677: We Built a $250M Cold Plunge Brand - From a Garage | Plunge

**Nathan Chan** (0:01)
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They make hundreds of millions of dollars selling cold plungers. Michael Garrett and Ryan Duey are the co-founders of Plunge. The brand that didn't just enter the cold plunge market, they dominated it, scaling past 250 million in revenue without a dollar of traditional venture capital. In this conversation, they're going to reveal how they sold $5,000 products online before owning a single unit of inventory. The genius and slightly insane gifting strategy to put their cold plunges in front of Andrew Huberman and Tony Hawk for free, and the silent lead time mistake that quietly cost them $20 million in sales. So if you're building a high-ticket e-com brand, this one is an absolute masterclass and proof you don't need millions to build millions.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:49)
Here are the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan.

**Nathan Chan** (2:03)
Hey, I have a quick ask. If you're loving these episodes, leaving a quick review is honestly the best way to support us. It helps the show grow and means we can keep bringing you the Foundr stories and insights you tune in for. Please share it with a friend. Thank you so much. Now let's get into it. Ryan and Michael, welcome to the show. As we shared, this has been a few months in the making. I've followed what you guys have been doing for quite some time now.
And you both went from operating closed float spas during 2020 in the pandemic to building cold plungers. And you've built this incredible brand from your garage. You've scaled to over 200 million in cumulative revenue today.
So I want to hear, like, what was the exact moment each of you guys realised, you know, the $100 retrofitted bathtub was going to completely disrupt the global wellness industry?

**Ryan Duey** (2:59)
Well, disrupts, like, a very generous word.
But, I mean, yeah, we've had...
I think, well, there was one moment, I mean, the first moment, I remember we turned the website on and we had a sale. And so this was like, at the time, it was like a $4,000 cold plunge. And I was living in an RV at the time because the float spas were closed. So I had, like, sold all my stuff to move it into an RV. We launched this company and we turned our Shopify store on. And we have a sale in the first, like, hour. No marketing. We're like, who even knows that we have a website right now? That was, like, one moment of just, like, not that we were going to go be some company doing over $200 million in Rev. It was more of, like...

**Michael Garrett** (3:42)
It's a good signal.

**Ryan Duey** (3:43)
Great signal. Like, that there was, wow, someone will buy a cold plunge. So that was, like, right out of the gate.

**Michael Garrett** (3:49)
Yeah. I thought, like, one of the early BFC, we didn't even do BFCM until, like, we're like, oh, we should do, like, a Black Friday deal. I think it was, like, our third Black Friday in business. We finally caught on and we did a deal, you know, we hired someone who's been in e-com and it was just nuts. You know, e-commerce people know, like, and each tub is, like, $5,000. So it's not like, oh, cool, we sold a headband. It's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you watch the map and you're just like, you know, we're probably 3Xing our projections or maybe four or five. I don't even remember, but just like bananas, you know, just get goosebumps thinking about it. It was like, from that year and the next year, it's like appointment watching, just to like turn on Shopify and watch the orders flow through.