Family Dinner: Ross Gordon of Mystery Tacklebox

How many of us aren’t using a subscription services today? Whether it’s binge watching our favorite show on Netflix, cooking up our Blue Apron meals, or playing with new goodies in our Birchboxes, subscription services are everywhere and taking over. So, it’s no surprise that Mystery Tackle Box, based in Chicago, has built a growing business out of sending subscribers fishing tackle for about $20 per month. Revenue was over $11 million last year! We were very excited to welcome founder and CEO of Mystery Tacklebox, Ross Gordon, to The Garage for our weekly Family Dinner, where he shared some seriously good founder wisdom with our students. Ross knew from the time he was in college that his dream job was to be a copywriter. He didn’t always see himself as an entrepreneur, but he realized early on in high school and college that he didn’t learn like everyone else did. Opting for a more creative route, Ross majored in English and focused on creative writing. His first startup? Ross’ roommate sold Chinese food out of the basement of their dorm every week on campus. After realizing the students coming for that Chinese food also spent a lot of time socializing each week, Ross saw an opportunity to add arcade games and music to Chinese night, and within three weeks, it was the most popular spot to hang out on Wednesday nights. Ross shared that this experience taught him something very important, and that’s the value of the social experience. Ross said even if you have something very simple, if you can create an experience, inject some emotion, make it into a human experience--it can become very powerful. Ross closed out his talk with his top three lessons and the top three core values of his current company, Mystery Tacklebox. Watch a clip of Ross’ talk below.