LAKELAND – From small town Alberta to the bright lights of the Dragon’s Den stage in Toronto, brothers Jagger and Dawson Glowatsky recently pitched their already successful business, Young Farts RV Parts, to the panel of Dragons.
In May of 2021, the Alberta brothers sent an audition tape to CBC Dragon’s Den for the second time, in hopes of pitching their big idea to the Season 16 panel of judges and to the show's vast Canadian audience.
The duo left their 15,000 sq ft. shop located in Vegreville, to present their used RV parts business model to seek the expertise of the judges and help with the online e-commerce side of their business.
More than anything, the pair made the trip for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the experience, “and for fun,” Dawson tells Lakeland This Week.
Jagger and Dawson, who credit their entrepreneurial spirit to their father, grew up travelling throughout North America in an RV over the summer months with their parents. They also regularly watched the popular business reality show as a family.
Now, at the ages of 25 and 22, Jagger and Dawson have coaxed their father Cam, a heavy-duty mechanic, out of retirement and they have turned their mother, Teresa, into the business’s front-of-house extraordinaire. Two other staff members, Jim and Dory, complete the Young Farts team.
Under the lights
Equipped with PPE and an electric saw, the Alberta brothers cut open the side of a travel trailer exposing the RV’s furnished interior to the panel of judges.
Without skipping a beat after the trailer's exterior wall comes barrelling down, Dawson tells the judges “So Dragon’s, if I told you that by doing this, we just made this worth more money than selling it as a whole would you believe me?”
In awe, perhaps partly due to the dissembled trailer, the panel of judges shook their heads and responded ‘no.'
Jumping in, Dawson tells the judges, “We are the only ones in Canada salvaging RVs and recycling used RV parts. But not only that, we are the biggest and cheapest new RV parts store in all of Canada – period.”
“Cheaper than Amazon, cheaper than anywhere else,” Dawson adds. “There's a massive gap in the RV parts industry and it's a cornered market by big RV dealers, charging markups of well over 150 per cent on their new parts. It is insane.”
Wrapping up their initial pitch, speaking in turns and then in unison, the brothers tell the Dragons “We will be Canada's number one go-to RV Supercenter and we know it, so which one of you wants to join us and become a young fart?"
After fielding several questions, the judges were left with expressions of excitement and intrigue, but they had a big question for the young entrepreneurs. If they were already running a growing and successful business, what were they hoping for from the judges?
Speaking candidly, Jagger said, “We have hit a cap. He dropped out of high school, I barely made it through high school. We've been doing a really amazing job with what we know and we're learning absolutely every single day. This whole e-commerce world, there's so much I'm learning.”
Cutting in Dawson continued, “Full heartedly, the money definitely goes with the business, but we definitely, definitely need some expertise. We know where we can grow... and we need a lot of help doing it.”
In 2020, the business expanded to an online format, first offering only new products in the first year, and now adding used items to the online store. It has increased revenue, but also increased demand for business in a much different capacity.
Honing in on the business's key areas of need, panel judge Arlene Dickinson said, “RV users, as you know, they are very much into their experiences and sharing them. There's so much you can do there, where you can actually then go into other vertical opportunities beyond e-commerce, you guys. It's building a brand, that's what you have to do.”
Dickinson, along with the four other judges, were willing to put their money in the hands of the Young Farts RV Parts in exchange for a sliver of the Alberta grown business.
The two young farts had a decision to make and deal to pick.
Starting out
Originally from Sherwood Park, the brothers looked to the rural market for a large space with low overhead costs in order to grow a used car business that Jagger had started during high school. Eventually, Dawson would leave his high school studies to join his older brother and the growing business.
In the winter of 2018, they started out with a small 3,000 sq ft building in Mundare as licensed dealers of used cars.
Starting with buying and selling cars, they went on to add RVs and travel trailers to their inventory, but after buying an RV sight unseen at an auction, they found themselves stuck with a unit that was unsellable due to its condition.
Left with only one option, the brothers disassembled the RV and sold its working parts separately.
“We found out at that moment that there was more money in the parts than actually selling RVs whole. We already owned a building, so in the winter of 2018 we purchased 40 RVs, stripped them down and bought new parts as well,” said Jagger. “What we soon came to find out is that no one in Canada was selling used RV parts and what felt like overnight, our business took off.”
Young Farts RV Parts had its grand opening in April of 2018.
Laughing, Jagger said, “I thought I was going to be a used car salesmen to be honest with you, but this has been a much better journey, I’d say.”
Growing quickly and in need of more space, the business moved further east purchasing a 15,000 sq ft building in Vegreville.
“We would have never actually been able to do this if we hadn’t moved out east,” Jagger acknowledged.
Selling RV parts across Canada through their online store, he added, “I think the best part about that is we are in a day and age now where we can be in a small town like this and sell to literally anyone anywhere. Most people think they have to be in downtown Edmonton to sell to people,” but the lower overhead costs associated with operating in a small community is exactly what has allowed the business to thrive.
Now settled in the Town of Vegreville, the duo say they have no desire to head back to the city.
“It’s been so awesome, the whole town has been by our side through everything – they are really supportive and the people we’ve met are amazing,” said Dawson.
An untapped market
Through their business, Jagger and Dawson also discovered they were providing products to an underserved market and those in desperate need of custom trailer parts.
“A lot of people that buy those 1950s, 60s and 70s trailer and do it all up, they need those old parts that they just can't get anymore, which is a big thing too. Even if someone was renovating a 1970s trailer, you're not going to be able to find parts for that because they haven't been made in 40 years,” explained Dawson.
For camping enthusiasts with aging trailers, sometimes their only option was to bring it to a garbage dump because finding necessary parts would either be too costly or nearly impossible to acquire, added Jagger.
Another thing the young business owners discovered was that roughly 40 per cent of their original customers lived year-round in the trailers they needed parts for.
“This was something we didn’t realize,” admits Dawson.
Joining in Jagger says, “If your furnace goes, that's your lifeline, right? And to go to the dealer and they're telling you it's going to be $1,600 to $2,000 to buy a furnace for your old trailer – they just couldn't do it. So (us) having one for $500 bucks, that's still a stretch for them.”
Knowing they are helping people has been a surprising bonus.
“It's just cool that we are providing a service to help people and that it’s worthwhile... At first, we just wanted to be as cheap as possible and then we just learned how much it's actually helping people,” Dawson added.
Looking ahead
In early spring, the business hopes to bring on four more employees to keep up with the demand.
However, these staffing additions are not related to a deal struck on Dragon’s Den. Following the airing of the episode on Dec. 16, Jagger told Lakeland This Week that they are still uncertain if selling a portion of their business is a move they are ready to make.
The relationship is there, but for now the brothers are focused on preparing for the upcoming camping season.
“We are getting thousands of calls and hundreds of people coming into the store. We will need at least two people answering the phone (this spring),” says Jagger.
Being the only business to commercially specialize in selling used RV parts in North America, the young business owners have seen an unprecedented demand and need for their services. With the addition of some extra hands, they feel they will manage just fine in years to come.
Building a million-dollar business in just three years, the brothers hope their journey can serve as a “inspirational story for the people in our area, as well as our generation – showing that anything is possible with enough work from any location in Alberta,” said Jagger.
A great adventure
Sitting in their shop prior to the Dragon’s Den episode airing, Jagger said the experience was surreal looking back.
“It felt like a dream after the fact. Once we got home – it's been how many months since we've gone – it just feels like it didn't even happen,” he describes.
Jumping in, Dawson says, “I don't even remember what even happened on the show. They were talking, we were talking... It will be really interesting for us knowing the whole experience and then seeing what they portrayed on TV, because there's an hour worth of stuff that can be on there and they're going to take a short bit of it.”
One thing that won’t air on the show was the brothers’ behind the scenes efforts to get a full-sized camping trailer on the set during a pandemic. A task they describe as “quite the adventure.”
Discussing how they were going to portray the business, the show’s producers shared their made-for-TV ideas.
“They really wanted us to have a trailer on there, which makes sense. I really wanted that too,” said Jagger. The practicality of that was another matter entirely, however.
In three days, the pair managed to find a used RV for sale just an hour outside of Toronto that fit the sizing requirements needed. But the challenge came when they began looking for the tools to disassemble the mobile home for the show.
“The producers told us ‘Order your tools in advance,’ but I'm sitting there going it'll be fine, like (Alberta) was wide open at this point,” Jagger recalled.
When the pair arrived in Ontario, they realized finding the supplies would be more difficult than they imagined with the province still in lockdown due to the pandemic.
“We were running around trying find tool rentals and all this. Then we’re in downtown Toronto under a bridge cutting (the trailer) with a Sawzall,” laughed Dawson. “Once it was all done, we ratchet strapped it back together and took it to CBC – ready for the show.”
