Mike Sinyard

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This episode's remarkable guest is Mike Sinyard.
Mike is the founder and chairman of Specialized Bicycle Components. He was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1988, and his Stumpjumper mountain bike was added to the Smithsonian Museum in 1994.
The history of Specialized begins in the summer of 1973, when Mike sold his VW van and went to cycle around Europe. At the end of the trip, he went to Cinelli, the Italian bike component manufacturer, to establish an import business relationship.
By the fourth year, the company was doing approximately $18 million. One thing led to another, and he began selling complete bikes. Today, you can get Specialized bikes that range from the Hotwalk Carbon kids first bike at $1,000, all the way to road bikes and electric bikes at $14,000 or more.
In 2015, Mike created the Specialized foundation to help kids achieve academic, health, and social success. The foundation is now called Outside, and supports community cycling, trail projects, and the Riding for Focus program. This program's goal is to help kids deal with ADHD because of his family's experience with the disease.
In this episode, you'll learn about the economy of tiny, how will trumps skill, and the value of being specialized, not generalized.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People, and now, here's Mike Sinyard.

Mike Sinyard:
When I went to school at San Jose State University, I always loved bicycles, and I would go to the flea market on the weekend and I would buy old bikes and a lot of bikes at once, and I would fix them up and sell them. I became very passionate about that, and I found that, one, I loved the bicycle, and the other thing I liked, working with my hands, and I really enjoyed seeing people with the satisfaction of getting a bike and realizing what a bike could do for people.
I was also part of the Big Brother mentoring thing in school at San Jose State. All lot of time the kids I would work with, sometimes we didn't do homework, but we would just go out riding the bike, and I found that was really a good entree to get closer with them, and then do the work.
So all that started, and I really believed in the bike, and I was a business major at San Jose State. At that time in business, there was the IBM's of the world, and all these companies, and you went there wearing a suit, and I thought, "You know what? That's just not me. I'm not very good at doing things I'm not passionate about.”
When I graduated from school, a number of friends and myself, we had a really strategic plan, and the plan was, “Let's get our bikes, ride around Europe and go to the Oktoberfest.” So that's what we did, in ‘74, we rode around Europe. At the same time, I knew that all the big, really high-end bike makers and component makers were in Europe. They were in the UK and France and Italy.
The long story short is, I met some of the makers in the UK, and then I rode from Amsterdam all the way to Barcelona, to Milan. Then I met a number of the makers in Italy. I had sold my Volkswagen van before for $1,500 in the valley. You talk about venture capital, I called it adventure capital.
So I told the makers in Italy, they go, "Do you have a company?" And I go, "No, not yet, but I know all the top riders in the US." In fact, the day before I went over to meet some of these makers, I mean, I just had worn jeans the whole time, and I went out and bought a suit so I wouldn't look like a bum, and fortunately they sold me the product. So that's essentially how Specialized first started.
Guy Kawasaki:
Would you say that you are a shining example of the concept of pursuing your passion and the money will come?
Mike Sinyard:
I would say so. Yeah, I feel very fortunate that way, and in some ways, like all of us, we can get really passionate about what we believe in, and in some ways we don't have the energy for the things we don't. I call that psychic income.
Guy Kawasaki:
That's when you're not making money, basically.
Mike Sinyard:
Well, but really, in life, I mean, how much food do you need to eat and really being happy with what you're doing and how you're doing is really the psychic income of being happy?
Guy Kawasaki:
What if somebody is listening to this, and they say, "Oh, so here's another example of pursuing passion and making it into a life,” but not every passion is monetize-able. So what do you tell that person whose passion is surfing, or their passion is playing the guitar, or their passion is cooking? Not everybody can make a living that way.
Mike Sinyard:
Yeah, that's right. That's why, when I started the company. I called it Specialized, because there's no shortage of bicycle companies, and so really finding the way, and what is the unique? I always think about, what is the unique thing that we can offer to the rider, to the consumer? We always refer to the consumer as the rider, but what is that unique thing? I think it's always finding that unique way of what you can offer.
Guy Kawasaki:
What is that unique thing for Specialized?
Mike Sinyard:
I think our unique thing is very clear, it's really focusing on the rider, and finding the unique rider benefit, whether you're riding an electric bike or a mountain bike or a road racing bike, what is it that we can, as a team, with insights and work, that we could look in and really define the unique rider benefit. We always say that Specialized is a company, riders making bikes for riders. So we have a lot of people that really dig deep into that.
In some ways it's like having a restaurant. If you have just a restaurant, just food, nobody's interested, but if you have a good Japanese restaurant and you really are into it, or you have an Italian restaurant and you're really into it, and you try to be the best and you continue to improve, then that's the positioning.
Guy Kawasaki:
After you sold your VW van, that was perhaps your seed capital, now you're coming back and you're starting this business, how did you finance this business? I mean, this wasn't exactly a venture capital play, so what was your finance plan?
Mike Sinyard:
So first of all, I remember, so financing it, I remember I went to the bank and I said, "Hey, I want to borrow money because I can bring in all this bike stuff,” and then the banker looked at me, and I had a beard at the time, and he goes, "Well, what would you say if somebody came in, like you, and they go, ‘Hey I want to buy these Persian rugs and I can sell them.’” I go, "No, but I'm..."
The end of the story, I got no money from the bank, and so what I did is I told the retailers, I said to the retailers, "Look, I can get these really great products that are hard to get, and if you pay in advance, I'll give you a benefit of getting the product at an attractive price." So essentially, that's how the company started.
In some ways, in business, everybody always talks about the economies of scale. I always think about it this way: the economies of tiny are really, especially now, right? I mean, even then, I looked at it that way, but now with the internet, even more so.
The economies of tiny means, so as an entrepreneur, you are so directly connected to the person you're trying to serve that you intuitively always are knowing and learning what they want, and finding unique ways to really deliver that, and in a very special way. We see that now more than ever.
Guy Kawasaki:
You have to tell the story of the bounced check. That is such a - the double bounce, if you will.
Mike Sinyard:
So I would always sell to these retailers and they would have to pay... Most of retailers, I made them pay COD, and they would always say, "Oh, you don't need to do that. We're good for the money." I said, "Yeah, but I don't have the money, so you have to pay that way."
One time, this one retailer, who is now out of business, it was in Mountain View, and the check bounced, and I called the guy, and I go, "The check bounced,” and he goes, "Oh, sorry, I just don't have the money now, but maybe later on." I go, "What about the product I gave you?" So what I did, in short, is my roommate, his name was Dan, I said, "Dan, go there, to the store, and buy about this much worth of product." So he did, and I called the retailer later, I said, "Hey, you know that sale that you had today, that guy who bought this and this," and he goes, "Yeah, it was great," I go, "The check you got, it has the same value as the one you gave me."
Guy Kawasaki:
That is a great story. That is a great story.
Okay, so we know how you did your financing; How did you do your distribution? As basically, you were three guys in a trailer at this point, right?
Mike Sinyard:
So this was way before the internet, and what I would do is, it was mainly starting in the USA, and I would go to the library and look at all the phone books. At that time, the phone book was the source, and I would see all the different bike shops, and I would send them all a handwritten letter, and then that's how I started. Then the shipments were all COD.
I lived in a little trailer on First Street, and when the shipments came in, and sometimes I had too much, when I had the product, I couldn't go anywhere until it was sold because I had nowhere to store it, and I stored it underneath the trailer. So I just stayed there until it was sold. At the time, I just thought, “Well, it's just what I have to do, but now when I think about it, even telling you, it does sound pretty crazy.”
Guy Kawasaki:
Also, I caught a thread in my research about you, about the "Japanese approach to manufacturing." So can you explain what that is?
Mike Sinyard:
Yes, and I would say it would be the Japanese approach to business. So I started doing business in Europe, and primarily in Italy, and I was really taken by it, by the Italian people and how passionate they were, but at the same time, a lot of things didn't work out of Italy - the dinners and the relationship was great, but the execution was not.
I was so taken back when I went to Japan, about the respect that people have for each other, and if somebody says something, they will always execute. I remember one time a manufacturer had sent me these tires, and they sent like 3,000 tires and they said, “There was like three or four of the defective tires that got mixed in with the other tires, so don't sell those, so don't sell them.” I just said to the employees, "Okay, there's a few bad ones in here, but we can use these for our own personal use,” but it's that idea of going above and beyond, and having standards and principles beyond what's required. I was really taken by that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to ask you a question that, you're going to laugh at me because of my lack of bicycling, whatever. One observation I have, from the outside, looking in, at bikes, maybe not your bikes, but bikes, is that the welds at the joint, they're all like lumpy and stuff. So you can see the welds where they push the iron and there's a little waves. It looks like a set of waves coming into Capitola.
I was once at the Trek factory, and I said "Why don't you leave the welds like that? It looks so ugly. Steve Jobs would not have open welds like that, it would be perfectly smooth and polished." They said, "But bikers like the welds, they want to see that there's welds." So can you explain that to me? Why aren't those things perfectly smoothed out?
Mike Sinyard:
Well, that's a good point. I would say on the bike, yes, having a weld, they call it the bead, around the joints, like an aluminum frame, and having that really beautifully done is kind of a sense of art, of doing that really well. Now some of them are pretty rough and lumpy, but others are quite beautiful.
So yeah, riders know, and it's just very practical, it's almost like you have a big piece of timber and there's different variations in the wood. That's a good point.
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean, if you bought a car and you saw welds like that, I don't think you would say, "Oh, that's perfection in manufacturing." Wouldn't you say that this car was made in Italy?
Mike Sinyard:
But underneath some of the other parts, you would see welds underneath so you put the bodywork over that, but there is welds underneath there.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. Okay.
Mike Sinyard:
No, that's a good point. Well, one of the things with the bicycle is everything is exposed, and there's only what you need on a bicycle and nothing more.
Guy Kawasaki:
Can you tell us the story of the creation of the Stumpjumper?
Mike Sinyard:
Oh my gosh. So the Stumpjumper, and that was like in 1980. The whole mountain bike kind of really came from people modifying beach cruisers and things like that, and it became really a counterculture to the road bikes.
So at Specialized, we supplied a lot of frame building parts, tubes, and those tubes you would weld, and so, yeah, those tubes that we really liked. So there were a few other people making mountain bikes at the time, and then a team of us, a frame builder and I, this guy named Tim Neenan, he drew it up and we made the first mountain bike that was kind of available in the bike shop.
I remember a lot of the stores, when the bike first came out, they go, "Mike, what are you doing with this big kids BMX bike? We don't sell those kinds of bikes. We only sell serious adult bikes." I go, "This is more fun." I said, "Don't talk about it, just ride it, and then tell me."
Guy Kawasaki:
And, the rest is history?
Mike Sinyard:
The rest is history, and that first bike is actually in the Smithsonian.
Guy Kawasaki:
How many people can say they have something in the Smithsonian? I want you to tell us a story about the time you hired the executives with consumer marketing backgrounds and what happened?
Mike Sinyard:
Yeah, so the business kept growing, and I had a number of people in it, and the thing was growing a lot. I thought, “I don't have experience doing this, I mean, I would always talk to other people and read about things,” and then I thought to keep this going, people say you need to bring in these other people. So I brought in some other people for marketing and operations, great people, not really passionate about bikes.
Long story short, it went very bad because they had ideas, they weren't really curious to learn about this. They just wanted to take what they knew before and kind of cut and paste, and it went bad. The company basically almost went bankrupt. We went to a negative net worth, and we were in the workout group with the bank, and it was really a tremendous learning.
From that point, myself and a few other key people in the company, we made a book called The Brand Book, and it was a book about our principles and values and what we believe. I learned that from a guy who was a mentor of mine now, a guy Peter Moore, who was an original creative director at Nike, and then at Adidas, but that really was, that was the biggest learning I ever had.
Guy Kawasaki:
What did these executives want you to do?
Mike Sinyard:
Go the land, yep, to go the land, in fact, our European counterparts said we became generalized instead of specialized.
Guy Kawasaki:
Instead of specialized!
Mike Sinyard:
Yeah, so we really, in a way, it's almost like a person losing who they are. We were just going the wrong way, and we'd lost our point of view of what we're doing and the values of the company.
Guy Kawasaki:
Does that brand book still exist?
Mike Sinyard:
Oh yeah, in fact we've evolved it four or five times since then. I recommend that, for brands to do that. You can see that the history of brands, whether it's Harley Davidson or Levi's or Ford, or Porsche. It's kind of like growing up, and you kind of go off course, and then you get on course. The first part of your life, you're trying to avoid the history of where you came from, and then going back...
Guy Kawasaki:
A few weeks after the interview, I obtained a copy of The Brand Book. Let me read the eight principles of the Specialized way. Number one: the rider is the boss. Number two: seek to understand. Number three: innovate or die. Number four: adapt immediately. Number five: simplify and go. Number six: design drives this. Number seven: attack for progress. Number eight: do the right thing.
These are the eight principles of the Specialized way. They are communicated to all employees. Now, let's get back our interview.
So if I'm a business person listening to this podcast, and people are telling me "You've got to diversify, you can't put all your eggs in one basket." Then I hear you saying this, which is the contrary. How do you balance diversification versus extension versus focus?
Mike Sinyard:
That's a really good one, and I always think, what do they say, so you could be five miles wide and two inches deep, or two inches wide? I always say to people, “What are we bringing to the world? What do we bringing to the world, and how do we answer the question of, so what, and who cares? Are we really making a difference in the world? If we weren't here later, would the world care?”
I think if you're just a diversified money-changer, I mean, that works for some companies, it's definitely not for us. I think the companies that all of us in the world admire, they have a very strong point of view.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think it's easier to take a bike guy and teach them marketing? Or a marketing guy and teach them biking?
Mike Sinyard:
We go through that a lot. I think the key element is, Guy, I think if people are curious, if people are really curious to learn, somebody could come in as a bicycle person and not be curious, and they're not going to get anywhere, and vice versa.
I would say, I have met some of my most inspirational people in Asia that are eighty or ninety years old, and they are still curious about everything. So the curiosity and the determination - sometimes the saying that will is more important than skill, but that curiosity is a big one. I think that kind of outlines, like in the book, The Outlier, people that are really curious.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I was at Apple, and I was at Apple in its darkest days. You might say I was part of the cause of the darkness at Apple, but we won't go there. I will never forget that Steve brought in John Sculley, who came from Pepsi.
So he was this consumer marketing guy, and Macintosh was going to be a consumer good, not a tech, whatever. One of the people that Scully brought in, I kid you not, was a guy who was Director of Marketing of tampons, and let's just say, it did not work out very well. I saw that and I said, "What the hell does this guy know about computers?" But he's a consumer marketing guy and he's going to lead us into the future, and oh my God, what a bad experience. So I second your emotion there.
Mike Sinyard:
Yeah. Well, and it's not that it couldn't work, but it depends on how curious they are.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, he was not curious, and we weren't curious about tampons, so the feeling was mutual. I'd love to hear what you think of the electrification of bicycles. You've obviously embraced it a great deal, but one could make the case, well, you are specialized in these great bikes and now you're going and putting electric motors on them. You're losing your way.
Mike Sinyard:
Yeah, that's a good one. And in fact, when our team first came forward with electric bikes, my comment was, "We make inspirational bikes, we only make things that inspire people, and they're athletic." The team said, "Mike, you don't know what you're talking about,” and they made a prototype and they said, "Shut up and ride this thing." I rode this bike and I was like, "Oh my God, I get it. I get it." That's when we really dug in on the electric bike.
The way we make the bike, first of all, it's a bike that happens to be electrified, not just electric bike. So it's still you, and we say on our bike, the Turbo, “It's you, only faster.” So you still get a tremendous workout.
Guy Kawasaki:
But surely, the purists must have rejected this.
Mike Sinyard:
Until they ride it. I would say that purists do reject it, initially. What's interesting, and Europe has been very well embraced, and I would say it's growing tremendously here, and a lot of enthusiasts say, “Okay, you've got a few road bikes, mountain bike, you may have an electric bike to do big errands or to do big trips, or electric mountain bikes, but it really has transformed.”
I would say, our Turbo is a replacement for the car. We see this more than ever, with this lockdown, in three months, I think I've moved my car, or four months, I've moved my car twice. I ride the bike everywhere, but we see this with a lot of people, and you can see it in New York City, LA, San Francisco. People are learning to ride the bike again, and the electric is really a big part of that.
Guy Kawasaki:
You should make a hat that says, “Make America Bike Again.”
Mike Sinyard:
Make America...
Guy Kawasaki:
Just don't make it in red.
Mike Sinyard:
A red one!
Guy Kawasaki:
I have a friend who's an enthusiastic mountain biker, and he uses Specialized, and I said, "Yeah, I'm going to interview the founder of Specialized." I asked him about, he has an E-mountain bike, I guess, one of your turbos, and he said, "You know, Guy, my friends all made fun of me, but there were rides where I just could not go with them. I would be baggage, but now, with my E-mountain bike, I can make all those trips. So it has empowered me to do more mountain biking, not less. It's a good thing."
Mike Sinyard:
It's totally a good thing, and for people to keep up, or if you're going with other people, with our Turbo together, on the mountain, it's like, way fun. It is so fun and it doesn't hurt the trail, it doesn't hurt anything.
Just like years ago, the mountain bike really expanded the whole area for everybody invited in, the electric bike is doing the same. I read an article in Forbes and it said, “Hey then, the most popular EV in the future is not the car, but the bike.”
Guy Kawasaki:
Are you a surfer by any chance?
Mike Sinyard:
I do. I do.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah?
Mike Sinyard:
I do.
Guy Kawasaki:
You know there are surfboards that you can get an electric fin? I mean, would you not consider that heresy? Is not that the same thing?
Mike Sinyard:
I kind of like the idea of it. If it was something you could really, almost like a paddle board, that you could really go out and around, but I don't know that I need it just to go out through the waves. I like the idea on the idea of it, and I love the idea of the electric car, I do admire Tesla very much for their boldness and what they do on their design.
Guy Kawasaki:
Speaking of boldness and design, before I forget, I have to tell you that the other day I went to the Patagonia outlet. Lo and behold, there's a Specialized store right next to it.
Mike Sinyard:
Oh, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
I thought I was in the Apple store of bikes. I mean, it's a beautiful store.
Mike Sinyard:
Oh yeah, this right here in Santa Cruz. Do you live in Santa Cruz?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah.
Mike Sinyard:
Oh, great!
Guy Kawasaki:
I wanted to buy a bike right there. I mean, it was just so beautiful, and oh, my God.
Mike Sinyard:
That's great.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. Yeah. So kudos to you. What has been your observation about the impact of E-commerce on buying a bike? I don't know, if you told me a year ago, people would buy cars or bikes without trying them going into a dealer, sniffing them, riding them, all that, I would have told you you're nuts.
Mike Sinyard:
I think probably the projections of what companies had thought for E-commerce for the next three or five years happened in one year. It happened in one year.
I would say, like myself and most of the world, we're willing to buy things on E-commerce from people we trust. For sure, their bicycle equipment and their bicycle as well. Some of the more technical things on a bike, like a mountain bike or electric bike, I think you definitely get a better experience from buying that from an expert who can help you set it up. Yeah, the whole thing is accelerated.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'd make the case that I think one of the marketing lessons that we've learned is that maybe you don't have to offer so many choices, and so many options, and so many everything. Simplifying your product line helps you in terms of your supply chain, but also, within reason, you need a step through bike and you need one that's not a step through, you need various heights, but do you need sixteen colors and? A lot less fussy these days.
Mike Sinyard:
Exactly. I think the whole thing with the pandemic has changed people's values to think about more health, fitness and the family, and what's really important. A lot of other things that we thought we needed as people, we don't really need that. We don't really need so much.
I would say the bicycle has been right at the center of the values, and I think surfing too. I think all natural things where you can get in the environment.
Guy Kawasaki:
It takes months to get a Pearson Arrow right now, I can tell you! I know that firsthand! And that's if Bob likes you.
I want to switch gears now. Okay, so let's talk about this journey with ADHD.
Mike Sinyard:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
So tell me about your personal experience first.
Mike Sinyard:
Okay. So I have ADHD, when I was a kid, they didn't know what it was, luckily, because there was no medication at that time, but I did very poor in school. I dropped out of high school, later went back to college.
I realized that riding really made me feel good, really calmed me. Later, when my son was growing up, and he started riding, we'd ride together. He had ADHD, but it really calmed him down.
I didn't put all this together, but I read an article that Harvard Medical had put out with some research of a young kid, and the kid was saying, "Riding is my Ritalin." I said, "Oh my God, that's me. That's my son. There's got to be millions of people."
So at that point, I called the doctor and I said, "How come there isn't more information on this and studies on it?" He goes, "Well, there's no drug company to support it." So I said, "What would it take?" L
Long story short, we started a study there and that went on for three years, and then in the last four years we've been working with Stanford on this project and they have really done tremendous work in this, been putting the helmets with electrodes and measuring the before and after with the riding, and so we do the actual medical research, and then we do the infield research with a lot of schools.
So this year, this last year, we had 35,000 kids going through the programs. We could have had more, but there's a pretty dedicated protocol that we've been following to map the progress. So we have the scientific data that shows how it calms the kids down, and we also have the statements, testimonials, from the kids and from the parents. So it's something we're really excited about, and that's why we started the foundation, Outride, and mainly focused on ADHD, but it could be many things. It could be obesity, it could be anxiety.
Guy Kawasaki:
So if I'm a parent and listening to this, and my kids have either been diagnosed, or I suspect this, what would your recommendation for the course of things to do?
Mike Sinyard:
As a parent, and having kids that were on the medication, I think, first of all, with your kids, before immediately putting the kids on medication, get the kids active, out riding the bikes, and make that a regular routine, and see how that works. If your school has a program like that, that's great, but you as a parent could do that with your kid and you can see really great outcome from that.
Of course, that riding, and having your kid eat a really healthy diet without so much sugar, all that makes a tremendous difference. I mean, medication can be helpful, but I personally believe that we're going to look back, four or five years from now, and go, "Oh my God, what were we doing, over-medicating our children?"
It's too much. It's the number one prescribed medication in America, is Ritalin, and most of its given to our kids. I'm not saying that some kids don't need it, but not that many. In fact, sometimes we say, "Hey, pedals, not pills." Let's try it. Let's try the bike, and all the other things before the medication.
Guy Kawasaki:
Surfing requires true focus, you have to make a lot of decisions, it involves balance, it involves a lot of things, so I would think surfing would also work.
Mike Sinyard:
Surfing could work. I mean, let's put it this way, what we've seen is, all exercise helps, all of it. There's something about the bicycle, and the balancing, and the fresh air, and also kind of the Zen-like repetitive motion of pedaling that really centers. The good thing about a bike is everybody can do it, and it's fun.
Guy Kawasaki:
I know a lot of founders of companies that, the founders of many companies are on some kind of spectrum. I'm laughing and you're laughing, I don't mean that to be funny, and I don't mean that to be critical, but I swear. Let's just say Steve Jobs was not exactly a straight down the middle kind of guy.
Mike Sinyard:
No, no.
Guy Kawasaki:
Certainly Elon Musk isn't.
Mike Sinyard:
No.
Guy Kawasaki:
So, it's half empty or half full. I've often said, as an investor in companies, I want someone who's weird. The high school quarterback and the person who's... Listen, if you started taking violin lessons at two, and you were taking calculus at five and all that, I understand that path, but I think the misfits are the ones that become the great CEOs.
Mike Sinyard:
We always used to joke in this education group, we said the A students work for the B students, owned by the company of the C student. I would say a lot of it is the curiosity, and sometimes the weirdness comes from seeing things that seem very obvious to you, that is not obvious to others, and you become obsessed with it. I think it is that curiosity, and then the will.
Guy Kawasaki:
I don't know if this is true, I don't know how you can fact-check this, but I was told that Steve Jobs' high school GPA was 2.75. So that should give hope to every parent in America.
Mike Sinyard:
I would say, yeah, and I did very poorly in school as well. It's like, helping kids find the thing that they are passionate about, and that they can pour themselves into. It's the same with people at work - what can people find that they are absolutely passionate about, and they pour themselves into it? I think that is really interesting.
My son is a great example of that, he dropped out of college so many times, and we go, "We're done supporting this." Then he really got into it, and he studied, and now, my son speaks Chinese, and he speaks Japanese, and Italian and Spanish, and he has his own business in Asia, and he's very successful, and he sees things that other people don't see.
In fact, he's always telling me, he said, "Dad, your company, you guys are so old. You do things like 70's style." So he challenges me a lot, but it's really that thing, I've seen things and having a conviction.
Guy Kawasaki:
And now, you are seventy, right?
Mike Sinyard:
Seventy-one
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, seventy-one. What's your number one passion right now?
Mike Sinyard:
I would say my number one passion is making a difference in the world. I would say the thing I'm most passionate about in our company, the two things are the people. I love seeing people grow. I love seeing things in people and having them find a way that they can grow, and coaching people.
I'm going to say, I love when we can really make different bikes and equipment that just light people on fire. When I'm out riding, people don't know who I am, and I say, "How do you like that bike?", one of our bikes, and they go, "Oh my gosh, let me tell you about this." I would say, it feels really good.
There's a lot of stories of people that say, "You know what? This bike changed my life." I've been out riding before, and somebody who's riding one of our bikes and I go, "Well, how do you like that bike?" They go, "You know what? This thing changed my life. I got a tattoo of this bike. I used to be addicted to heroin, and now I'm riding this bike and I'm very successful." I'd say, that's what makes you feel great.
Guy Kawasaki:
It really, it cannot get much better than that, right?
Mike Sinyard:
No, it doesn't! It doesn't get better than that. So really making a difference, and I've used the bicycle a lot for different friends that I know, and kids that are struggling, and sometimes they've been struggling with one of the big pandemics in this country, is the opioid crisis. Getting kids active and feeling good about themselves and riding the bike can be a way out.
I'm really passionate about the people and making a difference with the people that we work with, and people that buy their bikes and equipment, and seeing people grow. Not only we want to make things that people want, we want to make things that people never even dreamed of. I love that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I think I'm going to end this interview and just drive over to the west side and buy a Specialized bike right now. Just… you got so fired up!
I hope you enjoyed this episode with Mike Sinyard. It's a great story when someone has a passion for something and turns it into a lifelong, successful pursuit. There are many lessons about entrepreneurship and management that apply to almost any business.
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. My thanks to Andy Cunningham for suggesting Mike as a guest. My thanks to Peg Fitzpatrick and Jeff See, who specialize in making this podcast great.
You know what I'm going to say next: wash your hands, don't go into crowded places, wear a mask, and listen to Dr. Tony Fauci, Dr. Vivek Murthy, and President Joe Biden.

This is Remarkable People.