In the Bag: The Story of WANDRD
UVU alumni Ryan Cope and Spencer Cope reveal the strategy behind co-founding their
multimillion-dollar family business.
When many kids try to earn money, they pop up a lemonade stand or mow a neighbor’s lawn. But Utah Valley University graduates Ryan Cope and Spencer Cope had more original strategies as youth.
“Ryan and I have both, throughout our lives, been a little entrepreneurial,” says Spencer, who graduated from UVU in 2015 in business management. “We were the kids with the candy stand. Ryan had a shoe-shining business in high school. He’d go door to door collecting shoes and shine them and return them. I’ve done window washing and a few other things.”
Some of the brothers’ endeavors were more inventive than others.
“We did ‘No Soliciting’ signs and sold them door to door,” Spencer says. “It didn’t go so great. I thought we would sell out of them like hot cakes. But it was a harder sell than I anticipated.”
But how did they transition from selling services door to door to co-founding a multimillion-dollar LLC? According to Ryan, who graduated in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in marketing, it started at his parents’ kitchen table. He and Spencer were contemplating the lack of gear for their cameras. They’d bought and tried several camera bags, but they were either functional or fashionable. Never both.
To continue reading the full story, visit https://www.uvu.edu/news/2019/11/11012019_wandrd.html.