We make high-quality, low-cost e-bikes easy to find.
We believe eBikes have the potential to fundamentally change the way people get around. We aim to accelerate this shift by making the best eBikes in the world and selling them direct to consumers for about half what they go for in retail.
The Billionaire's e-Bike
Our aim with the Tower Beach Bum was to make an electric cruiser bike we love... transportation so beautiful that it exudes heart and soul. One we could be proud to recommend to our friends and family. We've done that. We think you'll love it too.
Electric transportation news site Electrek.co calls our Beach Bum the "Billionaire's e-Bike." Part of this is that the Tower Beach Bum electric cruiser bike is truly a premium electric bike suitable for people with refined tastes. No corners were cut. The other part is that Tower Electric Bikes is co-owned by billionaire Mark Cuban.
We Believe Trustworthiness & Expertise are Paramount
Tower Electric Bikes is part of the Tower Group of companies. Mark Cuban invested $150,000 for 30% of sister company Tower Paddle Boards on Shark Tank in 2012. Since then, Tower has gone on to become one of the most successful investments in the history of Shark Tank, doing well over $40 million in sales. We're Mark Cuban's best investment in the history of the show.
Spanning a decade, Tower has a proven track record as a pioneering direct to consumer brand serving tens of thousands of happy customers with an industry leading level of customer service. Like the off-the-charts value proposition of our eBikes, Tower's direct to consumer paddle board company didn't even have to advertise for the first four years on its way to being named the #1 fastest growing private company in San Diego in 2014. Then in 2015, Tower was ranked #239 on the INC 500 list of America's fastest growing companies. We focus obsessively on making great products. Happy customers spread the word for us. We hope you will join our winning combination.
The Tower Team
We have a highly competent and capable executive team focused on creating amazing electric bikes and selling them at a great value through our direct to consumer business model. Our team is here to serve you:
- Stephan Aarstol, Founder & CEO
- Mark Cuban, Investor & Strategic Advisor
- Galen Eckenroth, Director of Operations
What's an e-Bike Really?
An e-bike may look very similar to a bike, but it's completely different. We'd say it's closer to a lightweight one-person car. Until someone has ridden one, they don't truly get that statement. Once they ride one, a light bulb goes off in their head. They get it. Our feeling is that the overwhelming majority of people, even hardcore bike riders (and maybe especially hard core bikers), don't get what an eBike is really all about. It's not a different kind of bicycle. It's a new form of transportation... the perfect low-cost, low-impact transportation option.
Everyone understands the concept of a bicycle. You go on a bike ride to get some fresh air, kill some time, or maybe to get a little exercise. It's part recreation, part exercise. It's not really transportation, not in America for sure, unless you are a kid or part of the far less than 1% of the population that actually uses a regular bicycle to commute. It's a rarity. Bikes just aren't transportation. Not in the US for sure.
e-Bikes are more like smaller, lighter one person cars (or sometimes two person) that happen to look very much like a bicycle. Thus the confusion! But their true function is nothing close to traditional bikes. e-Bikes are transportation first, then maybe a little recreation. They are far closer to smaller, lighter one person cars. Once people see it from this prospective, they look at them differently.
Think about it. A bike requires effort. An eBike doesn't if you don't want to. It's more like a car in that respect. But it's not like a motorcycle or moped because you don't need a helmet, and you can take it on trails, sidewalks, and everywhere you see people cruising on bikes. So it's got major advantages over motorcycles and scooters. With an e-Bike, you get the best of a car and a bicycle. Basically it's a path friendly moped with a range of 30-60 miles that you don't have to wear a helmet to ride. It's the perfect low-cost, low-impact transportation option.
If you look globally, ~30 million eBikes were sold in 2018 with the majority of that happening in Asia and Europe, where they already see regular bikes as passable transportation. The jump to perceiving eBikes as transportation was an easy one for them. Only 300,000 eBikes were sold in the US in 2018 precisely because bikes aren't seen as transportation here. Naturally, people don't immediately see eBikes as transportation here. Word is spreading quickly though. That's why you are seeing a sudden explosion in the popularity of eBikes in the US. That 300K/yr US sales volume number is expected to rise to 7 million per year within a decade. Once people ride an eBike, they instantly get it.
Problems Tower is Solving in E-Bikes
The 'You Get What You Pay for Problem'
The problem - Either you have to pay too much (twice as much often times) to get a brand you can trust by going with a known, trusted brand in a retail store. Or you go with some transactional brand that has a fancy looking web site and sells stuff cheap, but what you really end up with is spending $1000 on a piece of junk and a company that doesn't really care about you beyond getting your money. This is what we call a "transactional brand".
The Tower solution - We make high-quality, low-cost e-bikes easy to find. Our high-profile, quality obsessed brand paired with our direct to consumer business model translates into incredible value for consumers... and one that isn't too hard to find because when people find a great product, word spreads. We're building a long term brand. We're just 10 years in already.
The Obsolescence Problem
The problem - Any e-bike mechanic will tell you that they get customers coming to them all the time to fix something on their XYZ brand eBike (or component of the bike) that they got on an ebike kickstarter, or an electric bike they bought off Amazon, or from some other random fly-by-night "company" a few years ago. Sometimes the problem is that it is an old model that the company doesn't make any more or support any more. More often than not, that "company" doesn't even exist anymore. Or that manufacturer doesn't exist anymore. This is a problem in many industries, but in a fragmented market with 100s of companies that come and go, it's a monumental problem for customers. Don't believe me, just Google "e-bike graveyard" and you'll find stories of a bunch of brands that flamed out in the eBike market. Companies that invested $10 million or even $100 million, had known bike or car industry founders, and leveraged existing bike and car brands. All obsolete. So don't kid yourself that the kickstarter e-bike brand you bought, or the e-bike brand that spends $20M in Adwords to drive $50M in sales, or the e-bike brand that sells cheap crappy eBikes on Amazon until Amazon eats them and spits them out will be an exception. 99% of them will flame out. Be warned.
The Tower Solution - Tower is antifragile by design. Tower has been around 10 years, and our management has been at an executive level in Internet businesses for 20 years. One of our owners is a billionaire. We understand how to not only survive, but thrive. We take our time. We don't force unsustainable and unprofitable growth with excessive ad spend and then watch everything implode when the market changes. We protect our downside. We keep our burn rate almost comically low. We design our products very modularly with proven, trusted parts. Everything we do is designed to operate sustainably in chaotic, unpredictable marketplaces like e-Bikes. We've seen it all before in other markets, and we're always the steady, reliable brand left standing when the smoke clears. When the high-fliers flame out. When the copy cats die a slow death. When the factories go under. When the world shifts on its axis. We're still standing, and we're still thriving. We're building Tower into an enduring brand over the next 30-40 years. We're 10 years in.
How exactly do we do this? For one, we layered an eBike brand onto one of the strongest direct to consumer paddle board brands... which means we have zero fixed costs. We can sell 10 eBikes this year or 10,000, doesn't matter, we're still healthy and profitable. But we didn't stop there. Our showroom and corporate headquarters operates out of a beautiful 4300 square foot water front event venue called the Tower Beach Club, that we rent out for events for up to $6000 per day. We don't pay rent, we collect it. Our fixed costs are negative. And all the savings gets passed onto you, and more importantly ensures you we'll be around in 5, 10, or 20 years to ensure your Tower eBike isn't obsolete.
The just 'build your own' problem
The problem - The predecessor to today's modern eBike started with hobbyists building their own Frankenstein bikes with motors on them. Some used gas. Some used electric. There are e-bike conversion kits you can buy today to convert a regular bike into an electric bike. It doesn't always work smoothly, but if you really know what you're doing and you're willing to dive in, all the components you need to piece together an eBike can be bought ala carte and pieced together. It isn't going to be much of a looker, but you can "technically" build your own. Maybe you can ride it at night only ;)
Now you might source a crap battery and you have no way of knowing. And that battery might not work with your controller or motor. The whole thing may spontaneously combust. And the parts might not fit. And the bike might look like a monstrosity. The problem here is that just because you can doesn't mean you want to, or more importantly, that you should. You could build your own computer too in the early 90s, but that wasn't a "solution" for 99% of the population. It still isn't. The solution for the 99% is a home computer they plug in and it just works. No one even thinks about building their own computer today... for good reason.
The Tower solution - We make high-quality, low-cost e-bikes easy to find. And we make them beautiful. You buy it, do some light assembly (or better yet take it to your local bike shop to assemble and tune), plug it in to charge, and you're off and running. If you have any problems, you call us or get help right on our website without even needing to pick up the phone. And by selling direct to consumer, we can do this for less than you can piece a comparable quality eBike together for yourself. Life is good!
The customer paying to get advertised to problem
The problem - In a crowded market like eBikes with hundreds of companies, there is a lot of noise that customers have to sift thru. One way a brand can take a short cut thru that noise is to spend an inordinate amount of money on advertising. Heck, spend more on advertising than the product you are producing. We've seen this in every industry we've been in. These transactional companies spend lavishly to peddle inferior products, and hope no one really looks too closely. Then their advertising costs increase so they cut product costs or quality service where they can. Maybe they raise some venture capital. Everyone thinks they're an AMAZING brand and then the whole thing flames out seemingly overnight one day, and they disappear and leave all their existing customers hanging. The problem for the consumer is they are effectively paying for a company to advertise to them. In the old saying, you get what you pay for, in this instance you're paying for advertising.
You should really be looking for the best product - the best value for your money. No smoke and mirrors.
The Tower solution - We make high-quality, low-cost e-bikes easy to find. While we advertise a little these days, we don't get overly dependent on it. We prefer to grow organically - slow and steady. For the first 4 years of our paddle board company, we didn't advertise one dime (mostly because we didn't have any spare money beyond what we need to buy as much inventory as we could) and we created one of the fastest growing companies in America.
If you're in the market to buy an e-bike and you've found us, you're probably done your homework. Congrats and welcome to Tower.
Shop for a Tower electric bike today!
