to a lot of people.
So my, my, my job at the end of that was just to be the absolute most consistent and I think we did that really well, and I think that's obviously why. We grew the way we did. And for me as a person, who's an inquisitive person, I didn't come into the sport and I came into the sport a little brash, I will admit.
I came in and basically said, Hey, listen, I'm here to take over the state of Texas. I'm coming in.
Chris Detzel: I just talked to that. He said the same thing. He's really young. Yeah.
Rob Goyen: Yeah. And that's what I said. I said, I'm coming in to take over the state now, back in those days, like Joe was so retracted with Tayhaas and, and there [00:20:00] was, we had some issues along the way there, which is fine, but at the end of the day, like it was, I didn't really mean it like I was going to.
There's a great business quote that says like you become, you can become the biggest building in town by either building the biggest building in town or by tearing every other building around, around you. And I didn't care about trying to tear other people's races down or say negative things. I just have the confidence that I could build the biggest building in town.
And my way of doing it is Pushing the envelope, which is like pushing what people saw at races, sign up a thons discounts for volunteers. Like all that stuff never existed before us. People didn't do 50 percent per race. No one did that. We did that from day one.
Chris Detzel: Some of the tactics that you implemented were, like just a Facebook kind of live group, for example, that's when that was really popular.
I don't know how popular that is anymore, it, Nobody was doing that. So if somebody came in live [00:21:00] to your facebook group they would have the opportunity to win 50 percent off or yeah swag or I don't know you had all kinds of different things But it gave you a platform one to bring people in live them have in a sense live access to you Yeah, I always love have live expert or have a access to the Director of this big, trail running, race director guy and he's giving away free stuff You know and not just that People loved you for that and you were the I don't know anybody at first doing any of that and I don't see it anymore I saw some trying to do some stuff not to say but You have that personality for it too, right?
Like you're just a, Hey, I'm going to try this thing and it's working. And then you continue to do it because it worked. My wife was like, Hey, we've got to be on trots Facebook live so we can try to get 50 percent off these races, and races to come. And I was like, all right,
Rob Goyen: yeah. And some of that though is just because I own another company, right? So I own a streetwear company. So I am, largely dialed into what's happening [00:22:00] at the young level. Like even right now, like I have a streetwear company still. We do auction stuff on whatnot, which 99 percent of people that are probably 40 year older have no idea what whatnot is, but it's super popular with young people, tick tock chop, all those things, but it's where the attention is.
So for me at the time, it was like, I do love chatting with people and I love the interactions of one on one. So for me, it was always, How do we push this pace? And that was trot lives, sign up a thons, which is what everybody loved. Which are super fun. And there's a lot of reasons there and why to do them.
There's a lot of risks there, right? Because you're essentially, you're losing the gain, right? You're giving discounts to gain and you have to think about why you're doing that. But yeah, it's, I, that will never change. And yeah, I still, I said this the other day. Okay. I said, obviously I've been out of the sport as far as full time race directing for a couple of years, and I still, a lot of people I talked to are a lot of people that I help still don't see them doing what I'm doing two years ago.[00:23:00]
And I still, and I have thoughts right now of, Four or five things that I don't see anyone doing, which I don't understand why they're not doing. But that's just because I don't share those
Chris Detzel: things. Or is that rather not
Rob Goyen: rather use those at another time? No. But like for instance, when we, when I finished putting a racist three years ago, right? If you couldn't get like proper cell phone signal, like you had some problems, right? There's some limitations when he can't get signal. But there's not an excuse not to have signal right now. You can get Starlink, like it doesn't cost that much money.
Actually. It costs us more to have a wifi. From AT& T at the time than it does now so if you can have internet where you're at wherever you want to yes The upfront cost is five or six hundred bucks, but it's 50 or 150 a month You have to put that in your you know in your budget But that means you should have live results all the time.
That's that means that you should have social media shoot 100
Chris Detzel: percent I love that, like I go to a race. I'm like I [00:24:00] can't even get my Fucking
Rob Goyen: thing on whatever, yeah, and to be frank with you, this is these are the things that keep me up at night, right? Yeah, you should have you should have a you should have live You know, video, you should have live results.
A hundred percent of the time your photographer should be locked in or videographer should be locked in doing social all the time of your race, because they have a spot to do it. You should have another one probably up. If you don't have a place with really good service, you should have another one dedicated just for your runners.
So your runners can access it and share their experiences while the race is going on Because all it does is make you look better. Number three is you should be live streaming You should have another one or the same one connected so that you're live streaming on A multitude of platforms depending on where your social strategy is Yeah, which if you want to do twitch if you want to do youtube, but there's really not like Those alone those three things are just components that I couldn't do three years ago And I technology wasn't there.
Yeah, it [00:25:00] wasn't there, but it is here now and like those things aren't Used and I think the other thing that I still see not used correctly in social media. I social media is Grossly underused and undervalued and I don't think people really understand that if you build your following enough On your social platforms like a facebook and instagram and i'm not talking about buying followers.
I'm talking about an organic build Yeah, when you go to advertise against that build it is Insanely cheap people used to always come to me like me. I see your facebook events all over we had friends of ours even our parents right they would scream at me like rob Another race in my face all the time And then they would like your advertising budget is out of control let me let me tell y'all something.
I didn't spend more than a hundred dollars a race in that how much? A hundred dollars a month. [00:26:00] No in total. Really? Yeah, I would and i'll tell you that i'll tell you that the juice right? I would you know our facebook group at the time or facebook page had 28 000 whatever however many people but you create an event and the event still to this day, Facebook event, you essentially would put it up and I would run a hundred dollars from the day that I opened it.
So the day that it closed and that's going to push. The event and people's feeds all the time. So you see it all the time. I didn't have to promote posts that often because when you have real 20, 000 people, it's engaging. And then with having the ambassador group, like we did part of the contest of the ambassador groups was, Hey The next three months we're having a contest and you get one point for every person you invite to the event.
So if you have 30 ambassadors and they all invite 3000 people or 300 people to the event, you got 9, 000 people being invited plus your own organic reach as well.
Chris Detzel: Yeah. But what
Rob Goyen: you end up seeing is nine to 10, 000 people being [00:27:00] invited to an event and on top of that for the next hundred days, somebody's event page is getting blipped and once they've accepted into the into the event, they don't get the advertising.
So your advertising actually gets better over time.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, no, that makes I mean I think I agree with you like if you're not using social then Then you're missing out. I do think that is that I use social quite a bit on, whether it's work or linkedin is a big one for us, it's not that easy, right?
Like it's it's when I think about the job that you had You know as a race director, but owner ceo and all these things all the things that we just mentioned whether it was You know getting a warehouse or getting swag getting, a truck to move all that stuff that you know And then you have to worry about the marketing piece and social Is really part of that marketing social marketing.
It's got to be part of that. I don't disagree But a lot of these people don't know How to use social in the right way, right? I don't disagree is like I can't really I mean you get on instagram Or you get on [00:28:00] tiktok or facebook or twitter or x whatever. It's called youtube. There's a lot of Social networks to use.
And you gotta understand what you might not be able to do everything. You gotta figure out what is important and you, I agree. You have to have some kind of social type strategy because what you did was not the norm, especially in Texas. I don't know what's gone out, outside of Texas, but I don't know, man.
I think that you're right, but I also think it's hard. A
Rob Goyen: hundred percent. But I'd also say that there's two options if it's hard, you either learn or you pay someone. Yeah. Exactly. And there's nothing wrong with that. Listen, six years ago when I started my streetwear company, my son was like, you gotta get into Discord.
I'm like, I don't know what Discord is. Yeah, it's a community. He's what do you mean dad? I'm like, what is Discord ? He was like, what did you use back in the day? And I'm like, for what? He's shitty forums talk to people. He and I said, I-C-Q-I-C. And he goes, okay. So think of discord as modern day.
I seek [00:29:00] you and I'm like, okay. And he goes and you log in. And then, so my son walked me into discord. And then once I got into this board, I gained access into groups and started asking questions. And I said, Hey, listen, I'm a 40 year old guy getting in the street. Yeah. And I know that most of these kids are 16, 15, 17, 18, but listen.
Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's not uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, You either go in and do those things or you need to pay people to do those things Like social media is not going to stop. It only gets younger every day And the attention span of wherever you're going in life is only going to change it and you can be Proficient at Facebook and three years from now, you will need to be proficient with the next app that comes along to keep your events, races, business, and in the eye of your consumer.
And you can't just to me, I'm not, you can't just say [00:30:00] this is hard or I don't know how to do it. If you're expecting yourself to like. Grow and have a big business or events you can't say you don't want to do it And then you could just go hire someone to do it for you but I was never that person i'm always the person that like I need to know it first and understand it and learn it because my Business mind is to find the angle.
I have to find the angle first And I could teach someone how to automate the angle, but I need to find that thing and that's you know That's You know, that's the way that i'm built but I think that there's So much I still see and listen and there's so much. I don't know. I don't know everything.
I every time Every time i'm in a chat with our like tech team at ultra sign up or like our statistician Like we have a guy that works for the same matt abbott that kind of blows my mind in commerce Yeah, i'm like y'all went to school for this Like I'm not college educated. My, all my smarts is [00:31:00] just street smarts.
These people are really smart people. There's a lot of like really smart people that do like data and like they watch over that stuff. And it's cool because when they apply their data's knowledge to, to trail running and like stats it's super cool, but it's just I don't know how to do that stuff.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, I think, look, I think data, I have to get into that big time, but I think, when you have people like them that, went to school, data is important, even at my job today is, I've got to prove that I build online B2B communities from ground up at these companies, right?
And i've got to show the roi of why people talking to each other and helping each other and running these events whether they're live webinars or going to you've got to you got to provide the data and if the data says You know, hey, here's the roi and this what you like same thing with trail running I assume is the more that you can not just get into the data But prove roi from that data to say, okay We have this many trail runners at each race, or you know I'm [00:32:00] sure there's other data points that you're looking at we have You know, this many people coming from Facebook ads.
Yes, it's working. Or last year it was doing this. This year is doing that. Yeah, I think it's an important part. How do you how did you look at data then? Was that, just we're getting signed up, so that's positive. We're making more money. What was the kind of a high level thing there?
Rob Goyen: Like I, I always had a, I always looked at it. Like cost of acquisition of runners was big for me, like to be there. Like what it really costs. I was big on ambassador groups. I still would be for various reasons, if they're used the right way, I was big on we formed an elite team that I funded, and I had really big projects every year that I set money aside.
Like we made a movie and we had elite teams and we had the truck couple of wards where we gave away jackets and all those things. And you have to prepare for all those. But I think a lot of, a lot of my data is each race, the company was the company, but each race was a business and that's really how I looked at it and it was each race has its own P and [00:33:00] L sheet.
And I'm a Google sheets user. I know that's old school, but I'm a Google sheets. Every race has a P and L and the same races have about the same nine, nine fees to them, and you put those nine fees down, you know what those fees are going to be. I can estimate on per runner, how much it costs to be there.
And then that regards, yes, you have some standardized overhead fees, like your warehouse, your electricity, if you have salaried employees. But I just looked at it as. Every race was its own business. And if those and if and if you didn't make it as a business You didn't get to stay
Chris Detzel: and so eventually you just said, you know What would you do run it a few times and then be like, okay It's not working and then just scratch it or how'd you go approach a race that just didn't make money?
Rob Goyen: I never had one.
Chris Detzel: Oh, really?
Rob Goyen: No,
The first race we put on just to give you an idea that don't know, but the first race we ever put on with 600 people, I didn't, like I, and I knew what the cost was as good as them. Obviously [00:34:00] there's, you get better at it. Signed a contract with a huge printing company, which got my printing lower.
I opened up wholesale account for t shirts instead of waiting for someone to contact me and offer them for me for 10 bucks. I opened wholesale accounts across the country to keep that cost down. Same thing with metals. When we came to awards, I didn't like buying just random awards. I like to support people buying soaps from them or.
Yeah. Dominant cookies for us. Like I, if I'm going to spend money on awards, I'd rather spend money with somebody who's in the community where I could, where I could put money back in their pocket. So yeah, I never lost money on races. And it just became a, it's just a cadence of that.
And the truth is. A lot of people in the industry when I came around I would get the old, I don't like, Rob only wants to put on big races and like I like the small hometown feel and I would tell people my job is to put really big races On that feel like really small races Yeah, [00:35:00] and if I can balance a huge race that it's a finish line You still feel well supported the community loves you.
I can give you a hug and your experience felt great that i've won But what people like in business may not understand is You know, 70 percent of the cost doesn't not necessarily that true. But 50 percent of the cost doesn't change no matter how many people show up. So all of these permits and all of the rentals and all of the truck and on the tents and all that kind of stuff, y'all was going to be the same, no matter what.
So I was, my, my goal was to try to maximize the races that we had. Yes, we grew to 17, but I think that the other parts of that is You know at one point in 2018 or 19 15 of those 17 races sold out So so we're not talking i'm not talking about having races for 100 people because it looked cool I'm talking about trying to literally fill up each piece of inventory in those 17 races or those 15 [00:36:00] races and there wasn't there's no need to add races If they're not going to do well to me it to me it waters down the experience a little bit to, to be super wide and have events that are, and I'm not saying you shouldn't have events that are super small, but like we, we had like loans far for us was a really small event.
Like the 200 was really small. The hundred was really small at times. And yes, we didn't make a lot of money breaking, even making a hundred bucks here and there, but those races, they had reasons that we did them. But then when the reasons were over, like I was trying to get Lone Star into hard rock, which is why we did Lone Star a hundred and after I proved that it was a great race and Carl said it was one of his favorite races and it didn't get accepted, I pulled the plug on the race because it took too many volunteers to put it on.
It wasn't. It wasn't a reward for the community to have everyone from El Paso bust their ass so that 42 people can run around the mountains. It's not fair to the [00:37:00] community to do that.
Chris Detzel: Yeah
Rob Goyen: And you're gonna lose You know, you're going to lose your volunteer base if you misuse them. And you can only put on as many great races as you have great volunteers.
Chris Detzel: Yeah, this sport will never be
Rob Goyen: about runners. It will be about volunteers because if you don't have. enough great volunteers Then your runners have a worse experience and you essentially get bottlenecked At the experience that you can provide And it's the reason why when we started trot my job was the front end But my wife's full time job at trot was to manage volunteers because I knew that the volunteer side was more important than the runners.
You can find all the time. Yeah, because the thing people are coming out taking off on their Saturday that they could be with their kids, their husband, they could be at the movies. They could be doing [00:38:00] anything in the world. But they choose to come out and stand behind an aid station table while eight hours puke and rub gel everywhere they, and they stand out there and they do it because it's a labor love.
And yes, some do it for the rates credits, but man, those people are your lifeline to put on events. And if you can't figure out a way to treat them then you're going to have a massive problem.
Chris Detzel: I remember my wife so she has volunteered for a lot of these races, you know in the past and One thing that I know that she appreciated about the races that you put on was hey, you got some race credits Hey, you're rewarded.
She wanted to go out and help, but I remember, you know Some of the races that she did go in and help, some of these directors were like Thanks for helping or not even say thanks for helping, and sometimes would overuse some of the volunteers Subscribers and so I think that's said and something that [00:39:00] everyone can learn from because putting on a volunteer program is very I mean I can't imagine how difficult that is to build up, I could certainly understand the races that you put on, you know in the past and the love that you gave to your volunteers was certainly appreciated I think it's you have to you know, if you don't you just won't You Be able to last for much for all that long or have a great race experience for the racers,
Rob Goyen: right?
Yeah, and it wasn't that way don't get me wrong like first race, like it's that houston area trail runner It was like every friend that we could get my wife's friends were volunteering my mother in law father in law are there like The Brad's has been a hundred. My mother in law smashed the cargo van.
She was in, into the other cargo van that we rented. You know what I mean? I'm just saying it isn't sunshine and rainbows like all the time. But the reason I say that is because yes, you all start from somewhere, but I would always try to encourage people to, and this is why we had a bigger volunteer core is I would [00:40:00] tell people you can be part of the trail community without running the races.
You can just come and be near it and volunteer to do time or sit in an aid station and bring your daughter or, like we were a little restrictive on ages because that gets a little dicey time for us. But the point of it was. You don't have to be out there running. And our thought to it, which it works is, if you're apprehensive about running trails, if you think this is really about running, if you think there's all marathon runners that, are super fit and all that, like, how do we get you to come out one time?
And just to feel the love and once you feel the love you won't leave and that's what happens you get people there that Don't consider themselves a runner because of what society thinks is a runner or what they may have heard or whatever And then they volunteer one time and they see someone that looks just like them Go do a 50k or 10k and they go.
No, [00:41:00] I can do a 10k too Yeah, and then they do use their race credits and then once they use the race credits You The difference is they worked they earned it and then they finish and that look in their faces when people And that is the greatest feeling for a race director for me Was when people would finish races that they trained for they sacrificed for they didn't think they could do it And it's a mind blower for them.
It's hard to explain. It's like when people see sunsets or the the northern lights, it's this stare in their eye like holy shit, like You Like i'm mind blown and that's those experiences are what I mean by memorable experiences that's the goal of someone who puts on events is to make a lasting impression With somebody
Chris Detzel: i've got a few more questions because you're so passionate about this and it's like I still hear the passion in your voice and just The things that you've done were pretty amazing.
So you sold trot right or what went on with that? What kind of made you to [00:42:00] change? Hey, look, I don't know if it's I don't want to do this again But it's more of hey i'm selling this Cause I was talking to me.
Rob Goyen: Yeah, it's, it was a few things. And for our first and foremost say that I'm very grateful for the people that chose to take on races.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Rob Goyen: They didn't have to I could have just, squad douche didn't walked away, but that wasn't the plan, but there was a couple of things that happened. Number one. We lost the runner at Brad's suspend and it was hard. Like emotionally for me, it was hard to get over. And I had a lot of just, I just I, we were putting on so many races that I like didn't have a chance to process it.
And instead of having an opportunity to process it because we were putting on races, it just kept coming back up for me. And, it was just like the anxiety of it. It was just like nightmares. And it was just a lot, right? It was just a lot that was happening and I was battling through it and trying to work.
And then, we got hit by COVID like everybody else. And the truth is we would have shut down Trot and COVID [00:43:00] had it not been for me owning another business. My other business was, did well in, in that time. So we were able to float it. And then right around that time, when we came back, I had spent March through October home for six months being the first time I've been home.
And I got to watch her daughter grow up.
Chris Detzel: Yeah.
Rob Goyen: And at the time our daughter was two and I have been on the road every other weekend, like my wife had Ruby and I think two weeks later I'm in the Franklin's. So I wasn't home. And I got I got I got used to it, I got used to being home with my daughter and watching her grow up and and I didn't even spend time with the wife, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's pretty good, too You know, I didn't get to see my son grow up. Yeah, and it really started to lean on me that like I'm only she's only going to be young for about another three or four years. Yeah,
Chris Detzel: that's right.
Rob Goyen: And if I if I can't find a way to unravel this right now that I won't, and I'm going to miss this time, [00:44:00] for, for a child that we fought really hard for years, my wife went through multiple miscarriages for, and we went through IVF for, and we fought extremely hard to have a baby.
Chris Detzel: Yeah,
Rob Goyen: and then i'm just now going to decide to go back on the road just because I want to go back on the road and I just didn't want to I just Didn't want to miss it and I knew that it wasn't going to be hard. It would be really hard to unravel it Yeah, with when we're talking about like 15 races but I just started to speak it out loud My other company was doing well enough so that I could leave if I wanted to and ultimately sometime around that time period You and I jumped the gun and I said a few things on mine that I shouldn't have said which were just Like yeah, I just I just jumped the gun with and I had a lot of mixed emotions And I think I said that a couple of times like i'm, sorry that like I'm saying things out of order and I'm sorry that I'm leaking things.
But it was just like bubbling out of me. I was having [00:45:00] severe problems at races. Like Chris and Ann were, so graceful and coming to help me, but I wouldn't have put on most of the final events if it wasn't like for Chris, like I wasn't sleeping at night before races. Like I was up all night.
Having panic attacks like it was just really bad. And I it was just this feeling of like I just want to be home And if I keep every time I would leave it would just happen and it and a lot of it was just me I just had I didn't have time to process, you know what had happened to ted and and so yeah, so at the end of the day john, lecroy took franklin's because he's a colorado guy You I gave the four races up in the North Texas area to, to Chris and Anna Blaise.
And then around that time, I voiced that I thought about selling truck. Truth be told, as Ironman tried to buy one of my races a couple of times, which I never did. And then yeah, Cal and I were friends and he heard me say it a couple of times and he was [00:46:00] like, Hey, I think I might want to, Get out of the oil field and do something running related.
Obviously he's a runner and a coach and
Chris Detzel: I
Rob Goyen: was like, Hey I'll let's work at an arrangement out where you just take it over. Like you, you take the warehouse and you take the liability and responsibility. And I can't, I get a way out to to do it. And then. I've said this publicly before, but the one thing I didn't want to have do is I didn't want to have a situation where, like when Dave left, and I've said this before I have the absolute utmost respect for Dave Berg and what, to me, what he did for this community, what I was a new trail runner and to me he's one of the best race directors to ever do it.
But, he left very quickly and when he left, he did his races we're in this odd situation where no one knew anything. And then at one point there was a feeding frenzy and Chris and I laugh about it because running the rows running the rows and possums, he was going to take, and I think like I was a week early to him [00:47:00] on putting permits in and getting things in and he respectfully didn't put them on, but it's one of the reasons why I gave Chris those races is because those are really races that deserved to be in somebody's hands. That has that community. Yeah. They're great, but at the end of the day, I didn't want that. I didn't want a frenzy. I didn't want I didn't want that to happen.
So my goal was how do I get these races to the best? People that I can. And then as much as I know, people wrote me and I've written it before that I'm appreciative, but I needed time away from the sport and and which is interesting because I thought that time would be super long and then maybe two months after.
Pal took over the last possums. I was in Tahoe for family. Our friends live in our friends live, um, off this island. I can't remember the island, but they flew into Tahoe to see us in the summer and I, we went, and I didn't even, I didn't even know that it was broken air a week or Western because I hadn't paid attention to the calendar and David [00:48:00] and Jay, who owned ultra signup were in town.
And they had always asked for me to take meetings. And I always told him I was too busy and I didn't want to chat about it. Yeah. It's just me like middle of the race season. They're like, can we jump on a hour call to talk about this? I'm like, I don't have time to talk to y'all. Like I'm busy.
Yeah. I didn't have time, but yeah. So I happened to be there and they were like, Hey, can we have coffee? And I said, y'all come into the village and I'll have coffee. And a 30 minute conversation was a three hour conversation. Yeah. And and yeah they told me about some of these big ideas they had for ultra signup and and me obviously using the platform for a decade and Mark Gilligan who built ultra signup built some features for me and yeah, they just said, Hey, we're, it's a work from home job and my role has changed a little bit, but at the end of the day, it was like, I was really scared that I would lose.
The knowledge base that I had. Yeah. And I wanted to be part of the sport and I've always, I've always tried to do stuff at the top level, like when I was director of [00:49:00] sky running races and stuff like that. So I love the business side of our sport and I love the experience. So it was just a really great opportunity for us, for me to be able to stay in the sport, for me to be behind closed doors, for me to, really experienced the last two and a half years.
Here at home. Like even this morning I got to take my daughter to school, which is super special for me and for her. And yeah they really gave me an opportunity when I didn't think I needed one, but I definitely did because I would have hated to to not be in the sport for the last two years and, um, and not see it grow and it's been fun.
Chris Detzel: Rob, unfortunately, like this hour is gone already, but the conversation has been amazing and what you've done with the trail racing community and what it sounds like it's done for your life is a pretty great story and I really appreciate you coming on to DFW running talk. Thanks everyone for tuning in to another DFW Running Talk. Please rate and review us, and I'll make sure that Rob rates [00:50:00] and review us. But until next time, thank you everyone. Thanks Rob.
Rob Goyen: Thank y'all.
