Today we’d like to introduce you to Bill Rivard.
Hi Bill, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, you could tell our readers some of your backstory.
How I came to make cornhole sets for a living is a complete accident, but when I think of all that led up to it, it seems like a blessing and was meant to be. I come from a huge family of mostly blue-collar, self-employed entrepreneurs. And by a big family, I mean my father was one of ten, and my mom was one of seventeen. If I didn’t resemble a Rivard, I would have thought I was adopted because, at an early age, my idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up (which still hasn’t happened yet) went from veterinarian to artist to actor to rock star finally. I started singing and writing songs when I was about 14 when I got my first guitar for Christmas; it was a sunburst Epiphone, if I remember correctly. I wasn’t much of a singer or guitar player. Still, I loved being on stage and entertaining people; a year later, my dad got the band at a family wedding to bring me on stage and play “Johnny B Goode” with them. While I was singing and seeing all the people dance and cheer, that was all it took to set me off into what I knew I wanted to do forever. Music was very good to me; throughout high school, I started a band and got to play in all sorts of venues. We were the youngest band at the time to play a major ballroom. After graduation, the band broke up, and I had an opportunity to go on the road with a more developed band. Still, after 8 months, I realized that I wanted to start a family and needed to find a different career, preferably one that would have a paycheck!
I went to work for my brother, who owned a tree service and land-clearing company. Shortly after, I married my first wife and adopted my daughter Jessica when she was 2. We then had two more children. When work was slow with my brother, I would take side work doing construction and found I liked that more than climbing trees. After seven years, I left my brother’s company and started a remodeling company. I continued playing music part-time as a one-person band, working Thurs-Saturday nights. The remodeling company did well, but when the housing market crashed in 2008, I downsized and mainly worked on projects for my brother’s company, which had grown into large-scale land clearing and mulch sales. They had a lot of buildings and projects to keep me busy and soon hired me to help design elevated gardens, which became a huge company called Gronomics. I also got remarried and had my youngest son; after a few years of building gardens, I was looking for something more challenging, and then I got a call from an uncle to make him a set of some bean bag toss games that was getting popular. At the time, I was living on a busy corner in Forest Lake, and once I had built the game, I had it sitting out in my garden over a weekend that I was gone so It could get picked up.
When I got home on Monday, I found a post on the front door and a note under the matt asking if I built these. I had yet to learn that this game was getting popular. I started making sets out of my basement (I didn’t have a garage) and putting them out by the street. I also began painting different designs on them that I thought would be popular. Most sets I set out would sell within a few days, and something extraordinary happened. They decided to rebuild the main exit bridge on the freeway in town, and all traffic was diverted past my place for the better part of a year. I started building 7 days a week around the clock and developed a way to cut stencils and do much better artwork on the boards. At this point, I was convinced I could turn this into a business and began advertising on Craigslist. With the help of my brother with shipping, I could spread out a little further; the only problem was I needed more room to grow. I found a house to rent in the business district in Forest Lake across from the Wells Fargo drive-thru, and things started to heat up. I had mentioned to some people that I was looking for help, and that’s when I met Sean. He was looking for work and took no time to learn everything I was doing and, shortly after, could work circles around me. He has been with me for 10 years and Is one of the biggest reasons the business is thriving today.
I remarried in 2019, and we bought the house, turned the garage into a storefront, and added elevated gardens to our venue. Although they are a small part of the business, they give us a reason to display and plant many of them yearly so we don’t have to buy vegetables. As for all the wives you might be wondering, I will tell you that we all get along and spend time together with the kids like one big family, another blessing. Over the years, we have found ways to improve the product faster. After years of hand-cutting stencils, we now do digital imaging with a flatbed UV printer, which allows us to do anything on the boards regarding design, including photographic imaging, all at the same price. I feel so fortunate to have been lucky to fall into this line of work because I can work from home and do something gratifying daily. Sean and I often joke that neither of us ever really goes to work, and it’s nice to never look at the clock hoping the day will end. Our theme song is “I’m on Vacation cuz’ Every Single Day I Love my Occupation” by The Dirty Heads. Also, over the years, I’ve developed neuropathy in both feet, so if I hadn’t started this business, I would need to figure out how I would be able to make money. We all have a lot of possessions that we bought over the years, but most of them are short-lived: TVs, electronics, cars, and even houses. But when a customer comes back to buy another set of boards and tells me they are still playing on a set they bought from me 8-9 years ago, we’re doing something right. I’m still playing and writing music, primarily for fun and family, but I have two albums and am finishing a final one this year. One of my videos on YouTube is “Faith in the Weather Billy Rivard.” This business proves that just because it might be a dream, follow it with hard work and dedication, and you might not wake up!
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Financially, it has been a rough road. The competition is so high and the only way to prove your product is hands-on and not just pictures is to get more product out there. It has taken a long time to get enough boards/bags out there, but it has paid off because people have spread the word. Word of mouth is our bread and butter, affording us the benefit of very little advertising.
The best thing that has helped us along the way is that we realized no matter how close we are to doing things perfectly, there is always room to improve – process, quality, efficiency so we are always paying attention and looking for ways to improve. We never stop rethinking it.
Let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m hoping I covered a lot in my opening story.
Pricing:
- All sets are 325$, and that includes unlimited artwork and design.
- Bags are $25 corn filled, 45$ All weather, 65$ pro stick, and slides add graphics for 25$ per set
- That is for a set of 8
Contact Info:
- Website: https://customcornholecreation.com/
- Facebook: Custom Cornhole Creations
