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Clayview helps you build relationships that drive more revenue and deliver truly personalized experiences at scale. Join the more than 176,000 brands like Away, Patrick Taugh, and Dollar Shave Club that already grow with Clayview at KLA-V-I-Y-O-D.com. Hello and welcome to the Vice-Wig on how it goes lab. I'm Guy Ross.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges each week. I'm joined by a legendary founder, former guest, Anisho, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, you can just call and you just make the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-43128-8.
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And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Michael Dubin, founder of Dollar Shave Club. Let's go ahead and get to the next video.
Thanks for having me. Your first on high notes back in 22 to the live show. It was so fun at the e-seater in LA. As always, if you guys had heard that episode, I'll put a link to it in the show notes.
In that episode, Mike and I talked about how he suddenly came into acquiring a huge amount of raisers in California warehouse. And they turned eight years of marketing experience and background improv into the Dollar Shave Club. And so if you remember, this incredible and hilarious video that Michael produced from other brands in 2016, just five years after sounding Dollar Shave Club acquired by Unilever, reportedly for $8 billion. You stay on Unilever for, I think you basically would Dollar Shave Club for 10 years, half the time, Unilever, have a time independent.
Of course, I'm actually left and you become investor. I know you were an advisor to other companies including Liquid Death, which we've also featured on the show. So, so much has happened since we last had your own show. Give us a note and what's been going on in your life.
There's no lag going on. So I don't have time we have, but I'll spare you the therapy session. I would say the most exciting stuff that I have been up to is I wrote a screenplay. That was a super fun endeavor.
I always wanted to do it and ultimately I finished it kind of late last year and got a bunch of great feedback from some people that I really trust. And, you know, if the script gods, less than anything, it's good. I'd love to reproduce it. That would be a super fun thing that I've always wanted to do.
The drugs on my personal experience and my professional experience. So that's been a fun kind of tapping on my creative side. I love that. Yeah, well, it's hard.
And it's hard to be original. So I've been doing that. And in addition to the screenplay, I'm continuing to do my board work and advisory work. And I'm starting to noodle a few new company ideas.
You know, at this point, I am ready to jump back into something, but it has to be the right thing. And I'm excited to start building again. You know, in your episode, of course, we talked about that incredible video that you made on viral. They got people to notice and I'll shape it.
This was a different time. I mean, it's a different place than it was in 2012 when that came out. And I wonder whether you know what you're thinking is now on how to kind of cut through the noise. Is that still a reasonable goal?
I mean, liquid death, which I don't even advise they did that. But again, a few years ago, do you think it's something that's so possible to start through with a right kind of creative video? It was a very different time. I don't even think people were using a word influencer.
Just think about how the influencer economy and ecosystem has exploded. And so it was by today's standards, you know, a primitive marketing ecosystem. There just wasn't a lot. The webbing wasn't as exponential as it is today.
There's just so many nodes pulsing out content to build people around the world. And so, so yes, you can cut through the noise if it's something truly original, if it feels authentic and if it strikes a court in some way, whether that's an emotional court or a humorous court, yeah, of course you can cut through the noise. I think the biggest difference might be the wave doesn't last as long as it once did because there's so much out there. And you know, if we launched the Dollar J club video in today's ecosystem, I mean, forget about the fact that the tone is, you know, from a different time maybe, in a hypothetical world if you were launched today, I don't think you get the same length of viral wave, which is great, which is great, because it's great for the noise.
Hopefully I'd like to think that it could be wrong, but there's no way it lasts as long. You have to work so much harder now, but if you do it well, yeah, you can break through, but then you have to sustain it with other things. One of the, I think just amazing things about Dollar J club is that it was a market instillate system to largest autonomy by one company by July and to smaller side shape. When people come to you or if they are trying to build something in an industry that seems saturated or dominated by the player, what advice do you give them?
Ooh, what advice do I give those companies? I guess I know what question is, is it possible? I mean, do you think it's still possible? Why is it crazy to try to do that?
So is it crazy? Probably. Does that mean you shouldn't try? Definitely not.
The last great consumer giant disruptor company has not been launched. They will continue to launch all the time. What is the signature element of their success? It's probably a pretty boring formula.
It's a combination of great product and great distribution and great communication. If you reverse engine your Dollar J club to the success of that video, I would say that we had great product. We had unique distribution at that time. It was the beginning of D to C is going to eat the world and that's not what happened.
Everybody believed that at the time. The biggest of the voice which we spoke was real and it was captivating. So, amazing story. Anybody who's looking to figure out how to deal with themselves as a report to the podcast, don't send description, answer to check it out.
Let's go ahead and take a first call. Okay, welcome to how to go to my slide. My call to do the Dollar J club. Please tell us your name where you're calling from and just one line about your business.
Hi, my name is Benita Casbo. I'm calling from Chad and New Jersey. I'm the founder and owner of Casbo's Middle Eastern Kitchen, which is a heritage group grant that honors the Middle Eastern region with authentic flavors and unique ingredients. My first product, Syrian cheese, is a traditional cheese that's eaten throughout the Middle East.
It's set to launch in 2026 across all New York City stores of a major grocery chain. Wow, awesome. Thank you, Benita. I know you can share a huge fan of how built it.
You're always commenting on our hosts and saying nice things. And you're going to ban, I feel like it's a beginning for a long time. A long time. A long time fan for some color.
It's great to meet you in person. So excited for this. So tell us, you've got this cheese that you're launching and explain what Syrian cheese is. So I have hallouneas, a stretchy is a melty.
So Syrian cheese is a cow's-based milk cheese. So I'm purchasing curt from a curt producer. It gets rolled in salt and then it gets cooked with a unique Middle Eastern spice that is native to the Middle East called makla. And makla is derived from seeds of cherry pets that only grown the Middle East.
And the makla creates this unique flavor. And the most important part of all of your experience with the Syrian cheese is a saltiness. And then the center is slightly sweet. And it's a traditional cheese that's eaten everywhere.
You can slice it and it melts incredibly well. Like I've gotten a two foot cheese pole before. Cheese pole. Yeah, sorry.
Cheese pole? Cheese pole? Cheese pole. Yeah, you melt it.
You melt it. And it's not melted. And you slice it. Is it how the texture of a sort of a parts skim mozzarella?
I would say it's not as soft as mozzarella. It's in between feta and hollumi. And it's in that flavor family. But you can't put it on the grill.
Like hollumi, you can cut it and put it directly on a fire. You can't get it with Syrian cheese. And then it has incredible melting property without getting oily. Yeah.
OK. Bonita, when did you start your business? So I'll give you the back story. So I had the idea for the business in 2017.
I actually got involved with the Syrian refugees that were settling in New Jersey. And I speak fluent Arabic. And so I worked as a translator and coordinator for dinner to help them settle in New Jersey. And at the time, I met a cheese maker who tried my product.
And she said, this is delicious. And I tried to recipe from you. And I didn't sell it to her. And she said, well, I encourage you to pursue this.
And then just before the pandemic, I met a someone who works in the cheese industry. And he said to me, when you're ready, I will help you with this and get help you make connections within the industry. So since the pandemic, I was able to work. I went full force in trying to get it launched.
And I found a commercial kitchen. And I started working with the people that I had met. And I got it into a few stores. And since then, now I'm full time on the business, I'm no longer working.
What was your old job? So I worked in the pharmaceutical industry in sales and marketing. New Jersey pharmaceuticals are big in New Jersey. So when I started doing selling cheese, I was working Monday through Wednesday, sampling legal drugs.
And then I was sampling cheese Thursday through Sunday. Well, you were sampling drugs. You were just taking them. Well, I was one of those sales people.
So I have probably got a couple of questions for us. So my question for Michael is I prepared a launch. I'm looking for an impactful grassroots rural style marketing strategy that creates excitement and draws attention to this new category of cheese within the special case. And then at the same time, I'd love to create a digital marketing campaign rollout that separate from social media that'll drive customer awareness and conversion.
Got it. Michael Cuban, cheese introducing essentially a new product. It's been done with Fede before that mozzarella cheese, which was at four and cheese. And they're trying to 70s when Americans didn't know that was.
So Michael thought. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.
So exciting. I love cheese. Number one, I'm also getting hungry right along with the sense that it goes on. So that's unfortunate for me, but I'll deal with it.
So thanks for your compassion. I have a couple of questions. What do I put it on? Do I eat a plane?
Do I put it on pizza? Am I coming up with a whole new diet here? Or does this fit in easily with what I'm already making? No, this will easily fit into what you're currently doing.
And I have created recipe cards and I'm going to have a dynamic QR code that goes on the packaging that will when the customer scans it, they'll be able to get a video of me talking to them. So it's actually a very simple pairing ideas that transforms how the cheese tastes depending on what you put it with. So to me, okay, I'm going to stand with it on an amazing toasted table. You can melt it with a peanut bread with mint and a lipo pepper and almond.
It's amazing. Yeah. So I think I'll just riff for a second. So number one, I love stuff that nobody's ever heard of before in the United States, or the most people having because there's a big opportunity.
I know you're going to kill it. I think one challenge that you're working with is consumer doesn't know it, so they don't know how to use it. I'd lower the bar for them. Make it really easy for them to put it on something that they're already doing.
Like, you know, pizza sandwiches, eat this plain, pair it with your wine. But make it easy for people to say like, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. You don't have to do anything totally new. This is going to slide in really nicely what you're already doing.
And it sort of sounds like a unique form factor. Right? Like you said, between halo and feta. So halo and these kind of, I love halo and it's like a little rubbery and chewy and really great kind of squeaks when you chew it.
Feta is really crumbly. And you know, you can do whatever with that. But like your cheese, you say somewhere in the middle, I think you're just going to have to articulate for folks like, how do I do this? Where do I put it?
And if the form factor is not a slice or a crumble or a patty, like, tell me, you just want to help coach people. So I think like that could be some fun stuff to include. You have to queue our code destination or even if you're doing sampling it stores. There's a little bit of information around like, here's how to use.
Like, are you new to that syringe cheese? Here's how you do it. And I think you can have fun with the idea of syringe cheese. Like, maybe there's a campaign which is like, everybody knows the best cheese comes from Syria.
Everybody knows that. Like, maybe you hire, I don't know what country is best known for cheese. Maybe France is an Amsterdam, right? And so maybe you have like angry French ambassadors because they're so mad that syringe cheese is the secret's finally out on syringe cheese.
Like, everybody knows about syringe cheese. You know, you can have so much fun with this idea that everybody knows about syringe cheese, right? Doesn't everybody know about syringe cheese? Yeah.
So like, I think you can have fun with that. I think you can have fun, like in the sampling, I think you can have a lot of fun with like characters. I've been heart recently about like, we're about all the great mascots gone. And I think mascots work like have fun with that.
Like, maybe it's angry Spanish, you know, cheese consores who are mad that the secret's now out. You know, and it's like to go around, you know, dishing syringe cheese and it's obviously a joke, but it's like a dishing it because it's so good. You know, or like maybe there's like, maybe there's like a syringe cheese costume you can build. And it's like you're just doing the sampling in the syringe cheese costume.
But like, I think of mascots think of like, think of big like visual arresting ideas as you bring this to life. But yeah, I don't know. There's a couple of years ago. I love that.
Having a French chef in like a social media video, like just, you know, talking about the secret's out. It's a great idea. I love it. So funny.
One thing that I, I, I, I, I don't know what they're doing now. You, but you are going to have to, in addition to finding a French actor, you're going to have to. You're going to have to. You're going to have to.
You're going to have to work. You're going to have to sample the hell out of this. You're going to have to spend the next year every weekend. We can, I sampling and people are going to have to eat it and try it and you're going to maybe be a little bit of honey on a crater.
I don't know how you're just different ways of doing it. But that is going to be the key here because it's, you know, you're starting in New York City and it's in advantage because New York City's a place where trends start and there's a, you know, an audience of people who are adventurous. And, you know, as you're sampling it, you know, the message to be like, meet the Middle Eastern cheese. You've never tried or about to fall in love with her, you know, best becoming favorite cheese, something like that.
And then the other thing is I would really lean into as best you can to, you know, some of the local press and New York. I mean, either, you know, the food magazines are all based there at food 52 and see if you can just pitch them and get them. They're always looking for new counties. Well, to your point, I was featured in the New York Times, Florence Haber, Camp Road about it.
And so I think I need to bring that back up to surface. And I think I need to tell you this, but I'm the cheesemaker for a high in the Eastern restaurant in New York City. So I do food service as well. And they recently got a full page right up by a food critic and she did make a note in the article.
She said her favorite was the Syrian cheese appetizer. And I helped create that with a head chef. Wow. Yeah.
That's amazing. Okay. Let me try. I first I couldn't agree more with God that sampling is going to be a key to strategy.
And the other thing I think is super important for you to get right is your package. Yeah. I'm not a designer. I couldn't give you advice there.
But I know it when I see it. So when you have your packaging, if you want to shoot me a note, I'm happy to look at it. I would love that. And I think those are two things you have to get right is your packaging and your understanding strategy.
Absolutely. And finding a French guy, you know, well, it's funny within the cheese community, people have started to make jokes about it. It's better than Fedda. Like people have made jokes like that.
But Michael's your point. We are starting our packaging design right now. I'm working with an agency. So I'm happy to share it with you.
We started with a logo right now. And then we're moving towards the packaging in the couple of weeks. Everyone knows about syringes. Everyone knows everyone knows that that's cheese comes from Syria.
There you go. Ben Yucazbo founder of Caswell's Market. Thanks for calling us. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for cheering us on to over the years. Appreciate you. Good luck. Imagine in your head what's a French cheese maker look like.
I'm thinking he's wearing a parade, right? Yeah. And a red scarf maybe like around his neck. Go on.
You got it. Yeah. Yeah. He's angry because he's angry because he's out.
That's right. That's right. I love it. All right.
We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another collar and another round advice. Stay with us on Guy Ross and listening to the advice line right here on how I build this. Welcome back to the advice line on how I build a lab on Guy Ross. And I guess today is Michael Dubin founder of Dollar Shave Club.
And we are ready to take our next collar. Hello, Cara. Hi, my name is Brandon Davis. I'm from Vista California in San Diego County.
I'm the owner of Pars Mobile Meek Off alongside my wife Claire. With Pars, we bring the Meek Off to you for your next party. Wow. Okay, Brandon, thanks for calling Pars Mobile Meek Off.
So like I have a party and I want something to do. You will bring a mini golf course to my party. You'll set it up. And how does that work?
Yeah, we bring the full mini golf course. We try to make it look as permanent as possible in the space that you have. All we need is a flat surface. We provide all the putters and balls.
We have designed it to be as challenging and immersive as possible. It has a high end look so it can go to black tie weddings and corporate events, but it's also versatile enough where it can go back and barbecue as well. Wow. Who knew?
Who what kinds of party are the kids parties? Who hired you guys? Our biggest clientele is weddings and corporate events. That's what we need.
Yeah, yes, during the cocktail hour and reception, they'll have it to entertain guests and, you know, people can converse and meet each other over in the middle. That is so cool. How did you come up with this idea? Who would have thought of this?
Yeah, I loved mini golf as a kid. And one of my wife and I were talking and I was just like, I would love to own a permanent mini golf course. I fully immerse it into our one and we didn't have money at the time. So we were just brainstorming and thought, what have we made a mobile?
We both have working experience and my wife as a designer, myself, I designed Windows Blaze for a national bookstore. And so we just got started working on it out of our carport and started running it with four holes and then I just grew from there. That is so cool. And your base to San Diego.
So I'm assuming most of not all of your businesses in that area in San Diego. Yeah, and we started the company in Utah, but we move it out here because my wife's family is from here. And we just thought, this is going to be the market for it. So we packed up our whole family with three kids after two years of running it there.
We moved it to California, kind of took a risk and it paid off really well. We've done better in California than we ever did in Utah. And your district full-time job is to be right here. So you guys are doing my wife is actually now that it's back up on its feet and doing what she's going back to be an exhibit designer for San Diego and to go to the museum.
So I'll be running full-time myself. And do you have any place? Yeah, we have two delivery leads who run separate routes and then we have a pool of gig workers who go out with them. And give us a sense of what you guys are in terms of revenue which is doing right now.
I mean, you broke 100 grand a year, 100 feet. Yeah, so this year we're projected to hit over $200,000, which honestly, just my modeling thing that's something I made out of my car for is at that point. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, before we get dive into the social questions.
Yeah, so a lot of small niche businesses like ours, they're really given by like two products that say that actual product and then the client interaction experience that's just as important. I've been going to a lot of the business we started at the California. But now that the volume is up, how do we make sure that our employees are bringing that same level of client interaction experience that we bring when they don't have the same skin in the game and emotional investment? All right, Michael Luben, lots of you out here.
That's questions, concerns, comments. Yeah, so first of all, congrats on the business. It's super unique idea. Everybody's looking for ways to make our event more fun, but to address your question, you know, you're highlighting a challenge to every entrepreneur faces, which is how do I get everybody else to care as much as I do about business and about customer experience.
And one of the best ways to do that is to create an equity pool that your employees can participate in. Is there a way for you to make your employees the best ones, the ones that are in most loyal, can you give them a share of your company so that they feel a pride of ownership that you feel and they can join your success beyond what you're paying them from salary order to any basis. I'm not sure how your how your team works, but you know, that's probably the best way I could think about is letting them participate in that way in your success. But it's a hard thing to do, especially with people who are being paid hourly who may not have the same passion for the category.
So another thing that employees really like is depending on, you know, depending on the company and what the role is investing in their development as a worker. And where do they want to grow? You know, nobody comes to your company expecting it to be a lifelong relationship and you should expect that either. Right?
That's just not how it works. And eventually they're going to move on and they're going to do something else. How can you play a role in their development and say, here's what we need at you while you're here. And by the time you leave, you're going to leave with A, B and C skills, capabilities, and those are going to serve you well in what you want to do moving forward.
Yeah, in addition, I mean, giving people like what you amazing is right away there, invest in them. They will get a piece of them. But before you go down that route because I think you're still pretty small and you may not want to do that yet. We didn't have to start coming back about specialized bikes.
And it's worth listening to that episode because Mike Cinyard, who founded that company, we started in like 2000, 2001 and almost bankrupt. And he happened to be an article about Adidas and how Adidas really turned around their business in the United States in part because of a brand Bible. I've been running specialized for 20 years. I've never been a brand Bible.
And here you go to a new company in your business. And you don't have to write, you know, a 2000 page brand Bible, but you can write like a customer service manifesto, right? Because you're not in the mini golf business. You're not a hospitality business.
Yeah, exactly. You're in the, like a restaurant is not serving food. They create experiences like you go to a restaurant and yeah, the food might be great, but that's enhancing the conversation. Somebody else is a memorable experience of having great food to make it better and having great customer service.
They're a lot of, there are a lot of certain points of contact. And with what you do is the same thing. It's like someone's a wedding. Like, oh, there's a mini golf course.
What's the best wedding ever? I had just, it was fun and a drink, that's great. And so your job is to help create that joyful moment. And I think you start by building a document.
It can be two, three, five pages Microsoft Word or Google Docs. It says, we're in the business of creating joy. And you, you know, you basically have checklists, you know, and greet people how to respond, how to smile. The other thing I think is really critical for your business is who you hire.
Because you're not looking for necessarily people with like specialized skills, right? The most important thing you're looking for is some brand. You've got a higher for attitude. And over everything, you can teach people how to do this stuff.
But you want to look for people who maybe have worked on hospitality who just love this stuff. Which is joyful. And not everyone's like that. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, run the other time.
But there are lots of people out there. Actually, most of my, all my team on how to do this. Like, you want to find people who just love this and love this idea and love being joy to people. And that's where you start to, you know, you create the ability to kind of like, go and manage more and let other people run the show.
And I'll just, I'll add to that and just say, when you're interviewing candidates, it's really important to ask them why they want this job. What do they want to get out of it? And how can you help them get that thing out of it? And pay attention to the answer that you get.
You know, you want to try to find people with that kind of passion that guy mentioned, with that sense of joyfulness. You know, and you want somebody that believes in the mission and believes in the business that you're creating. That's how you're going to get people to stay and be the right kind of ambassador once they got the job. So pay attention to the answers that they give you because you don't want to hire people for whom this is just a job.
Yeah. You know, another way to incentivize people to really step up and as relatively expensive is you can. If you're not doing this already, you should be asking every client for feedback. It's annoying because every time I'm asked for feedback and it's a little bit over-ratt.
I think you do it in a short way. Just a couple of like, quick takes up a box. How would you rate these things? And incentivize the people who are, you know, working for you to really go the extra mile.
You can give them your cards. You know, 100, 200, 300, I'll get a great job. And really praising them for the work they do, right? And also most importantly, showing examples.
So when you hire people, obviously, I'm assuming you're doing this, they come with you. They come with you. They see how you operate, how you interact with guests, how you behave, how you go the extra mile to create those moments of joy. And emphasize that's what they need to do.
This is everything I needed, like all the things I needed. So thank you so much. I want to get you on all this. Let's go make a little thing.
I want to give you, I want to just give you two thoughts that just popped into my head about me. Because I really do love me. Number one, I have a question. Can you buy the kit and bring it to your own event?
Or do I have to hire your company to bring to my event? We only rent right now. We've had people ask whether they can buy. We kind of don't want to like cannibalize our own sales and our own rental market area.
But I guess it really won't be helping the market. And so it's just whether my wife and I can build the course out. Well, also just think about a different consumer. The product that somebody is going to try and bring home with them is going to be very different than the thing you bring to the event.
The wedding. Definitely. But last idea I had for you is could you do something where you build a live miniature buy a miniature golf course that acts as a marketing temple for you? Like this one I always had is building a golf course in beautiful botanical gardens.
And it would be about people who love plants and gardens and people love any golf. They come there and they fall in love with it. And then you market having an event, we bring the course to you. But having a real place that people can come to might be an interesting marketing factory for you.
Yeah, we even thought like with a warehouse that we have a showroom that we really theme out, people can come and play and pay that $10 to play. And we just rethink it every six months or so. Yeah. Awesome.
Ran Davis can be called pars, mobile make off, good luck man. Thanks for calling. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.
I think if you get it going, it's a pretty good business. It's good business. Definitely. I think he's got something.
I'd love to go to one of his events. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another color. Stay with us.
I'm Guy Ross and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I go to this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I go to the lab. I'm Guy Ross and I'm thinking about what I'll do in the founder of Dollar Shave Club and Michael, you ready for the next call? I sure am.
All right. Really good advice line on a lot of the founder of Dollar Shave Club. Tell us your name where you're calling from. One line about your business.
Hey, Guy. Hey Michael. It's cited to be on my name's re-Flemming. I'm located in the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas.
And I'm a founder and operator of its a wildland LLC. And we manufacture custom uniforms for wildland fires. Wow. That's awesome.
Thanks for calling in the re-opso custom uniforms for firefighters to fight wildland fires. That's a very, it seems to have to go really niche business. Although we climate change is a sense of force. How did you start this business?
What's this story about it? Well, long story short, I graduated college during a recession when there were no jobs. And I have a background in costume construction. But I went into AmeriCorps after college because no jobs and I ended up on a fire team doing prescribed fire in Western Iowa for the nature conservancy.
You were basically doing prescribed burns, right, just to clear up. Yes. And you fell in love with it. But this was just your AmeriCorps job and you ended up staying in this bin fire fighting?
Yeah, I really loved it. So I spent several years doing more prescribed fire crews. Teams here and there. Eventually I got into fire suppression as well.
But prevailing issue in the industry is the terrible fit of the uniforms that were issued, especially for women in the field. And having some sewing skills, I thought maybe I could do something about that. Wow. Just like I'm assuming that the clothing is like, the material is, I mean, you're a top leg.
What's a metal car? I mean, what does it, it has to be very durable, robust. Yes. So the material is air in the air air.
The brand name is no-max. That's kind of what our uniforms are referred to as no-max. And yeah, there's a Kevlar component to a lot of the pants materials that I work with as well. It's all obviously designed with sand.
They're not flammable, I'm assuming. Right. Yeah. So once the material, if it catches fire, it itself extinguishes basically just like a natural fiber would cotton more wool.
And then there's also a big component on radiant heat protection. So as the fibers heat up, they actually expand and close off all those micro gaps between fibers to protect your skin from radiant heat as well. All right. So the uniforms are using socks.
The problem with them. The fit is really problematic. And that is something that's dictated by the oversight committee, I guess you could call them the NFPA or National Fire Protection Administration, I think. And they have a size chart in that standard that dictates.
It's a little technical that basically is called wearing ease, like if I make a pair of pants and your waist measurements is 32. If I made your pants out of waist 32, they would be too tight because that's the entire. So in garment making, we add what's called wearing ease to make it fit and move on your body. And there's a practical amount of wearing ease.
And then there's an excessive amount of wearing ease. And basically what the NFPA dictates is an excessive amount of wearing ease. That leads to basically uniform that makes you feel like you're going to work in an oversized double bag. It's just a practical question.
I'm assuming most firefighters are hired to hire. And they're provided with uniforms. And so how common is it for them to be like, you know, I want to go buy my own stuff? Yeah, that's a great question.
And I would say from what I've seen from my clients, most of them are either purchasing their uniform from me with a company card or they're being reimbursed. I do occasionally get folks who feel strongly enough about it that they're buying other pockets. But in my opinion, that shouldn't happen. Your employer should be providing your PPE for you.
And you're mostly making, not just making a pair of women. Right. Women and I also do a small amount of accessories like utility wallets and two of them. How does that happen?
A lot of questions before I get to tell you a question. My question is about scaling. I've been in business nine years. It's been very slow.
I've reinvented wheels. I did not need to reinvent. I'm just kind of been bootstrapping and creating a day job for myself. And I'm at the point where I have more demands than I myself can produce.
And so I'm just kind of out of losses to where it's focused next and how to choose what to scale for. And what to try. OK, my glue bin, this is a very interesting. I mean, it's certainly niche.
But I mean, look, I mean, there's a whole brands that were created out of like scrubs. Right? There's a big one. There's a big one.
Right? Yeah. Right? So there's a world where like, you know, what started out as firefighting apparel can become, you know, working people's way.
But that's about incidental while land. Yeah. First of all, nice to meet you. Thanks for building this business.
This is an area that's close to my heart. During the pandemic, I started a while of fire nonprofit. And we do some lobbying. We do some fuel mitigation work and some forest management work as well.
But I think this basically you're working is really cool. And I think it's cool business. Look, it sounds like you need to raise some money so that you can go out and hire staff or develop a manufacturing partnership with someone. That's essentially what the point that you're at.
And you said it demands not your problem. So if this is really just a supply chain production issue, I would say my question back to you is, have you found manufacturing partners that can help you develop the product to your specifications or are you still on hunt? Sure. Yeah.
So I've started down that road. I now have a part-time employee and a couple of contracts. So I work with and I've also started utilizing a contract to cut in so company in Kansas City near where I live. And that's been great.
What I found though is that of all the hats I wear as a business owner, the sewing is the only thing I can pay myself for. So if I'm handing off all the sewing, there's nothing left for me. And I would like to continue having an income. So that's tricky.
But I feel like I'm starting to have the systems in place to build and maybe it is just a question of volume and better marketing or maybe there are some other things I could think about too. I'm curious about what you just said because I mean, the sewing skills are important, but they're more proof of concept. The long-term value is in your designs, in that entropy. And your credibility because you are a firefighter.
And so why can't you hire sewers and focus on the other part of this? I guess that's just a margin issue and possibly a fundraising issue. The material is incredibly expensive. And people are used to paying a premium for this type of garment.
But I'm very passionate about the industry. I don't want to be the most expensive product on the market. I want to be accessible to the people like you mentioned earlier who are still on hook for buying the stuff out of their pockets. And I just, yeah, I'm not quite sure how much room I have to raise prices and increase my margins and be able to pay for things.
Like my time designing or my time marketing. All right. So then I guess my next thought would be, well, if that's the case, what about doubling down on accessories? Because I imagine that might be a little bit more scalable for the time being, even if they're passionate in the uniforms, accessories might have higher margins.
I'm assuming like a, I don't gloves or I don't know, pouches or whatever. What about accessories that you might need as a firefighter? Is that you? That's a little hard to do.
Yes, accessories have a better margin and it would be more scalable. So I guess that would be just kind of an education question on my part. I've never done any kind of a B of B. I don't know how to approach a retailer about carrying my products.
But yeah, it's worth thinking about for sure. Have you raised any money? What's your philosophy or thoughts around raising some investment capital? I never tried, honestly.
OK. Well, how do you feel about drying? I would love to do that and see what I could do with it. Yeah.
By the way, Michael, you mentioned this briefly, but I think it's worth just kind of double thinking that you did start a non-profit called Safe Woods, which I guess I'm a try to disrupt it. And you can correct me. It's like an eco-tourism non-profit where people can go and fight, like learn about how to fight wildfires on their legations, basically. Is that right?
More or less. And it's kind of been me entering journey, but we kind of started out wanting to raise awareness for the importance of fuel mitigation, and workforce management work. And so we thought, could we create opportunities for individuals or companies looking to do kind of an eco-retreat or some community service type thing to come out to our spot in Montana and work with the US Forest Service to do a fuel mitigation work, learn how it all works, and then go back to their communities and spread the gospel. We're at my great little bit towards bringing influential people in business and government out into the wild land to learn about this work, to hopefully influence public policy.
And we've had some really great success so far. I'm super cool. I'm seeing an incidental wild land, Safe Woods Kalab. Like, you know, you get all the views you've always been from, you're just you know, they want to dress up.
OK, wait. You can count on that. We have only 10. We'll do it.
But it doesn't sound like demand is your problem. I hate to create more of a challenge for you, but we'll absolutely get these outfits on our staff and on the US Forest folks at Theria they're willing to do it. And then our guests, of course. But I think you should really think about raising some money.
You have the seedlings of a really kind of big idea here. And it's not more than the seedlings. You're starting to grow. And I think, you know, pardon the part in the annoying pun, but it's time to put some fuel on the fire and create a little bit of buzz around this.
And I really think there are folks out there that can help you make the stuff, whether there's individuals doing it in a more of a home-spun way kind of like you're doing. And then I think there's probably some quasi-indulational sources that you can lean on to help you. But you're going to need somebody to go around and travel and me them and learn about them. And then maybe to, you know, you're going to need some cash.
Because I'm going to get that right away. You probably need to put some equity capital into your first inventory purchases. But I would say don't be afraid of raising money. I think you could probably raise from both investors that look to invest in companies that are for profit.
But also because this is such a public good. I bet you could get some funding from folks investing in nonprofits as well. Michael, I think that's an interesting idea. But don't you think that in order for, in order to attract capital, the vision has to go beyond firefighting like for, you know, workware welders.
Electrical utility workers down the road, like something like that. Well, I think that, at the great point, I think you always want to go if you're pitching, short answer is a pencil you're pitching, but you can never go wrong with going out with a big vision for how you're going to grow beyond your initial category. So it's great advice. And you know, you should think beyond that.
And that's it. You might find yourself, you know, talking to folks who invest in fire, you know, wildland fire nonprofits. You know, that might say, well, this actually feels like public good that's connected to our mission. So you may not need to do it.
But I would say if you have ideas for other categories, some of which I just mentioned that are great ones. Absolutely include that in your pitch. Because what investors want here is the big idea. How is this going to be the next category killer?
And disrupt an industry. And you have a great story. Female fire fire. I mean, there are, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say there aren't any female fire fighters.
Well, I just, I just, that's what your meant. Yeah, I think the last statistic I heard was the wildland fire scene is about 87% male. OK, so 13% of these firefighters are women. I mean, even natural story here.
So there's a lot of media. I can imagine the opportunity to tell that story on the road. But I really think that it's an issue idea. If you want to scale this up, you've got to find better supply chain and you've got to figure out ways to make it sort of lower cost.
So you can focus on expanding the business. One just quick thought that I really hesitate to bring this up. I'm going to make things locally domestically. And you emphasize American hate everything.
But I wonder if there's a world where some of the products, some of the sourcing that can come from overseas that might lower cost. Sure. Yeah, probably would. And that's honestly not something that I've really entertained the idea of up to this point.
But there are a lot of the options as far as ethically sourcing overseas production. And you know, if I got to that point, I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Yeah. Michael, let me last for real before we send her off into the instant into collaboration with Safewoods.
I would love to see your raised couple bucks. I think you can do it. It's a big product. It's a great story.
There's a big market to disrupts and have fun with. And you're already having success. I think you've got all the ingredients of good fundraising stories. So it might not come naturally to you.
But I would encourage you to do it. There's a lot of knowledge out there on the web to help you with your pitch and help you fine tune it. But don't hesitate. I think it's something that you'll be really good at.
Are you planning incidental while land? Thanks so much for calling me. Good luck. Thank you both so much and Michael.
Thanks so much for your work in the Fire and Navigation space. That's really awesome. Thank you, Bri. Good luck.
Awesome. I mean, I know you live in LA. A lot of you are still on time in LA. But California obviously has had some serious issues of wildfires.
As somebody who I just stepped down as CEO of the LJ club in January of 21. And I was looking for something to think my teeth into. And I got some good at this occasion. And I just kind of went deep down a rabbit hole to learn about wildfire and wild and fire and how and all the policy related issues, et cetera.
And decided to start safe with. So yeah, it was sort of outside of my wheelhouse. But I'm really glad I've done it. It's connected to me to some really incredible people both on the federal government side at the US website and other really big thinkers in the policy space.
That's awesome. I could be afraid to go question that I've been asking the brief under comes back on to help me on the advice on which is if you go back to 2011, 2010, wherever you were starting this out, you had a marketing background. What would have been helpful for you to know back then? Oh, gosh, I think probably some of the best advice I would have given myself back then.
Probably would have been more on the personal side. I was consumed with the business and making it successful. And I think in some ways that pulled me out of being more present in some other areas of my life. And so I think I would have tried to give myself some advice around just taking it as it comes, creating more personal time for you in space for other things in your life.
That would have been really helpful. I think I would have felt calmer throughout the journey. At the same time, it was that it was it was a completely invigorating journey. And I loved every second of even the really, really hard stuff, even the sleepless nights.
But I think with that advice, I might have been a few fewer sleepless nights. Learn to trust. I had a problem trusting people outside my core competency. And there was like finance or supply chain or operations because I didn't come from those backgrounds.
So it was easy to trust those people. But as a team grew, and I would hire folks in marketing in other areas that were closer to my experience set, I would say it's sometimes hard to let go of the things that you love doing, but you have to do that to achieve the right level of scale. Yeah. Hello there.