“In our business, it’s innovate or die,” says Tandemkross co-owner Bryan Haaker, “because sooner or later, your product will get copied by someone.”
That observation explains why many companies focused on a single product type are memories instead of going concerns. It’s the challenge faced by many custom parts makers. If they “stay in their lane” they’re essentially moving backwards. Aftermarket accessories is a highly-competitive market. If you’re not mixing your products, you’re obsolescing your business.
If you’re not familiar with Tandemkross, you’re not alone. They’re another of those established niche companies in the shooting industry.
They’re recognized in the world of competition shooting, especially in rimfire competition. Like the more-widely recognized Volquartsen, their triggers, barrels, parts, pieces and springs have a near-cult following in the very competitive world of rimfire shooters. They share another trait, too: their products work.
That was brought home to me when I attended my first Metal Madness competition last year. I thought I had pretty good guns. Until I saw ones that had been “Tandemkrossed” by other shooters. Compared to theirs, mine looked like box stock cars parked next to an F-1 racer.
Fortunately, Ben Suprenant from Tandemkross took pity. As the photo above shows, they changed my Mark IV for the better, both in performance and looks. Unfortunately, they couldn’t help the inaccuracy of the shooter.
An important point was, once again, made. High-quality, aftermarket accessories help your gun, whether you be a hunter, competitor or simply want a cleaner trigger, perform better. But if the improved gun is still missing, you may have identified the real issue. Dealing with that is a challenge no gear swap fan fix. That takes time and practice.
Last week, I took the opportunity to talk with the owners of Tandemkross about their business. Co-founder Bryan Haaker has been there since the company’s “unusual” beginning. New co-owner Tom Sullivan joins the company after retiring from Ruger. Sullivan, formerly Sr. VP of Operations at Ruger, brings a decidedly broader view to join Haaker’s decidedly creative leaning.
I started with a simple question: how’d Tandemkross get started. The answer was decidedly not what I’d expected. It turns out the company didn’t start as a company. Tandemkross, the name, was the name Haaker chose for an online gaming team. “I started Tandemkross to make some friends and not be so lonely in college,” he explained, “I literally took two columns of words, took my favorite words that sounded good together, and I glued them together. They happened to be ‘tandem’ and ‘cross.’”
Team Tandemkross was pretty good too, working their way up to number seven in the world Quake rankings. Then Haaker had an epiphany. “I hated all my team members,” he told me, “they were very pompous in the fact they didn’t think they had to practice to get better, despite my telling them that if you’re number seven, you’re not number one….it wasn’t all raw skill.”
So he fired them. All of them. Then he began another team with a different approach: enjoy the game and be nice. “We never got above about one hundred fiftieth in the world,” he laughed, “but we had way more fun.”
Rolling forward a few years, Haaker and company co-founder (and longtime friend) Jake Wyman were working together in the software industry when Wyman shocked his friend with a simple sentence: “I bought a gun.” The gun turned out to be a Ruger Mark III -with issues. “It didn’t run well and the magazines wouldn’t drop free,” Haaker said, “and they got stuck in the pistol.” So they went looking for solutions, and found a working fix: a small bushing from a man named Sam Lamb in Canada. It took some “smithing” but they got it into the gun and it ran flawlessly.
Seeing an opportunity, these software entrepreneurs called their Canadian contact and asked why he wasn’t offering these fixes online. Turned out he wasn’t really interested in that, so they bought 100 bushings and started selling them themselves. They sold out- quickly- and from that little bushing, they built Tandemkross. Today, the company has “around 300 products and more than 1,000 SKUs” for a variety of rimfire rifles and pistols.
It also has the same challenges any small business faces when it has grown to the point it’s not so small anymore. Enter new co-owner Tom Sullivan, late of Ruger. He got to know the owners when Ruger was actually considering acquiring their company. “We were never going to pay the numbers they thought it was worth,” Sullivan laughingly recounted, “but I liked them and what they were doing.”
Turns out Sullivan was good at fixing factories, but not so good at retirement. “After about eight months, I realized I liked what I did and the people in the industry too much to stay away,” he said, “so I started talking with Bryan and Jake.”
As a result, Tom’s now Haaker’s new partner. And they’re both looking forward to continuing to grow their business. They wouldn’t give me any specifics, but both were quick to tell me “there were some exciting things coming at SHOT.”
They also agree on the development theory that’s helped Tandemkross grow to where it is today. “We’re not going to sell anything that doesn’t solve a problem. And the problems don’t come off the computer screen, they come out where the shooters are, so that’s where we’ll be.”
But, he’s also quick to add, “that doesn’t mean it can’t be cool, but cool comes after we solve a problem.”
No clue what they’ll unveil at SHOT Show 2025, but I’m curious. And I have another rimfire that’s a candidate for a makeover. I might even work in some practice. Couldn’t hurt, right?
As always, we’ll keep you posted.
— Jim Shepherd