My YouTube and my Instagram don't necessarily reflect what I'm doing in my business. It's more of a, I'd like to film the small jobs because like I said, I'm trying to help guys start their business. So I'm showing them how I, where I started. So I film like crack repairs, tractor pipe fence. Maybe it's just a shop tour or how I set my mobile truck up or what tools we have, business advice. So I try to, my focus is on guys, like I said, that are doing less than a million dollars a year. That's where we're really. I don't need, you know, a hundred guy with a hundred employees. I mean, if he wants to watch have fun, you know, maybe to remind him when you started. But you're not going to be much help to someone who's already hit that point. No. But so your, so your business is Melton Metal Welding? This is the YouTube. So Red's actually wearing the actual business. That's Vigilante welding. Vigilante welding. And that's based, the name is taken from the area. So we live next to a place called Virginia City, and there was no sheriff back in the day. So it was back in the gold rush before Montana was a state. So they had a group of vigilantes that got together to enforce the law because the highway men were just robbing everyone. So the Henry Palmer gang got together. about my father owned a dump truck business. Well, he needed dump trucks welded. So I had a bouncy castle business at the side where I would work two, three days a week. And I had, you know, four or five days a week. I wanted to make a little extra money. So I started fixing his dump trucks, his equipment, whatever he needed, right? Well, then he would tell his friends about me. Oh, my son could fix that for you. So I'd go over 18. 18. So how did you have the background of even knowing how to just started doing it? Oh, really? You too. Monger, Jody, willing tips and tricks, and then also Nick Bazadis. So those three were my biggest three inspirations, and that helped me through the internet. I learned the basics how to stick well with 7018, 6010, 6011, 6013. And that's basically all I knew how to do was repair. Okay. And I got pretty okay at it, you know, at the time. Good enough for him, good enough for his friends, charging 60 bucks an hour as friends or something, just enough to construction companies that were friends. Then it was their friends. Then it was, this guy's a general contractor and he needs a column welded. Then it was this guy has this trailer repair and then I started advertising. It's like a network effect basically where people just started going to show up and do what you say you're going to do. When you say you're going to do it. It goes a long way. That's all you got to do. Yeah. You know, we weld anything anywhere anytime. That's where I came up with that because I'd be out 2 a .m. welding if that was what required right you know You know, anything to succeed, you know. So at what point did you kind of start your own business then if you were doing that stuff for your dad and his friends? I was running a lot of the money through the bouncy castle business because I didn't, I was just like, whatever. I don't know any better. I'm paying taxes on it. Right, right. But there was a point to which we started doing structural and it started becoming, hey, where's your insurance? And then I was like, oh. What are you talking Yeah, I was like, oh, I need insurance, I guess. So, you know, and you're welding buckets for your dad and his friends, if it rips again, it doesn't matter. Right. You know, nobody's going to die, you know. But if a structure collapses, we got problems. Absolutely. I mean, so what I did was I started melting metal mobile welding, kind of a mouthful. And I learned that the hard way. Don't make things a mouthful when you start a business. Three syllables or less. That's the rule. So that's why we stick with Melton Metal now. Okay. You know, or Melton Metal Anthony, you know. And now it's strictly just my YouTube business. So a few years in, four or five years, I learned some hard lessons. And people kept asking me questions about it. How do you do this? How did you get into it? How did you do that? Right. And I was like, I just make a YouTube channel. So I made a YouTube, started making silly little videos and me just stuff in my yard that I was fixing or people would bring to me. You know, because I was working out of my two -car garage. hold the gun to your head and make you spend the money relax or then leaving dog shit out throughout the yard and thinking i'm going to set my bounce house up on it and getting mad when i asking the clean the dog shit so yeah that's kind of kind of where we started yeah so how um how long do you have the business in florida and how big like how big was it getting it got big we uh we actually welded most of the h piles underneath the bridge between st pete and Tampa, the Howard Franklin Bridge. Yeah, yeah. If you're driving over that, you're driving over my welding. And what I would do is I didn't have the chop for a job that size. A company called Archer Western. This is, I guess, a side note, but an interesting story, how I got that contract, and this is a good lesson for anyone who wants to get into this business, I've seen this really cool, like, service truck. It reminded me of something that Nick Bazadis has. This is an Oregon welder I'm talking about, but the truck was like that. Crain, really cool rotary screw air compressor, brand new Miller, all the stuff I couldn't afford at the time. Pulled in and knocked on the guy's door. I'm like, hey man, is that your welding truck there? Well, I'm not a welder. I'm a crane mechanic. He goes, man, that thing's really cool. I really like what you got going on. Thanks. He goes, are you a welder? I said, yeah. He goes, I can't weld anymore. I'm 60 -some odd years old. I can't see. He's like, we need a welder. He goes, you want to come subcontract for Archer Wester? And if you know Archie Weston Des Moe, they're $10 billion a year company. So I knocked in this dude's door, I said, yeah, gave me a shot. First thing I made for them was this asphalt form. And basically it went on the front of a payloader, and they would feed it asphalt through like a chute, and it would make an asphalt curb. So I made that, and they were so impressed with it, that the PM of the job, this guy named Taz, No, you can't handle that. So, I started subcontracting. So I found other mobile welders who needed work and couldn't figure it out quite. And it's actually how I met Paul Sabalowski. Who Paul Sabalowski is, is he was one of the hosts at Weld .com. And Weld .com had invited me to go to their weld lab, which was in St. Pete at the time. Okay. And I met Paul Sabalowski. And Paul was like, man, ain't you that YouTube kid? I was like, yeah, I do YouTube. man i need so i want Matt is a, I doubt to watch this, but the best sewage contractor, the best. This guy knows everything about how clarifiers, how dosing, all of it, how it all works. And he taught me. So we were repairing sewage treatment plants in between the Archer Western work. Okay. And then we met another guy named Scott. He was, he introduced me to what David Bacon is, the David Bacon laws, fair wage laws. Basically, it's a government grant, and you have to pay a fair wage if it's a government grant. And I didn't have the chops to take on the type of jobs that he wanted. I was doing hourly stuff, mostly. This is the first time I started getting into contractual work. Scott gave us our first big break, our first six -figure contract, and we went out there and we cut down a bunch of old stairways in a 2B homeless shelter and replaced him with new steel. He handled all the paint and the concrete work. I just did the welding and the fabrication on the stringers and the landings. That was one of some of my first videos where these stairway jobs and some of the Archer Western stuff. There's quite a few videos of me welding on lattice boom cranes and just whatever Archer Western needed, whatever Scott needed, whatever the sewage treatment plant people needed. If people were to go back in my YouTube three, four, five years, whatever it is, they would see me doing what I'm talking about right now. when you move out west. Yeah, scary. Very scary when you don't have water. So speaking of moving out west, so you, after, like you said, five, six years in Florida, you moved out to Montana, correct? What was the reason, like, why Montana? Well, I'll tell you how it happened first. So we did these big jobs. We started getting contracts. I started learning the contractual end of things. Scott, image construction held my hand and showed me the contractual process which actually I could circle back and that's why I do YouTube to help the way I was helped pay it forward yeah paying it forward so what I'm not making I make in one day welding what I make all month with YouTube yeah you know right so it's not people think I'm doing it like like I'm some rich guy oh no I don't make you make hardly anything on that. But, so what had happened was we had finished up some big six -figure contracts, some smaller on the lower end, seven -figure contracts, and I'd sold the Bouncy Castle business, finally. Finally got free from that burden. And I had a lot of cash. And I needed a place to put it, for one, for two. You know, sitting cash is losing money. You know, I mean, the American dollar ain't getting better. It seems to be getting worse every year. I needed to get an asset. And I need to speak about this part of it. And this is why I wanted to bring it back to it. I had a burning gut feeling. Burning right before COVID, 2008, late in 2019, early 2020. Something in my gut said, Anton, you got to buy some property. If you don't do it now, you won't be able to afford the property out west. So I went out to the town that I live in, I spent $45 ,000 on my parcel. These properties are now going for anywhere between two, Like, what, I mean, were you familiar with that area at all? Have you been going there? No. So, I'd only been there once. I mean, my wife got married in front of Old Faithful and Yellowstone National Park. Okay. Got some shaman ladies show up, only close family and friends. And she married us in front of Old Faithful. Nice. So we did that. We drove around and went to the town that I live in currently. How far away is that from? About an hour south of where I'm mad now. That's where Yellowstone is. Okay. Okay. We went out there. I was like, this place is beautiful. It's got mountain biking. It's got whitewater kayaking. It's got hunting. It's got, you know, mountain climbing. It's got it all, you know. It's got little craft breweries, a really cool whiskey place called Whiskey Willis. Old X. Green Beret guy owns it. It's super cool dude. I ended up doing metal work for him eventually. Yeah. So I moved to that town and I love it. Yeah. Love Montana. You know, we were still doing six - Oh, you did. Yeah. Oh. We were still doing six -figured contracts. Paul was basically handling that. I was still getting fed off of, we had a Home Depot contract. We'd go in the Home Depot's and cut the columns out when they'd rot from the fertilizer sitting on them. And I have many videos of that. No way. And we'd slip in a new piece of column or just replaced the whole column depending on what it was. Was it an H -brace or was it a square tube, basically? And what did it support and could I shore the building? And was this in a certain part of the country for them? All through Florida. matter, you got to do it, you know. I made a lot of good relationships. The fire chief in town was the first guy to give me my break in town. It's like I was explaining off camera, when you move into a small community, you have to earn the trust. People aren't used to that. People are used to being given things. Sure. You do not, you are not given things in a small community in Montana. You have to earn. You have to prove to people in town who you are. So I'd rented a backhoe from this guy, right? And I go to div my, I'm doing it all myself. I mean the septic, The dirt the backhoe back, which I had to drive it to 10 or so miles back to his place, bouncing up and down the road. I bring it back, and I say the guy, man, boom's broken. You know, he apologizes up and down. He's not going to charge me. You know, good business man. So we kind of whatever, I said, I'm just going to go to Bozeman and go get an excavator because he didn't have any excavators left. Okay, okay. You know, I'm sorry about that. I'm like, it's all right, man, don't worry about it. I go to Bozman. I get almost into Bozeman. He calls me he goes you're a welder aren't you said yeah he goes you want to weld his boom back together I said he goes well can you said yeah absolutely I said my sleep no problem I go back I weld it back together he's clearly impressed that I can I have the knowledge I say I have yeah he's watching he's like oh god this guy really can do what he says he can do well the boom back together thing's still going today you know four or five years later whatever it is I get the machine back, I go back because he says after I fix it, he's like, well, why don't you just use it? So he goes to me, I said, well, how long can I use it for? He goes, as long as you want. So, okay. So I end up using this thing for like two months. Guy doesn't even call me. No way. That's how solid this guy. Sean is, he's the fire chief, but he's also the snow plow contractor and owns the rental company and does all this charity work. charity work, incredible individual, just one of a kind. You don't meet these guys every day. So Sean starts telling people about, this guy really does what he says he can do, and he does it when he says he's going to do it, which is rare in Montana. Everybody's either out hunting or fishing. They don't care. You know, so I start going around. Hey, can you fix this? Can you fix that? And I'm just doing it. I'm still running it through melting metal to Florida incorporation, which can get kind of messy on the tax side because now you've got to also pay, you're paying the income tax. when it's negative 40 out and the tol alone flush no more because the shit pipe is frozen. Bad news. Even though it's heated because it's negative 40 and 70 mile per hour winds on top. No, no, no, no, no, don't do that. We did that for two years, lived in that camper. So, yeah, I made my first relationship like that. Lived in a camper, built a house. And then this past year is when I officially started, like about a year ago, maybe a little longer, we officially started Vigilani Welding. Okay. And then I met a couple of contractors, did what I said I was going to do, and I started getting awarded big contracts again. Yep. Right back on top. Yeah. So it's been a year? Yep. Wow. It's going well. Excellent. So are you, the majority of the work that you're doing, is it all in Montana or is it around? Oh, Montana. Oh, Montana. I've been asked to go other places, but my bid ends up being too high. Like, we got a nice guy down in Idaho, a general contractor, young guy, and a framer down in Idaho Falls, good friends through Instagram, actually, I made friends with these guys. Wanted me to come down and do stuff, but it was just cost prohibitive. And I understand. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. So how big is the company as far as employees and whatnot in Montana. So like I said, I like to stay lean and mean. So it's me and two other guys. And then my wife is subcontracted as our painter. Oh, okay. So we have right now, we're building a 2 ,000 square foot shop. We started in a thousand square footer. But you'd be surprised with even that small of a space, what you can do if you keep your work. And you do things on a timely manner. and you deliver when you say you're going to, and it's coded the right way, it's welded the right way, and everything's in code. Yeah. You're good, you're doing good. Nice. So are you looking as far as like future plans? I mean, you said you kind of like to stay, mean and mean, is that still the plan? Yeah, we wanna be sub 10 employees on that end. Okay. I'm looking at other investments. We'd like to have storage facilities. We're building a cabin on the property. We're gonna a little Airbnb there, but then we want to expand buy property just for Airbnb's. I would love to own a campground, a little cost prohibitive in Montana, unless I can really raise some cash. And then, you know, I'd like to also, which brought me to your booth, I would like to have a steel distributor eventually. All right. So your guys' software really caught my eye, and that's how I ended up sitting here. I said, oh, you can buy steel all in one place, and you're going to do the legwork of talking to all the steel distributors. I don't have to make seven calls in a day. Exactly. That's a big deal. Yeah. It's a big deal. That's huge. Very interesting to me. We get a lot of that feedback from companies who, you know, it's no secret, generally speaking, who the main steel suppliers are in certain areas, right? Like, I'm sure you know where to go, but after a while, it's like, why, I'm buying the same stuff for the most part over and over. Yeah, it's cool to hear people kind of come by and share those stories with us, for sure. What I'm really excited about that you guys are doing is you're going to have a mobile app. Yes. Which, you know, like I said, we're leaning in me. Sometimes I'm on a job site and the contractor comes over and goes, hey, we need to have this, this and this. And, you know, it's usually not extravagant. It's just a change order that's been made, which I'll go through and be like, okay, well, I'm going to need this deal, this deal and this deal. It It takes me 10 minutes to figure out the steel. Now, if you have a mobile app, I can go ahead and get on the mobile app and just go ahead and download it and go ahead and go in the mobile app and then make my order of steel through that. Sure. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah, we've had the mobile app for a while now, but with, I don't know if, I mean, you saw the new release that we just came out with this week. That was first and foremost, let's get that out to the market. So we had to kind of shut that mobile piece down just for a short period of time until we can get that revised and kind of talking the same language as the desktop app. So software is a difficult piece. I've tried to play. It's amazing how things you just don't even think about. That once you're kind of in deep with it, you're like, oh my God, some of this stuff is just, it's mind -boggling. What's the advent of AI going to do for you guys? You know, we definitely have some of that tied into our software. We haven't really kind of gone full tilt with it just because we're small enough still to where, you know, we want to be the ones that are kind of learning some of the buying behaviors and estimating behaviors of our users and whatnot. But AI is definitely definitely minority is, but it's going to play just a huge piece in just the speed, making this even faster, more efficient, connecting buyers and sellers in a more efficient manner. But it's here. I mean, it's just definitely changing the way things are done. I'll tell you what, it's changed my business, blueprint reading, and it's also changed contracts. I no longer have to call a lawyer. I have a look at it. Sure. But usually the lawyer goes to no revisions. Really? Yeah. So I think you contract lawyers, days are numbered. I think doctors' days are numbered. I mean, not all doctors. Right, right. But your general doctor, I think their days are numbered. Yeah. I think your average accountant's days are numbered. I think those those white -collar jobs that are not on the top end, I think it's going to be quick, and I think it's going to be swift, and I think it's going to be very painful for a lot of people. I actually talk a little bit here and there about what AI, robotics, laser welding, the advent of these three things, and where they're going to collide, where that's going to take our industry. And I'm trying to tell these guys to get ahead of it. So right now we're working with a company called Theo. They're going to be sending us a laser welder out. And right now, the big holdback on laser welding is that there are no written procedures with like AWS or CWB to weld structures or pipe or whatever with these laser welders. I don't think pipe is going to be a big thing with these. But once those procedures are written, the door is going to be opened. I mean, what's going to happen is you're going to have less skilled welders that are more technically, logically intelligent, like they understand how to adjust the machine, but I don't know, have you guys got a chance to play with the lasers? No, no, we never have. Go over to the field booth, go play with them for a second, just so you can see what's coming. Yeah. Because in about two minutes, you can make a food grade quality weld on stainless after two minutes of training. Or usually that would take at least two weeks for a good guy, for a guy I really understand it. Yeah. You know, so it's just like anything else. It's being streamlined. We all need to be ahead of it. We all need to be aware of it. That denial thing people like that, well, not my job, not my job. Let's get real, okay? You're not invincible. The world doesn't revolve around you. And it may be your job. If you're a production mid guy, if you're doing menial tasks in the welding space, you need to at least increase your skill or find a space that's going to work for you, You know, and really keep your finger on the pulse of things. Everybody should be watching this thoroughly. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. Yeah. And is that stuff in your YouTube channel that you talk about, like kind of helping some of these up -and -coming businesses? We talk a little. It's kind of more of a side note. It's not really the main focus. It's more, you know, because the way you establish a business is going to change in the fact that it gets quicker with AI. Right. You know, it's already very quick. I can, if you wanted to, I could set you up in Montana Incorporation in about less than 10 minutes and get you insurance, everything, out the door. And that's actually part of my mountain metal business now. What I was finding is that the information I was giving was so much, so broad, and doesn't exactly apply to everybody's individual position. I started offering consulting. So I've been charging $85 for a half an hour of time, which is not, it's my welding rate. I'm 175 an hour mobile. Gotcha. So I'm not making any money. Right. I'm doing it because, like I said, this is how I can move it forward and I can give individual attention where the YouTube is more broad. And if somebody has a direct question, we can schedule a phone call. I can answer it. And, you know, like I was telling you guys, if you're doing less than a million dollars gross a year, I can probably help you. Right. You know, if you're grossing over a million, you probably have the answers. Sure. 90 % of guys that have, because you have to have a certain mentality to be an entrepreneur, you have to have a certain resilience. A lot of people don't have it, but the guys who are interested in getting into it, and they're already taking the steps, buying the equipment, putting their neck out there, reinvesting in themselves. Most of them already know the answers to their questions. They just need someone to say, yeah, you're right. Right. You know? Make sure on that right path, doing things the right way. People need reassurance. And when you're not from a family like mine, where my father was an entrepreneur, you don't have anybody to get that reassurance from. And luckily I had somebody to say, man, you think this is right? Am I doing this? Is this guy trying to get me? You know, because a lot of what I help people with is, you know, like we talked about briefly, like David Bacon laws, lean release waivers, contractual obligations, what liability you can relieve yourself with, how to relieve yourself with more liability, tax strategy. You know, I'm no CPA. Right. I can't give legal CPA advice. I can't give legal contractual advice, but I can tell you what I would do in your situation. Right. But that's why I'm starting to do it is I want to give more individual attention to each individual entrepreneur so I can really help them. Right. But the truth of the matter is most people know the answer, or if you're willing to go through the 500 plus videos I have, all of the answers are in there. The answers are in those videos already. They've already been spoken about everything I'm going to talk to somebody about on the phone. If they don't have the $85, I've been there. Yeah. You know, it's there. Right. But I think you're right. I think someone who's already taken those steps to start that business, they're going in the right direction, having that, you know, someone they can kind of speak to, rely on and just get that reassurance of like, hey, yeah, you're doing it all right. Or, you know, maybe you're not completely correct and accurate. But here's, you know, a couple things you can, you do to make sure you're protected liability wise or, you know, whatever the case may be. But having that, that person that they can kind of talk to to solidify, you know, that's helpful. I've been there. I've done that. I did it the hard way. You know, my father's business. If you don't got your health, you don't have nothing. I know seven -year -old guys that would go back to being 16 years old and not know what they know and be in a worse situation just to get that time back, you know. But everything's perspective, and you've got to do what you feel you can do. If you want to be a $100 million company, God bless you. Yeah. I don't want to be that guy. Yeah. I've seen it. You know, I've seen it. I lived with it. I listened to the conversations he have. It was miserable. back would at the middle of the night, undig where the money was currently, put it in one of the new holes and cover them all up in the middle of the night so that as to nobody would know where his money was hidden. So that was unbelievable. The kind of grit my dad had to have to pull himself out. You know, you can't pull yourself out by your bootstraps. Bull shit. I lived with the guy did it. Yeah. You know, because he's the only one in his entire family that has anything. Right. The rest of them. Just How bad do you want it? Yeah, he wanted it. Yeah. He wanted it real bad. You know, he's a very successful guy. I'm very proud of him. And yeah, I mean, if I didn't have that and I didn't have the other people who guided me along the way that I spoke briefly about, I wouldn't be here. And again, that's why I do the YouTube. Yeah. You know? Paid forward like, yeah. Paid forward as many people as I can. That's awesome. Yeah. Well, Anthony, It's a great story. I love hearing about it. Where can people find you, whether it's YouTube or Instagram or whatever? So I'm Melton Metal Mobile, Melton Metal Anthony across all the platforms. You can find me anywhere, but Twitter or X or whatever it is these days, I'm not into the, you know, but we're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter. Awesome. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. Thank you for talking.