Success leaves clues. Finance Strategists sat down with Tyler Robinson, founder of Investor Crate. He shared his thoughts on the past, present, and future of the company, as well as the insight he has gained from running the business. Q: Who are you and what’s your background? My name is Tyler Robinson and I grew up in Southern California. From a young age, I have had what seemed to be a natural knack for entrepreneurialism. My first venture was at age 13, which derived from a hobby (as most of my ideas have stemmed from), with gas-powered RC cars. I designed a better system to retain the body onto the chassis using carter pins, zip ties, and fuel lines. I actually convinced local hobby shops to stock my product in their stores. Proceeds from that went to the creation of a flagpole installation company I created, which led to a painting company and a ton of other little ventures. Q: Who has been your biggest influence, and why did they have such a significant effect on you? My father, who passed away in 2018. There wasn't a single person that knew him that didn't like him. Extremely reliable, hardworking, and supportive of everyone around him. He'd do things like drive an hour away in a blizzard to shovel my grandma's walkway and driveway. No one asked him to do this. We'd just wake up in the morning and he was gone helping people. Any idea I had in terms of entrepreneurship was always supported, and it gave me the confidence to continue to try different things in this realm. Q: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self? Buy Bitcoin, haha. No, I've thought about this in the past and I probably wouldn't say anything. Maybe it's the fear of a butterfly effect but mostly it's because the journey has been better than the destination. I love the start-up portion of a business and it's never really been about the money. I create businesses because it's fun and interesting. I also created these businesses with no money, no experience, no education, and no headstart in a particular industry. My peers and the acquaintances I have made over the years have this stigma of only the rich can make money and that they are stuck at a particular 9-5 job that they dislike. It's simply not true. Q: What is InvestorCrate.com? Investor Crate is a monthly subscription crate company that deals in precious metals such as gold, silver, and platinum bullion. It was created because no dollar cost average solution existed from the investment bullion industry and is based on a group buy idea to help purchase on a larger wholesale scale to drive down the premiums (industry jargon for markup) on a per-customer basis. Q: What makes InvestorCrate.com different from its competitors? Investor Crate is a different precious metals dealer for a few reasons but the main reason is we are small (on purpose), allowing us to maintain a personal relationship with our clients and employees. Most of our customers have been with us for years and are on a first-name basis with myself and the support staff. This makes it so a label for a bullion box isn't just some address with some random name. It's the same guys and girls we have been talking to and serving for years. This causes our employees to fulfill packages with more care and allows the customer to offer suggestions, ideas, and feedback which we actually and truly implement. We are also veteran-owned and promise to keep our employee ratio at a minimum of 50% veteran. It's not a huge deal but being a veteran and having almost exclusively veteran friends, I know it's rough in the civilian world, so giving guys the opportunity to thrive on the outside is an honor. Q: What led you to start InvestorCrate.com? Funny enough, my wife was subscribed to a makeup subscription crate. I loved the idea and saw how excited she was each month, so I decided to get one but for precious metals, right? Wrong. It didn't exist. I searched in 2015 for one, and it simply didn't exist. About a year went by and I came up with the idea again, searched the internet - nothing. After explaining dollar-cost averaging and complaining to my wife that this should exist, she said, "Why don't you make one?" So, I did. Q: What has the experience of building the business taught you? I have built 10 businesses, most of which have failed, all within different industries and business types. Service businesses, fulfillment businesses, manufacturing businesses, online retail businesses, et cetera. I've sat in my fair share of trade shows, business seminars, and business classes. Nothing compares to going out and doing it. In other words, there is nothing you can't learn by simply trying it and conducting your own research online or asking subject matter experts who actually work in the field. Q: Where do you see things headed for you and the company in the next 5 years? Investor Crate will still be here doing what we do best. We have no intention of rapidly growing or expanding outside of word of mouth or otherwise organically. We are completely fine with slow growth in order to focus more on the client-side than the numbers. We sell precious metals, after all, and there isn't exactly a huge profit margin or room for markup, so as long as we can keep the lights on here, we are fine with that. As for myself, I suspect I will continue creating businesses. I'm only 30 and feel like there are plenty of industries and things that could be invented or made better, so I'll probably do that. For more information please visit InvestorCrate.com .
Introduction
Who is Tyler Robinson?
Business
True Tamplin is a published author, public speaker, CEO of UpDigital, and founder of Finance Strategists.
True is a Certified Educator in Personal Finance (CEPF®), author of The Handy Financial Ratios Guide, a member of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing, contributes to his financial education site, Finance Strategists, and has spoken to various financial communities such as the CFA Institute, as well as university students like his Alma mater, Biola University, where he received a bachelor of science in business and data analytics.
To learn more about True, visit his personal website or view his author profiles on Amazon, Nasdaq and Forbes.
