¶ Entrepreneurship Journey and Lessons Learned
So good morning Planet Earth . This is Eric Howerton with another episode of Big Talk About Small Business . I am here 100% alone today as a I'm supposed to be a co-host . Today I am the host . Our main host and great entrepreneur , mark Zweig , is somewhere outside in this world creating a business of some sort .
I'm sure right now he is doing that business , and so he's left me here all alone , and he said that I could do a podcast on my own out of him , and so one of the top folks that I wanted to reach out to was Colton Kinetic , which is you got one heck of a challenging last name to pronounce . Right , very German , very German spelling last name .
It's actually spelled like you said it earlier .
It's like knitting without the second in so IG . Yeah , it's just .
IG . Yeah , it's confusing , but you know meeting good journalism fashion . I wanted to make sure how to pronounce your last name before I said it on live on the podcast . I appreciate that . Yeah , you're welcome . So Colton is an entrepreneur , has been for quite some time . We'll hear a lot about his story . It's really actually cool .
But , Colton , welcome to the show . And how did we first meet ?
We met at like a consultation . It was like a leadership meetup kind of thing .
It was like a lunch or something . A lot of us were in there and there were some really really smart folks in that room . Yeah for sure , Pretty cool , A lot of cool businesses . But that's when I first got introduced to you , and then you and I had a few meetings in between there and really hit it off . I mean , I think that you know typical thing right ?
Entrepreneurs like to talk to other entrepreneurs .
Yeah , for sure .
Absolutely , because it's pretty lonely road .
Exactly . Yeah , it sounds kind of egotistical to say lonely at the top , but I guess you know it's a unique like path , right , and so we kind of , you know , gravitate toward each other sometimes , yeah , sharing like the wins and the losses and talk about what's going on .
You know , what's crazy is like you say that , but I mean like if you're an entrepreneur and say , hey , I'm going to start my own idea of my own business , I mean you're immediately at the top . I mean it's not like , like you said , it's not a glorious statement , but like you can be all by your .
You can be your own employee , right , and be at the top and be lonely , right . Yeah , it's actually really lonely at that point , right ?
Yeah , before you build out a team and bring people on to work with you and stuff , yeah , yeah , you know , I tell people like people ask for my title and I think titles are kind of silly , especially when you're at my stage , but the title is president .
But I also like janitor , you know mailroom guy , accounting , you know , so wear all the hats , so that's kind of . That's kind of how it starts out .
You know , what's cool about this podcast too is that I mean , like whether you're just starting a business .
You know , I think I bet about a lot of our listeners are actually a lot of folks that are working for bigger companies , that are have a dream , you know , like you and I have had Right Start your own business , and that's always a pretty big decision , I think , for a lot of folks , some for others , you know more for some others than others .
But but these conversations , just to know and hear folks like ourselves that we all , everybody that's been in here that's been an entrepreneur , you know , has all kind of had the same common thread Like we . You know it's like you know it is where it is .
Right .
I mean in these conversations always take a life of their own , just like what I'm doing at this exact very moment .
Right right .
Hey man . So tell us a little bit about you how you got started , what your companies are , sure , and then what kind of triggered your your desire to to start it up ?
Yeah , so kind of the you know the full back story . I started my first business when I was 10 . And for some reason back then I always thought that you know , for kids of that age , if you want to make money , girls do babysitting and boys molons . Yeah , and of course it's not true , because I didn't know what I was doing .
That's just what you saw .
Yeah for sure . And so I started a little lawn care business with a friend of mine . Cool Grew that pretty substantially while I was in high school . So what are you like ? A sophomore junior At the time ? Well , I was like 10 or 11 when I first got started .
Oh , okay . So before high school you started this lawn care , and then it grew in as you continued with high school , right , right , yeah , I grew into like pretty , pretty legitimate business .
Bought my partner out when I was 16 or 17 .
So you did your first acquisition , I guess of other or your first buyout .
It was more of just kind of a splitting of the business , right . We just we kept it simple . We were like all right , you take these accounts , I'll take these accounts and we'll go our separate way , cool , so . But yeah , so I did that for like three more years , came up here from I was from Portsmouth , like came up here to go to school .
So sophomore year of college I was kind of managing it from a distance . I had a guy in Portsmouth doing the actual work and it just got too much , so I ended up selling .
So hold on , I'm gonna make sure I'm understanding . Sure , like so , you continued on with your portion of the lawn care business from high school and you moved up to Northwest Arkansas to go to college , right Right , but you kept your lawn care business of Portsmouth operating , right Right . Wow , that's really cool , I mean . I just think .
I mean I wanted to put a pin in that because it's actually pretty unique . Like so , you were basically operating a company , only the company that was being raised on its own without your presence , while you were in school .
Yeah , I was doing kind of the operation side of the business and I had some people in Portsmouth doing like the running around , you know , doing the labor part . Was it profitable ? Yeah , it was . That's great For sure . I mean it wasn't huge .
But I mean I think you know the best year I know maybe cleared like 60K but at 16 , that's like might as well be a million bucks , right . So that was yeah . So yeah , like you know , ran that for a couple of years when I came up to U of A yeah and it kind of got a little unwieldy so I sold it at that point .
What do you mean , like what was going on there and there .
I just , you know , managing , you know , employees who are younger than me , so they're all high school age and it was kind of a lot to handle . I wanted to focus on going to school and also , you know , just having fun while I was in college and not , you know , going back and forth to Fort Smith every you know four days .
Business , business yeah , yeah so this is always problems , right Right , there's always something , yeah . So yes , I , you know , a lot of people told me it was kind of blue sky , there was really nothing there to sell , so but I threw a flyer out there , listed it , you know , in the newspaper .
This was , you know , a long time ago and I got it , got a couple inquiries and ended up selling it for a pretty good , pretty good amount . So , yeah , so I've loaded that , focused on school for a few years and just , you know , kind of hung out so and that makes me I mean I'm really envious of that .
I wish I would have had that business sense , I mean back at that age . That's just really cool . Like I didn't dawn on me until I was in like my early 20s about a business , and even then I haven't , you know , I wouldn't say that I was like a business person , like that , like you were operating , running , I mean that's really cool .
Yeah , thanks , You're welcome man . Yeah , so that was kind of the first foray into business . That's really cool .
Yeah , thank you . So you exited out in your first business . What over are you when that happened ? 19 . Dude , that's freaking awesome .
Yeah , so , and you know I , you know , looking back , I probably should have bought , like you know , bitcoin and real estate , but you know I was a college kid just focused on , like you know , you just burned through it in college .
I've always been super frugal , so I didn't like have to get a job , you know , like a lot of my friends did , but I just , you know , I made it last .
So you just you kind of just took those earnings and you just kind of just rolled it out . That was your college . I mean like you could focus on studies , focus on hanging out or whatever Right , enjoy life from that , exit Right . And so how long ? I mean that like kind of last you three years , four years ?
Yeah , like three , four years , so you know it wasn't . It wasn't a huge amount of money , but at the time , like I didn't have a lot of overhead , right , so I was living in the dorms . Actually , I was living in a fraternity house at the time and what fraternity Pike ? Okay , I'm a senior cop from back in the day .
Okay , right on , yeah , we've been fighting each other Probably . Yeah . Yeah , if I was a little older , we would be in the streets .
Yeah , that's right . Yeah , Wait , what does that mean ? I mean maybe I'm younger than you . No , it may be . Yeah , I'm 23 .
Oh , okay , yeah , you look great . Thanks , man .
That's fair . Yeah , that's fair . So after that you wrote out through college and then you graduated Right . And then what goes on next ?
Like what's the next ? Yeah , so I went to work for a Walmart vendor . Okay . And it was .
So did you in school , did you , I guess , you studied ? What did you study ?
I studied finance and just because I thought it was interesting you know , I knew I wanted to end up working for myself eventually , but I just focused on something .
I thought would you know , keep my attention and being I think you're at the U of A in Northwest Arkansas , I mean being you only work for a vendor or a supplier , a Walmart supplier , right , right , mm-hmm . Seems like a pretty good career path , right . And so you got an opportunity there . That was your first full-time employment after college .
Right , first full-time job , and it was what were you doing there ? I was kind of working with the sales team , okay , so , but I was doing a little bit of everything . So it was really cool . Like on the first day my boss told me he's like can you go to any meeting that I'm in ?
Like I might tell you to go stand in the corner and keep your mouth shut , but you're welcome to come to any meeting that you want . Yeah . And I just took that as an opportunity to learn . Great and , just you know , soaked it up , Wasn't you know ? It's a huge paycheck , but again , I didn't have a lot of overhead .
I took that as an opportunity just to kind of like hunker down and learn what , how long did you do that ? Almost two years . So I was there for like 22 months and one day my boss pulled me aside and he's like , hey , you aren't really loving it here . And I was like , yeah , you know , you're right .
So we kind of parted ways and messed around with a few different ideas , went back and talked to the guy that was running the China team at that business and we started our own thing . So we toyed around with a few different ideas . He's a lighting guy , he's a product engineer and an LED expert .
And one night I was grilling for some friends in Fayetteville and their porch light was out . So I was flipping burgers and I would have to pick up the burger , take it inside , look at it , see if it was done , go back out , throw it on the grill or , you know , put it inside .
And I had kind of the classic Eureka moment Like why can't we just put a flashlight directly on the grill tools ? And the grill light was kind of born from there .
So yeah , that's cool . So when you had that epiphany , as you're grilling the hamburger and the dart , how long did it take you from when you had that epiphany ? So did you immediately reach out to this guy and you're like , hey , man , because we're already trying to work on some ?
I did , we were , we were already working together , for the partnership was kind of already formed Right . Did you have like an LLC and all that , all that formalities ?
I don't think we did
¶ Grill Tool With Light and Growth
. At that point we were just like , hey , let's , you know , we , let's do something together . Yeah , we wanted to kind of , you know , flex our creative muscle a little bit , get out of the box and , you know , make something of our own , right ? Yeah , and he was kind of in the same boat .
He's , you know , 10 years older than me , but the same kind of thing . He'd always been working for somebody else and yeah , so we just , you know , we had a few different ideas and we said , all right , this is one that we can like pursue . Made , our first prototype , went to a show in Kansas City . It was our spatula and it was a barbecue competition .
We walked around like two o'clock in the afternoon . Everyone's like all right , another spatula or whatever , came back at nine when it was dark and we had like a crowd around us Really Looking at it . Yeah , because people immediately thought it was something cool and unique .
So so when , like how long was it from when you had the idea to when you went to that barbecue competition ?
Pretty quick . We made a prototype in like 45 days . Wow , yeah , because that's what he does and he's in China and just whipped it out real quick . Okay , so he lives in China . Okay , yeah , yeah . He's an expat , but he's at the time he had been there for over 10 years .
Wow , yeah , so you know , moved over there to learn Chinese and just felt like a lot of Americans fell into a lot of different opportunities in really and state yeah .
So for him , that's a really cool , cool mixture of partnership there , right , and the fact that you're able to go to market so quick . So there's , there's a couple of things that I so let's show the audience a little bit about . Yeah , products here . So you got these laid out on tape .
I'm hoping I'm sure they should be able to see you like this , but Right .
So these , you put them down and they open up . Okay . You squeeze them and they open up . It's called a gravity lock . Oh . And you put them up and they lock again . Really , yeah , so that's pretty cool .
I haven't seen that .
Yeah , yeah , that's , it's one of our patented features .
Yeah , this is your patent .
Yeah , so it was one of the .
I got a patent . That is really cool , right .
The idea is , when you're cooking you don't want to put your beer down , right To close your tongs up , so you just , you know , all one handed and , yeah , the flashlight , obviously all the tools , so the built in light pops out .
So , yeah . And then he , so the light just turns on . Yes .
Click on the little red button there Click on , there you go .
So you're there you go . You're able to see your stuff , right yeah . And they do that all in one fell swoop . I can turn the light on as a pick it up and then close it up . I mean , it's all Second nature now , that's really cool . So why do you allow the user to take the light out , like what's the point ?
If they want to dishwasher it . Yeah , the lights are water water resistant , but not necessarily dishwasher proof . So right , you can just pop them out . That's cool .
And so you got . You got the tongs . Can't remember if I was using this , I'm sure I'd be really used Right . And then you got the spatula Right .
These are our first two items and our first year we only had the spatula , then we kind of expanded from there .
Yeah , I , think when did you come out with the tongs ?
It was like 2016 .
Oh , okay , so when ?
I met you , you already had both of these , right , Right . So now we have like a full assortment . We have brushes and forks and real mess .
Yeah , everything has the lights built in Folks can go to grilllightgrilllightcom , grilllightcom , and it is G-R-I-L-L-I-G-H-Tcom . Right , got it . So we're missing one L , but it'll look weird if there's three Ls there . Exactly , yeah , okay .
So , yeah , the idea was we put a whole like 30 minutes of thought behind the name , but we wanted something that people would read the name and know what it is , you know . So it's a grill tool with a light .
Yeah , so there it is . Folks Like so if you're going , so , if you're going in store , so these where they sold at .
We're in Ace Hardware , a lot of mom and pop stores . We're in BJs right now . Okay , so we're in wholesale and a lot of independent stores all over the place . So , are you on Walmart ? Not right now . They'll run Walmartcom .
Yeah , walmartcom . Okay , yeah , have you tried to get Walmart stores yet ? We've talked to them Okay . Got you . Yeah , I don't mean to pry on your business , but I would just think that this would be like , I mean just from my perspective . I mean it seemed like that folks would really like these things . Right , man , this is really cool yeah .
So we're in about 2000 stores , about 1800 to 2000 stores all around the country , Some in Canada . We're doing some international stuff now .
How's it ? I mean , I guess , how are things going ? How is it moving off the shelves and stuff like that ? Good .
Good , yeah , I mean it's you know we're growing every year . Yeah , and yeah it's you know you got a lot of prospects for next year
¶ Packaging Changes and Entrepreneurship
on the table too .
So and you just went through some , because I think when we you and I were talking about the last time we spoke , you were going to go through some packaging changes , weren't you Right ? And so did you do that . This is the result of that .
Yeah , so the yeah , this is new packaging . This is actually not the current iteration of the new packaging , so this is new since we talked , but we have another version that's out now . Oh , just just like about a month old . Oh , really .
So you're always updating your packaging , right , yeah , yeah . What's the point of that ? Just because you just go ahead ?
Well , yeah , it's just got to you know when it's on the shelf . You got like two , three seconds to tell the story . Yeah , and if , if the packaging doesn't tell the story very clearly , then you lose the customer . They just see it as like an expensive drill tool .
Obviously , we don't have the name recognition of some of the big guys out there , so we've got to kind of get creative with with how we , how we present it .
Yeah , I met these guys years ago that had they did a lot of like flashlights and like outdoor equipment and stuff and they would take like a $3 flashlight and put it in like a $6 box and then they would retail it for a hundred bucks and it was it's kind of the Apple model of like the packaging , the packaging perceived value of the product .
Yeah . So you want to have something really nice to kind of show that it's a nice product , yeah , so yeah , so let's , since our show's like really geared towards entrepreneurs , small business owners , right , Like , let's , let's dive into that Cause I think we could probably scroll off into a shopper marketing , right , right and just product marketing .
But I would think that the listeners , you know , everybody has an idea of kind of like what you did right . You had an epiphany . I mean there's a lot of folks that have those epiphany right , but there's probably not as many folks that actually see that to fruition .
So at what point when , after you had your epiphany like , and you and you went back to your partner like , hey man , here's my idea , he's like , yeah , sounds good , Let me do some drawings Right , and that all is exciting and doesn't cost much except your time . But then you start getting into the realness of it right . Because you had to .
Did you guys go out and raise capital before you made your first prototype ? I mean , or did you make a prototype and then go raise capital ? How does it work ?
We just kind of self-funded it from from the beginning . So we made the prototype which you know , prototypes free and expensive to make . A single prototype Got a good response to that Kansas City show that I mentioned .
¶ Feedback and Sales for Small Shop
So at that Kansas City show were you just walking around through prototype .
Just walking around the prototype , showing it to people , just to get a vibe for what people thought , if people thought it was cool as we thought it was .
Yeah . So I think that it's really important , right , because that stuff that you made right there you went out , got a prototype fairly inexpensive , right . And well , first of all you have the idea , but then you have a partner and you have a team of folks here that that can execute a prototype .
So your partner was an experienced engineer , right , and knew how the hell to do this . So then you don't have cost was working with an engineer in completely unfamiliar territory . You have somebody that is invested with you as a partner , that actually knows how it is , it is excited to do that . So I think that's really important .
But then you get your prototype and then you guys immediately go to a show that where you were going to have your target audience and use this product and I love what you were telling me about earlier . You're there walking around the show . Nobody's giving it much attention . It looks like another spatula . This is what you took the spatula part .
But then you come back in the evening time and these people are out there cooking , right .
Yeah , it's a barbecue competition . Yeah , it's not a retail show , right Like there's . General public is there , but they're not there to buy products .
But it's your audience . It's just the exact usual yeah .
It's a barbecue competition where these guys are cooking for like 18 , 20 , 24 hours at a time . And yeah , we just went back at night time and these guys are whipping up stuff on the grill and we just showed it to them . They all thought it was super good .
So you're like , hey , man , why don't you try using this puppy ? Yeah , See , like that , right , and they use it and their instant reaction right then gave you feedback as an entrepreneur to have confidence . Exactly what deal was it to go to that show I ?
don't remember , it was a while ago , but I think it made my mind because my partner came over from China to come with me and so he was here . We were just talking , talking shop , and you know , we made plans to go to that show together .
So and then , whose idea was it to go back ? So y'all went during the day trying to show it to people they're not whatever , right . And did y'all leave ? Yep , you left , right . What triggered y'all to ? Did you just say , hey , let's leave the day , let's leave it during the day and let's come back later ? Or did you leave disappointed ?
I think at the time I still believed in it Right . So at the time and again , this was a long time ago but the feedback we got was like you know , we don't , like we don't need another spatula , it's another . Whatever , you know , I got a spatula right here .
Get out of here . Yeah , yeah .
So we , you know it came back at nighttime and these guys had , like you know , the head lamps on and they're , like you know , trying to see what they're doing . And you know , I just handed it to a couple of guys and they thought it was , they thought it was great . So that's really cool yeah .
I'll just , man , I'll tell you man , I mean , like I love that's what on I've I've got to me that's what entrepreneurism is all about is getting that feedback from the audience and seeing people engage with something that you believe can solve a market need . And then , but just those little moments , you know , are so special .
That's why I just keep asking questions about it , because that's me , it's just like we're all the all the rubber meets the road . So you , you got you some feedback and I mean , basically you're having your own in-person focus group study without having a focus group study . So did you need like from from there ?
Then did you go out and make your investment , did you get confidence from that ? And you're like , okay , this is worth a thousand product run . How that ?
Yeah , yeah , so we , we , you know , at that point we're like all right , you know , we're not the only ones that thinks this is a good idea . I think we made like 2,500 units to start , which is , you know , not a , not a very big run , and went to a show in New York and it's like the New York , new York gift show , new York now Okay .
Trade show .
So this is a wholesale trade show where we're meeting people from the press and , you know , shop owners to sell the product .
What shop owners like , like like mom and pop shops and like there was a there was a jewelry store that I remember that they wanted they had like a little men's section for Father's Day and so they bought you know a couple of dozen for like every single store that they had and you know , it kind of took off from there .
So had you been to anything like that before ?
No , no , that was totally new partner .
It was so cool , isn't it Right , yeah ?
for sure . It was so much fun it was in New York City . Did you fly out there yeah ? We flew out and , like the , our booth was was embarrassing . It was like a 10 by 10 booth . It was a five by 10 .
Oh , that's cool , and cause we came in so late , they had already sold the whole area and they're like well , we got this little spot next to a column that we'll like squeeze you in and I , you know , I got pictures of us at that booth and just looks horrible , but you should have brought that . Yeah , I know right , it was , it was .
I don't know if I want the world to see it , but it was .
It was all greasy from sweating about it .
Yeah , yeah .
I mean , cause those were like . You know , that's pretty big moment for you guys , right , you know ? I mean , you got a lot of ace and you got all these expectations . You don't know what's going to happen , but you're so optimistic that somebody's going to come and say I'll take 50,000 of these , right , you know so , yeah , so how did that go , though ? I ?
mean it was , it was great . And then there was that jewelry shop owner that I mentioned . She it was our biggest order is , like you know , like $1,400 bucks or something like that .
So how many products did you get ?
That was like 120 units 120 pieces .
She met you all in the spot , checked out your product and said hey , I'm going to order 120 of these roughly .
Right , yeah , and we were , she did . Yeah , she made the order at the show .
So we were . I'm sorry , man . No , no , you're good , you're good . Is that kind of what the that shows all about ? Cause I know some shows aren't there for business .
Yeah . So some , I mean it's , it's both right . So there's there's some what we call like big box buyers or some bigger retailers that they don't make buying decisions on the spot and those kinds of shows , but they'll check it out , you know , exchange information and you just kind of follow up , but the mom pops , they , they buy on the spot .
They're there to make decisions . You know it's , it's .
I think it's so important , right , because , like , if you , you know , if you look back now , I mean it makes a lot of sense for a small new business , new product , to go to some of these markets and these shows and these events where you meet these Other audience pieces that can actually make freaking decisions right on the spot .
Because , like , to your point , you , bigger you get , the bigger order you get the more crap that comes with it . Right , I mean it's great to have that big check , but it's just like anything in life . You know , the bigger your check or more freedom you have , the more accountability .
You know , yeah , I'm legal and all these things , yeah , but for sure I like that idea , I like that statement about a mom-pop business . I'm the owner , I sign the checks , I can make this order right , right .
Yeah , and that was that was kind of our focus from day one , as these mom and pops because they're you know , they want a little bit higher-end product they don't want something that's available at every single big box retailer . And we're you know , we're a higher-end product , we're not the cheapest and gril tools on the market .
We don't want to be either , and that's exactly what they're looking for . So that was that's . You know that mom and pop has kind of been our bread and butter . Really . Yeah , so we we sold a few , a few majors . Like I mentioned VJ's . We did a deal with Lowe's last year . It was pretty huge , but the mom and pops are always great .
That's really cool . So now you , so you left , you leave that show Fairly successful event because you said you did . You made 2,500 product order Before the show , right ? And then I know that one lady bought 120 of those , right . I mean , how successful was that first event on that inventory that you had ? Well , I think .
I think we sold mainly staff or inventory . It's great in one day and a show it was a three-day show , okay , but the thing about those shows is especially nowadays , it's it's more about like who you meet and the contacts you make .
So I met the editors of Oprah magazine , okay , and we got into Oprah we're like four months old and we got featured in like Oprah's summer gift . That's fantastic and it just kind of took off from there .
That's so yeah , so now you have the PR right . That's great . So it takes off from there . And then you start getting inbound inquiries and orders , right , and so is that kind of the trajectory of the business . I mean you just kind of like , right , we'll start talking and no one .
You're getting calls and you're fulfilling orders , and then Are you in kind of so , did you amplify that with anything ? I mean , were you doing any of the marketing and the other ?
shows or anything . We . We did a few other shows but didn't really do a ton of kind of outbound marketing at the time . It just kind of kind of grassroots , you know , meeting people . We'd get inquiries from the press . That we got . I think that year we also got into like good housekeeping , yeah , so a few other , and they just kind of took off .
So that's awesome man .
Yeah , and that was how many years ago .
That's like 10 years ago . It'll be 10 years next month , yep , that's awesome . So , but yeah , we , we we grew quite a bit that year and One of our biggest customers was Sky Mall magazine . If you remember , back in the day , we were the number one product in Sky Mall that year and Then in December they went out of business and yeah , yeah , so I got it .
I got it like a bankruptcy notice and they owed me like a 40 grand , which was at the time was that was Like 20% of our first year revenue . Yeah , yeah , it's a lot and we did get it all taken care of . We , you know , we , we got most of it , but that was
¶ Lessons Learned and Risks Taken
a . That was a good kind of like trial by fire in our first our first year .
little eye-opening , it's like , okay , this is why people have contracts . Yeah , yeah exactly yeah , so that's awesome and so , and so from there you just kind of kept building up on your , your mom pop right business thing . What about , like your own website , your own storefront ?
So we did . We did a website . You know that , to be honest , that our website , like direct consumer sales , has never really been a strong suit . Okay , I , I tend to focus more on like the wholesale side of the business and that's that's probably something that we've , you know , could have done better at over the years .
But you know it's , it's , for me at least , it's a lot easier to kind of get those , you know , build those small number relationships with these key buyers and they keep coming back for more .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , there's a lot of folks that I mean they go that way . I mean , you know , it's just interesting , like I think that even you know , we've been seeing more folks started up on the digital first their own storefront , full control , right .
I mean a lot of that's happening , but I think that that's only in the last , really honestly , five to ten years , right , that you've seen a lot of those people taking that route , and so when you started , it was kind of a little bit before , like wholesale definitely was .
You know , the majority of everything that's going on right , right , we get a lot of I mean that , the , the direct sales through a website . I mean a lot of that came from the PR , right . So , unlike the on the Oprah feature , they , you know , put our , put our website , you know , right there in the magazine .
I don't think they even have a print magazine anymore , but back then it was , you know , yeah , a lot of time ago , but we got a ton of traffic off of that Cool in for a while there was . We would occasionally get like a huge spike in traffic and I would Like , all right , what's what's going on today ?
And I would have to figure out who put us on a gift guide or a list or whatever .
Really .
Yeah , so we just kind of organically stumbled into a lot of that stuff . I wish I could take credit for it .
But you know well , I mean you know , a lot of times , you know , I mean it's Not all luck , but there is definitely some luck involved , I believe , in business and being at the right place at the right time , and that's kind of lucky in a way . I mean you can't , I mean there's definitely probably no plans of the way that you all approached that .
You mean you just took the obvious steps and just so happened . I mean , and you went to this trade show right , with no intention that , and you had no idea that Oprah Magazine was gonna be there , right , and you make those contacts and next thing you know that just it happens . Yeah , I think it okay .
So would you agree that if you're in business , you got to show the hell up ?
Oh , yeah for sure . Okay , it's . Yeah , I mean all those lucky breaks and stuff , like they don't just fall on your lap . You got to be at the right place at the right time , like you said . Like what's the saying ? That's like Like preparation , like preparation is the key to you know all that luck , like yeah , I mean that you know it's .
It's funny , like over the years you know they'll be . You know ups and downs , right so . But anytime something , something like negative happens , like a few days or a few weeks later , like something great would happen , we'd be back up on top , right . So , um , that that kind of stuff is all about just just being there and being prepared , yeah .
No , yeah , I mean not . Like , can you imagine if you guys had to Made the investment , taking the risk to go to the show ? I mean because when you went to that show you had just got 2500 inventory and now you have this expense of New York City which , right , you got flights of hotels , time . You know , I mean there's a lot behind that .
Yeah , that you mean you're putting and you said yourself funded , right , um , and so I mean there's a lot behind that , so you have to invest in it . That's another . You know , one of the big parts of the definition of entrepreneur is that you have a significant financial risk right Associated with what you're doing .
Yeah , I mean , at the time I was Like 23 . Yeah so I figured , you know , if I crash and burn , like I'll just get a job , sure , you know . So , um , we didn't . I didn't want to like stick my neck out too far , but I always thought , you know , I'm young , I don't have a lot overhead .
Back to , like I said before , like it it's , you know , not really a lot of risk if you can , if you uh , you know , can just go back and do something else .
Yes , yeah , that's also a good point . I mean , like , and I think too , like , when you are that young , you don't have much to lose , right , right , so your risk profile is actually not too great , right . But I also think that if you are that young could just sort of that you know around that age too .
My first business it kind of puts you into this , like , even if he , like my first business , was not successful right in my magazine . But what it did teach me was is that , oh , I actually can Do this , yeah , and I enjoyed it and I got so much value out of it , like I mean , the way I've always kind of looked at it .
Colin , I don't know if you agree with this , but like the education I'm a kid in two years of being an entrepreneur and losing 60,000 bucks or even 200,000 dollars , right , it's way worth more than a college education , yeah , in the other way for sure .
I think that . Um , yeah , you know no offense . Yeah , no offense , but , um , I still think , staying in touch with my old boss from that Walmart vendor and , um , he , he told me recently that you know he's like you . You got an education that's more valuable than , like you know , a Wharton MBA . Yeah , through like the school of hard knocks .
Yeah , just doing it over the years , figuring out what's works , what doesn't work . Um , and there's so much that you learn by Uh , doing that . You can't learn by reading a book .
You know , I think it's also because , like when you get like real pressure on you , like when you made your first , like you could study in school all day long about you know accounting methods of Monumentary and pro forma and the forecasting about all these , if then scenarios , right , but until you actually send that check and now you got 2,500 of these damn
things right in your garage yeah and you're looking at like okay , and then you know if you sold a hundred of these for the next you know , you know 25 months you'll break , you know whatever . I mean right , pretty low .
But but when you have these things sitting in boxes in your face and you have to get rid of this inventory , I mean there's something real about that shit . Yeah , there's not anything that a book or spreadsheet or right vessler can tell you . Whatever , you basically have to make the moves .
I honestly think and you kind of said something about earlier it's about getting the hell up in the morning and getting at it right and doing whatever it takes .
And you mentioned earlier , when you worked with that supplier , that one more supplier like he said come to me , me and you want and I sometimes greatly appreciate about what you said Because I see it not happening right so much all the time .
Yeah , I don't want to get on too big a soapbox about it but it's like For a any young person that is going into the workforce to not soak up Like a sponge the opportunity to be around folks that are having more experience , like that is All your wealth is sitting right there with somebody that that you can shadow right , and if you're diligent , I mean you're
taking freaking notes and then you're applying it . You get up earlier , you , you dress the part , you show the hill up . I mean that that's the difference between you as an entrepreneur in that setting right versus putting most of folks do yeah . So tell me , what was that draw that you had back then ? Like , what were you hungry for ?
um , well , you know , I was really lucky in having that business that I started really young and sold , and that kind of opened my eyes to the fact that , like others , there's another way . That's not go to work , get a paycheck , you know , just put in the you know 40 hours a week and then call it good , um .
So I kind of knew going into that that I wanted to end up at some point working for myself doing my own thing . And you know , I just treated it like a , like an opportunity to learn . No , it was . It was I had other other job offers that were more money , um , but it was a pretty flat organization .
Like I said , the the president said I can come any meeting I want , um , and small enough that I could kind of understand it . Um , okay , and um , yeah , just just , you know , went to , went to , you know , kind of had the end in mind , right , so I got to figure out what works , what doesn't work , what are you like , what do I not like ?
So you almost walked into the job like Seen it as a learning opportunity versus it yeah it was .
There was two more years of college that I was getting paid to go to , you know . So it was . It was an extra , extra , you know , two more years of education that I didn't have to pay for . I think so many people like they don't .
You know , and that's honestly kind of . I mean , that's just a different way to look at it . Like you , you actually would . I also barking . I talk about the salat and the show Is how is how , as entrepreneurs , like a lot of people would call us very , you know , risk-inverse , or we don't think about risk or whatever I mean , in actuality , we all we do .
We just think about it differently , because when you're saying that You're actually Lowering your risk because you're going and getting that job and getting paid Right while you're learning , versus paying somebody to go learn right , right , yeah , and and then you , you get in and with that , not even , not even that , but then you have the quality and attribute to ,
even though you're getting paid to learn , versus paying to learn , mm-hmm , you're walking in the door still wanting to learn , yeah , whereas the worst thing in the world is to pay somebody to learn and then not want to learn Right . And that's where you get the like in a lot of folks don't do well in the college setting . Mm-hmm , like we've got .
We've built this freaking Mentality in society that everyone should go to college . Right , that's just the way to do it .
Yeah , you know , colleges love that because , yes , for sure , for good business reasons , right , but I mean , the reality is , is that if you're going to go and pay someone to learn and then you don't go learn , right , you don't want to , like you shouldn't be there , you're sucking , you're , you're sucking up air , mm-hmm , you know , and you're wasting a lot of
money , right , but that's become a lot of things . But the fact that you got paid to learn and then you still wanted to learn demonstrates in you A different top of person that you are on this earth .
Well , I mean , like I said , I feel lucky that I had that business , that I started early on and I just simply started it because I didn't know any better and when my friends were going to scoop ice cream for eight bucks an hour , I could go out in Milan's for eight hours and make 600 bucks on a Saturday and I could run my own schedule and figure out
that there was another way . Right , that wasn't that you get out of high school , you go to college . You get out of college , you get a job , you work for 35 years , you get your gold Rolex and then you die sometime after that . That's not really alive .
So I thought so why don't you want that ? That's the question , why .
It just doesn't seem interesting to me . It's like so what is interesting to you ? Something new every day , something exciting , like sometimes it's good , sometimes it's bad , but it's always different . And you're not going in looking at a spreadsheet for eight hours a day , and it just didn't seem interesting to me .
So it's real . Live like you do this full time , right . What's your title with the company ? Your CEO ? Yeah , president , president , okay , yeah , and so what your full time in this have been for how long ? About 10 years , about 10 years .
So how long was it when you had your inventory , or 2500 inventory , until you were full time , or were you always full time ?
That was always full time , okay so yeah
¶ Entrepreneurship, Growth, and Partnerships
. So I didn't pay myself first . I had again . I was lucky to have kind of low overhead and not a lot of expenses .
Didn't have seven kids , yeah exactly Two or six wives , right , right , good gotcha .
Yeah . So I did this for a couple years and then my partner was like , hey , we got to start paying you . He's like I don't care if it's with debt or whatever , we need to pay you something . Yeah . So I started drawing a small salary from it and we grew pretty . We almost doubled , like 50% growth every year for several years after that .
So great , that's great . And so now I mean , obviously , how many folks do you all have on the team full time ?
We just have four . So we keep pretty lean . But in our third year I think it was our third year we , self-funded , outgrew , our cash , ran out of inventory for like five months , had nothing to sell , oh gosh . And at that point I was like all right , we got to do something else .
So I was talking to a family friend about kind of the struggles of that point and it was a good problem to have right . We weren't struggling because we didn't have any customer , we had too many . So he said one day he's like why don't we talk about me coming on board ? And so he bought a chunk of the business .
At the time he had recently sold his business . He had a consulting business he sold to . Deloitte Was looking for the next thing .
So he bought a piece of the company , came in and kind of what I'd like to say like added some gray hair to the business , like some experience , and helped us kind of scale past that and put in some good like operational standpoint to help us keep growing .
Yeah , that's awesome . And so you had . Basically , you ran into a situation . You didn't have startup capital that you required , right , you had growth capital that you required .
Right and that's a whole different ball game , right , I mean , because I mean then you have financials , that he's , that anyone's able to look back and see that there's an opportunity that actually saves you . Equity , which is the most like Mark likes to say is the most expensive form of capital , right .
Right , when you sell equity because it could , it could cost you a fortune down the road , right , but you had a history . That's really cool . So I mean like that , but do you think you could have prevented that ?
Top three .
I mean , had you planned better in the beginning ?
or Probably . I mean we were doing . We didn't have even really a lot of bank financing , so we probably could have , you know , worked on that a little bit more . And just credit Line of credit , yeah , I should try it , but at the same time , like it wasn't just money , it was experience and he brought he brought both .
No sure , sure , and I'm just , I'm just kind of thinking like just if I guess financially when you hit that , that cash flow circumstance , so kind of paint that out , like if you had you know 500 units that you have out in the market selling your right and on those sales to happen to get capital to buy another 500 units to put in the market and you just
got kind of you sold out of everything and you couldn't replenish the supply . That you're Right , oceler , that your partners needed , right , and you're sitting there going sorry , any cash to pay for my right , right .
Yeah , and it was . You know that that inventory takes , you know , 75 , 90 days to get here . So we were trying to do just in time inventory because we were short on cash and you know that was . That was fine as long as your growth is steady .
But we would have these huge spikes or I would get a call from some , some department store that wanted you know 1500 units or something , and that would just clear us out . And you know you can't when your , when your growth is kind of lumpy like that , you can't , it's hard to forecast . So I was just , you know , as the chief sales guy .
It was like taking orders left and right , you know , with reckless abandon , and then , and then next thing , I know we don't have any , don't have any stock .
I would have done the same , exact same day .
Yeah .
Yeah , it's throughout the day of mortar . Right .
Yeah .
For sure , yeah , no , for sure , I mean . So the new partner I mean really came in and kind of help level that out , and that's that's the right time , though , right , and I think that you know to any listener out there that's one that has a product idea , which is why I'm glad you're on the show .
I think you might be one of the only product entrepreneurs I mean just off of my head , but I mean like that has a tangible product .
There's just a lot of people that have these ideas , you know , and right , and you can certainly start up something on your own , self-funded Right , and there is a right time to bring in a partner , you know , an additional partner and capital , and it sounds like you made some really good moves on that regard .
Well , yeah , we , you know , I just remember we had , we had a guy that we had tapped for to raise , raise capital early on , like before we hit that point , and it was . It was kind of a loan shark deal . It was like you know , we'll give , I'll give you .
You know , I forgot like 200 grand , you know for 30% , and then you pay me or it was equity , and then you know you'll pay me that 200 grand back at 8% interest and then I'll keep my 30% , you know . So it was Like a convertible note or something , yeah , yeah .
So you know , we were like , nah , like we'll , we'll figure it out on our own , you know , and got , you know , we got past that to a point where we had a business right , we had proven demand .
¶ Raising Capital and Partnering for Growth
Like I said , the problem was not that we didn't have customers , it was that we had too many . So at that point it's a lot easier to go out and raise , raise , raise money .
So , dude , there's such a story here like in it's in . It's like when is the right time to raise capital ? Like in the market . I talked about this . A lot of the problem isn't , you know about like going out and pitching and raising capital for business . Like probably might have an impression with some folks that that's what we talk about .
It's not about the seas being bad or private equity , it's about the timing . Yeah , like there's a stigma of understanding that , in order to start a business , what you do is number one , you build a PowerPoint and you build spreadsheets and you spend months doing that and then you go out and raise capital and then you start your business . Like that stigma .
Well , I've heard you guys talk about like the glorification of entrepreneurship and it's you got something to say about that , Well no , yeah , it's like it's , it's people , it's exciting , it's sexy , you know , to start a business and everything but yeah first sexy Right , yeah , for sure , yeah , yeah . Find us on Sports Illustrated .
That's right .
And you know , and people get this idea like , oh , I got an idea , Now I need money to do it . Like you can , you know you do need some , some money to get started . Sure , but we started very lean . You know we spent like three grand on tooling for our first product and you know , probably 15,000 on the first production order .
And you can , you can make it happen , you know , before you get to that point where you're raising capital and it's so much cheaper to do it later on like you said .
Yeah , your equity , you know you can't really talk about it Like the investment that you're making . So the $15,000 it takes to get your first run , right , someone or some way has to . There has to be some sort of investment of cash to make that happen . Is it coming out of your pocket ? But anybody that invests in it has equity .
Right , I mean it's kind of you know . Whether somebody else would buy it is a different story . But Right , so the more that you can fund it , self-fund , it is actually the more that you're investing in your own equity and you're making your shares more valuable down the road .
Right , you know , and I mean , but of course , the rest of that is that you slip up along the way and you take , you make all your shares go worth nothing or even negative , right , yeah , so I mean it's , you know , I think that that timing is so important , you know , and , just like you said , I mean it's , it's good to know , it's good for people to
know that you can do that . But actually I mean you're , you and I both did Mark , did you know , and and I think that there's greater reward because you do learn about the business , you know , and like a lot of times , investors are I don't care Like there's no way that they can understand what your business is like .
They might have done they might have done a grill light spatula 10 years before you did . Now they're this expert in grill light specialist , but unless they're in the market right here from customers and the audience and watching that stuff , they don't know more than you do , necessarily , right , right , you know .
Yeah , for sure . Yeah , and you need to be . You know , if you're raising capital , you need to be raising , you need to be coming at it from a point of strength where you're the expert in the , in the market , in the product , and you know there's , there's .
You know , like we , we got lucky where we raised capital from a guy that also brought a lot of operational know-how .
Yeah , but yeah , the whole idea of , like people going out to just raise money from some , you know , like nameless VC , that all they want is , you know , a two or three X return in the next three years , like that's , that's not really the kind of partner that you want . Yeah , because they're , you know their , their motivations are different than yours .
Unless you're the entrepreneur that knows how to play that game . And that's what you know . You're written into . Yeah . Yeah , for sure , because there's money to be made in that . Mm-hmm . You know what I mean . Tell me what's next . What are you trying to accomplish ? What's the next big jump ?
So about a year ago we started working with a company that they basically take products like Grealite and they do national TV campaigns , national ad campaigns , and so we've kind of licensed the brand to them , the brand and IP . So we're kind of turning Grealite into a product development house .
So we're working on kind of churning out the next products and they're taking over kind of the sales and marketing side of it , doing TV , doing social media ads , that kind of stuff and kind of trying to George Formanify the Grealite .
So will it be in the same brand , or are they going ? To really the same brand .
So basically these guys have built a machine to market products directly to consumers and they're always looking for new cool stuff , because their job is what they're good at is like sales and marketing and they've got to kind of feed that beast with new cool products .
So we're working with them to kind of flip it around and continue like the big box and the retail growth but also do a lot of direct consumer sales . That's interesting .
When does it start ?
up . We've started it recently , like a few months ago . How's that going ?
Yeah , it's going great . So that allows you guys , your team of four , like the direct employees , to really focus on supply chain .
Right , yeah , we and like what's next right .
So yeah , just product innovation . You still own the brand .
Right , we do . Yeah .
So they're just making some off the sale .
Yeah , so yeah , we own the brand , we own the company , but they're kind of partnering with us to grow it much larger .
Do they make a percentage off every single sale that comes through ? Right ? Okay so it doesn't matter if it , because I mean , like , I can see the point of that , because , like , if they're doing TV or whatever , somebody might see this product and then they go buy it somewhere else down the road at a different time .
And if I was doing the sales market I'd be like man , I'm impacting that , yeah Right , exactly Because of the investment I made .
So that's interesting , yeah , so they're kind of doing what we couldn't do . We have an investor , but still completely bootstrapped . They'll go into a big box retailer and say like hey , not only is this a really cool product , but we're going to spend $10 million in the next six months on last to get on every single TV in the country .
How many containers do you want ? So that's kind of the sales pitch . So that makes a little sense .
Yeah , yeah , and I think that it happens quite a bit in this industry , doesn't it ?
Right , yeah , for sure , there's a lot of people out there that kind of join forces and They'll help a lot of those like around this area .
I think so , yeah , like sales , it's a sales and marketing firm , right Exactly . I know some of them do like more of like consultation and they get , but I know that some of them work on commission and have , like you know , and some of them actually invest in it Right To do that . That's really cool , man . Well , best of luck on that , man .
Yeah , that's pretty interesting .
Thank you . Yeah .
So does that help you with your next stage , on how you want your career to go ?
I think so . Yeah , so I mean it did . You know I love the sales side of it and I'm still kind of working with them on that . But I can you know we've grown quite a bit over the years and we've had to kind of plow our profits back into just like maintaining inventory , yeah .
And now we get a chance to kind of take a breath and work on product innovation and some cool , exciting new stuff that's coming , yeah , yeah .
I wish you the best on that . What's your , what's your ? They got to amplify your digital experience too with that . Yeah , yeah , Absolutely . So we say direct consumer . I mean it's like there's like the website properties , probably posted on different web web stores and whatnot .
Right .
Making that more perfect , right , because we had talked when we talked about last time , I mean with white . You know the flywheel white spider business that had right that you know about data content and all that kind of stuff .
It's just brutal man .
Yeah , for sure it's always changing too Dude it's so brutal Like in , yeah , and so having as a partner that's kind of handling that Right Now if they do a good job . That's the other part of the story , right , exactly .
Yeah , so we we wetted them pretty hard , you know , and we did several different interviews with them to kind of talk about what , what their vision was and that kind of stuff . So yeah , but yeah , I mean it gives it gives us an opportunity to focus on , you know , some more fun stuff .
Yeah , you got any . Any hints as to what's coming next that you can share or you can keep it close ?
to that . So we've we've got to . I can drop a few , a few spoilers . We're we're doing a bit of a redesign on these tools to make them a little bit more streamlined , because this is these are designs that have .
You know , I love them , but they've been around for a while , so we're going to kind of update that a little bit and we're working on a wire free cleaning brush . It's like a grill cleaner . There's probably the top requests that I get Quite , wire free , what is it ?
So there's , like the wire bristles on the grill , cleaner brushes and those bristles can like fall off and get in your grill .
They can . Actually they can get burned off too . Yeah , Exactly , I mean that's happened to me for or melted or whatever , yeah .
So we're working on one that's it's got the light , it's got like all the the patented features of the of these tools , but it also has a brush on it too , so Interesting .
Yeah , but what would you tell ? What advice would you give a young or doesn't matter , just a new entrepreneur that's starting something out on the product side of things and kind of the space you live , like ? What would it be to revise ?
I think back to what you were saying about take every opportunity to learn . You know like there's that old trope of like sometimes you win and sometimes you learn .
Yeah , like every opportunity is either opportunities to grow the business or learn how to learn how to grow the business Right , so that is like grit , you know like sometimes it's just you have to stick with it .
Yeah , and I talked about kind of the roller coaster of entrepreneurship and like when , when stuff gets hard , like just stick with it , keep pushing through and have that , you know , trust and belief in yourself that you'll get , get to the next stage . Yeah , um , and somehow you always , you always , you know end up , you
¶ Navigating Supplier Relationships in Product Industry
know getting there .
So Well , what about like in your industry too , though ? Like , I mean , like , what are some of the hard knocks to avoid ? Like , if I was saying , hey man , I got an idea of you know something that's similar to your product .
I mean , and I'm not , I'm about to go off on and do it Like right , Like what's the big watch out from a , from a wholesaling supplier based ?
So I've heard I've heard horror stories of I was lucky , right . So my partner's in China ? Yeah . He's there doing this , the manufacturing , and like watching that and stuff . I've heard horror stories of people getting like we call like a golden sample , like a perfectly , perfectly great sample , Everything's beautiful , works , perfect .
They order like 10,000 pieces of it and then it shows up and they're all messed up and then you can't get anybody on the phone and you know , like what do ? You got to go fly over to China and like find somebody Like that's , that's , that happens all the time .
So yeah , so you got to keep an eye on your suppliers and you know , make sure quality stays up and and just be careful with that .
I guess you're able to do that Like just because , like I mean , would he go meet face to face and validate and verify these ?
Yeah , yeah , just , and then watch stuff as it comes off the line , you know , and you inspect it as it comes off the line , and then again when it goes in the container , and really , yeah , so just got to right , yeah , so you got to , you know , because the last thing you want is a container full of product that you can't sell .
So it's terrible . Yeah so that's so demoralizing too . Man , I can't imagine like you've been waiting , I mean like there's all this anticipation . I mean you've got so much on the line and you get this right .
Pre-sales you know all that .
And it's so freaking heavy .
Yeah . I mean to return it would just be like nightmare . Yeah , exactly , oh , that's terrible . So that's that's probably the biggest you know . Watch yourself , kind of warning , I guess , from doing a product business and just you know , kind of maintain that quality .
So Pult and human beings can really suck sometimes , yeah For sure , you know .
But I think that and you may or may not agree , but the longer I've gone in business , just like , just realize , like not everybody has really great intentions , you know , and it's unfortunate , but I think the the longer you go into it , like you , just you can kind of preemptively think about some of these situations that might come up , you know .
Then , on the flip side , though , you don't want to make things so legalistic and contractual that you can't even make a move , right , and do you ?
Maybe you have this experience a little bit , but like I , kind of , like I I'm kind of weigh those things as I go along , like , if I got a new , you know , do I really need to get into some significant vendor contract for this amount of money ? What are kind of the damages , what's the threat that's out there ? You know , what are my liabilities ?
Yeah , you know . And a lot of the decisions I make on a regular basis , I've been finding myself noticing that I do that quite a bit Right . I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't , I don't .
I don't want to start in my gut feeling like , well , I don't , I'm starting to feel a little bit vulnerable to this one specific thing . Then I'll go take care of it at that time Right .
I don't know you experienced that at all as a entrepreneur . Yeah , I mean super tight and perfect all the time . Yeah , no , I , as you know , as I kind of grow as an entrepreneur , I kind of , I kind of lean on , you know , entrepreneurism , naturally , you know , optimistic .
So I always , I always think people have the best intentions , you know and , and that you know everything is , all you know , a sunshide of rainbows . But , as you know , through the years I've kind of learned this not always the case . So you got to , you got to , you know , cover your ass .
Yeah you do , yeah , you do . And you also have to be interesting enough when you're working with suppliers and especially customers right In the public , and partners like you also have to be you know , be a good partner . Yeah for sure , you know , and not I mean , because I cannot stand working with people that got to have everything signed . Yeah .
And have these big extensive contracts Right , like , it's just like , like you slowed me down , like , and that becomes the bottleneck of freaking humanity and that's what brings the United States of America down .
Yeah , yeah exactly .
Yeah , for sure yeah , and so anything else you want to share before we bounce on this .
Well , I was just going to say on that , on that last point , like I had , I had someone reach out to me the other day and they were like you know , I have , I have a cool product idea . I want to kind of , you know , manufacture it , bring it to market . What are , you know what I need to do ?
Like I don't you know , he was afraid to show it to anybody because he thought they would steal his idea . And and I , you know , like patent law is is a whole can of worms . But if you have , you have like a year to file a utility patent right After you kind of like , announce your product to the world .
So , yeah , there's people that want to have all these like NDAs and all these like leads before they will even show you their idea . And I was , you know , I tried to put it as nicely as possible but , like , most people are too busy to steal your idea . So , like , don't , don't worry about people stealing your idea .
You know , occasionally I guess you'll find someone that that wants to , but nine times out of 10 , like you just got to talk to people about it , get feedback . You know that's what we did at that show in Kansas City , like we took it and showed it to you know thousands of people before we had any sort of you know IP file .
But you know we had to get that feedback to kind of see if we were , you know , wasting our time and money .
So yeah , that's kind of . That's a really good point . I wouldn't , that's . I appreciate you saying that , because that would be one of my first concerns and I've been there right Especially it's . It's . It's interesting Like you can relate to this .
Like you know , a couple of decades into our entrepreneur life at least I am and in the sense that where I remember in my early stages , like , like it was very I was so worried about somebody stealing stuff from me and even though I was concerned about it , it still happened , right Number one at certain times .
But what I learned over time was is that it's not a match about , like , who's got the great idea , it's about who's the fastest Yep , you know what I'm saying ?
Yeah , the idea is like 5% of it and the rest of it is like the speed and hard work and yeah , so you know there's . You know , over the years my friends used to come to me with their like wacky ideas for like products and stuff . They've kind of like faded off , they've stopped , stopped doing that , but the ideas are great , but that's .
That's less than 10% of a business is the idea .
Yeah , you have to . You have to be . It's who ? Who's going to ? Like you said earlier , who's got the grit ? Yeah , I mean , are you going to ? If you have an idea , are you going to ?
Are you going to get it , you know , and go to market and do all the thousands of things that are required to make that make this freaking special , to come to life and be in somebody's hand . You know , getting their barbecue on . Yeah , dude , I love the . I love the patent right here , man .
Thanks man ?
Yeah , for sure , that's awesome . Yeah , boom , I don't . I mean who came up with ?
that Was that your engineer , that was my partner that did that yeah .
Cool man . All right , colton man , really appreciate you joining with us today .
Yeah , for sure , thanks for having me .
Fantastic product . It's a really cool story . I mean , right here in Northwest Arkansas Yep , that's right , that's awesome . Right here in the United States . Man , keep it up and love to like as things progress with that , with that partner that you got now . Yeah . You got any big news , let us know .
And then you know we always like to end like , if you like Colton mentioned , by the way , that you you reached out to me because you've been listening to our podcast right . Yeah .
So I appreciate you doing that For sure , and I think that you know , hopefully we can continue to build up our listener base Because I really think that it's , if nothing else , it's fun to have folks like you come in .
And so you did respond kind of the podcast , say hey , man , you know love what you got going on and it and it and it restruck our relationship and bring you in . So I encourage any listeners out there if you have a business , you'll reach out .
If you have ideas or topics or questions that you have , you know , if you have questions for Colton , reach out and maybe we can have them back on the show and answer some of those things and and do a little bit more of a scripting thing rather than this organic whatever the hell's in my brain at this very moment question that I got .
But don't forget to like and subscribe and all that fun stuff . Tell your friends and then and then , if you want to advertise Colton , you want to buy an ad on our podcast . I'm just kidding , I'm not going to sell you , just like that . But , if you wanted to advertise , because you know this is what keeps us going . This was what helps us . Help help you .
Yeah , there you go . You got to keep the lights on so that lights on man we need some advertising For sure ? No , we're not about to run out of money . So anyway , thanks , man . Really appreciate it . Fantastic product , love it , man . Thank you . Love to have you on . I'm hearing more about the story . Appreciate it . Thanks , you got it man .
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