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Bryant Robertson

Gravity Coalition

A brand, a storefront and an apparel line, from an empty room.

Role
Founding partner
Timeframe
2018 – 2019
Skills
Brand identity, Retail design, Apparel design, Ecommerce
Team
Kody, Jennie

Gravity Coalition is an outdoor shop in Midway, Utah, covering skate, snow, mountain bike and trail running. Kody and Jennie brought me in as a founding partner. I built the brand, the first store and the in-house apparel line. It is still running, out of two stores now, and the online side outsells both of them.

The Gravity Coalition storefront in Midway, with the shield sign hanging over the door
The Midway store.
2
Locations today
Sold out
The first apparel run

The Problem—Midway already had a bike shop

When Kody and Jennie brought me the idea I was skeptical about the location. Midway is a small town and it already had a bike shop in it.

What sold me was that the store was never the whole plan. Kody came out of Backcountry and other large ecommerce operations, and the intent from the start was an online brand with a shop attached rather than a local retailer with a website. That is still how it runs. Online outsells both stores.

The Work—What I built

  • The brand, across skate, snow, mountain bike and trail running.
  • The first store, from an empty room to an open door.
  • The in-house apparel line: the shirts and hats, and the first runs of them.
  • The first website, a Shopify template we filled ourselves.
Inside the Gravity Coalition store: a wall of skis, bikes on the floor, ski boots and apparel
Skate, snow, bike and run, in one room.

My stake was design equity, plus my own money into those first apparel runs. They sold out, which told us people would wear a name that had not existed the year before. The line faded out after I left.

Six Gravity Coalition t-shirt designs: a skateboarding bear, a halftone stripe, a circular badge, Run + Ride, the wordmark and a walking bear
The first run of shirts.
A black camo Gravity Coalition hoodie reading Run + Ride, with the bear mark
Run + Ride, the line the shop still uses.
Gravity Coalition five-panel hats on a table in the store, each with a woven front patch
The hats, patch-front and loud on purpose.
A Gravity Coalition graphic reading Proud sponsors of Wasatch Mountain Bike Club over a photograph of a downhill rider
A shop in a small town has to show up in the town. We sponsored the local club.

The Hard Part—Nobody sells to a shop with no history

The difficult parts were not design problems. Brands do not open a wholesale account with a store that has no sales record, and Kody spent a long time working the ones we wanted. Traffic to the site had to be built from zero. And between three of us, somebody had to be in the shop every day it was open.

Outcome—It did fine without me

The shop needed more time than I had next to a full-time job, so I stepped away in 2019.

It has done well since. The Midway store is in a beautiful new building, there is a second one in Heber, and online still sells more than both stores put together.

Learnings—Key takeaways

  • The store was not the business

    Midway already had a bike shop, which is a fair reason to doubt another one. It turned out not to be the question. The ecommerce brand behind the store was the business, and that is the part carrying it today.

  • Presence is most of what a small shop has

    Kody brought in the wholesale accounts. What the brand and the store did was make us look like we belonged next to Specialized and Santa Cruz, and that is most of what a shop with no history has going for it.

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