“ Anytime i walk through our factory , i ’ m truly humbled .”
PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA PHOTO BY ROB MATSUURA
You simply can ’ t run a company this size by yourself without having others that you completely trust to help you .”
QUALITY FIRST
Phoenix officially launched in July of 2007 , right on the precipice of the impending recession . Though Phoenix technically opened its doors just before the market went off the cliff , by the time the company was tooled to actually produce boats in late 2008 , the economic headwinds had stiffened significantly .
There were some serendipitous silver linings to Phoenix ’ s seemingly illfated launch timing , though . For one , the larger boat brands and big marine conglomerates were hit hardest by the recession due to their size – they had accumulated considerable overhead and debt with the financing of large floor plans with corporate lenders . Once the lending institutions crashed , the domino effect paralyzed the big manufacturers , who needed to keep selling high volumes of boats to keep the doors open . At that point , Phoenix was so small that the company wasn ’ t impacted as badly by the extreme market fallout .
“ Shortly after we opened , the bass boat market dropped by nearly 50 percent over 18 months ,” Clouse says . “ We weren ’ t even on the scoreboard yet in terms of sales . We ’ d only produced a few boats and were still small and nimble . We didn ’ t have the large overhead issues that saddled the bigger brands .”
Clouse points out that he doesn ’ t consider a bass boat to be a luxury item like a pleasure cruiser . He considers it to be a tool , used by serious bass anglers to make money in tournaments . The tournament bass boat market is a niche within a niche within a niche .
“ I ’ ve always said the bass boat market is at least a little bit insulated to downturns ,” Clouse says . “ That ’ s not to say it ’ s totally immune to downturns , but we ’ re a little more sheltered because most of the customer base consists of hardcore bass anglers ; competitive bass fishing is part of their lifestyle .”
With that , the quality-over-quantity philosophy of Phoenix Boats was cemented .
“ We stayed the course and held on ,” Clouse adds . “ More people began to believe in Phoenix . Enough orders continued to come through the door to keep us going until the tide started to come back in on the other side of the recession .”
NO . 10,000
In 2007 , Phoenix started out in an existing 30,000-square-foot facility with just 10 employees in Tullahoma , Tennessee . In 2012 , the company moved to a new , larger facility in Winchester . These days , Phoenix fills a 210,000-square-foot facility with 160 employees crafting approximately 1,600 boats per year .
To see where Phoenix started and where it is today is a testament that the American Dream is still feasible .
52 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | FEBRUARY-MARCH 2023