When Gracie snake oil salesmanship meets actual Capitalists

Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to Sign Up today.
Sign up

Dick Niaz

Yearning for TMMAC days gone by
Jan 14, 2018
12,279
25,547
He’s liked a stoned teenager who just came up with the best munchies ever and he just has to tell everyone about it
 

BrunoMcGyver

Bruno no dey carry last
Dec 30, 2015
6,395
10,265
So he's valuing a company that sells hoodies that convert to backpacks at $10 million? The fuck?
 

ECC170

Monster's 11,ATM 2,Parlay Challenge,Hero GP Champ
Pro Fighter
Jan 23, 2015
14,376
23,677
So he's valuing a company that sells hoodies that convert to backpacks at $10 million? The fuck?
he's sold over a half a million in no time.. but it's a full line of clothing
 

Never_Rolled

First 10,000
Dec 17, 2018
5,798
6,349
When it first came out I think it was called a Hero Hoodie and someone else already had the name. I bought one for my son. It's actually pretty nice.
 
Jan 21, 2015
3,255
6,074
I know, I see people dropping their hoodies into puddles everywhere I go these days. Especially seniors, they have the most trouble because they can't bend over to even pick up the wet hoodies after they dropped them. I saw 4 of them just yesterday in the rain out in front of the pancake house, not one of them could pick it back up and were getting really wet. Mofos just passed them by to get their pancakes.

Its really amazing no one has come up with a solution before now.

Thank you Rener!
 
Last edited:

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
the hoodie is a typical "solution in search of a problem" or "seller-driven solution", but Rener has a great pitch.
QVC is a good fit. His public persona gets a lot of hate, but he's an entirely tolerable person when he's not Renergized.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
he's sold over a half a million in no time.. but it's a full line of clothing
but how much of his sales are coming from outside the GU ecosystem? I have no idea, but that's the piece that's missing.
If he can get the exposure and the product catches on, it could be very successful.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
the hoodie is a typical "solution in search of a problem" or "seller-driven solution", but Rener has a great pitch.
QVC is a good fit. His public persona gets a lot of hate, but he's an entirely tolerable person when he's not Renergized.
QVC or As Seen on TV would be his best bets. I think his public persona gets hated on because we all know that Rorion brainwashed both he and Ryron into this sort of permanent used car salesman way of self presentation. Rorion used to talk the exact same way, except with a slightly more noticable Portugese accent, when he was building the Torrance empire. From Gracies in Action to Rapesafe to even the UFC, he had that same affect we see Rener use to sell everything from Bullyproof to watermelon juice to now this hoodie backpack thing.

I like Rener and Ryron because they seem like they really just want to make it for themselves and come up with creative ways to be diversify their name beyond just the family business, but like Lloyd Irvin they need to understand that there are genuine marketing and sales styles beyond treating your prospective customer like a rube.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
kneeblock @Nigel -
you can't mention their sales style in the same breath as Lloyd Irvin.

And I'm not talking about the difference between the one side that tries to rape women (TooLimp Lloyd) and the other side that tries to protect women from attempted rapists.

Spoiler - Lloyd Irvin is an attempted rapist. He also paid for the legal defense of two students who were accused of raping another student, presumably because having convicted rapists on his team would be bad for business.

Lloyd's marketing was/is MLM bullshit for ignorant gym owners and slash-and-burn contractual relationships with students.

Rener/Ryron are the opposite of that. People seem to hate on them for recognizing the value of their 'true water' brand and marketing it accordingly. But people drive 2 hours twice a week to train at GU because they love the instruction and the environment. Not because they signed a 2 year contract and it got sent to collections when they had to move.

You and me are not the target demographic for their pitch. Their pitch is aimed at people who only know BJJ from the allure of NHB fighting. But make no mistake, Rener/Ryron have the most legit BJJ on the planet. Their instruction is arguably the best (no one approaches their online content). I've done seminars/classes/privates with a Who's Who of BJJ...and there's nobody better at teaching a BJJ class. There are people like Marcelo or Eddie Cummings that are as good, in a different way, but nobody better.

Bonus - their CTCs are legit and rapist-free. And I know from personal experience that they will de-certify and disavow one of their most lucrative CTCs if they think that gym is reflecting poorly on the brand or failing to uphold their standards for a training environment.

FRAT: Their pitch turns me off, too. But they're not the same business as TooLimp.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
kneeblock @Nigel -
you can't mention their sales style in the same breath as Lloyd Irvin.

And I'm not talking about the difference between the one side that tries to rape women (TooLimp Lloyd) and the other side that tries to protect women from attempted rapists.

Spoiler - Lloyd Irvin is an attempted rapist. He also paid for the legal defense of two students who were accused of raping another student, presumably because having convicted rapists on his team would be bad for business.

Lloyd's marketing was/is MLM bullshit for ignorant gym owners and slash-and-burn contractual relationships with students.

Rener/Ryron are the opposite of that. People seem to hate on them for recognizing the value of their 'true water' brand and marketing it accordingly. But people drive 2 hours twice a week to train at GU because they love the instruction and the environment. Not because they signed a 2 year contract and it got sent to collections when they had to move.

You and me are not the target demographic for their pitch. Their pitch is aimed at people who only know BJJ from the allure of NHB fighting. But make no mistake, Rener/Ryron have the most legit BJJ on the planet. Their instruction is arguably the best (no one approaches their online content). I've done seminars/classes/privates with a Who's Who of BJJ...and there's nobody better at teaching a BJJ class. There are people like Marcelo or Eddie Cummings that are as good, in a different way, but nobody better.

Bonus - their CTCs are legit and rapist-free. And I know from personal experience that they will de-certify and disavow one of their most lucrative CTCs if they think that gym is reflecting poorly on the brand or failing to uphold their standards for a training environment.

FRAT: Their pitch turns me off, too. But they're not the same business as TooLimp.
Lol, I'm not saying they use the same business tactics as Lloyd, but both rely on their audience being rubes. They both charge a lot and use mystification (i.e. I have this high quality product that you can get NOWHERE else) to justify it. Imo selling online belts isn't much better than MLM. Thankfully they backed off of that thanks to family outcry, but it shows the mentality.

I think they're great instructors, but it would be cool if they just talked like normal humans once in awhile. Ryron seems a bit less promotional than Rener and Ralek obviously isn't like that at all, though he has his own checkered history of ripping people off.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Lol, I'm not saying they use the same business tactics as Lloyd, but both rely on their audience being rubes. They both charge a lot and use mystification (i.e. I have this high quality product that you can get NOWHERE else) to justify it. Imo selling online belts isn't much better than MLM. Thankfully they backed off of that thanks to family outcry, but it shows the mentality.

I think they're great instructors, but it would be cool if they just talked like normal humans once in awhile. Ryron seems a bit less promotional than Rener and Ralek obviously isn't like that at all, though he has his own checkered history of ripping people off.
first, they never sold belts online. GU-online is a legit way to learn jiu-jitsu, I can give a list of names of people who went to their first tournament knowing nothing but combatives and some basic sport guards and won their class, gi and nogi. I probably have some old videos if you want me to post them.

But it wasn't family outcry, it was part of the deal to bring Rickson (really Pedro Sauer) onboard with the CTC system, since most of Pedro's affiliates were teaching CTC curriculum and not paying. Rickson was/is really trying to push the "Invisible Jiu-Jitsu", AKA "you can only learn Jiu-Jitsu at one on my affiliate gyms"...but he basically took Henry Akins' online marketing and applied it to his own brick-mortar affiliate network.

But even that mitigation with Rickson was only an agreement that someone had to be assessed in person before they could put on a blue belt. The online curriculum and the training haven't changed. People are still assessed on the exact same set of techniques against the exact same standard of reflexive performance. Say what you will about it, there's no doubt in my mind that any Combatives graduate will survive a street fight against a bigger/stronger attacker. I can't say the same for every blue belt from some other arbitrary instructor/program. Not a reflection on any instructor, but the Combatives competence (whether it's blue or white/blue-stripe belt) is exactly what people want when they sign up for instruction. They don't know anything about jiu-jitsu, except that it's what that scrawny little Mexican used to beat those cage-fighters a long time ago. :rolleyes:

I agree that their outreach targets people who aren't familiar with modern MMA or with the competitive BJJ world. But like I said, if you're that target demographic it is appealing. But their academies and CTC's are legit. Brian Ortega is legit. All of their black belts are super-legit. Killers like Fabricio Werdum go there to become more effective killers.

The way they market the 'pure water' may rub some folks the wrong way, because of the implied exclusivity or 'impurity' of other affiliations..
But they are ethically selling pure water - not snake oil.

EDIT - except Ralek. His business practices since Metamoris 2 have not been ethical.
But his jiu-jitsu instruction is top-shelf.
 
Last edited:

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
since it came up, I'll post a couple videos. :)

back when passing Combatives was a blue belt, my training partners entered a local (Portland, OR) tournament.



in a heavier and younger weight class, lost because he made basic 'points' errors. Like letting the guy up when he had the lead (to attack a guillotine), and not fighting the hip bump at the end for long enough.


 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
first, they never sold belts online. GU-online is a legit way to learn jiu-jitsu, I can give a list of names of people who went to their first tournament knowing nothing but combatives and some basic sport guards and won their class, gi and nogi. I probably have some old videos if you want me to post them.

But it wasn't family outcry, it was part of the deal to bring Rickson (really Pedro Sauer) onboard with the CTC system, since most of Pedro's affiliates were teaching CTC curriculum and not paying. Rickson was/is really trying to push the "Invisible Jiu-Jitsu", AKA "you can only learn Jiu-Jitsu at one on my affiliate gyms"...but he basically took Henry Akins' online marketing and applied it to his own brick-mortar affiliate network.

But even that mitigation with Rickson was only an agreement that someone had to be assessed in person before they could put on a blue belt. The online curriculum and the training haven't changed. People are still assessed on the exact same set of techniques against the exact same standard of reflexive performance. Say what you will about it, there's no doubt in my mind that any Combatives graduate will survive a street fight against a bigger/stronger attacker. I can't say the same for every blue belt from some other arbitrary instructor/program. Not a reflection on any instructor, but the Combatives competence (whether it's blue or white/blue-stripe belt) is exactly what people want when they sign up for instruction. They don't know anything about jiu-jitsu, except that it's what that scrawny little Mexican used to beat those cage-fighters a long time ago. :rolleyes:

I agree that their outreach targets people who aren't familiar with modern MMA or with the competitive BJJ world. But like I said, if you're that target demographic it is appealing. But their academies and CTC's are legit. Brian Ortega is legit. All of their black belts are super-legit. Killers like Fabricio Werdum go there to become more effective killers.

The way they market the 'pure water' may rub some folks the wrong way, because of the implied exclusivity or 'impurity' of other affiliations..
But they are ethically selling pure water - not snake oil.

EDIT - except Ralek. His business practices since Metamoris 2 have not been ethical.
But his jiu-jitsu instruction is top-shelf.
I'm sorry, but this is the one thing I will admit to being stubbornly closed minded about. You cannot achieve the level of skill necessary to gain rank in BJJ through online instruction. Nothing will ever change my mind about that. The idea that any person training regularly in an academy will not perform as well on "the street" as someone watching videos is also absurd. In either case, "the street" is a variable thing. Most people with any contact training whatsoever who aren't totally out to lunch will increase their probability of survival in a self defense scenario, but people with a false sense of security can actually decrease their chances of survival. Whether you're training at home or at the gym, you can develop a false sense of security, but if you don't understand fundamentals of distance, pressure and spacing, you can end up screwed.

Similarly, people performing well at a tournament isn't a good bellwether because we don't know much about who shows up, etc. Most combatives only guys overall did not perform well in tournaments and many were demoted upon joining actual gyms.

In a way it's astonishing to be relitigating this in 2019 because even they have backed off of it. Anyone who watched the transition at Torrance knows that the reason they pivoted to this whole "average customer" self defense, nutrition guru, etc bit was because they started suffering consistent defeats in both BJJ and MMA and could no longer rest on the value of secret information. The pivot began in roughly 1997 after Wallid choked out Royce and was concretized shortly thereafter when Sakuraba ran through both sides of the family.

I credit them on finding a way to keep their business solvent because running academies is tough and they are actually good instructors. But so is Lloyd Irvin and his students actually had incredible competition success in BJJ and MMA. Doesn't change the fact that the methods of both are a little insulting to anyone's intelligence.
 

D241

Banned
Jan 14, 2015
4,384
4,741
My old girlfriend's mom would make these towels that had a pouch and two drawstrings. They are really nice and I still have one to this day. I can show pictures if anyone wants.

Anyways it's pretty cool you can use it as a towel but you can also use it as a sack. You can put the towel into itself and still have room to store stuff.

This was probably around 2012ish.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
I'm sorry, but this is the one thing I will admit to being stubbornly closed minded about. You cannot achieve the level of skill necessary to gain rank in BJJ through online instruction. Nothing will ever change my mind about that. The idea that any person training regularly in an academy will not perform as well on "the street" as someone watching videos is also absurd. In either case, "the street" is a variable thing. Most people with any contact training whatsoever who aren't totally out to lunch will increase their probability of survival in a self defense scenario, but people with a false sense of security can actually decrease their chances of survival. Whether you're training at home or at the gym, you can develop a false sense of security, but if you don't understand fundamentals of distance, pressure and spacing, you can end up screwed.
I think you're drinking the wrong Kool-Aid. :) Do you have any experience with the Combatives program?

Define 'gain rank'. If your goal is to gain the rank of 'capable of defending myself with jiu-jitsu' then you can absolutely achieve that rank with online instruction and a dedicated training partner. Period. back in the day, it's all we had. VHS tapes and wrestling singlets. The people who don't understand the basics of spacing, distance, pressure are the people who are training without punches. Take your average brown belt, tell them it's a street fight and a bigger/stronger guy tackled them to the ground and is holding them in side control. Watch them try and get out. The first thing they do is frame the attacker off of them and make space. This is the space the attacker wants to punch you. If you're not training against punches from Day One, you're not learning the fundamentals of jiu-jitsu. You're learning the equivalent of point-fighting in TKD.

Similarly, people performing well at a tournament isn't a good bellwether because we don't know much about who shows up, etc. Most combatives only guys overall did not perform well in tournaments and many were demoted upon joining actual gyms.
Name some people who were 'demoted after joining actual gyms'. I think it's an urban myth. Who demotes a no-stripe blue belt who's been training for a year or two? Demoted because they don't know spider-guard and RDLR? Look at the video of the purple belt rolling for a heel hook in a street fight, and tell me that 'gyms' are teaching the same jiu-jitsu as Torrance.

In a way it's astonishing to be relitigating this in 2019 because even they have backed off of it. Anyone who watched the transition at Torrance knows that the reason they pivoted to this whole "average customer" self defense, nutrition guru, etc bit was because they started suffering consistent defeats in both BJJ and MMA and could no longer rest on the value of secret information. The pivot began in roughly 1997 after Wallid choked out Royce and was concretized shortly thereafter when Sakuraba ran through both sides of the family.
I think you're confusing all the Gracies with Rener/Ryron, unless they started the pivot when they were like 11 years old... And the Gracie Diet actually came from the Carlos side of the family (and was BS when he got it from some Venezuelan), and Rorion bought it because he wanted an income stream not tied to the Academy...and that was only a couple years ago. But there's been nothing but legit guys at Torrance. Lyoto Machida, Glover Texiera, Ronda, Munoz, Fabricio Werdum...all good MMA fighters who sought out Rener/Ryron to elevate their MMA game. Brian Ortega is 100% Torrance. You want to name the TLI guys who are on that level?

I credit them on finding a way to keep their business solvent because running academies is tough and they are actually good instructors. But so is Lloyd Irvin and his students actually had incredible competition success in BJJ and MMA. Doesn't change the fact that the methods of both are a little insulting to anyone's intelligence.
You haven't really explained why their marketing is similar to TooLimp, or how their marketing is disingenuous/shady.