Building a Better Product Through Frustration & Persistence | Loren Heesch

What happens when you get tired of fixing the same problem over and over again? Loren Heesch turned that frustration into a business. In this episode, Loren joins Levi to share how decades working in plastic manufacturing led him to spot a costly, overlooked issue: cheap, failure-prone components that constantly shut down production lines. Instead of accepting it, he decided to build something better. That decision eventually became Black Widow Valves, a company focused on creating durable, high-performance check valves that actually last. What You'll Hear: Loren walks through his background, including over 30 years in manufacturing and how repeated equipment failures pushed him to start experimenting with his own solution. He explains how a difficult season in life became the catalyst for building his product and how solving one specific problem turned into a real business. You’ll also hear a simple breakdown of what his valves actually do, why most alternatives fail, and how improving a “small” component can save companies significant time and money by preventing costly downtime. Beyond the product, Loren shares the reality of starting a business from scratch: figuring out naming, legal setup, marketing, and sales without a roadmap. He talks about learning everything on the fly, the importance of persistence when no one is paying attention, and why passion is essential when early support is limited. This episode is a real look at entrepreneurship in its raw form, solving problems, staying consistent, and building something meaningful one step at a time.