Life & Work with Matthew Holmes of Renfrew Ontario

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matthew Holmes.

Hi Matthew, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
It all started when I purchased a brand new 2021 Can-Am Outlander XMR1000 in July of 2021.

I went out on a ride with one of my friends Matthew McNairn out of Kingston, Ontario and he suggested I start an Instagram handle strictly for ATVing. After some thought, I decided to give it a go. On July 24th, I launch the channel by myself under the name HolmezATV.

Within 2 days, I had two of my closest friends ask to join and essentially make a team because they share different last names than myself, I didn’t think it would be fair to keep the Instagram handle as HolmezATV.

We got together in a group chat and started throwing different names and ideas around and that’s when we landed on Deep N Dirty Valleyboyz. On July 26th we officially launched the new name to the public. About a week later I had my father approach us about joining the team and that’s when the original 4 members of the team were born.

The idea behind the name was simple, we weren’t going to be trail riding, we were going to be going deep in the mud and water and getting dirty in the process. We wanted to be pushing our machines to the limit so we wanted a name that would represent that. As for the Valleyboyz portion that was quite simple, we’re all raised in the Ottawa Valley.

After our first month we ended up landing two sponsorship deals, our first one came out of Pembroke, Ontario from a company called Tyed Up Paracord. Tyed Up Paracord designs mud straps and lanyards wrapped in paracord for all our ATVs.

The second sponsorship deal came from an apparel company out of Montreal, Quebec by the name Loud and Dirty. Together we have partnered on many articles of clothing and have had really good success on each launch.

Shortly around the 2-month mark, we broke our first 1000 followers and quickly realized that there was an entire community behind the ATVers.

I came to find out that there were many other clubs and people running their own Instagram handles, doing exactly what we were trying to do and that’s when the wheels started spinning in my head. What can we do that the other clubs are not doing? How can we do it in such a way that it allows for constant momentum to stay in our club? How can we stand us?

That’s when we thought of signing on new riders and growing our team. Without discrediting my team or the family I have built, I viewed it in a way at first that they would be walking billboards for us. I viewed it as a way to take our name out of just Renfrew, Ontario, and plaster it in other towns and cities across Ontario. Now every single one of the riders on this team I view as family, the people who are going to help us get to the next level.

When we launch the idea of signing new riders in October of 2021. The idea was to bring on 1-2 riders a month until spring, depending on the traction we got behind the idea and if people actually wanted to join our team. Well, I can truthfully say I severally underestimated the traction this would create for our club.

7 months later, we have 31 members. All of our members reside in Ontario in places like Renfrew, Calabogie, Carp, Richmond, Ottawa, Carleton Place, Iroquois, Brockville, Odessa, Brighton, Douro, Thorold, Sault St. Marie, and Smithville.

However, the most unexpected part was the channel growth we received while we were growing our team. We are a little over 9 months since we launched the channel and we have just locked in 11,000 followers with more and more jumping on every single day.

We also managed to lock in 5 additional sponsorship deals with Custom Motoquad, Gator Waders, Dry Pocket Apparel, TNT Kits, and Lyndhurst Xmrmy. I can also proudly say that all 7 sponsors remain with us today and not a single one has intentions of going anywhere.

What was supposed to be just a place to post photos and videos quickly turned into a life of its own. From zero expectations to making and selling merch. From not knowing what to expect to have over 30 members behind me. Not to mention everything in between it all that people don’t get to see.

The best way to sum up these last 9 months is remarkable. I can honestly say I never expected any of this and if you had told me this would be my life 9 months ago I would have probably laughed at you. However, now that I have it, I want to hold on to it for as long as I can

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
100%. Now that’s not to say there haven’t been challenges. I am a father of 3, my partner is a full-time nurse, and I’m going back to college so time management has been a huge one. One thing about this ATV community is in order to stay relevant, you need to stay active on your channel.

This means posting daily and in order to do that it requires you to be out riding getting content to be able to post. At first, it was a huge challenge with just 4 of us. Meant we were out on any given spare moment we had captured what we could for the channel.

Now that we have 30 members though that time spent away from home has definitely decreased and time management has been far better. My partner is extremely supportive of what I do so that is helpful, although I do believe I drive her crazy at times because it’s all I talk about.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am currently going back to college as a Personal Support Worker.

The goal is to work for a palliative care home and work in geriatrics: Unfortunately, we are not at the point where this channel can pay my bills so I am ensuring while this is an active part of my life I’m able to afford it and continue to get it off the ground.

What’s next?
I am hoping to partner up with a couple of companies in order to start producing gear.

Backpacks, glasses, ATV parts, etc. The goal is to be able to have a wide spread of items available geared towards the Atv community.

We are hoping to host a weekend ATV event in 2023. Bounty holes, vendors, door prizes, cash draw, raffles, camping, and night rides. The list goes on.

Contact Info:

• Website: dnd-valleyboyz-2.myshopify.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deep.n.dirty_valleyboyz/
• Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/groups/312552904062188/

Image Credits
Barrie Martelle @edmphotosworld