Who are you, and what do you do at Fox Airsoft?
"My name is Matt Meraz, and I'm one of the owners of Fox Airsoft. I started this as an airsoft player in 1999 because I just loved airsoft and playing. We built a team and started going to all these national operations, and I wanted to have a store to supplement that locally. So 2006 is when we started the airsoft business here, Fox Airsoft, and we've been growing ever since. I'm excited because we have a great opportunity to build the market, the culture, and the entire player base, and it will be fun as we keep going."
What was it like when you first started playing airsoft?
"So when I first started playing airsoft, it didn't exist in the United States. So I was playing paintball then, and I used to get a magazine called Action Pursuit Games. It would have articles, tactics, and new paintball guns coming out. It had a tiny ad in that magazine from a company called 747 Imports (now defunct). I had no clue who they were then, but I saw some pictures of realistic-looking guns. And you know, as someone who is really into this and wants to go for more realism, I found it super intriguing. So, over time, we started to explore their website and see what was going on. (To see) what was going on? What was airsoft? It was like I couldn't make sense of it because I (was used to) shooting big balls of paint at the time, and a 6mm BB just didn't compute in my mindset. After a year or two of toying around with the idea, many buddies and I decided to order some of these things from overseas. And at that time, ordering things from overseas was very... it just wasn't done. It wasn't very common, and it seemed a little sketchy, and trying to convince my parents at the time to go dump a thousand dollars on toy guns to come over from overseas seemed frankly like a scam. But, eventually, they gave in, and they let us do it, and we got our first batch of guns. That was kind of how we took off. That was airsoft at that point. That was circa 1999. There were stores, and there was no access to this anywhere in the United States, and that's how we started."
How did you start the business?
"Fox Airsoft? How did it start? One of these days, I'm going to write a book about this because I think I did everything wrong that I possibly could have done wrong when starting a business. I remember a group of us from our team, and we'd airsoft every single Saturday of the year. Rain or shine or snow, we loved doing it, and our tradition after we played was to go out to Carl's Jr., which is just down the street. There were 8 of us sitting around the table, and we decided: Hey! Why don't we start an airsoft business? That was as much thought as I put into starting this business, and from there, we had lessons to learn because we had zero knowledge going into it. We started as pure hobbyists with enthusiasm and passion and zero knowledge of how to turn it into something that worked in a day-to-day business."
What's the best part about what you do here?
"The coolest part about what I do here at Fox is that it's like playing with a bunch of Legos, and I get to build stuff daily. From our first shop, I remember that creating an airsoft retail store was super exciting. You know, picking out the peg board and how we'll lay everything out, and then over the years, that has evolved into a much more mature, professional-looking shop and warehouse. And so I love solving new problems. That's definitely where my talent is, and I enjoy going after that stuff and continuing to build. I guess the thing that is most exciting to me is that as I build something, it just opens up more opportunities than I thought. We've come a long way by doing that."
Where do you see the sport going?
"Airsoft has a lot of room to mature and grow in becoming more accepted in the mainstream and having more venues to play at, more events, and larger events. There is a ton of growth we can do with this. If we look at how far it's come over the last 15 years, it's come far. It comes from this back alley hobby that no one knew about, where people recognize airsoft and see it in the big sporting goods stores where the equipment is sold and there are more formal fields. So I see, to answer that in a long way, airsoft is growing in terms of more locations, more opportunities for places to play, and larger events. The best years are ahead of us, and we will have much fun as we build it.
Any life advice or parting wisdom to our customers?
"You know it's funny you should mention life advice, Tang, I don't know. I love giving advice even when people don't want to hear it. That could be a character flaw that I can work on. But in terms of airsoft, if you guys enjoy this right now and love what you're doing, just keep doing it because you don't know what it will lead to. If I rewind time to when I first got into this in 1999, I had no clue that I'd be running this national company, having a lot of fun with it, and doing cool things. I never envisioned that, and getting there came from my passion, my drive -- it wasn't my knowledge. But with that, make sure you're willing to learn and adapt. If you take that posture and that mindset, you can continue to improve and improve. That would be my advice to you as airsoft players. Keep getting out there and having fun, playing regularly, and inviting your friends, and let's make this something awesome that we can all enjoy."
