and it's funny my packaging person our shipper Kylie in the office she'll be listening to that she's got a real broad mix of stuff she listens to and like Eddie Rabbit come on something like this freaking I'll be yelling from the office freaking awesome you know whatever dude you - Yeah, yeah. - How about, what's it, Bellamy Brothers? Like, Drew Loveflow, you know that song? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - That one just rolls like a river. - Yeah. - Ed, but, speaking of the office, I might as well introduce who you are today, right? Jared Cock from SpeedFab, Speed Fabrication. - Yeah, technically speedfabrication .com, but I always say SpeedFab. - SpeedFab, it's got a good ring. - Yeah, and it's easy to say. - And you guys are out of Perryville which is about just under two hours south of St. Louis. Yeah, we're on the north side of the boot hill. Okay. So yeah. Yeah, we're in southeastern Missouri. I'll always say southeastern Missouri when people are like, oh, where's that at? Is that by St. Louis? Well, we're a little farther south, you know. Yeah. Technically towards the boot hill, so. Boot hill and that's down your Cape. Yeah, Cape Girardos just north or south of us, St. Louis, north of us. So we're in between. And so tell me what, what is speed fabrication, speed fab do? So speed fabrication started as a hobby in my garage. Okay. And what was that hobby? So that hobby was basically in 2015, me and my son built a CNC plasma table. And I was going back to my, I was trying to find a hobby business that I could get back into. And we went that route because I've been fabricating since I was probably 10, 11 years old. - Was your old man doing stuff? - My dad was an old school fabricator when I was little. And then he got out of it and went into cable TV and he retired as a lineman. - Okay. - But it, you know-- - Always around you. - Yeah, and my uncles are custom car builders. - Oh, okay. - So, you know, that was sort of kind of deal, you know, it's just, that's my artistic side is fabrication. - Sure. - So, you know, I'm like, I got a big racing background. I raced AMA four -wheeler flight track and TT racing for a long time, worked for big engine builder in Cape Girardeau. - Were you like one of those guys who was flying off the earth on these things? - Yeah, I've hit a wall at Tri -City Speedway at like 90 mile an hour or so, yeah, it's that kind of stuff, it's fun. fun. Really? Yeah, it's badass. Yeah. How fast are you get those things going? You see those and they look like they go over 100 miles an hour. Yeah, we set a track record at Tri City at 106. Okay, that's that's pretty good clip. Yeah, you're moving along, but you don't feel like it, you know, it's just. And how fast are you getting up to 100 miles an hour in those things? Eight seconds? Probably, probably. I never really timed it because we've circled track race and, you know, TT race, so we're not drag racing. But yeah, You know, that was sort of my deal. I was always in the motorcycles and four -wheelers and that kind of stuff, but in the dirt track scene, huge. You know, I had a lot of buddies that are sprint car racers, dirt car racers, that kind of stuff involved with monster trucks. And I mean, pretty much it was raced. I was, I knew somebody hung out with them. - That's so awesome. - So then, you know, that's where I started. You know, I'm like, hey, we're gonna make parts for race car guys. And I got into it, I'm like, you know, those guys don't spend a ton of money all the time for a $3 part. I've got a machine that I put a lot of money into. - A lot of Bushfixes kind of things. - Yeah, and you know, my wife's like, "You ever heard of Etsy?" And I'm like, "I'm not doing that artsy fartsy shit." Like-- - Don't comment me with that on. - Now, I don't know. Full time, it's been like seven years since I went full time. We're a top 10 Etsy metal decorative sign cutter. - That's crazy, 'cause there are a lot of them. - Yeah, there's a ton of them, but we do about 1 ,000 orders a month. We cut a lot of material. We have 950 plus designs on our website with tons of variables, 15 different colors, eight different size options, fully customizable. That's how we started. - And these are like what types of signs, like - Home decor things? - Yeah, it's all home decor stuff. We do business signs too, that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's really home decor gifts. - Like welcome to the lake house. - Exactly, that's a popular one that we do. - Oh, is it? Okay. - We got a couple of lake house ones and that kind of stuff, cabins, hunting. We make 'em in yard stakes, address signs. I mean, we got all kinds of stuff. Metal holders for like, you know, kids playing sports. You can hang their little medals. Dude, I did a great TikTok skit one time like that. No pressure, kids. We bought this thing to hang it on. You know, I did a little thing on TikTok trying to advertise them before Christmas, and I'm like, "Hey, you know, speed fabrication, we make these metal holders. Even we make them for a shelf for the kids that have, you know, their second -place trophies to put them on." And I just kept running with it, and everybody never caught it. Nobody caught that I said, even if they're a second place, you or loser, you know, participation trophy. - Right. - And my wife's like, "You can't say that." And I'm like, "It's history." - Like if nobody catches it, that's the best snippet ever. (laughs) You know, because everybody talks about it, but nobody wants to actually say it out loud, you know? - That kids getting their participation trophies, so. Yeah, we make them with a shelf so you can put that on. - Yeah, I mean, you gotta have something to put up there. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, I feel like, you - I feel like we've got kids, they're pretty young, they're 10 and eight, two boys, and I feel like they're phasing out, at least in the leagues they're in, they're phasing out the participation trophies. - I hope so. - Which I think is fabulous. - You've gotta be a loser once in a while to learn where you screwed up. - Yeah. - Plumbing something, you've got to fail to grow. - You have to, and it's also a way to teach them, you gotta work for shit. Yeah, I mean legit some kids are really good at sports some kids are not yeah I was not good at sports, and that's I'll say it. I sucked at it. Yeah, whatever. I don't matter I was good at other stuff. I mean there are there are all walks of life, right? Yeah, everybody's got their niche Everyone really that's just a fact. Yeah, I mean don't take the kid that's like extremely book smart Like everybody would call it dork and make him play basketball. - Yeah, or I'd hit in the sled, like. - He's not gonna get a college scholarship off playing eighth grade basketball. Don't push him. - Yeah. - You know, I remember my son's basketball coach, they were state level parochial school basketball team. They won state the year before my son was eighth grade. And his coach is like, I know this isn't your niche, but I know you're here for practice for football. You know my son's as big as I am a 6 3 300 pound. Yeah, you know and he's like I understand that you're not a basketball player You're here playing with your buddies your classmates because yours only like 15 boys in the class. Yeah, but he goes I know this is your exercise for for football, but he was super respectful to coach and he listened and did whatever he could as best He could yeah a good teammate. Yeah, exactly. Awesome teammate It's just football was his, once he figured it out, that was his baby. - Did he play through high school? - Yeah, yeah, he loved it. And he coached after high school. So when he graduated, he came back and coached and loves it. And right now he's separating from that a little bit because we're growing our business some more. And then he's also a volunteer firefighter. And he's going to EMT school. And he's like, "Man, I really can't coach full time anymore. I'll do some part -time special team stuff or whatever, but I'm not a I can't do full -time You know there comes that time where you got kind of got to choose. Well, we're so freaking busy I'm like, dude, I got my yeah fire helmet up there and did that stuff and it's I loved it Yeah done, and I told him like you can't be a full -time coach right now. We're so freaking busy I can't have you leaving in the morning and in the afternoon we got to get some stuff done so so pulling us back so you guys you start making signs so your wife comes like hey we can make these signs on on Etsy yeah so we started as like a part -time hobby right I was doing 60 hours and the in the sign sales and what was your mentality at that point where you just like well fuck it we'll give it a whirl yeah so we designed like 10 different designs and I was designing them figuring out how to learn graph use graphic software I had absolutely no cat experience really really, but I knew how to design stuff enough to be able to cut it. - I could figure this out. - Yeah, so I just learned, like I consumed lots of YouTube videos, learning, learning, learning, all the time. If it was a free minute, I was listening to a video, trying to do some research. So yeah, I mean, we made a couple designs, launched our Etsy store, and just slowly grew it. We were doing like 60 hours a month, thought we were shitting in high cotton, and working 60, 70 hours a week on that job besides our main jobs. My wife owns her own business. She's a hairstylist and has a salon. So she was working a truckload of hours. We'd be out there, we first started painting, with spray paint, and then I built a powder booth and started coating them in an oven. - Right. - And then we just grew as we had money and did that kind of - And was that process, like was that enjoyable? Like, hey, you know, these wheels are turning. Was it kind of nice to do that over these hard decisions to say, should we invest these dollars? - No, I mean, it was working. - Okay. - It was just the amount of time involved 'cause I was doing all of it. I mean, I would take my truck that I had for a job, or a company truck for the company I worked for and we'd pack the bed of it with boxes. And I'd run to the post office, you know, I'm off. Yeah. Yeah. So I was packing all the boxes in the evenings by myself and, you know, whatever the kids would help them when they could, you know, and it was a lot involved. Just pulling that pack. Yeah. Yeah. You know, using huge boxes at a time, wasting space and just a true learning curve. I had no idea about that kind of stuff. But yeah, so it grew, You know, COVID was extremely good to us. - Well, tell me about that. - So, you know, during COVID, when all that went down, my wife was, you know, they shut everybody down, right? And my wife comes home and she's crying. She's like, what are we gonna do? I'm like, as long as UPS or USPS picks up in FedEx, we're working, right? And at the time I had, at the time of COVID, I had myself, my designer working full -time from her house because her husband was sick with cancer at the time so I'm like you can work from home you don't need to be here especially in my garage shop at the time right I had hired Kylie our shipper now she just got out of college and and she can work for us so she's in the shop with me I'm powder coating I'm cutting I'm sanding melon packaging you know and I mean just dirty nasty kind of stuff and when all that went down my wife's like hey we got you know everybody's getting their check right they're COVID checks she's like why don't we turn the the marketing up on Etsy since we got a little bit of free money and just see what it does and dude it just took off like a rock real 864 percent in revenue growth in one year that's a big number we went from basically like two and a half people to almost like six or seven overnight through that. - So how surprised were you to see, or could you kind of feel that this was gonna occur? - So I couldn't feel it was gonna occur, but I was just watching it, and you know, it's a day -to -day, right? You know, if you make changes every day, but your parents don't see it for a month, they're like, oh my gosh, what have you done to yourself? You know, whatever. You don't see that, right? So every day I'm just humping in the shop, 16 hours a day, making it happen, you know, up early, super late at night, just working, working, working, working, you know, and I was still drawing a little bit, our designer was drawing, I'm cutting, powder coating, sanding, everything, helping Kylie pack, trying to orchestrate that, my wife's out there helping, you know, and it just got crazy, and dude, they bought anything you had. - Really? - I mean, if you had a, it didn't matter the price, it didn't matter the style, they were buying it. We sold crap that we never sold at all. - We thought this was unsellable. - Yeah, pretty much. The design's horrible. People loved it, you know? And California was our biggest ship to state for months. - Okay, wow. - It was, 'cause we can track that. We can track, our market is like you on our signs, of course, all the coastal lines, 'cause there's more population there. So we can see that, you know, California, Texas, Florida is our biggest ship to states consistently. - Okay, so how is your opinion of Etsy in jail like when you first-- - Etsy was great in the beginning and through their management, I can't speak a lot about it 'cause of our agreements. - Sure. - You know, but through their management changes, it's gotten, they've allowed a allowed a lot of dropshipper stuff happen, and it's completely killed our industry. - Has it? - Yeah, because people are selling Chinese crap that is not built, you know, by a person. Like, you know, people call me still, you call our phone number, I'm answering the phone, and they're like, oh, you're the owner? And I'm like, yeah, you're gonna call me, you still got that old school customer service. - Yeah. - Let's talk about the problem, or let's talk about why your It's not there. Let's talk about what you want to change on your design. Whatever, you know And you got these people selling this Chinese made crap saying it's homemade and it's not, you know Anybody's welcome come my shop and watch their sign get made You know because it's it's legit We used to do videos about that because it was such a big problem With you know people not believe in that they were American made. I'm like dude. And so was to buyers. It's huge. Yeah, because everybody's leery of online sales, especially when all the dropshipping stuff is huge. Yeah. You know. So when you say dropshipping, you've got a seller on a platform, say, in this context, Etsy, that's bought a container full of signs or something from China. Yeah, and they're, you know, they're not even handling it. Okay. They put the order in through China and then it goes straight to this the buyer oh okay so they're just flipping paper on their flipping paper they don't have a clue what they're getting their quality or none of that so that's one thing that we pushed on real hard was you know Missouri made American made steel American made powders everything we do is you know made in the USA you know as much as possible and you can you know If you wanted to call, I'll take a video of us cutting your sign, you know, powder coating, whatever, shipping. We've done videos like that for Facebook and TikTok and all that to show people. This is actually what we're doing. Well, that stuff's really cool because things like baseball gloves or guitars, having a video of somebody, if you get a custom guitar, it's like sitting there making it. And you know, well, yeah, I could get, I could get that for, I could buy 10 of 'em, and eight of 'em would suckin' two and be great, if I got 'em from China, maybe. But having just, people still love story and are proud that it was made here. - Yeah, and you know, especially here in the last 20 years we've gotten away from America made, period. And that's where I've sort of, we need to bring it back to the United States. We need to be proud of what we make like we were during World War II and after World War II. - For a while. - Yeah, exactly, you know. And that whole customer service piece, like when we were kids, customer service was huge. Now it's not, you know, you gotta wait on a phone for an hour to talk to someone and then they send you to another person to talk to and they just run you in a circle to try to get you to hang up so they ain't gotta deal with, you know, doing your refund, you know, or dealing with your So that's that's one of those. Yeah, if you're gonna be that way you need to make your online return so seamless Yeah, as much as possible You know if you if you don't want to invest in the people to deal with it Yeah, you have to you know, we we had a sign and I'll admit it. We had a sign fail this past week We just cut it In to June went to Key West and they're like hey, this thing's already rusting. Oh, yeah, we'll send you out a new sign I'm I'm gonna send you a tag to send that one back. I wanna understand why it started rusting. - Is it just the air down there? - Yeah, I mean, salt kills steel -based science, no matter what, kills the powder and all that. But if there's a scratch from installation or a scratch during shipping, it's gonna get ate up. - Yeah. - You know, especially salty conditions. But hey, I'm gonna get you another sign, no cost. - Yeah. - And I'm gonna ship that one back to me at no cost, 'cause I wanna find out why it failed. - Yeah. - And figure out the root cause. and that's really how we deal with our customer service as much as possible. - And if you're dealing with it firsthand, that means that the quality starts going up 'cause you don't wanna see things-- - Well, and that's the thing, I mean, I've had, when we got busy during COVID, I had other shops try to powder coat for me, and it was horrendous, horrendous. And I'm like-- - Like the quality wasn't there, or the scheduling? - No, the dust in the signs was just bad, and I'm like, we're not doing anything special, But we're able to put out a quality product. Why can't you and then I'm just like, okay We just got double down and work 20 hours a day if we have to the powder Yeah, the person who buys that wants to open that box back. Holy shit. Yeah, and especially, you know If they spend three hundred dollars on a big sign and it's a gift for someone Yeah, you don't want that thing showing up with it looks like a boulder in it from them You know from a piece of dust under the powder, right? You know or a big -ass scratch through it from where it got drugged across the table or the sand or whatever and got powdered nobody caught it. We still struggle with that every day you know with steel that comes in that's got pits or whatever we sand everything prior to powder coating and prep it but still you have issues. Yeah I mean it's only in general going to be as good as the base material. Yeah and I mean we've even went in and welded stuff up you know and ground it back down and I'll recut it. I mean, you can go to our scrap dumpster and you'll see brand new cut signs that had a crappy piece of metal on the backside, had big scratches on them. We just pitch it and recut it. - And you guys get into doing back lights on these and things like that. - We do, sometimes we use to, but man, it's freaking hard to compete with other companies. There's a couple big Chinese and Vietnamese based companies that sell them for next to and it's a lot of labor time. - It is, good enough. - And people don't pay it. - Yeah. - So a lot of times we're just like, hey, here's the kit that you can buy from Amazon, the backlight it, do it yourself, that way if there's a failure it ain't coming back on us and then we're dealing with it. - In general home decor unless you're talking like the man cave, generally they don't want something backlit. They want something that's kind of blending into the decor. - Well, and there's a whole structure to that, right? Because I've had people buy 10 inch signs and I'm like don't put that on a 12 foot wall you know with nothing on it and I've had people call and they're like hey we've got all send me a picture just because this scales way off yeah you know I've had people you know call and ask questions like that and I'm like send me a picture and we'll put your sign on your actual wall and size it and they're like really you can do that and same thing with backlighting you know they're like well I want to backlight the sign Do you have an outlet on the wall? No, okay. You're gonna have to go with a battery -powered one. They're not as bright. - Yeah, it's in the foot -powered sign. - Just be prepared. If you don't have an outlet up high or an outlet somewhere close so you can hide the cord, this is what you're gonna deal with. - Yeah. - And people, they don't know that otherwise, right? So they're expecting what they see online that's been filtered and covered up. - Perfect, yeah. It looks perfect, and the thing ain't lit from outer space. So there's a lot to it. - Yeah, we're gonna have like the solar panel. - Yeah, yeah. - The signs here. - It just sucks so bad. - Have you had experience with this? - Yeah, I did some commercial ones that just were, that kicked my ass. - In what way? - Just not enough power. - Okay. - So that was the problem, it was just I had massive panels on The batteries were just getting ate up and it was just one of those things I I shouldn't have took on the job But I did mm -hmm and now I know you know ever do it again. Yeah, so well, I don't know enough to Talk about that, but they work great on calculators and yeah other things Yeah, they're bad ass for that. But yeah, maybe other applications. They're not it's it's you know Calculating loads and all that stuff and then you get it somewhere and it's nothing but trees around it and I'm like really you want this solar powered and but you got trees all the way around it and then gets sun like one hour a day that was the failure point right out of the gate I didn't know that at the time until I went to the site then do the install and I'm like dang it yeah we need to add a couple more for us to your house yeah yeah top all these trees exactly I'm like You're only gonna get so much. Yeah, sorry about your life. Yeah, I'm like Bear you some power It'd be easier be easier. It'd be done. Yeah, so you guys are going in Etsy. You're still cutting. We're still in Etsy still in Etsy and then Speedfab what other sorts of things do you guys get into so as we grew of course, you know, we worked out my home shop We added three times to it. Okay. I had bought a laser 2019 from the guy that did my CNC controls the second time from my plasma table, I ran that thing off a 400 horse hospital backup generator, had this massive generator in my back behind my shop running like 20 hours a day, thing eight freaking diesel fuel like nobody's business because I didn't have three phase and I didn't like using a phase converter to convert the single phase to three phase. So I bought this big ass generator on auction for next to nothing, set it back there and just fed a diesel fuel nonstop cranking. That sucker would be out to run into like midnight. I knew when the guys left cause I'd be laying in bed and hear, hear the generator shut off. Yeah. I'm like, okay, well Nick's done cutting or whoever's out there running and he's done cutting, you know? So it's sort of crazy, you know, like I live in a, a small neighborhood in the country, basically, we were like four or five miles from town, and we're at the end of the lane. So that was a godsend because I didn't have all this ISO or noise and crap, but the neighbors could hear the big ass generator running, you know. The big old Cummins, 6BT back there just running full throttle. - Did people bitch about it? - A little bit, they did. - They got it all right. - And it's like, okay, we need to build a building. So we ended up 22. We moved into our new building, which was gigantic compared to what we had in the house. - How much more space did you get? - So we went from like 3 ,000 square feet to 13. - Oh, that's a big upgrade. - Except now we grew out of it. - Okay. - But as we go, it was great. I mean, I had my little laser table in there and my press brake and my powder I mean, I had a wide -ass open building otherwise, you know, but now you've got it filled up Yeah, I engineered it prior to building it with all the equipment. I knew I was wanting to buy Okay, we drew it all out and CAD walked it before we even put the building up on the pad Laid it all out made sure everything fit where we thought it would as close as possible and okay We're pretty legit forgot about material storage. I was gonna just ask for stock pretty hardcore. Yeah, especially with our tube laser That's a big problem with as much as we run through it. So so you've you've had to sacrifice quite a bit of forest space for Yeah, for shelving and yeah, and you know sheet stock because now we stock probably 30 different types of material Mm -hmm a handful of each. So yeah, we got material everywhere trying to organize it all the time and say I got to build a sheet rack but I need like three of them probably mm -hmm and then just dealing with it so yeah coming back as we grew you know come back because everybody's like well he's got two blazer what's he doing so as we grew I went back to my manufacturing roots okay so you know I came up as a fabricator pipe fitter did all that kind of stuff you know out in the the field, and then I went into industrial maintenance. So I was industrial maintenance at a car manufacturing plant, industrial maintenance, a big cement plant, the highest capacity cement plant in the world at the time, I think it still holds the record. Heavy industrial. Electrician was what I eventually got into was heavy industrial electrician kind of stuff, you know, big three -phase power maintenance that kind of Um, got the opportunity to get out of that, um, as a electrical supply distributor. I was a store manager. So I did that for about a year, grew that business. And then I started out, that's when I was growing our business part time. And, uh, I went to the owner, it's a local company, a St. Louis based company. I went to the owner and I'm like, Hey, I, I don't want to give up what I built down here and all the customer connections I made, but I want to go part -time to start building my business. And he said, "I'll call you back." And later that afternoon he called back, he said, "We're done." I said, "Sounds great, thank you for the opportunity." We see was clear. - I was on the way home in my company truck. You know, they had to bring back the next day. - You're like, "So should I turn around?" - No, I'm like, "I ain't got a vehicle." I called my wife and I'm like, "Hey babe, time to turn this shit up 'cause I'm out of a job and you talk about freak out mode. - Right. - You know, on her end or your end or both. - Yes, yes. - Just all yeses. - 'Cause I was, you know, a little bit into it, I wasn't really trying to build it slowly. Well, then it goes from zero to hero kind of situation, right? You know, like, hey, I was making good money. This is just a fun hobby. Oh shit, now this, I gotta make money at this thing or go get a job. Right. So I was doing some electrical quoting for another big contractor while I was building, building this up, you know, but went back to my manufacturing roots. You know, as we grew, I picked up one customer, a St. Louis, not a St. Louis based company, but they have a branch here. A friend of mine was involved in it and he got me into manufacturing some parts form. So I cool, you know, I'm gonna get into this. We're gonna grow this some more So even back then when I was working from my house, I was already going into the government sector getting all the crap set up for doing government contracting because I knew once I grew That would be a niche of our market, too would be you know, okay, so that's a That's a lifetime in itself getting set up to do government contract work. It is there's just it's atrocious. How bad it is and even even senators and congressmen tell you how bad it is They're like, yeah, our system sucks. I'm like, yeah, it sucks real bad Nothing's designed to move quickly. No, not at all. So I was working on that But you know, we built this new building and started moving into it I mean, it was to the point where I moved our laser cutter first We were laser cutting signs in the new shop and I was hauling them back every day to to our house shop, the powder coat 'em, 'cause I hadn't prepped everything, 'cause we did, I self -contracted the building. So I was doin' all the electrical, all the airline piping, all the plumbing, all the, everything but the building itself. I had a contractor doin' it, I was doin' everything else. So my guys were at the house workin', I had my part -time guy at the time, laser -cuttin' during the day at the new shop, and then I And then all kinds of shit going on. - It was nuts, dude. You know, I mean, like 20 hour days was pretty legit. Seven days a week, you know, I mean. - That'll tire someone out over time. - Yes, but I had to do it, you know. But the problem was I did it during COVID. So, you know, I went to the bank and I said, "I can build this building for X." Yeah, well, I had concrete on the ground and a building in the parking lot and I was out of money. - Okay. - Dude, you talk about tucking in between your legs. I go back to bank, I'm like, listen, we got concrete on the ground, we got a building sitting there, and I have zero money to finish this thing. How much do you need? I'm like, I need exactly the same amount of come in for? Again, so the building doubled in price. I mean, just the sheet metal for that building-- - Just 'cause the building-- - Had a $60 $13 ,000 increase for just the sheet metal on that 13 ,000 square foot building during COVID. Yeah, it's got to get built though. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, what else would you do? We've got to get there, you know. So, but yeah, I mean, I did all the contracting work and running the shop. And I'd be in a man lift on the phone with customers, you know, and be like, hey, I'll call you back, you know, give me a minute. And then the guys at the shop calling me or my wife calling me, hey, we got these these problems of shipping or whatever, you know. Okay, I'll be there. I'll get down out of the main lift, go run to the house real quick, run back, but I will tell you one thing where we're at, we're surrounded by cornfields, right? - Outside of town, great little location, up on a plateau, so you can see a long ways. The sunrises and sunsets are next level. - Yeah. - Next level. And I will tell you right now and I'm not too much of a man to admit it, I sit in my truck and cried and prayed in the mornings when I would show up 'cause I'm like, how the hell am I gonna do this? I am freaking upside down on this building. I gotta get in this thing. How am I gonna do all this? 'Cause there's all on my shoulders and I'm trying to figure it all out. - You're feeling it. - Dude, it was legit. But I've had customers come from out of state and they're like, dude, this is crazy. It's like a mirror in the middle of a cornfield. And I'm like, yeah, but look at the sunset. - Yeah. - It's picture -worthy, every day almost. - Well, that'll spring you out of bed in the morning. - Yeah, true story, you know. - And there, I mean, with building Bryce's house. - Same thing. - You know, it's just like-- - Yeah, the startup stuff, nobody knows the pain until you go through it. - Yeah, it's real, and it springs you out of bed in the morning. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know, you got a family and you're just like this is a no -fail situation well and even that I got a customer of mine that I've sort of come close to and his dad built this business his dad's in his 80s now still comes to the shop every day he called me one day and goes hey do you see the news he's local within about an hour from me I said no what's up he goes our building burnt he's a manufacturer two -bending manufacturer built parts for all kinds of companies. And I'm like, do what? And he's like, it burnt to the ground last night. - Holy shit. - You know, and I'm like, whatever you need, dude, let me know. If you need somebody just to cry on, have a beer and cry, let me know. If you need help with your insurance, I've been through fires and stuff with the other companies I work for, let me know. But you don't know that, you know, level of ownership. I'm like, dude, I feel bad for your dad. He built that company from the ground up. I understand, you know, your second generation. I'm like, it's crazy to even think, you know Yeah, of all that you had 30 or 40 employees. Now you have zero overnight, you know, people don't realize this stuff that Entrepreneurs business owners that kind of stuff fight through especially when they're doing a startup business. Yeah And it's crazy all the stuff you got to worry You know and some people don't realize that that battle. It is the most ridiculous game of whack -a -mole It's like playing ten of them at the same time. Oh my gosh, dude. It's I told somebody the day They're like it's feast or fame and I'm like, I'm gonna punch you in the mouth that I'm sick of hearing it You know, I just want a little bit of stability. I don't want always go up and down roller coaster crap So yeah, well, that's Well, that's, I guess, the beautiful thing of, you know, Etsy's and so forth is that you have these channels that you can use that, you know, what do you do if there's not an Etsy that gives you all this reach? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how we started. You know, 99 % of our business was online. Now it's completely swapped, but we still bid online. So people are like, how do you find all this crazy work? I'm like, I bet it online. That's how we do it. That's how, 'cause I don't have these built relationships that my dad was doing work with this company for 30 years and they just show up every day and wanna quote and I'm gonna get to work or whatever, I'm having to go out and just hunt. - Well, you have a different mentality of your, so it's need -based, like you gotta find these things, but why to you did it become an option to be online? I mean, it's a bit of a segue. But there are people that I know who are in these, you know, I guess more traditional businesses that are not that will be like, Well, I know that we need to get something going. But that's, we don't feel like that's an option to us. It's an option for anybody to a certain level. Okay, you know, no matter what, I mean, it doesn't matter if you're machine shop, making little widgets, still get online, still show videos of what you're doing, still put it out there in the world that people can see what you're doing. I researched crap out of people before I go talk to them. You know, like customer, if I'm cold calling a customer, I'll research LinkedIn, Facebook, their website. I know who the owner is, how long they've owned it, what they do, that kind of deal to make That connection, you know, and the man there's some people I haven't been able to find and I'm like Are they legit? Are they you know, are they just that high level that they don't think they need LinkedIn or whatever? You know, there's some people I know that are like that in business. I'm like, dude You're killing it with what you're doing. You don't even have LinkedIn, right? Whatever, you know, it's their prerogative But yeah, I've always been Technology -based no matter what. And I think that comes out of some of the automation stuff that I was dealing with and the automotive and, you know, industrial electrician stuff, everything's automated as much as possible. So do you feel like that's a really important piece in a general sense that I segue into because I'm going to ask you, what do you see ultimately as how, you know, digital and more traditional supply chains are converging and I would say have converged in many instances. So what do you see that looking like? Do you think that people or companies are really going to have to start taking this seriously because the buyers is more frictionless and frictionless options become available? I think there's going to be a change and it depends on how the it moves in the next couple of years with businesses in general. But yeah, it's got to be faster, faster. You know, and we talked about this earlier off camera and I'm like, I send quotes out to eight different suppliers. They're sometimes I'm like, dude, where'd we hit? Where's this quote at from so -and -so from Larry? Oh, well, I'll call my rep. I'm like, Hey, how come we haven't got to, oh, he's on vacation. "Dude, I got to quote this today." Speaking of which, I just missed a big construction quote today that I forgot to do before I left, but, oh well. (laughs) That'll be a copy. I can get that one in before this evening. - Yeah, you'll get it done. - Exactly, you know, that kind of stuff is, I want to be able to do it as fast and seamless as possible 'cause I got enough crap going on. I don't want to have to wait for Billy's frickin' steel quote to come in three days later when I had to quote it two days ago and so you get that and then you know why why is Joe 25 % higher than Bill and you know then you got to sit there and look through all your quotes well so -and -so don't have half of it the other person has some of it well my god take me back yeah exactly we talked about this before and I'm like my I just wanted all in one place to make it easier and quicker what's ever when I was a buyer if you had three lines you needed to buy, that's like a layup. You can always get three lines. Once you've got above three lines, now one person will have all three or five lines, but one of them is backwards. Or someone's going to have three lines, but you love the three lines they have. So you get to two POs very quickly. Yeah, and then it gets messy in general. The track it for your cost and who's coming where and what track it's going to be on and when you're gonna get it and lead times and that kind of stuff you know cuz there's days we cycle up and we can cut you know we'll get an order for twenty thirty thousand pounds of plate and we'll just start blasting through it you know that week I want it there tomorrow if I can if not two days from now so we can just get going yeah you know we got table time let's Make it happen, you know as fast as possible. So how did how did speedfab and prizes meet each other? You know, I don't even remember. Okay. I know I talked to Lee and I don't know if it was at an event. I I was a fab tech. It wasn't fab tech No, because I talked to some other people fab tech But I think it was prior that it may have been part of our by state fabricators Association Okay, that's local to the St. Louis area. I can't, I think he reached out to me whenever I joined that, possibly. And then we had some conversations and we tested it, it was in, when you guys first came out, we tested a little bit, did some beta testing, you know. Okay, it's sort of, they structured off how everybody else quotes steel. I don't quote steel like all the company, I don't want to see all that crap, you know. Like Plank PL, I just want to put five eights, you know and whatever so we sort of worked on a little bit worked with Lee a little bit and then we sort of just faded away from it sure and then I just come back to it here recently with fighting with vendors on them trying to get into the technology age of actually being able to figure out how their stuff's working and went back I reached back out the Lee of my hey dude I want to try you guys out again uh -huh give it a shot you know so we put some PO's and it's quick you know yeah and it's fast. We can, if we got a quote come in, we can quote it, you know, within an hour, usually or faster, depending on what kind of drawings we get. And that's the other thing that drives me freaking nuts. People, I call machine shops or what I'm like, Oh, send me a PDF. I'm like, Dude, we use 3D models all the time. Why can't you do that? Like, why do I have to send you a paper of PDF for you to quote my, You can send me a 3d model and I'm gonna be able to quote it like right within an hour I'm knocking that thing in to the flat pattern and figuring it all out and we're quoting that out So that's part of that technology thing we talked about before is people changing We're still in that old -school process of people working it out the long way Where I'm like man, I can throw in my quoting software I can throw it in in our 3d modeling software Work it through real quick pull the thicknesses boom flat pattern it nest it Yeah to a sheet to know how many sheets I'm gonna need to make sure my quoting softwares on point and You know go online with you guys and be like boom here's what my plate cost is what's that look like quality software good good Okay, boom let her eat. Well, that's the other thing is that I Think a lot of users on on preysos also. It's not just procurement. They're getting their quotes in, but they're just used to numbers that are in our system just to get the, 'cause as you know, much of getting a deal is just getting your quote in. - Oh yeah. - You know, like first quote in. - Yeah, I don't wanna wait. If it's fairly freaking close, I'm good. - Yeah. - But our thing is we quote so much different stuff. Kirby days, we do 2205 stainless. - Right. There's one or two vendors in the US that do that, you know, we do a lot of polished number, you know, number eight stainless a lot of number four stainless titanium Every great a freaking steel you can think of AR. I mean, we're all over the place stainless tubing, you know steel tubing Luminum extrusions, whatever. I mean, we are all over the place with what we do so It gets a little hectic around our shop, sometimes when we're quoting stuff, 'cause it's just, you never know what you're quoting. - So when you look at SpeedFab, where do you think about, you know, your son's joining and he's joined up on the crew and your resources are building? Is there any, what direction, what would you like to see you guys be doing from a project standpoint? - So we're still building out our sheet metal fabrication piece you know that's our core our other cores laser cutting flat plate sheet and tubing you know that's where we excel because we've got a tube laser in -house we've got a 12k flat laser in -house we've got a 1k that we cut all our sheet metal on vice versa we can do detail it's just insane - Okay. - On the 1K. And we just plow through material. I mean, just plow through it, we love it. You know, just pumping pipe and tubing out and shapes and that kind of stuff out of the tube laser, just freaking plow through the stuff. - Mm -hmm. - And then growing the sheet metal side for the manufacturing. So, you know, Speed Fab, yeah, we're a fab shop, but really we're like a manufacturing fab shop. - Okay. - You know, I like to do 500, 2 ,000, 10 ,000 pieces. That's really where we excel because we like the big numbers. We like the big volume. It's cranking them out. Yeah, and sometimes we bury ourself in work like that, but it keeps the bills paid and keeps the guys busy. Well, it's always a challenge like, well, how are we going to get all this done? Well, yeah, but also, it's easier to make a little bit of money doing it like that than it is, oh, I'm building a trailer for Billy Bob, and this thing's gonna eat labor time. If I'm off 10 hours, I'm losing money. Yeah. You know what I mean? So the one -off stuff kills us, but the multi stuff, and it's just, you know, based off how we do signs, you know, we cut sheets of signs a day of different thicknesses, and we can just plow through stuff and the beautiful thing is you can you can kind of leverage the same skill scalability characteristics of software itself meaning that you can say okay we're gonna draw this once yep and you just let it rip yeah I mean that's what we do and that's you know we can nest it I can pull in a nest and say yeah we've got 10 ,000 parts boom how many sheets we got to have 67 sheets let her eat yeah and just let it go nest already pulls it in the machine and you know sheet One sheet, two sheet, three, and the guys just keep on truck and they know where we need to be. - Are these auto feeding where you can stock the machine? - Some are. - Some are. - Okay, some are. - Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, we have a quality system in place for looking at, you know, we get into the minus zero plus 3 ,000 details on holes and stuff a lot of times. Yeah, so, you know, we gotta be tight on that stuff, especially if we're doing 2 ,000 parts that get secondary assembly stuff in in -house like that we got to nail it so it's always a little uncomfortable to leave these self -indexing machines right because you've loaded up with stock and you're like you could theoretically walk away technically yeah and but you could come in the next morning and spend a lot of money and just be like holy Shit those all got cut wrong and a ton of money. I've done it myself I've pushed stuff out to the shop and the guys cut it and I'm like, oh my god, that's the wrong file You know, I'm gonna eat it big deal. I'll eat it You know, hopefully it's not on something thick that costs a ton of money You know, hopefully it's on a hundred dollars. We had a at one time. We were cutting some chrome pipe for For a customer and it was being pallet, you know cut down to, you know, four foot lengths or three foot lengths, and over, you know, the night cruise cutting it, and they didn't tighten the band saw enough. So it was a drift cut on stuff that was several hundred dollars before. Yeah, chrome pipe, that stuff's hot dollar. Yeah, and you're sitting here looking at all these drifted cuts, and they're like, well, fuck. Yep, Yep. Yep. And there's, and, you know, you dig into it and, and, you know, unfortunately there was a less experienced, you know, saw operator always happens. And that's where systems come into place a lot of times, but it just happens. It does just happen. I mean, you can go out there and explode in the shop and start screaming at people. And it's not that one on cut that pipe. It ain't going to change what happened. Okay. How are we going to fix our screw up? Can we turn it on the lathe and cut it square and not lose the tolerance? Can we just kind of scrap it, eat it, whatever? Yeah, I mean, you know, eventually it will get sold. Yeah, you know, worst case scenario, and you just gotta take it on the chin and recut the order. Yeah, exactly. And just be really bummed that it happened. But I agree with you going down and, you know, unless it was just negligence yeah yeah then you're just kind of like well we're in that we're in this together yeah correct I mean it is what it is you got to work through it and figure it out you know I've we've had a lot of it it's a systems issue you just got to find your bugs you know yeah but I'll have we had one and this is nuts dude this guy we worked with this guy online through online through a prototyping company where we could do real -time quoting with them we did work for this guy multiple times you know hundred pieces here 20 pieces here whatever then he's like hey I got a big job I'm gonna start sending your drawings can you just quote it I'm like yeah legit we'll just start quoting it yeah and he's sending us I mean drawing after drawing after drawing just crazy sheet metal assemblies and He's like I need 2 ,000 of these thousand the 600 of these blah, blah, blah We had probably 15 parts at one time going in the thousands Wow, and I've talked to this guy for years. He's been a customer of ours for years We made parts we ship parts plated parts Specialty plated parts. I mean just crazy shit. We're shipping this stuff out gay lords at the time packaged up shipping it out and like comes down to 30 days 40 days I call this guy and I'm like hey man he's like yeah I'll get back with you blah blah blah I hear nothing hear nothing I call him back goes the voicemail goes the voicemail goes the voicemail and by that time my wife is losing her mind she's freaking out what are we gonna do I'm like this guy's good you know this guy's good we're good you know Whatever just let me get home couldn't get a hold of this guy, and I'm like we got a problem. Yeah She starts looking up online and finds a freaking post on our arcade forum about this guy and She's like oh my god This guy's names all over this post about scamming people out of parts And she's like 20 pages deep into this forum about this guy. This is someone you've known. Yes I work for the you know did work for this guy. He's from Alabama Did work for him for a couple years, you know, like I said hit or miss or just odd stuff, you know But we do 20 30 40 parts at a time, you know, and then She's like hey, you need to call this number and I'm like, okay. She's like, yeah, this guy's talking about the same dude you're talking about getting stuck same place with parts yeah so I call this dude he's in like New York and left a message he calls me back he's like hey what's up and I'm like hey we've got involved with this forum and found your number and I was told to call you and he's like oh yeah it's about so and so and I'm like yeah he's like we cut 70 ,000 phenolic washers On her seal to laser. I had 20 people running this job and this dude's nowhere Shipped it to an address. I shipped it to the address. Not a big thing. It's a home address Hey, I worked out of my house, right? You know, we're building sheet metal parts. This guy's assembling something and Then he's like, yeah, so -and -so's, you know out $40 ,000 with this guy so -and -so's out $50 ,000 was $10 ,000 this guy had a whole network of people he knew about that was getting screwed by this dude Jesus, and I'm like, oh shit What do we do and he's like I would call your I would call the sheriff in that town. I've already done this here's who you need talk to Call him. He tells me to call our local sheriff's department. I call them and they're like, yeah, you need to call this guy back like Call the guys in Alabama. We don't even have a clue What the hell you're talking about so welcome to the world of online business, you know big problem And of course people look, what do you need to take money down? Look, I've done work for this guy I've got records of you know, he was doing all the payments online blah blah blah So I call the sheriff and he's like yeah, you're the 17th person I've talked to this week Really and I'm like you're shitting me and he's like no Send me me all the files of everything you shipped him. I said dude I'll send you everything all the tracking from the freight all the files all my cut list all the material cost all that and he's like yeah this dude's like just pulling the wool over everybody's eyes he goes we've went by his house it's all sitting outside in his driveway tarped really and I'm like no shit And he's like, yeah. So he's like, great, you know how these are really specific parts. Real specific, like we Google imaged them to try to figure out what they were. And there's something to do with arcade games, like pinball machines. That's a pinball. And that's where we found this form of this guy being on. So you found it in like classic. I don't know. What the hell do you need thousand transformer covers for unless you're building pinball machines speaking pinball machines. Do you understand how much those things cost? Yeah, dude, they're hot dollar. It's like five grand for an old one and they're even higher than that I was at a place. There's a place local here called Aminis. I was in there and like you can spend 50k on these things Yeah, it's nuts, but they're cool Totally cool, but it's crazy and so I guess the man you and these weren't even like vintage. Really? I guess the way this the whole thing works is and this is probably gross misunderstanding at my part but what they said to me was these manufacturers really are designed just to make these limited runs. Yeah. So they're like two Star Wars ones from this year and like you know an Avengers one or something and they're all licensed and so I've got a lot of money wrapped up and getting these things built but I was like I had no idea it's crazy stupid how high there and the older ones like the old kiss one yeah sells for like a fortune online like the Elvira one that's out there yeah yeah they sell for in a ridiculous amount of money yeah we were in there and I was just like well I'm sure your prices are fine I just had no idea yeah so I don't know if this dude was selling them to people like this I don't know what the hell is going on but a couple weeks later sheriff calls me he's like hey we're getting ready to serve a search warrant on this guy's house and I'm like can you live stream it seriously I want to be there but not really kick him in the nuts for me please you know cuz I'm freakin lose my hair I've lost a truckload of money on this deal I mean you north of a hundred K on this most okay so it's a lot of door yeah I mean I had people just working and working and working on this stuff, you know, and time how much time it elapsed between the time that you're like realized there was going to be a loss got with the sheriff 60 days okay but and then they found them I mean they drove by his house knew all the shit was sitting out there and they're like hey dude and they knew that before you like as soon as they knew what you were talking about oh absolutely they're like oh hang on let me transfer you to so -and -so he's the lead investigator on this and and I'm like, "Oh, shit." - So this guy's local to Perryville? - No, no, no, no, this guy was in Alabama. - Oh, okay. - But I'm like, "Oh my God, this is a freaking deal now." You know, big deal. So, you know, the sheriff calls me and he's like, "Hey, we're serving search warrant. "I'm gonna call you back. "Be ready to answer the phone whenever you can." - You're gonna wanna come with me? - I'm like, "Cool, can you live stream me?" You know, kick the guy in the nuts for me. - Yeah, sure. - You know, a couple of times. Whatever. He calls me back and his deputy calls me and I think he's talking to me and then there's somebody in the background they're like hey what's this part number blah blah blah and they're like is this yours I'm like no I sent you the spreadsheet of what we had for them that's not mine but what about this part number yes there should be two thousand of these there what's this part number yes that's one of ours it's you know there should be 600 whatever and they're like okay give us an hour I mean machine parts plastic parts injected molded parts sheet metal parts it's all just like tarped up in his driveway yeah we were doing all the all the the sheet metal parts this other guy was doing all the plastic injection molded parts and one dude was doing turn parts and the sheriff's like are all these over 30 days I said yeah they all are And so they're talking you know back and forth and they're going through all the boxes and the crates and stuff And they're like hey, this one's blah blah blah. Is that you know, it's not me and they're like, oh, yeah It's a C and C and J machine shop. Is he over 30? Nope tough shit Like that wasn't considered part of the the fraud Because then that term's weren't up yet. Yeah, which is crazy to even think but like They got do you I feel like we have reason to believe he's not gonna pay this dude's got a full Yeah, a full garage full of shit to car garage is packed full of crates of parts plus his driveway And was he there I guess so I think he was there. I think him and his wife were there Okay, but middle of the day kind of deal, but don't know so then you know, he's like hey We need more info so I call my prototyping company I deal with and I'm like, "Hey dude, do you have any record of this guy?" He's like, "Yeah." And he used an alias multiple times. All ex famous baseball players. He had like seven different aliases. - Really? - They were all ex baseball. My son looked it up and he's like, "Son of a bitch." It's all baseball players. - No kidding. - So I call this prototyping company and I'm like, "Hey dude, we got a problem." You're gonna get involved with it 'cause of all this shit that's went down because Because you've worked with him in the past bubble. He's like, yeah, I've got an amix card on file with him And I'm like really it's up to date. He's like, yeah, dude. I wish you could put 60 K But I know you can't you know, but I'm like son of a bitch So what's the status of that? I don't know. I can't get a hold of the the district attorney They will not return my calls. So This is all just in the wind. It's in the wind. I don't know if the guy's been released in Louisiana. You can't free Louisiana or Alabama or whatever damn state it is You have to pay to look up their court records unlike here in Missouri where you use case net. Yeah down there You got to pay every time you want to look to see where it's been processed And I'm like I ain't paying ten dollars a hit to see if he's went to court or got bailed out or whatever You know, I'm already lost enough damn money. Well, yeah, and the part that stinks is, I mean, these things all have like intrinsic value. I mean, they're ultimately, especially the metal stuff, there's something to be done with that. But like, as far as you know, it's just like, this is just a loss that has to be sustained. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to eat it, no matter what insurance doesn't cover it. Right. So, and this dude is probably, I think they said like 700 ,000 in on parts that he was sitting on? - All bought, mostly bought on net terms, I guess. - Yeah, all on net terms. - Jesus. - Yeah, so that's a new one. - That's bullshit. - It's crazy, ain't it? So welcome to the world of online sales, unfortunately, that's why the set that goes on. - I mean, the other problem is, is that, I mean, you're one of how many vendors in that stack sitting in the garage. - 20, 30? - So how are they gonna like-- - I don't know. What's the order of people getting paid back at the time? I was the highest and I know they said there was some guy from California That was even higher than me. He was like 70k something like that I wonder if the dude's crazy and he just has no idea or I don't know if he got an over his head And was trying to pitch this and build these out and it was just he was going way too big a scale too quick And just couldn't get all the parts, but I don't know I have no idea But it's real specific and it's you know, like we were making transformer mount brackets for a pinball machine The deal he was on that form for Defrauding people was joystick handles for pinball machines Really? So there's something there. So Yeah, if anybody's building 10 ,000 pinball machines I got the drawings for all the circuit board mounts and shit that goes on in the back of - All you can handle. - Yeah, all I want. - Yeah. - You know, but I'm like, gosh dang it. - That's tough. And I hope that all comes together because there are a lot of people getting screwed right on now and that. - Yeah, and you know, it's one of those deals like, what are we gonna do? We ain't. You just gotta take it on the chin and keep on trucking. Like, well, that was last year or year before, yeah. That was Last year's fuck up. What's this year's gonna be and all this. Let's just ride this out and see, you know Hopefully not that big because we can't sustain that Yeah, well, yeah, you know, as you know, there's you always fight There's kind of a boot waiting to kick you in the ass sometimes dude around every corner that like this week I've had everything that could fail fail. I'm across the board at the shop at the house And I'm like if any more electrical shit fails, I don't know what I'm gonna do dish Dishwasher goes out pull pump outlet goes out skid steer won't start because the key switch is bad or some shit Chiller goes down on the laser welder the freaking air compressor fan falls apart and I'm like son of I know there's something else I'm missing that I had to fix You know and I'm like dude, that's like when shit gets so bad You're just like I realize that I mean tested right now. Yeah, and I'm not falling for it and I'm not far from losing my shit. - Getting real close. - I mean, to come to the point where my wife's like, what do you wanna do with the dishwasher? We've had a fortune for it. - I'm getting rid of the dishes. - That spare parts for it cost more than a new one? I'm blowing this motherfucker up. - Right. - I'm either running over it with skid steer once I get it started or it's getting tannier. I didn't, we're gonna let it rule. - We were gonna toss. - Knowing my luck, it'll shoot a piece of stainless back at me and like cut my ear off or something you know I'll be like freaking a mess after so yeah no that that's possible no today for me it's been one of those days where it's like it just felt like everything's been sort of high friction up until like I walked in the door I was just like I'm being tested today I'm gonna hold my shit together because it can always get worse yeah Yeah, it does but man when it gets worse. You're like, okay, how much more worse is it gonna get? Yeah, there's those points to occur God, I know you're testing me, but it's getting to the level now that I might go post on Not my fault you tested the wrong person It's not my day like I tell people I'll be like I woke up and chose violence right down the gate So it's gonna not don't don't even ask me questions. Leave me alone in my office. Otherwise. I'm gonna explode Yeah, that's why I put that light outside my office. It's like yes, no not ready not ready for company Yeah, that's a great idea. I'm gonna have to get one. Yes, but not ready for people. Yeah, I'm not there yet Yeah, I'll snap out of it. Yeah, I've had customers call me and luckily the friends of mine, but they'll call me give me shit About something I'm like listen here. I ain't putting up this shit today I don't care if you go to somebody else you can kiss my ass The I got to deal with it. You're asking for anyways. I'm not screwing with it. I'm losing money on this show Yeah, you know kiss my ass. You know what just forget about I ain't making any more shit for you This is a favor. I wish I'd stopped doing about it a year ago. Yeah, exactly. They're like, we'll call you back You're a shitty mood aren't you? Yeah, maybe I'm knee deep into a massive failure. I'm not dealing with your dumb ass request right now. I'll be back at you. Let's put the brakes. Let me preempt if you apologize because I'm about to fucking bite your head off. Yeah, I'm fixing explode. So let me turn us slightly so to you. You are involved in outside of SpeedFab with the different organizations around. Yeah, so governing bodies and so forth. We've always been involved with giving back to the community. You all my wife coaches volleyball. We do a lot of stuff for the schools, you know, if they call, hey, we need help, or fish fries, pancake breakfast, that kind of stuff, you know, stuff with a church. And then I got involved in the backside. I got involved with NFIB, which is the National Federation of Independent Businesses. I got involved with them and then they were like, man, you got a cool story. Would you wanna help us do some lobbying work? And I'm like, whatever, you I'm like, whatever, my son's big into government stuff. So he's like, heck yeah, let's do it, you do it, you need to do it, I'm like, you can talk to anybody, cool, I'll do it. So we're getting involved in that. I've been to DC a couple times working on stuff for small business, like the 199A tax cut that everybody's talked about that's part of that big and all that, you know, went and talked to the congressmen and senators about that and made my path around DC and did some commercials for them and podcast for them and that kind of stuff. So got involved in that heavily. I'm on their Missouri leadership council. Okay. And so we deal with state and federal business issues, you know, in Missouri right now. Propa is a huge one. That's just been a freaking nightmare ups and downs and everything that's going on so I won't say which way I sway on that one because I make it my house burnt down on that deal it's it's been pretty ugly on the governor's post on Facebook and stuff because it's it's getting real it's it's nutty so are you enjoy so do you enjoy sort of more of this I guess political side of or you know lobbying you know it's it's different and it's fun to get involved in and it's just part of doing my piece as a small business owner and wanting to bring the U .S. back to the greatness that we had before we were born. You know, cool stuff. So that's what I preach a lot about is, bam, we gotta do this, we gotta make manufacturing stronger in the United States, we gotta bring it back home, that kind of stuff. So yeah, I'm involved in that. I'm involved with a class at our local high school that we launched last year called CEO. Okay, an entrepreneur opportunities. Okay, so it's a structured class to basically we interview kids, they apply, they get interviewed to be part of the CEO program. And it's bring up entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. So, you know, they get taught, they don't get taught in the classroom technically. They're out -turned businesses. We've got 38 businesses, I think, in our community that sponsor the whole thing. - Wow. - The teachers paid by the sponsorships of the companies in our local county that pay for it, yeah. - That sounds like a great program. - It's ran through the public school. They have a public school teacher. She also does accounting and some other stuff, but she's the teacher for this class. But But like I go and speak about social media and online market stuff and anything else they want to ask, you know, we get people that come in that are lawyers or Accountants they talk about stuff that they do People that are non -profits come in and talk about how they got involved in it, you know, big company CEOs hospital All that kind of stuff they come in banks And then they go and tour all these places like the kids are sometimes hold up at One of the banks or at the hospital They're there for a couple weeks in their meeting rooms and that's where they hold class and they get to see the Workings every day of what's going on. It's gonna be an eye -opener for them I mean if you've been mostly yeah, and kind of in the books and then you go see yeah You see what's actually going on You know and and the kids come in they tour our shop and see all the crazy stuff that we're doing and all the reach we have in this little shop in little town of Missouri, town of 10 ,000 people in southern Missouri is doing nationwide plus international work for all kinds of avenues. And it's just to show them, hey man, you can make money, you can make a living doing anything. - Yeah. - Don't go down that rabbit hole just got to do this, you know? Man, there's opportunities everywhere. - There really is, and I was talking to, who was I just talking to about this, but you see people being successful in, at the best clown in the world, makes like $5 million a year. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It doesn't matter, you just get good at your craft, whatever it is. - And one thing I was just-- - And get going. - I was talking to somebody the other day about this, the dynamic of manufacturing for the United States is changing. It's not the general electrics and the Boeing's anymore. They can't keep people. We're getting boutique, I hate to say it, but boutique people like me. Small shops that do a lot of volume of certain things and there's lots and lots of these guys doing that now. They're getting fed up with the corporate bullshit. Like, oh, you were one minute late. You do that three times you're getting fired I don't care dude yeah like you're lucky I showed up today in a good mood yeah or you know whatever oh you only get two weeks of vacation but you know you can't take off you know for an hour to take your kid to school for their first day you gotta take off four hours or eight hours or some dumb shit yeah and all that guys I'll get my shit though okay yeah you know some people you got to have those Directions for other people that are go -getters man. Just let him roll You know let him keep trucking and go so a lot of that people are tired of that crap So that you know a lot of guys engineers and that I got a friend. That's an engineer. That was a mine engineer And he got fed up with it. He raises grass -fed cattle Yeah, he went and he's on tiktok every day showing the cattle walking in the field and talking to him and you know hey you know I'm so -and -so with this and we're we're he's probably loving it and freaking and that's the thing and he's like dude you inspired me because you did your own thing and made it work and so he quit his you know he was a mine engineer manager kind of deal at a big company local to us and he's out there walking with his cat for him yeah it's cool you know and you can make money doing that kind of stuff you got to do it the right way and that's where the CEO deal come in, you know. Nobody tells you all the shit you're gonna go through. It's like a secret. Dude, I'm not, I'm not getting in Bryzos' business. I want to be a fabricator. I want to do this. But share your experiences with me of the bad, the good, and ugly, you know. I mean, it's all the same. Everybody deals with the same crap. Every, it is. It's, It's regardless of what you're doing, it's going to be roughly the same series of things that occur and it's, you know, let's get your business set up legally correctly. Let's start there and then just go get a customer. And oh, you're going to have this problem. You're going to have this problem. Don't pay for this marketing because it doesn't make any sense, you know, or whatever. Don't waste your money here. Maybe go this route because whatever you're doing. What do you think are the, You know having talked with that group and your own experiences and other people you talked to For people who are gonna start a business. What are the top three attributes because all it can be any personality types Yeah, but what are the kind of attributes or the I can be saying look you've got to be this this and this to get through Being an entrepreneur and for example like I think the right blend of urgency and patience. - True, and you'll see some real high level guys, man, they are fired up all the time. They're running 120 mile an hour backwards all the time, just getting it. And then you got other people who's like, like me, I look at it both ways. I'm like, yeah, we need to make this product or we need to develop this. This is a niche that we're missing in the market, but I need to do the research and see what the market cap is on it and then we got to get ready to launch it you know and you sort of take your time and work a system out you have to believe in what you're gonna sell or what you're gonna make whatever you're gonna do whatever you're gonna do if you don't believe in it that you can do it and do it to the highest level possible you're failing right out of the gate it won't sustain you no and I mean there's a lot of dynamics. A lot of dynamics to look at. Somebody posted on Facebook one day, "Hey, I want to start a business in town. What should I start?" You failed. You failed with that question because you should have had your shit together and already knew what you're gonna do and your market. Yeah, right? That's what you should have done. Asking the public on some Facebook forum For the local town, you know, what's your skill set? What do you get at? What do you know? I'm not gonna tell somebody that doesn't know how to cook to open a steakhouse, right now They may be able to make it happen, but they better have their shit together. Yeah, they we gotta put in the work Yeah, I mean you got to get the right crew together and all that but it is gonna be an uphill battle backwards all day long all day long, But, you know, having a drive, believing in what you're doing, that's really all you need. Yeah. And then, you know, everything comes with it. The connections, you know, with people, talking with people. You know, when I was coming up, I had to go out to the bank. You know, I needed a line of credit. I asked a guy that runs a very big mining operation near us, and he's on the board of a bank and such, and I'm like, and I knew what bank he used, but I called him one day, he's a friend of a friend, and I said, hey, what bank do you use? I don't give out that information. What the hell does it matter? If I can't make the loan, you know, you gotta make certain check marks to get a loan anyways. What's it matter that you told me to go use this bank? You're on the freaking board of it. You should've been like, yeah, I use this bank. here's who you need to talk to. Hopefully we can get something going for you. - Yeah. - You know, and that's something that-- - They're not approving the loan. - No, no shit. I mean, I just got put on a board of directors for our local bank and they come to me and they're like, hey, we would like to have you on here because you have a different outlook. You look at a lot of different stuff that nobody else is used to. You got a different business plan, different business models, all that. I'm You know and I when I talk to people like hey, you know check our bank out Come over give the shot. You know talk to so -and -so and so -and -so. They did great for me I've been to all the other banks in town. I've had those bank presidents at my shop when I was at the house Yeah, and I thought I was gonna have to sign Mason's birth certificate over to my son and my daughter Molly I thought I was gonna have to sign their birth certificate over to get the paperwork started with some of these banks I'm like, yeah, no, I Don't want that shit. No if you can work with me. I'm gonna work with you and we're gonna make this grow Yeah, so yeah, it's just that kind of mindset, you know, yeah, they're it's just You just kind of keep going. Yeah, but you got to know where you're going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and you got a like Cash flow bootstrap it, you know a lot of people don't understand what bootstrap it is But you cash float yourself. If you can make it work, cash flow on yourself as long as possible, you're gonna make it work 'cause you don't wanna lose your own money. Losing somebody else's money is a little bit different. - Yes. - Especially if you don't, I never put my house on the loan. A lot of people do it. I'm like, I'm not building a business with my house on the loan. I can lose the business, I can go out of business, but I do not wanna lose my house. I'll lose a vehicle, I'll use equipment, whatever, I don't care. - Right. - But I'm not gonna do the house. That's the core. Yeah, that's the center of the universe. I'll put all my retirement, all my savings, whatever to keep the business floating if I have to, but I gotta at least have one thing that keeps the family feeling safe, you know. No, you do. 100%. And, you know, there's so many ways to do that now as far as getting business out of the gate, which is the government probably more than ever is ever is doing grants and yeah and that's hard you know and that's another thing is having the willpower like if you're gonna go down this road and you believe you can do it you gotta just keep grinding you're gonna get kicked in the nuts all the time so you just gotta keep grinding man you're gonna hit roadblocks that just look like mountain faces work around them talk to people i tell my ceo students that i mentor i'm like god gave you two ears and one mouth use it - Yeah. - Ask a question and shut up and listen. 'Cause people will tell you anything you wanna know if you are respectful to them and you ask them questions about what they're involved in. You know, I've learned all my stuff like that. I had a tool and die maker at the automotive company I worked at teaching me how to do 2D drawings. I'm like, hey, I wanna learn how to run a CNC mill and I wanna learn how to draw this part. Can you show me? He, We worked at it all the time. That's how I learned. Yeah, you know back when I was right and I would go talk Yeah, back when I was racing I go talk to the old guys back. Hey, you know, I'm struggling with this You know, what have you seen? You know, and they're like, oh, yeah, you know 20 years ago I read in the same problem or whatever, you know Yeah, people are people love teaching and the old school guys are awesome to talk to because I man they seen some shit Oh, yeah, And there's a lot of stuff that's going on nowadays with some of these big schools that are pushing out, trade people that drive me absolutely frickin' nuts, and the old guys will teach you stuff that you will never learn in those schools. And it's shit that you'll find in the real world, you know? - Right. - It's like, hey, out. You know, I've had people say to me, "Well, how are we gonna fix this?" I don't know, we'll go to bed and the little maintenance gnomes will come out and fix this shit, or fix the problem, whatever. No. Get your ass back in there and we're going to grind on this thing until we cannot get away any farther or it's going to freaking work, right? You know, I was running my laser welder this weekend off of a garden hose because the chiller's down. Cold -ass well water works great for a chiller. Laser welder works. Let's get back to production. Yeah, I think and that's in business in general, you know with when you're doing the start you're gonna have problems like that You're gonna have to work through and you have to figure out the road map to make a hundred percent and the It sounds sort of wrong, but don't overthink this like just keep going We're not building us. We're not launching the space show guys We are freaking making a widget or we're beating a pin in a hole yeah I mean come on and so it's it's a million times like don't think just do yeah and a lot of times you understand the spirit of what I'm saying and step back and take a break and dude it comes to you every time every freaking time you walk away from it and you're like oh shit and back at it I don't think I've ever had a good idea sitting at my desk no no hell no you're always like oh I gotta hate my life. - Yeah. - I'm staring at four computer screens. You know, the lights are killing me. I got a headache and I gotta figure out how to write this, you know, whatever description or do this budget. No, no, let's go out and tear some shit up and do something cool and take a break. You gotta have that mental break to come back. I mean, there's been days I've walked away from my desk after doing like 16 hours of just really modeling and my brain is cooked. It's like jello. - It's a real thing. - Dude, it's legit. And especially with stuff you're not used to doing all the time, like, you know, paperwork and blah, blah, blah. - All the bullshit. - Mm -hmm. All the legit stuff you're like, oh my gosh. You know, I mean, I work through lunch. I hardly ever just like go to lunch. - Right. - How do these people work a job that's like eight to four and they go to much for an hour in the middle of the day. I'm like, shit, I'm up at like five in the morning, I'm at the shop by six, and I'm there until nine o 'clock at night. I'm like, how the hell you do that? Like, I can't even find a minute. - I don't know. - You know, like, I'll be like, hey, I'm going to town, I'll go to town, grab a soda or something, come back, and that's my, like, break. - Yeah. - Especially if I'm in the shit, and I'm struggling or really pissed off or something, you know, and I'm just-- - And I generally don't like eating lunch 'cause then I kind of kind of get tired. - Yeah. - And I can't-- - I learned that the hard way back in the day, yeah, you'd eat a big lunch and then you're out there sleeping, you know? - Yeah, you got to light your probably yourself so you can get like a fucking football side of your brain off. - And you get back to your desk and you're like, - Looks like a little baby, you know? - Yeah, a hundred percent. - Dude, that's-- - It's a real thing. Well, I'm going to wrap us up here and tell us again what your website is and - How do they find you on Etsy and these other-- - Yeah, so speedfabrication .com. - Okay. - You'll find our logo, which is the SF logo, black and white. That takes you to our main page, which is more of an e -commerce page, but we do have a manufacturing fabrication tab on there that shows some of our shop stuff. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, all those-- talk all those under speed fabrication I mean find us we're on all the social media platforms we've been on forever so you can find us there you know we're omnichannel so we got an Amazon store eBay store our website and our Etsy stores all speed fabrications well that's awesome well thank you for coming in yeah yeah I wish we kind of got some of the previous chat in here that we had before we came in 'cause we were, I was off the rails there for a little bit. - Well, that's all right. No, I think we covered one ground. - I don't wanna bring some of the people we were talking about into it, 'cause I don't wanna hurt their feelings, but it was fun. - No, well, thank you very much, and we'll talk soon. - Yeah, appreciate it, thank you.