Breaking the Mold: How Zechariah Thomas Is Disrupting the Hockey Stick Industry with Swift Hockey

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Mark Evans: There's a moment in every entrepreneur's journey when frustration churns into inspiration. When a problem becomes a product and a personal challenge becomes a business opportunity. For Zachariah Thomas, that moment happened in a hockey rink. Born in Jamaica and raised in Oshawa, Ontario, Zachariah is a lifetime hockey player. And he was all too familiar with the sport's price tag, especially when it came to high performance sticks. And he started asking a simple question. Why do quality sticks cost so much, and what would it take to make them more accessible without sacrificing performance? As a hockey player, I might add, why do high performance sticks break so easily and so quickly? The answer to Zechariah's entrepreneurial quest became Swift hockey, a brand that's breaking the rules by offering elite level sticks at a fraction of the usual cost. However, like any startup story, Swift wasn't an overnight success. It took a lot of testing, iteration, setbacks, and bold decisions to reach its current position. In this episode of Marketing Spark, we'll delve into Zechariah's entrepreneurial journey from launching multiple ventures to breaking into a competitive, brand loyal industry with a product that challenges the status quo. Welcome to Marketing Spark.

Swift Hockey: I love the name.

Mark Evans: At 22 years old, you have a lot of business and entrepreneurial experience. I'd love to go back to the start of your entrepreneurial career. Walk me through the different businesses that you had. It looks as if they were some drop shipping, things that you saw as seize the moment opportunity, and also be interested in some of the big lessons that you learned along the way.

Swift Hockey: As weird as it sounds, my entrepreneurship started at, I would say, at the age of 12. Even I was in elementary school selling hats, wristbands I would find from the Dollar Store or Dollar Tree for that at that time. And I was doing whatever. I just love selling things. That was my biggest thing, so I started doing everything I can at a 13 year old to buy, drink at the convenience store, do whatever was possible. And I would say that's where my entrepreneur ship started from. It was at a young age. My mom always supporting me at a very young age, helping me get to I guess, bringing me to the dollar store to buy some of these items and helping me resell them and always encouraging me on that. As well as that, I would say, I guess the true entrepreneurship business side, I started around 19 17 years old or so, 16. That's when I would say I really started getting into business, doing a lot with online, but drop shipping, doing whatever I could to make a dollar during, especially during those COVID times as well.

Mark Evans: Were your parents entrepreneurs? Did you draw inspiration from what they did to make a living? Or were they doing nine to five jobs, and you just somehow maybe it was nature, maybe it's nurture, you embraced entrepreneurship and became the super salesman at a very young age? What influence did they have on you, and and did you follow in their footsteps?

Swift Hockey: I would say they have definitely had a big reason where I'm at, to be honest. My dad was he still is the hardest worker I know, and I see him still at 57 years old, put in twelve, fifteen hour days still. My mom is also a very hard worker. I would say they're both entrepreneurs. My dad, I don't even say I have a company, my mom owns the company in law. Well, they're both entrepreneurs, but I think the biggest lesson I've taken from mom is we're in completely different fields, so it's hard to get a lot of direct lessons, but they work very hard, and that's kinda where I get that from.

Mark Evans: Now, one thing I should make clear to the audience is that you're not just a young, active entrepreneur, but you're a very successful entrepreneur. The business that you started did very well financially, and that allowed you to provide the seed money for Swift hockey. What did you do right? Is it was timing? Did you get lucky? Did you find an opportunity and lean into it? What was your recipe for success?

Swift Hockey: No. I think my recipe for success is honestly, it's moving faster than everybody else. That was my biggest thing if I had an idea. I'd failed so many times, that's obviously not publicized as much, but if I had an idea, I would I was I would have it done and set within the day. For some people, they'll have an idea and it takes them six months to even get that idea going or rolling, I would try and get it done as fast as possible and obviously that comes with a lot of failing on my end and not losses, but I've learned from those losses a lot. I'm not say that's the biggest reason why I'm learning that.

Mark Evans: So just out of curiosity, what was your biggest success as a pre Swift entrepreneur, and what would you say your biggest failure was?

Swift Hockey: My biggest failure is not moving fast enough on things. Even though I try to move fast on everything, I think there's so many opportunities where the faster I moved or if I moved even a little couple seconds faster, and I guess I learned this from hockey and I guess my coaches have always instilled in players from day one to just move faster, do things a little quicker, especially moving up the levels. That was always the biggest thing. So I wish I moved a little bit faster. I would say that's my biggest failure through everything. My biggest success through business was definitely in the drop shipping. I had a lot of early success when drop shipping was new and I could do a lot of organic and bring a lot of organic traffic in without doing a very high volume of paid ads. And I think what helped as well is I had a pretty, I'd like to say, a worldwide network in a sense, where I had I played all over the globe, so I had friends that were everywhere. And they would help push the product word-of-mouth and they were getting stuff out word-of-mouth a lot and and so that's one of my biggest successes as well where I built those connections where I'm getting seen in Europe when we're not even we're not trying to be in Europe in a sense because we're not a place without Toyota.

Mark Evans: Was there any product that really took off for you that even surprised you by how well it did?

Swift Hockey: We sold teddy bears a couple times as well. I would say that's the weirdest thing I have done. We have tried we've tried everything. We've tried kids toys, we've tried girls clothing as well and even as a male, don't know anything really about girls clothing and after I was trying everything, a lot of them saw pretty decent success as I understood how to market certain items, but it still wasn't the best way to put it. I wasn't passionate about them. It was still yeah. It was a business at the end of the day, but it wasn't something where it was super passionate about playing more. I figured more for a new field.

Mark Evans: To put things in context, you have been playing hockey most of your life. You you are very good at hockey. Did you play semi professionally, professionally? How far did you go in your hockey career? Where's your and where did you play?

Swift Hockey: A little bit on my hockey career. When I first started, I actually started late, which is weird in hockey. Started at 10 years old, and they consider that really late on starting hockey. But overall, I made it through all the ranks, started at house league and went all the way up through the ranks of pro, played a little bit of junior hockey, and then played a little bit in Quebec for Acadia Bathurst in the QMVHL, and then I played in New York for the Watertown Wolves, which would be.

Mark Evans: Given your passion for hockey and your entrepreneurial experience, what was that moment when you realized there was a real business opportunity in combining your love for hockey with a product like Swift. If you think about it, the hockey stick industry is super competitive. There's big brands. There's Reebok, CCM, and Bauer competing with big budgets. It must be a tough place to play. Why did you think this was a good opportunity, and what did you think would make you successful given that you're a David playing against many Goliaths?

Swift Hockey: When I first started, I was still new to business, so I wasn't thinking of it as a competitive thing at the beginning where I saw Bauer and CCM, and now, obviously, I experience a lot of those big guys who are trying to take us down every day. But at the beginning it was more of a situation where I wanted to do something for myself. Throughout my whole life, was doing whatever I could, I worked at SportChek a lot of my life, I guess a sporting store, if you understand them, to and I begged every discounts, and that's how I was getting my sticks at a very young age for a long period of time. And as soon as I had the opportunity to create a product that I would use all the day. That was the biggest thing about it, and I think that's why we've seen a lot of success is because I personally love using the product, and I would I use it every day. I would never go back to 100 stick or anything like that. I love the product. So I use the product every single day trying to and I think that's why it's seen a lot of success because it's a product built by me, built by a player for players.

Mark Evans: Six are very personal things. It's the touch. It's not only the price, but it's also the way it makes you feel and make it play. When you play the game, you've got a real sense of what the market wants. How did you envision Swift being different from all the other six out there? I spent a lot of time talking about brand positioning and differentiation. So how did you envision making Swift a different type of stick?

Swift Hockey: I think on my side of things, I always wanted the stick to be I guess the graphics are important on the kid's side. I always wanted the graphics to be different. I would say we have a white and light blue stick we released that's everybody seems to love it because it's so different and it aligns with a lot of teams colors and aligns with a lot of how people feel like thinking. On the stick side of the thing, I really wanted it to be brand positioning wise, I wanted to have a different feel compared to any other stick. That was my biggest thing where I wanted somebody to grab a swift stick and they're not able to they can't go anywhere else, they're stuck with us. So that was my biggest thing where I wanted to create a product that was completely different and feels completely different. Anybody who has felt our stick or used our stick, they can feel the difference. Some people love it, some people don't like it, but I really wanted a stick that I was gonna it was built for me in my opinion. And then we started tweaking it over time to build for more general consumers.

Mark Evans: Now you mentioned you did very well selling teddy bears. Selling teddy bears is a lot different from selling hockey sticks, And building a physical product is a different ballgame. What were some of the toughest challenges that you faced early on, and how did you push through? Obviously, going to market with a physical product that people can touch and feel and has a big part of the purchase journey. Did anything surprise you in terms of trying to develop a hockey stick from scratch?

Swift Hockey: There's so many things. I think on the business side of things, the hardest thing I had to deal with was starting a brand. Before I was drop shipping, I was selling a lot of other people's brands and really general products where I didn't have to sit there, rebrand it, and do everything possible to create more content and brand of itself. So that was my biggest pain from any other business I have done in the past where I've had to spend a lot of time learning how to brand the products or it's gonna get the most benefit.

Mark Evans: Walk us through that branding process. Because a lot of entrepreneurs, especially in my world, b to b SaaS, software is fairly easy, relatively speaking, to create, but actually branding it, make driving awareness, making people aware that you exist is the hard part. What are some of the keys to branding success for Zwift? What did you do that allowed you to stand out from the crowd?

Swift Hockey: I think what we did, which was a little bit differently, our goal at the beginning was to be seen everywhere, and seen everywhere in a good way. We really wanted to be seen by the best players locally. Obviously, we can't reach the Nick Connor McDavids, Austin Matthews, but we wanted to see the best players locally in our products. That was our branding positioning. We really wanted to be one of the cheapest sticks, and we also wanted to be we wanted to be the enemy is the best way to put it, the bad guys, and trying to take down the big guys, and that's been our brand positioning where people fall in love with that story. The reason why I started is to make a more affordable hockey stick and people fell in love with that story. And that's been our biggest brand positioning from any position. Like, knows for Swift, we're a more affordable product, and we're seen everywhere. So even from day one, it's the same situation.

Mark Evans: What do you see as your brand personality? Are you the Darth Vader of the hockey stick world? Are you the the rat who's always poking his nose in other people's business? How did you develop that brand personality?

Swift Hockey: Yeah. I would say it took a bit. A lot of our ads even were sitting there. We're breaking other brand sticks. We're really trying to cause as much havoc and make a difference as well. But I would say we're the bad guys. We're the enemies to the other brands. Even some of the other biggest brands out here in the hockey industry have us blocked on all social media because we really come we're really coming for everybody is the best way to quitter. Even, for example, a lot of other with on social media, everybody when new company drops a new product, other opposite companies, everybody's commenting, oh, another $500 stake, what a waste of money and I could buy a new car with this, and all this type of stuff.

Mark Evans: And that's where we step in and we're we're supporting those people that want that difference. Now, these days, most hockey sticks are made in Asia, China, Vietnam, I think Thailand as well. What was it like to build a physical product when production is thousands of miles away? How do you pick a supplier? How do you do quality control? How do you navigate cross ocean shipping? And I guess one of the biggest challenges right now might be the tariffs that have been imposed. What was that experience like, and how did you manage to stick out your way through all those obstacles?

Swift Hockey: It's been extremely difficult. On my end, I seem to figure out everything pretty decently by reading, watching YouTube, doing whatever I can to learn as I don't have a background in product design. I don't have a background in anything like that. So I do as best as I can to learn, and I would say that was a really difficult situation where actually we've spent a lot of money to getting the stick to where it's at currently. And I'd say that's one of our biggest reasons on why we haven't released even a goldie stick because we're really trying to make it different and perfect at the same time. So it's been a lot of we do a lot of testing, a lot of rigorous testing to make the product great.

Mark Evans: And it's made in China? Yes. Have you been to China to meet with your manufacturers there, your manufacturing partners?

Swift Hockey: No. I haven't as of yet. Definitely a plan pretty soon. I'm tired. We had a pretty good relationship with, like, Zoom calls, everything we can do to connect, but I'll definitely have to make the trip up soon enough to as every entrepreneur does, best to make that trip eventually.

Mark Evans: On 2023, you pitched on Dragon's Den. But before we talk about that experience, love to get some insight into that early traction. How did you know when Swift had actually made it? You'd found that product market fit. There was an audience for what you were trying to sell. Your brand was resonating with people, and that you started to see sales. How long did it take for that to happen, and what do you think made you successful from a sales perspective?

Swift Hockey: I would say even before Dragon's Den, we were, you know, weird situation as well where we're growing pretty fast before Dragon's End. I would say Dragon's End didn't bring in a lot of sales from, I guess, the initial episode as I would have thought initially, to be honest. But overall, it's gave us a stand alone approval in the market where people are can trust our brand and they're willing to buy our product now because they know we're a legit company and there's a face behind it. All these other hockey stick companies will pop up here and there, but it's very hard to succeed without having somebody repping the brand and has that face behind it. As you see in marketing, I'm pretty much the face of the company and you can see me everywhere and all the ads and everything. And I think that's probably the biggest thing when harvesting to the people.

Mark Evans: Pre Dragon's Den, when it's just you doing the marketing, and you're this scrappy brand, what was the first sign that you you said to yourself, this thing is gonna work. I'm actually selling sticks, and I've got some revenue coming in, and I think this business is gonna make it.

Swift Hockey: I really loved those times where, at the very beginning, it was me and my friends. My friends were running the social media for little to nothing, just trying to support $5 here and there because we weren't making a lot at that time. Before all of our success, we've we've done everything to stay relevant and get into people's centers. When we were parking lots, selling sticks, we were bringing sticks to the arena, we would bring many sticks to everywhere and run those photo shoots with whoever we could get at those times to get as much content. But I think those were the good times. Always look back on us being we used to work out of a storage unit, a very small storage unit for the longest period of time, and that's where we started to where we're at now.

Mark Evans: In 2023, you're 20 years old. You appear on Dragon's Den, and you secure a $70,000 deal for about 15 to 20% of the company from Arlene Dickinson, Michelle Romano, and Wes Hall. Did that investment actually happen? What was that experience like? A lot of entrepreneurs go through the motions, and it really works out to be a marketing exercise more than a financial exercise. Talk to me about that Dragon's Den journey. And what as you said, it had impact on the brand. It raised brand awareness and made and helped make Swift legit. But what was that experience like? And did you actually get the money from those investors?

Swift Hockey: I guess I could go through the whole experience pretty quickly. A lot of people it's very hard to get on Dragon's End, from my understanding, the way they said it to me, so they have over a 100,000 people apply every year and they only pick 150 to actually take do their taking of the show and then only a 100 people get aired after a while. So it's very difficult to get on there. I think what people think, like, after the show, you're just you're being handed a briefcase of monies. That process through it is very long and rigorous. I guess what happened with us is we didn't hear from another investor for around eight months or so. There, the show was taken. By that time, we were at a completely different situation in the company where we were big. We were big at that time. We took the deal from West Hall, but we were a little too big and we didn't need those financials at that time to give up that sort of the company and obviously not hear from the investor. And then when we do hear from the investors, the investors team is it's not it wasn't too appealing to me. He's on the show. A lot of things were said that wasn't aired, but it wasn't too appealing to me at all. I forgot. So think

Mark Evans: that's probably a common experience for a lot of entrepreneurs is that it's a good show, but at the end of the day, the business changes. Curious about the impact that appearing on Dragon's Head had on sales. Did you see a surge in sales? And as important, were you able to handle the demand from all the interest in Zwift?

Swift Hockey: We've definitely seen a surge in sales in a sense. When we saw the biggest surge of sales is when we took the dragons and clips and made videos around it. That's when I would say we went from nothing to something pretty quickly. That's when we were we saw maybe 50 sales on that Dragon's EndBay, which is a lot. It was a really good day overall. We took those clips and made twenty, thirty videos with those clips and that's where we saw extreme success in my opinion. But, yeah, on the Dragon's End episode, we weren't able to keep up with demand. That was our biggest thing since day one. We were never able to keep up with the amount of sticks that we needled. Even now, we're still we still can't keep up with how many people need sticks. It was really difficult to deal with that demand, and we really wanted to grow and give sticks to everybody, but we just couldn't.

Mark Evans: You're a few years into the business. You're an established, albeit smaller brand. You've got a loyal following, brand awareness. It sounds like you've got some capital challenges because there's more demand that you can handle. Are you at the point where you're seeking outside investment? Have you been approached by investors or other hockey stick companies interested in either investing or buying the company? How are you gonna position this company for growth? Because at some point in time, you're gonna need growth capital and move beyond this grassroots bootstrapping stage that you're in. What are your thoughts on that and how are you gonna navigate that?

Swift Hockey: Yeah. Day in, day out, we're consistently trying to grow the brand. And growing the brand obviously comes from us getting as much capital as possible and my end goal is to beat is honestly to beat Bauer and CCM and all the other brands in between there. My goal is to be as big as possible around them but they have they're dealing with $1,015,000,000 dollars of sick inventory when it's very hard to get that without Faltible. So we ask we're looking for we're raising we've had lots of investor reach out. I think it has to be a really great fit on RV for almost I would I would lose a little bit more percentage to have a great mentor as I return a little bit. Don't have a school background. I have legal stuff on the business. I'm really starting to learn day by day, but everything. I'm really good mentor. That's worth a little bit more percent to help us out there.

Mark Evans: How would you feel if an NHL star, an Austin Matthews, Connor McDavid, found your sticks and said, Zachariah, I'd love to be an investor. Would you is that something you'd be interested in?

Swift Hockey: That'd definitely be a great thing. I think it's weird that you say that a lot of hockey players, like, after their career have tried something like those, and it never ends up being successful because it's it still comes down to the capital. The capital in the marketing is that somebody nobody can get ahold of. But, yeah, I think that'd be a great thing to be in touch with somebody like that as well.

Mark Evans: If someone listening wants to build something around their passion, whether it's hockey or baseball or baking or clothing, what's the most important thing that you'd want them to know?

Swift Hockey: I'd say no matter what you do, the biggest thing is to actually do it. Do it as fast as you can and try and get out as much in the business, whatever your passion is. You have to do it as fast as you can and don't procrastinate around. And I would say that's the reason why I have done a lot and I've done the business at such a young age where most people have the same ideas at my age, but they procrastinate and they wait until they're in a better situation. You have to do it when you have nothing, do it no matter what and push for it.

Mark Evans: Given the fact that you've started a lot of businesses since you were 13, I don't know how many businesses you started, but it sounds like many, how do you keep yourself disciplined? While you're growing Swift and you're focused on Swift, you've clearly got a lot of ideas running through your head about different opportunities and things that you could possibly sell, but part of entrepreneurial sex come from discipline and focus. So how do you keep yourself focused on Swift and the task at hand, rather than being distracted by maybe a shiny object somewhere else?

Swift Hockey: I would like to say it's a really difficult situation, though, to be distracted by everything that comes on my face when it comes to cryptocurrency and you see all these kids, 13 year old kids making millions and millions of dollars on cryptocurrency or different fields of the business, it it gets difficult. I believe that if I put in more work, more time, and more energy than everybody else at my one craft, my one business, it will end up beating everything just because if you're splitting all your time up, you're never gonna be successful between multiple businesses.

Mark Evans: Final question is where can people learn more about you and Swift hockey?

Swift Hockey: You can check us out on all social media, swift hockey platform. You'll find us there somewhere. Ask for me to check me out on LinkedIn, Zacharya Thomas. You can check me out on Instagram as well, Zacharya Thomas. Swift hockey was everywhere, and we're gonna continue to grow.

Mark Evans: Thanks for being on Marketing Spark, and to Zacharya for sharing his insights about entrepreneurship and making hockey sticks. If you found this episode valuable, I'd love it if you could leave a review or share it with a colleague. Marketing Spark is all about helping entrepreneurs, marketing leaders, and B2B SaaS founders uncover what's working, what's changing, and what's next in the world of growth and entrepreneurship. If you're a b to b SaaS marketer, founder, or entrepreneur with a unique story or a fresh take on marketing, growth, or leadership, I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me on LinkedIn, and let's talk about getting you on the show. Till next time, thanks again for listening to Marketing Spark.