Ben Smith: From Troy Lee Intern to HipLok Founder, Building a Global Brand from Scratch
The Ride Companion
TRC Media House
4.9 • 533 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2025
⏱️ 107 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ben Smith is the co-founder of HipLok. Ben joins Olly & Davi in studio for a deep-dive into his journey from working at Troy Lee Designs in California to launching one of the most innovative bike security brands in the world.
During the episode Ben opens up about how the idea for HipLok was born, the early struggles of building a brand from scratch, the reality of product development and manufacturing, and how global trade issues like tariffs and certification standards are affecting the industry.
Ben also shares what it was like designing gear during the golden era of MTB at TLD, why bike theft is on the rise, and how HipLok's anti-angle grinder tech is pushing the boundaries of what's possible and much more...
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | America's our second biggest market and obviously the whole tariff thing. |
| 0:04.6 | So that's massive, right? |
| 0:06.3 | Like the whole war thing that Trump started, 145% tariff. |
| 0:11.9 | That's basically, that's just put a halt to people selling stuff in the States. |
| 0:26.4 | We're here. |
| 0:27.7 | Welcome to the Roy companion. |
| 0:29.2 | Today we've got Ben Smith. |
| 0:30.0 | Round of applause. |
| 0:31.4 | Hey! |
| 0:34.7 | And the crowd goes wild. |
| 0:36.8 | For no reason whatsoever. |
| 0:39.4 | I'm hype for this one, dude. |
| 0:43.8 | Genuinely, we've not done like a more businessy focused, |
| 0:48.3 | entrepreneurial journey episode for ages. |
| 0:49.6 | Yeah, absolutely. And I like that sometimes we just mix it up a little bit. |
| 0:51.2 | So this is, I feel like mixing it up a little bit. |
| 0:53.0 | Cool. |
| 0:53.4 | You're someone early on as well that was like a story that I really thought was cool. I've never achieved anything in my life in terms of entrepreneurship. I've always loved the idea. Yeah. And I remember hearing your story really early on. Yeah, well, we met quite a few times, didn't we? |
| 1:11.6 | Over the trade shows and stuff, and you do all the DMR stuff. |
| 1:15.2 | And likewise, of like, you know, you're a bit too young to be a hero. |
| 1:19.7 | So I'm not going to call you a hero. |
| 1:21.0 | But, you know, still you're a hero. |
... |
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