It’s not often I am able to interview someone for the AW editorial who is actually honest with me. Did that throw you off? Ha! Look, I came from the PR world, I know a “handler” when they exist to censor and well, “handle” things. I know how to answer a question that doesn’t really say anything. I understand the job and why it exists. But when someone says it like it is – it is refreshing. Eric Griggs, president of GAS Bowstrings is just that – a no-nonsense businessman who is making an excellent product consumers love. I hope you enjoyed his answers as much as I did, – Michelle Scheuermann, editor, Archery Wire.

1. Eric, you recently signed on Jesse Broadwater to help create a new line of bowstrings. Can you share more about this partnership and what you hope to see Jesse bring to the development table? Is this the first time you’ve partnered with a professional archer to create products? You, yourself, were a professional archer, so obviously you see the benefits of going right to the source for innovation.

We are super excited about our partnership with Jesse. He brings so much experience and value to the table. We’ve collaborated to build a signature string for Jesse, built exactly to his specifications, but with the added benefits of our proven processes. I’m a firm believer in working with the best archers, bowhunters, and archery minds in the game to help us to constantly improve our products. We actually work with and have partnerships with many of the top ranked archers in the world. Many of which have their own background in product design and in some cases, even specifically building strings. Having this partnership with these great archers is an invaluable resource to our company.

2. Do you find your customer base are more bowhunters? Or more from the competitive, archery world?

We really have a great mix of both. Bowhunting is for sure the vast majority, but we have such a great presence on the competitive side. Competitive archers and bowhunters are both becoming more educated when it comes to quality equipment. Bowstrings always seems to be a hot topic on social media pages and internet forums and more archers and bowhunters are finding value in the performance of aftermarket strings.

3. Some of my hunter friends have some of your colored bowstrings. What impact has providing a color option had on your business? Do you see both men and women buying colored strings? Children?

Customization will always be one of the driving forces of aftermarket bowstrings. We keep every available color option on hand for this reason. We have a color visualizer on our website and our dealers keep a color card sample on had to help their customers choose color combinations. It’s crazy some of the color combos people come up with. It’s really pretty universal across the board too. Men, women and youth all seem to love being able to color match their bowstrings.

4. What do you look for in potential partnerships with archers or influencers? What have you learned over the many partnerships signed at GAS Bowstrings that could help influencers when signing on with companies, or even for other companies looking to partner with professionals?

Great question! With an honest and possibly unpopular answer…. So many people simply have their hand out for free product or a discount without a whole lot to offer. Respectfully, the fact that little Johnny won the local event and is going to be starting to compete at national level tournaments doesn’t bring a whole lot of value. Nor does someone with a YouTube channel and 500 followers on their social media page. We have many of the top archers in the world shooting our strings as well as incredibly accomplished bowhunters with huge social media following’s. There’s hardly a national or international event that goes by without multiple GAS shooters on the podium. I guess what I’m saying, is that side is pretty well covered. What we are looking for is how is that archer or bowhunter is giving back to the sport? What sort of shows are they attending. Are they helping their local dealer? What’s the social media presence? What can you do to help GAS and advance our great sport? There’s a lot of ways someone can bring value, but at the end of the day a partnership needs to be beneficial for both sides. If there’s no return for the company, then that’s just charity. When it comes to charitable giving, we are all about it, but we give back in places that help grow the sport.

5. What’s next for GAS Bowstrings? What’s on the horizon that you can spill the beans?

Honestly, we are just doing our best to manage the growth right now. We want to continue to be a great partner for our archery pro shop dealers and continue to offer all our customers the best performing bowstrings they can buy, backed by industry leading customer service. My wife and I recently purchased ACU Archery and we have a couple other business interests we’re looking into, but it’s important that we keep our main focus on GAS Bowstrings. That said, iron sharpens iron and we’ve got an incredible internal team here as well as the people we have partnered with. I think everyone will be pleased to see some great stuff continuing to happen with GAS Bowstrings!