Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryce Gapinski.
Hi Bryce, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I started Gapple Co in 2013, right out of college. I was home recovering from shoulder surgery when my wife — my girlfriend at the time — introduced me to cribbage. We had an old wooden board lying around, and I couldn’t get past how cheap it felt. I’d played with quality chess sets before, but never a quality cribbage board. So, in my free time while reovering, I designed one in CAD and started planning to build it in my family’s machine shop.
I bought $200 in aluminum, hoping I’d break even, with no website, no name, and no sales channels yet. I tracked down local vendors for anodizing, pegs, felt pads, and peg covers to bring it all together, took some product photos, and figured out how to sell on eBay and Amazon. A couple days later, I got an email that the board had sold. That happened 20 more times over the next few weeks, and it was time to order more material.
Fast forward to today, and thousands of boards and countless projects later, Gapple Co has been a genuinely rewarding adventure. We’ve stayed committed to sourcing everything in the USA and to our local vendors since day one. We still sell on Amazon, but most customers now choose custom engraving through our website. Our boards have been gifts for weddings, anniversaries, cabin openings, you name it — and being part of so many of those moments has been the best part of doing this. Our goal has always been the same, bringing people together.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have been challenges along the way. I remember getting a call that our metal peg supplier had suddenly passed away and their business was shutting down and any outstanding orders would go unfilled. After talking with the family, we bought some of their equipment and decided to buy CNC lathes ourselves to start making pegs in-house. That was 2016. Ten years and hundreds of thousands of pegs later, we’re still one of the only suppliers making cribbage pegs and custom pegs domestically in the USA.
Toys and games have always been a heavily imported category, and the flood of cribbage pegs and boards coming in from China and India over the last five years has made things harder. But we still have loyal customers who value small business and domestic sourcing — that’s part of our brand promise, and it always will be.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We’re a small business in Minnesota making premium anodized aluminum cribbage boards and metal cribbage pegs. Everything is sourced and made in the USA with local materials. We sell through our website, Etsy, Amazon, and local game stores, and we supply metal pegs in bulk to cribbage board and board game makers across the country. We offer pegs in a range of shapes, sizes, and custom designs. Making everything domestically means quick turnarounds and hands-on customer service.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
My advice is to do your research, understand the market, and then just go for it. Starting a business isn’t easy, it’s not for everyone, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. To become good at business, you have to be in business. You can’t learn golf by watching YouTube videos; you have to get out and play. Same with business. Get in, learn fast, and grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.gapple-co.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gapple_co/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gapplehome/
