Success Unlikely

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On paper, RV SnapPad doesn’t work as a DTC brand.

No experienced investor would have bought our pitch.

Experienced operators would have taken one look at our market—niche, aging, and largely offline—paired it with a heavy, unsexy product and no proven demand, and said, “Good luck.”

But SnapPad survived.  Now, it’s sold on Amazon, appears in over 1,000 RV dealerships, and recently debuted in big box retail in Canada. 

Here’s how an ill-conceived family business is poised to cross 1 million units sold – despite violating practically every rule in the DTC playbook.

In this issue:

🙃 We should have failed - According to conventional DTC wisdom

🧃 The mojo - Why we didn’t fail

🔥 Take it personally - You need a chip on your shoulder

🙃 WE SHOULD HAVE FAILED

On Paper, We Did Everything Wrong

Let me be clear: You should absolutely pay attention to the fundamentals of building a high-growth DTC brand. These principles exist for good reason, and every time you violate one, you're making your life more difficult.

If you've ever taken a DTC brand-building course or read any of the standard playbooks, you've been told to look for these fundamentals:

✅ Large Total Addressable Market (think $50B+)
 ❌ We chose the relatively small RV niche (our TAM might be about $2B)

✅ Easy manufacturing and scaling
 ❌ Our product was so unique we had to teach manufacturers how to make it

✅ High repurchase rate/customer LTV
 ❌ Our pads are made from tire rubber and last as long as the RV

✅ Clear existing market demand
 ❌ We invented our category from scratch

✅ Lightweight, simple shipping
 ❌ Our pads are heavy rubber blocks that are expensive to ship

And if those weren't enough obstacles, we discovered the RV industry's bewildering variety of leveling systems. Each new system we wanted to support meant developing entirely new products just to capture small segments of our already niche market.

We've built a 13,000+ RV fitment database from scratch just to ensure compatibility. That's thousands of combinations of RV makes, models, years, and jack systems.

Small market, no existing demand, weird product no one knows how to make, and something that lasts forever so people basically never have to buy it again. 😬

According to conventional wisdom, we should have failed. Hard.

🧃 THE MOJO

Here's Why We Thrived Instead

We built a true 10X product.

Not a slight improvement. Not 20% better. An order of magnitude better than what existed before.

When we launched in 2015, we found Product-Market Fit immediately and that was our saving grace. By the third month we had a waiting list for new versions and different RV’s. We were swamped with demand for our first few years, struggling to keep inventory in stock.

Customers love the brand. 

Our current Net Promoter Score (NPS) is 91. In our last customer survey, 92.7% of respondents said SnapPads should be standard equipment on all RVs.

Those numbers aren't just vanity metrics – they translate directly into word-of-mouth sales.

Our market naturally spreads the word.

RVers are a tight-knit community. They love sharing discoveries that improve their travels, and they literally park next to each other at campgrounds.

"What are those black things on your jacks?" is a conversation starter that's driven countless sales for us.

Zero competition at launch.

Those "wrong" choices? They kept everyone else away. The barriers to entry were too high for both casual competitors and industry incumbents. Even now, we only face a few inferior knock-offs.

The point: Most ecommerce brands hustle for awareness, competing on branding and margins. We did the opposite. We built something so fundamentally better, in a market everyone ignored, that the customers found us.

🔥 TAKE IT PERSONALLY

Dedication is the X factor that doesn’t appear on spreadsheets

In the 1990s, my father launched an RV product that gained significant traction, only to be diluted out of the business by investors.

He was eventually pushed out entirely. That product remains a staple in the industry.

We weren't just building a business – we were on a mission of redemption.

Why Your "Why" Is The Most Important Factor Of All

1. Because sometimes, things suck.

This sucked: The first dozen manufacturers we approached laughed at us.

Can’t lie, this sucked: Travelling to RV convetions, working 12 hours a day at a booth, and then do it again the next day.

This super sucked: COVID killed our supply chain and our cash flow.

Oh and this? Really sucked: We learned a new supplier had sent thousands of poor quality pads to our 3PL, so we personally went down and hand inspected 10,000+ units to ensure we weren't shipping bad product to our customers.

2. Because that drive spills over into everything you do:

Fanatical customer service (my brother personally answered every email and call for the first two years).

Relentless product quality (we've rejected entire production runs that didn't meet our standards).

Constant innovation (we're hellbent on being high quality, premium, and unique).

This isn't just business for us. It's personal.

🥡 THE TAKEAWAY

Your Unfair Advantage Is the Thing You're Hiding

You don’t need a massive TAM or frictionless product to succeed.

You need an edge. And it’s often that thing that makes you weird, or even look bad.

For SnapPad, we're very direct about the fact that our products are heavy and more expensive than typical jack pads. We don't try to hide these facts – we explain why the weight is necessary for durability and the cost is justified by the permanent nature.

This honesty accomplishes three things:

1. Signals quality and authenticity

2. Sets appropriate expectations

3. Builds trust

Plus…

• Our niche forced us to build something no one else would bother with.

• Our high-effort logistics made the product hard to copy.

So, got doubts about your product? Don’t sand those edges - sharpen them.

With ❤️,

Kent and the Early Checkout Team

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