The last week has been CRAZY.

Not only do we have NFL football back tonight, but you may have heard we have sold CROSSNET after eight years!

There’s no playbook that can ever prepare you for that feeling. Years sprinting uphill, putting out fires, getting hit in the face, figuring out retail distribution, ecommerce tips and tricks, all while scaling a team and managing millions of dollars.

A normal person would probably relax, chill, and take some time to think about what’s next. Fortunately for me, I have no downtime and have been building “whats next” for the past year and a half.

Founders Club just surpassed 500 members (our entire goal for 2025) and Lyndsey just opened up BODY Hot Pilates #2 in Coral Gables. The momentum in the Meade family is hot right now, but I think this is what happens when you compound years and years of hard work.

And oh ya! I just became and uncle and my little brother just had the most beautiful baby named McCoy Meade!

It seems like every month the theme with BODY is “More, better, new.” Watching Lyndsey and the team achieve their goals is one of the most rewarding things that I’ve ever experienced in entrepreneurship. So cool.

Through all of the chaos that’s been going on, I wanted to share a breakdown of the journey, the good, the whole load of brutal, and the lucky. 

Here’s the blueprint I wish I had when we started this thing back in the day:

The Journey

We started with less than $7500 and an idea that made no sense on paper. In 2017, I was living in a $1000/month apartment with Craigslist strangers in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I went home one night to visit my brother and friends in Connecticut and thats where my life changed forever.

One night, we were sitting around brainstorming ideas to “get rich.” One idea led to a hundred and to be honest they all sucked. Then the lightbulb moment of four way volleyball game up. We checked Google just for the hell of it, and no results came back.

The next morning we bought the domain for $12. We rigged up a prototype with Walmart poles and rope, took it to the beach, and set it up for strangers to come up and play. We filmed it on an iPhone 6 and tossed the video on Facebook.

A few months later the videos racked up millions of views. We had no real product, and definitely no clue how to fulfill it like a true business should. When you’re in a situation like that, all that you can do is figure it out.

We cold-messaged factories on Alibaba, learned about MOQ and freight quotes and really figured out how to put a business together from a 900 square foot record store in Willimantic, Connecticut. What really started to move things along was constantly getting in front of our customers. Just like the beverage industry with their saying “cans in hands” ours was all about getting nets in hands and making memories. Doing it ourselves in South Beach and hitting up influencers with no budget took things further and further, everything was actually tangible. 

Once we figured out the formula, the Shopify sales slowly and surely started coming in. One sale a day, turned into three. The flywheel kicked, the brand took off. 

And we’ve never looked back.

The Grind

For the first two years, we did everything ourselves. I handled sales, Greg did customer service & social, while Mike did product engineering & dealing with suppliers. We didn’t take a single dollar from outside investors. This was all us bootstrapping things with the lack of security that comes with VC money or angel checks. We poured our savings into this Hail Mary and a credit card we hoped we could pay off. We reinvested every penny.

The grind was ugly, and honestly sucked at times, but it gave us control. We weren’t strapped in to growth-at-all-costs. We could move fast, test like crazy, and pivot when needed. We learned to run lean and operate profitably at the same time. Obsessing over margins early paid off in the end. That’s what kept us alive while competitors burned cash trying to copy us.

I made cold calls to Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart until someone finally picked up. We pitched every outdoor store and summer camp in the country. When you’re starting up, getting scrappy is essential, there’s no way around it. One retail buyer taking a chance on us led to another, and then another.

We went global in under 36 months and it was all by design.

The Breakthrough

Two things changed everything: content and distribution. Once we nailed the visual story: athletes on the beach, kids laughing, high-quality players spiking, the sales kept pouring in.

We were selling a feeling that our product could give someone. We leaned into the uniqueness of the whole beast that we were building as hard as we could. Some things worked, some things didn’t, but you don’t know until you know. The team shot some badass cinematic-style ads and hired real athletes to give it a go. Every month, we tested 30 to 40 creative angles until we found a groove that we could hold consistently.

At the same time, we mastered our supply chain. Our margins improved and shipping times got tighter. Another key metric that we were stoked to see improving was our return rate staying consistently low. When big box retailers finally gave us a shot, we gave it our all.

Most people won’t get that “making it happen” isn’t just getting lucky with a few Facebook ad creatives. It was the combination of:

• A clear story that people can resonate with
• Testing like crazy and improving margins
• And a team who gave a damn

That’s what led to our eventual escape velocity years down the line.

The Shitstorm

All this being said, building CROSSNET was the furthest thing from winning all the time. We almost went bankrupt a few years back when our container got lost for weeks and our warehouse billed us nearly six-figures that we didn’t have. We had our Instagram hacked by a random kid who deleted years of content and tried to ransom it back. One of the more frustrating stages of growth was getting knocked off by cheaper Chinese versions on AliBaba and having to fight for trademark protection in every country we sold in.

We’ve had slam dunk deals fall through, employees walk that we thought would be there for the long run, and even had to steal our inventory back from a warehouse once, but you’ve got to soldier on. We put out one fire at a time and staying calm allowed us to not blow up. Playing victim when shit hits the fan doesn’t help anyone. We just kept showing up, because that’s what you do when your name is on the paperwork. The stress never fully goes away, you just figure out better ways of carrying it.

Sleigh the Holiday Season with Walmart Marketplace   

It’s crazy that we are already need to start thinking about Black Friday preparation and holiday shopping. One of the biggest unlocks we’ve ever had was joining the Walmart Marketplace. They even had me fly out to Los Angeles to shoot this amazing video with them at our warehouse. You should watch it here.

Join the Walmart Marketplace today and launch your storefront in time for peak holiday shoppers. And, as a new seller, you’re eligible to save up to $75,000 in New-Seller Savings, Walmart’s incentive program happening now.

Don’t delay—the sooner you join, the sooner you’ll reach millions of loyal Walmart shoppers on Walmart.com. 

Get up to $75,000 in New-Seller Savings* Join Marketplace.

*Conditions apply.

The Exit

By mid 2025, CROSSNET was in over 5,000 stores worldwide. We had sold hundreds of thousands of units and generated over $35,000,000 in revenue. The business was essentially everything we could’ve ever dreamed of and more in 2017. We were able to build a sport and one that millions of people grew to love.

As good as everything was, I’d be lying if I said we weren’t exhausted, mentally and physically (sometimes even spiritually). Building a sport, creating brand recognition, and educating consumers on how to play your game is one of the hardest challenges we’ve ever had to face. The deck was stacked against us from the beginning. Invented sport. Seasonal product. No lifetime value. Heavy product. In all honesty its pretty crazy what we’ve build over the last eight years.

Over the past two years we’ve been talking to an amazing group called Vivere, a Canadian outdoor brand, that has been acquiring backyard games and is making a huge splash in the space. They saw the value in our IP, the distribution we’d worked so hard to build up, and our customer base. We saw the value in their infrastructure, team, and vision. We negotiated for months and think its a perfect next chapter for CROSSNET, with the end goal making sure my grandchildren have a chance to play our game one day in school.

Some Takeaways for You

Looking back, here’s a bit of rapid fire on what I wish someone told me on Day 1:

• Your first idea doesn’t need to be revolutionary. You need to be original enough to stand out and simple enough to explain in 10 seconds.

• Just get started. There will never be a perfect time. Ship stuff and fix it.

• Retail is slow until it’s not. Don’t start with Walmart overnight, you only have one shot.

• Your reputation is everything. Years to build. Minutes to destroy.

• There’s no outsourcing a personal brand, thats why its called personal

• Relationships and your network compound. Start early. You never know when you need advice or favors. Honestly the inspiration for The Founders Club.

• Headcount is no longer a flex. It honestly never was.

• Do less with more. Don’t hire until you can prove AI can’t do the job.

• You don’t need outside money to build something long lasting. You need to stay disciplined with your margin and maintain creative leverage.

• Document everything. SOPs, SKUs, logistics. If it’s not written down, it doesn’t exist.

• There’s no such thing as an “overnight” success.

• Learn to find joy in things outside of work. Find a hobby. Find a release. I’m almost done typing so I can go to the gym. I can’t wait.

• Founders burn out far too often because they work too hard in isolation.

• Get a cofounder you trust. The wins are better when shared, so are the losses.

And maybe the biggest one: No amount of money will make you feel done. The payoff is great, but when the business becomes a part of your identity, your reason for building is just different

What’s Next

We’re resting and healing up as much as possible. The focus has shifted completely into the next chapter, and we couldn't be more stoked. The Founders Club is now receiving 99.99% of my time as I work to build a modern day version of YPO. We’re focused on creating the most badass entrepreneurship group ever, and each month our members get better and better.

If you’re interested, you know where to find me.

All the love in the world,

Chris