Watch or read – CEO Bryan Wachs is back with a company update!
Transcript of Video Update by Bryan Wachs, CEO
April 14, 2025
Hi, I’m Bryan Wachs, CEO of QuikrStuff, and I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done an update. I’ve got a lot of news; and, a lot of things have happened since I’ve done one.
We Got Our Own Factory
First of all, we finally got our own factory. It took almost two years for us to find a location in Grand Junction, but we finally got it.
14,000 square feet, about triple the square footage that we had before underneath three roofs, and we’ve consolidated the three roofs to one. This factory was able to extend and increase capacity by roughly 30 percent, and way back when, when we were stuck at six weeks of wait time when you placed an order, luckily with the new factory and the capacity increases, we’ve been able to get it down to one to two days. So, that was a big load off of our minds.
Now that we have this new factory, the next phase is to build out the offices. We’re going to use a system called Lada Cube, which is right here in Grand Junction, an amazing system that allows you to put up walls and take them down. We want to increase the facilities for the employees– break rooms, better bathrooms, a shower, a kitchen, just to make it more livable here and a little nicer.
And also, we want to build out a showroom because, plain and simple, people pass through here, they want to see the rack, and now we have a place that–legally and safely–we can show them the rack. So, that’s part of our plan also.
Sales
As some of you know (or maybe a few of you, or maybe all of you, or maybe none of you), we started this company in January of 2020, and we almost shut down the company in April 2020, in the beginning of COVID, when the supply chain debacle was starting, and we knew that nobody would give a startup company aluminum.
So, we were able to push through, obviously, and we finished that year with $36,000 in sales. In 2021, it took us all the way to May of ‘21 to start shipping products every day. So, in 2021, we did $540,000 in sales.
In 2022, as we started to ramp up, we did $2.2 million in sales. In 2023, we did $3.2 million in sales, and last year, in 2024, we went just over $4 million. So, what we learned from the marketplace is that people are looking for high-quality American-made products, and they’re willing to pay for them, knowing that our labor costs are higher here, and at the same time, people like old-fashioned customer service. We pick up the phone, we call people. You know, it’s nice when you’re a direct-to-consumer company to actually talk to people, and listen to their feedback, and get their ideas. We like that. We’re going to continue to do it.
And it’s also good to know that you don’t have to build a product with planned obsolescence in mind. You know, planned obsolescence–so that you can buy the same thing over and over again–is just bad. And yes, it may help a company have repeat sales, but look what it does to our trash heaps, and the environment. We like the fact that we’re building something that you can repair, and get parts for, and hopefully hand to your grandchildren.
1.25″ Rack Hitch Revision
In July of 2024, we had a handful of reports of some failures on the 1.25” rack, and what we learned, what these customers were doing, was using hitch adapters, extenders, swing-out arms, bike covers, third-party products that we cannot and will not warranty, because we can’t test them. They weren’t built to our standards and to complement the rack that we had. Knowing this, we had some internal discussions, and what came out of those discussions was, we knew other people were going to do this too.
So, we made a very hard decision, but we feel it was the right decision–to redesign the 1.25” (in the hitch assembly) and make it out of steel. We wanted it to be way stronger than it currently was, so that if somebody did this again, we wouldn’t lose bikes, and hurt somebody on a highway.
This was a long process. We had to start the design phase, the testing phase, and the prototyping phase, and this took months. And finally, in late December/early January, the 1.25s, the new ones, started coming off the line, and we contacted customers who had the 1.25” to tell them what was going on and that we wanted to offer them their choice of 1) upgrading to a 2”, 2) getting the 1.25” returned and upgraded itself, or 3) getting a full refund, if they were not happy with the promises that had been made. And this was a very tough decision, because we knew, for a young company, especially one that had pulled out of COVID and survived, that this could potentially be very hard on the company financially.
But it was the right thing to do, and we had to stand behind our product, and know that we were protecting your assets and other people. So, the team here just did an amazing job. I was really humbled by it, how everybody came together.
And the feedback we got from customers was, wow, you guys have gone above and beyond, can’t believe you gave us these choices, this is another reason why we love your company. It is humbling to hear feedback like that from people, when you know this is a potential big negative situation. So, I just want to thank the team, and thank the customers for being so nice, and understanding, and working with us.
Just to be clear, this is only affecting the 1.25” hitches, not the 2” hitches. Those are plenty beefy. You don’t have to worry about those.
For those of you out there who have not heard from us yet, we started with the people who were carrying multiple bikes, because those people were potentially at the most risk. And then we’re working up to the people who have two bikes, and maybe only one bike. So, check your spam box to see if we’ve already reached out to you. If not, feel free to contact us. But we will be reaching out to you, so just have some patience, because this is a process, and it’s going to take a little time. But again, if you have a question, do not hesitate. Reach out, contact us, so we can give you some more information about it.
Update on Tariffs and Aluminum as of mid-April 2025
So, since all the talk of the tariffs, we took a deep dive into what does Made in America mean, and also, where’s our aluminum really coming from? Now, I think most of you know that from day one, we’ve been making this in Grand Junction, Colorado, in our own factory. We get aluminum from Salt Lake City, from a foundry that’s a national provider, Bonnell Aluminum. They’ve been amazing. But what we also found out was, if you want USA Aluminum, you’re probably only a military vendor or you’re a government vendor. Little bike rack companies don’t generally get aluminum from America, because plain and simple, there’s not enough aluminum produced in America for the demand that we have here. So, we have to import aluminum from places like Canada.
And some of the ores and minerals that make up the alloys that we use come from Canada, come from Ukraine, come from all over the world. This is just the nature of the global supply chain that we have. And if you want to, JT did a brilliant blog post about it, so go take a look at that on our blogs.
But because of this, we had to look at, could we get aluminum that was USA made? Well, when we talked to Bonnell Aluminum, like I said, that is earmarked for government contracts or the military. Now, if you want to, and we’re not a big enough buyer anyway, certain people (certain companies, I should say) can order large quantities of USA Aluminum, but they’re going to pay the price. And it is just not sustainable for most of us in this country who manufacture.
So, do we make this in Grand Junction? Yes. We like to say it’s 99.99% made in Grand Junction, Colorado, in our factory, and we’re pretty proud of that. And so far, we’ve got around 20 people involved in this company right now on a daily basis to put out these quality racks
Conclusion
As I sign off here, this is April 14th, 2025. This will be part of our May newsletter. We’re just going to keep trying to build quality. And if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email us. You can reply to our newsletter at News@QuickerStuff.com. And we hope to hear from you. And hopefully you’re out there biking, because you never know. So, get some fresh air. And thanks, everyone.
