Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Minus33 Wool President Lawson Glidden | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 44

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Minus33 Wool President Lawson Glidden | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 44 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: Alright everyone, welcome back to Beyond the Trail. Hey, we got a great guest for you this week. We have Lawson over at minus thirty-three. Hey Lawson, how are you? speaker-1: I'm pretty great, how are you? Good. speaker-0: Good. Well, thank you for being on. I I've I've done a little bit of work with you guys, ⁓ but I've also ⁓ met some of your ⁓ employees as well, like Reed and Mike. And you guys have a great team over there, ⁓ a great product, and I wanted to kind of have you guys on to chat a little bit more about merino wool and just the textile industry as a whole, because we have tents, backpacks, and stuff like that on here and food. ⁓ we also have clothing brands on and stuff like that, but I'm always just interested in ⁓ how you one, I know it's a family business and we'll get into that, but ⁓ just kind of hearing the start of it, how someone can kind of get into that space and then ⁓ if someone's thinking about it, how you can be like, hey, don't do these things and stuff like that. Since you guys have been in it for quite a while. So I guess Lawson, ⁓ go ahead and just kind of let us know your role ⁓ in the company and the history of the company. Kind of what do you guys do ⁓ overall? speaker-1: So I am the president of LW Packard, which we're doing business as minus thirty three. ⁓ LW Packard, I guess I'll just start at the beginning, was ⁓ in nineteen sixteen, my dad's dad's dad's uncle started LW Packard on the river that squam river right behind me out that door in Ashland, New Hampshire. And that has ran ran for about eighty years making wool broadcloth for, you know, all the big companies that made suits or wool peacoats. We really were just prolific. And then in 2000, basically everyone that bought our stuff, ⁓ everybody that sold to us, they kind of moved away. And we had to rethink our business strategy. And so my dad started a bunch of companies. My as33 was one of them. And ⁓ you know, it's actually interesting. He he was out ⁓ overseas, you know, making different products, trying to determine what he was going to do. And he had some prototype base layer that like the first ones that we made and he was out snowmobiling ⁓ in the mountains of New Hampshire and it was about negative thirty three degrees. And he th I said, Wow, that's got a ring to it. And he was coming up with a lot of different names. So the names were just coming out. So but that's how we got ours, 'cause he the wind chill and the temperature and you know the the fading light was just frigid. And he was like, This is a holding on. What temperature is it? So that that was pretty interesting. That ran for 15, 16 years ⁓ with as a word of mouth brand, mostly B2B retail stores. And then ⁓ in 2018, dad brought me on ⁓ and I immediately we bought sock machines. I went out to Italy, I wrote the user guide for right mate making socks with these machines in English, ⁓ which I'm sure existed, but you know, the people are very proprietary with that information. And then I ⁓ I started making socks here and then they made me the president. And so now I'm the fifth generation president of LW Packard and we're celebrating our hundred and tenth anniversary this year. So it ⁓ it is I guess a journey. I guess it's hard to answer how you jump in when I'm like I came at it, you know, kind of in an old fashioned way. But ⁓ I can definitely tell you about how, you know, what's successful in the company and and and kind of what we do to win, you know. speaker-0: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. No, 'cause th the the products you guys create are really, really good. And ⁓ when I when I watch things like the TV show, like how it's made and everything else. And ⁓ I've even been to like third world countries where I see them like using the g not lathe, but the machines that they just hand do everything hand weave everything. ⁓ blown away by how you can make something like that. And so, you know, I I think that's a maybe a bit harder. type of industry to get into, you know, unless you're outsourcing everything, you know, but ⁓ what's ⁓ I guess what's this story behind you? Cause I know you said you kind of program everything as well. So your background is like a bit of a tech background too, right? Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, I actually have a pretty storied background in in in tech. So I graduated WPI. I went into being a business analyst and then I will work for an insurance company building actuarial databases. Then I kind of went into consulting, did some thin tech consulting, and then eventually was in regulatory software database updates for ⁓ you know, ⁓ ETL extract transfer load, all of that. And then, you know, right when I was Flying all over the country working eight hours a week. Dad, dad called and said, Hey, you wanna you wanna work for the family company? We're thinking about making socks. And I was like, Wow, that sounds amazing. I c I really want to get into that. And and it is amazing to make socks because ⁓ you think everything's solved. Yeah. You know, you think they're making socks perfectly and everybody's to got it all figured out. But ⁓ then you get a machine and you start making it and you start wearing them and you just keep iterating and you're like, I'm getting I'm making a drastically better sock every time I apply these really small minute implement ⁓ improvements. So it it ⁓ yeah but but really my origins are the very techie nerdy person. But ⁓ I will say the first computers, you know, the one of the first applications for them was textiles. Yeah. You know, so it ⁓ it the the overlap is real and you know ⁓ the techiness we have two textile engineers working here one of them's my father So I think I know where I get all of that ⁓ that that geekiness from. speaker-0: Yeah. And you guys make more than sucks, right? You make clothing and everything. I'm wearing one right now that ⁓ I did some pictures for. It's funny 'cause I'm wearing it just 'cause like 'cause you know, you guys are on, but it's also, I don't know, like ninety degrees inside of this room that I'm filming in and it's like a it's not I'm like sweating like crazy in it 'cause it's so warm. I usually wear it when I go out trail running or when I go out at the start of my hike and stuff like that in like the spring. ⁓ speaker-1: Well it ⁓ on the plus side it that's I think a hundred percent wool piece. So it'll it'll wick that sweat off and it won't smell terrible. But ⁓ you know, when it gets up to those very high temperatures, it's all about layering. Yeah. ⁓ but yeah, we make about ⁓ a hundred and fifty different parent products. So you know, we make a microweight, a lightweight, a midweight, and a heavyweight ⁓ base layer top and bottom, quarter zips, full zips, you know, sweatshirts, ⁓ hats. Gloves, balacquavas, neckators, just everything. We can really outfit anyone for any anything. But yeah, I think the our number one thing over here is just make sure that whatever we're making is kind of the highest quality version of that. That we really put the effort in to make sure that, you know, the wool is treated correctly. ⁓ it's an organic ⁓ fabric and you, you know, during manufacturing you can make mistakes that reduce its effectiveness or longevity or, you know, a bunch of stuff like that. And ⁓ that's where we pride ourselves is just that consistent high quality. And then, you know, the other part of the ethos over here is if you bought something ⁓ midweight, our flagship midweight, men's and women's top crew, top and bottom, ⁓ long underwear in two thousand three with our first PO. And you buy it again today, maybe the trims will be slightly updated, but the fabric weight will be the same, the durability, the quality, and the fit will all be, you know, the same thing you experienced twenty years ago. So I I'm very proud of that because I I can't buy the same pair of shoes two years in a row. And you know speaker-0: Yeah. They change it every year. You get a nice pair of shoes and then next thing you know you're like binge buying, trying to get as many as you can before they they change it again. Yeah. speaker-1: And I'm like, well, I guess I just gotta buy three pairs of shoes whenever I find a good one that I like. And then I'll wear those for the next half decade. And then and but but our products are, you know, we're here when you need us and ⁓ and we believe the product kind of speaks for itself. It's it's our it's the face of our company, is our products. Many of them are sourced overseas. Yeah. speaker-0: It's funny because I I know you guys make really high pro high quality products and ⁓ I think that's always one of the hard things about running a business, right? You make something that's high quality and then it's like, okay, you almost want someone to wear it out so you can sell it to them again, but you're like, no, but the same thing you want to make something that you're proud of that's high quality, that works. I mean, I know like you were talking about with layers, you know, we like when we're hiking, we all know like you have to layer it up. You can't just throw on one big thick thing or else you're just never gonna have that that range and stuff like that. So I guess going into a little bit more of the history of the of the company and everything else, what what was the I guess what was the like a jumping off point of like, hey, we wanna start doing socks and stuff like that compared to the textiles that you were just doing before? Like speaker-1: So ⁓ essentially my ⁓ my dad when he when when the the US domestic manufacturing was ending, he he tried to do a lot of different things that are sort of in the same realm, like work with some other mills, ⁓ to try and, you know, get some more broadcloth ⁓ manufacturing going, but you know, everything was changing. So really I I I respect the decision for him to essentially start five companies and then have four of them not work out. And so It just worked out that because we knew so much about making wool wool garments and treating them well, the business where we worked with mills taught them how to do what we did and you know went to them and spent, you know, several weeks there really teaching them how to make stuff, they were able to make stuff very consistently and and good for us and and that just caught on. ⁓ I think for the first five years though, it was kind of a a slower thing while we were trying to make the other businesses work that ⁓ eventually ⁓ didn't and ⁓ and it we just kind of had had a a bunch of mills that we worked with that knew how to make really good base layer and and that just seemed like a great jumping off point for us. speaker-0: So I I know a lot of people that listen to this are entrepreneurs and stuff in the outdoor space. There's also, you know, a lot of people that love the brand that's gonna be on or love the outdoors. But I think that's a great kind of point that you're you're not point, but I would point I would like to make is like what what point do you learn to let's go ahead and pivot? Like let's say I'm starting a a food brand and now I realize maybe I shouldn't be doing food. I should be doing the packaging of the brand because I came up with the packaging versus like you all just We're like, hey, okay, what point do you go? Let's quit doing this and let's go here because we know this is where it's at. speaker-1: Well, actually that's ⁓ a really good point. ⁓ that just reminds me of when the brand started in two thousand two. It started as a snowmobile outfitting brand. ⁓ and so we had half of the products were snowmobile jackets and the other half the products were base layered to go underneath. Yeah. And we did okay the first year or two and then I think there was some ⁓ Like we had a hot winter and there wasn't as much snowmobiling. And we didn't sell as many of the big bulky snowmobile jackets, but we did sell plenty of the layers. And and so we kind of sat down and we said, What is the market for snowmob big bulky snowmobile jackets versus what is the market for really comfortable layers? And and you know, that's the math that we really said, like, I don't think more than ten thousand people in America need a new bulky snowmobile jacket every year. And even if we got 100% of that market share, it's just not gonna be enough to make ⁓ a a full company. So, you know, maybe we can keep one of these in the line just to suit, you know, some needs or or some people, but the real focus of the company has to be layers because you you really can't have enough layers. Like you can't have enough choice in layers. If you if you know exactly what you're doing and what you have in your closet, you can kind of, you know, the more the merrier in that sense. So So I think that might have been the the turning point for us is you you have one bad year and or you know, and hopefully, you know, if you're you're talking to an entrepreneur, they they don't need to have that bad year. They can kind of predict it. But yeah, you you you gotta look at your market and say, what who's actually gonna purchase this? And and and you know, pivot towards where there's gonna be more people looking. ⁓ yeah. speaker-0: No, that's good. I like that. So wha what wha how did your first version of the product? I know you had kind of mentioned earlier, like, you know, the first product to now is still like the same quality, but I know there probably were a few hurdles, even though you kind of already had your hand in the textile world and everything else. So the difference between maybe the start of minus 33 and then now where you are, like how long do you think it took you guys to get to that point where you're like, hey, this is our stable thing, this is exactly how we're gonna continue to make it. Now it's just basically kind of new designs, new iterations. speaker-1: I think ⁓ probably, you know, the the really ⁓ the nice thing about base layers, I suppose, for us is that they're pretty basic. You need them to fit. They need to fit in a certain way. There's size ranges. ⁓ but once you kind of get that right, and I think this is the advantage of us all being outdoors people in New Hampshire where you we get all of the different types of weather all the time, ⁓ We know what works. Like once once it worked for us, we knew it would work for other people and we were kinda like perfect, we got it, we're done. And then after that it was just, you know, I want ⁓ a product to do this thing, or like we need a sun hoodie so that I can take it kayaking. Or my dad went doll sheep hunting in Alaska and so he wanted an expedition three quarter zip off pant so that he doesn't need to take his boots off when he's, you know, ten thousand or like, you know, after hiking a ⁓ up a mountain for f four hours and then having to lay down and just wait and watch sheep on the top of a mountain. You know, he w he wants to be able to take them off on the hike up, put them back on, yeah, and not take his boots off. And so we made the product and now we have that product in the line. And it's sort of like these are the stories of how we get everything. Yeah. I hope I answered the speaker-0: That's cool. No, that was really good. Yeah. It's usually you you have ⁓ a product, but then you kind of have your own little like problem that you're having, and then you go, wait, maybe other people are having this same issue that we can solve, you know? What when like what what did you think would be easy but turned out to be really, really hard? when it comes to, you know, maybe your role or just growing as as you know, as you have more name recognition now, at first, what w what were one some of the biggest hurdles? speaker-1: I think one of the biggest hurdles was the first 15 years ⁓ for the company. It was just really hard to get the word out, get your name out. There weren't really good direct to consumer channels. It was, you know, commercials or or you know, sponsorships or maybe articles and newspapers. ⁓ and so we were going to trade shows and directly interacting with different businesses and doing that sales. ⁓ a lot and we still do all of that work. It's just ⁓ you know, there it's a little bit slower, it takes more time. If you don't have a big investment to come out and do a bunch of advertisements on on, you know, primetime TV, you can't jump into that space. So kind of a slow grow was working for us. ⁓ you know, our methodology of always operating in the black worked. ⁓ because you you know, if you don't owe owe a bank any money, they can't tell you to do something that you don't think's gonna work. And so that was it worked really well, but it also is a really ⁓ like a slower burn than I think, you know, your traditional entrepreneur would would be looking for. But it allowed us to really refine and and have great products by the time when I came and we were s moving towards that direct to consumer. ⁓ and then we we kind of doubled down on on just advertising directly to to people that we think would be our customers and that just worked incredibly well. Yeah. ⁓ because we did have the foundations of everyone being like, ⁓ no, I've tried something from them. It was really great. I'll I'll buy it again. You know. speaker-0: It's surprising how much w that word of mouth ⁓ still is very true today versus people think, ⁓ it's not word of mouth anymore. It's just how many views someone's gonna see. But I can't tell you how many times I've recommended somebody to or something to a friend of mine. My one of my friends who just started he just got into trail running and he asked me like what do I what do I run with? And I told him everything and he bought like three or four of those ten things that I told him. And if I had a bad experience with them or whatever, I'm not you know, I'm not talking about those things. I'm not talking about like even the ⁓ you have like ⁓ I'm gonna butcher it's not a light it's a lightweight layer or th I I go trail running with it. It's a really light layer that I use and it I love it 'cause it really gets wicks away the sweat. I feel great and I'm using it even when I'm running I ran yesterday and my wife was speaker-1: Is it a T shirt? Yeah. Yeah. That's probably our microweight Raglan t shirt. Yes. It's got the shoulder. This is another microwave piece that we have. It's it's really super comfortable. Yeah. It does great and it ⁓ it's it's only eighty five percent wool, but that's like the lowest we'll go. But at this weight you do need a little bit of that nylon for the stretch and durability. Yeah. But yeah, I really love that raglan t shirt. It's it's an amazing product. Yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ 'cause I had another shirt before that was a is an alpaca lightweight shirt for me to go hiking in and stuff. But I know it's every every material, every every textile is is really hard to work with sometimes. And so there wasn't enough of another material in there. And so it just ripped holes all in it and everything else. It wore away so quickly. ⁓ and I was and thought, you know, I've come to now learn a lot more about textiles and how you you need because some people go, ⁓ I need a hundred percent. And you're like, But you need certain things, certain materials to hold them together. ⁓ I wanted to go back to what you had said ⁓ about kind of working in the black and stuff like that as opposed to owing the bank like money and everything. And I just have this s story where I it was twenty twenty, right? Like COVID and everything. And it was near the end of twenty twenty. And I had a a couple of ⁓ banks. So I'm a photographer, videographer, and ⁓ reach out to me. And so basically what they were doing was a lot of the people that they had loaned money, they didn't want the businesses to fail. So what they did was they were hiring me to go out. I went out to New York to shoot a ⁓ an interview with someone who wrote a ⁓ did a big book thing and then what what else was it? And then some some portraits of them and stuff like that. Because they were trying to get some momentum going on helping them advertise themselves so that they could make money. And then while I was out there I Shot another one. It was like a a restaurant that also had a like a brewery and everything else in Manhattan. And they were operating way in the red. And so the bank's basically saying, Hey, you're gonna do this. And and the one guy was like, I don't wanna do this, but you know, at least they're helping me with the photo and the video so that way I can get some stuff. So I think it's great that you think that way too. I think that way about like and and everything is it's hard to pay cash for everything sometimes, right? So as you grow, you grow that slow, slow growth. So that way you can, you know, pay cash for things. So instead of paying, taking a loan out for a hundred thousand dollar machine, maybe it's your half of that loan. Or maybe you can save up 'cause your sales are good and you can buy it cash and then you just continue to run, ⁓ run in the positive. So ⁓ I think that's that's cool. I think a lot more people need to grow that way so that they don't just get hit with a ⁓ no I'm filing for bankruptcy. speaker-1: And I think you know, and and one of the things that helps with that is just making sure that you don't have products that are gonna go bad really quickly. And if you do have those products that are going to have a shelf life, yeah, really limit your exposure, you know. Yeah. Pre sales are great. Uh-huh. And then if you're gonna make, you know, like a sock is a great example. ⁓ if I don't sell you this year like a sock th like this year and it I made it and it's just sitting on the shelf somewhere, yeah. I'm gonna sell you that sock next year because it's it's just almost a commodity. Yeah. And and it's a lot it's a lot more of a safer investment a lot of times, which that would be my recommendation to someone who who does need to owe someone some money is ⁓ make make sure you don't ever need to short sell yourself, you know. speaker-0: If I ever get into making a product, I'm gonna definitely make something that I can sell over time instead of like, ⁓ no, it's it's overdue. So I can't speaker-1: Sellers out this year, you know. speaker-0: That's the hard thing. There's always like that like ⁓ in the wedding industry there's always the new wedding color of the year. Yeah. And I'm sure I I know in the rest of the industry there's always like, ⁓ this is the color, like pink is this year's color. You know, and the next year it's gonna be beige or something like that. So, ⁓ I mean speaker-1: And then you're stuck with a bunch of pink things that that actually happened to us ⁓ before I started. But ⁓ we used to sell a lot of turtlenecks. But that apparently and we had just a ton of turtlenecks and we were doing a great business, but then ⁓ Steve Jobs passed away. speaker-0: Okay. I was gonna say that as a joke, but you're actually saying it as actual fact. That's correct. speaker-1: And then we stopped selling turtlenecks. Just comp like we just were stuck with like all this inventory for turtlenecks and we eventually got through it, but it ⁓ there, you know, you you just don't know sometimes with like what's making something popular. Yeah, you know, and that just that's a lesson in market research, just making sure you know what's driving that. So if ⁓ you know, but but that's a really hard prediction. Who would have known, who would have thought then that that was the driver for turtleneck sales? speaker-0: That's crazy. I guess that leads me into my next question is, ⁓ what what's like the biggest ⁓ crap moment that you guys have had ⁓ you know, building the brand, whether it's like a truck catching on fire or this machine's all breaking or, you know, whatever whatever it is. Like what what would you would you say? speaker-1: Geez, I mean, you know, and and I wasn't there for the first ten years of minus thirty-three. So I'm sure my dad would have some more, you know, like very specific o crap moments. But I ⁓ we ⁓ I think I think some of the biggest ones were we got a pretty big shipment ⁓ underwear in and the QC wasn't right on it. Okay. and we just sent back speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: you know, like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of product back to them. Wow. But that meant we didn't have anything. And that meant, you know, ⁓ like that year we just didn't have this product and we lost a lot of market share because, you know, when someone buys someone else's something then, you know, that's that's your opportunity. Yeah. And ⁓ You know, that's one of those hardest choices you have to make is d do I sell something that I'm not proud of, or do I sell something and or do I not sell it? And you know, but because we're word of mouth, because we we we live and breathe on the trust of our customers, we were like, Yeah, I guess nobody gets the this long underwear this year and bye, you know. And also that MIL didn't want to talk to us for the better part of a decade. You know, they were just like, I can't believe you've done this. And it's like, well You know, the they're all off quality, you know, they're not what we ordered and so speaker-0: That's and that is an interesting thing too. Like, I mean, it wasn't anything you guys did, but yet it was still like, hey, you got you know, ⁓ someone has to at some point bite the bullet on it, right? Whether it's you guys saying, okay, then I'll just bite the bullet and I don't know, I don't know how how you would sell them, or the other person has to go, okay, well now we have to redo things. I know I've had to reprint pictures for clients that have ordered huge canvases and it cost me a fortune to reprint it. But in the end, that comp customer was super happy with it and then they still recommend me to other people. So yeah, it hurts. But in the end, it's it's ⁓ I mean it's only gonna help you, even though in that moment it sucks because you're out so much money. speaker-1: I mean, even when ⁓ and I'm remembering this because I'm looking at ⁓ the the ⁓ shirt you have on, the quarter zip there, we had ⁓ I think it was just like fifty green mediums of that quarter zip and the zipper garage wasn't done correctly on just those. Like I think it was somebody's first day over there and they just messed up fifty of ⁓ But we were able to track down which box that came out of and which PO. And we figured out the the like 40 people that purchased them and we just sent them new ones with the problem fixed. ⁓ cool. And those people were so impressed and excited and wow, I can't believe you've just given me a new prize. Like this product is functional. The other one was off quality. So we gave you a new one for free. ⁓ and we just shipped it to them, you know? Yeah. And those kind of experiences, I I don't think I'll ever lose those forty people as customers. I think they're forever customers, you know. speaker-0: That's cool. I mean, they really I I guarantee you they're forever customers. Cause ⁓ my wife last night just showed me a a reel on Instagram of ⁓ this girl. She was like somehow Odawa her Odawala or whatever the name of the the ⁓ thermos is, had she had run over with her car or something like that, and then she got a parking ticket for sixty-eight dollars or something like that. And ⁓ she had Posted a social media thing about it. She was like so bummed about it. And then this reel now that she's talking about is and check this out. And then she shows like Odawala had sent her a new thermos, but not just a new thermos, but I guess the marketing team was like so smart in it, they also sent her put $68 in cash in the box. ⁓ wow. For her joke jokingly for her parking ticket, right? Mm-hmm. But I like the and that that video went crazy viral. And everybody's seeing that and going, man, this company. really listens to their consumers. They're not just a one-off Amazon company that's just selling something and then grabbing the next product and then now they're selling ⁓ you know, computer mice. And next thing you know, they're selling ⁓ wire underwear of some, you know, just like it's an actual company that really, really cares. So I think that that's great. I think more people need to do stuff ⁓ to help out the consumer ⁓ that they have. ⁓ the question kind of going different direction on you know, for yourself, I'm not sure how much you are in the outdoor space, but like how do you balance staying connected to the outdoors with running a company, whether it's you or your dad, that kind of thing? Like how do you do that? 'Cause I know some people get just so engrossed with working that you don't sometimes it's almost like you disconnect from the product you're actually creating. speaker-1: I I love New Hampshire. I mean, and the fun thing is, ⁓ you know, there's a lot of trees, there's a lot of woods, especially up in central northern New Hampshire. We're in the lakes and mountain region kind of up here. So going outside is it's just ⁓ really easy and fun. ⁓ also growing up, my dad had a bunch of land. We heated the house by fire by a wood boiler, which heats the water in the house by cutting down trees. So ⁓ mo and then my dad has several greenhouse greenhouses and we we grow and I say, you know, when people say like, ⁓ we grow a ton of tomatoes, they don't mean metric and but we do. We just just grow a ton, a metric ton literally of tomatoes every year. And it's just we just give ⁓ out to everybody, but ⁓ just that like, you know, outside maintenance and then, you know, hunting, snowmobiling, snowboarding, kayaking. Yeah. ⁓ Really, I mean, it it in a lot of ways it feels like market research half the time 'cause you're like, well, let me put on this and go do that. But the other half the time it ⁓ it I find that a lot of the work that I have to do, if I'm going out with somebody that I work with on a hike or I'm going, you know, or I'm out with my dad, naturally we're talking about like, ⁓ the business or the product or this or that or the other thing. And it's sort of ⁓ You know, I don't wanna say if you you don't get a lot of time on the outdoors, you know, don't don't waste it by thinking about work. But if you are outdoors all the time, definitely you can do both at the same time. Yeah. I promise. You know, and that's what we do. We're just outside because work here is kind of fun in a lot of ways, because you're you're making the stuff so that you can go outside. And yeah, I think if you lose track of that, you might you might you might not love the business. It's sort of like making your your hobby your your profession. Yeah. ⁓ but I think in this way, my profession supports my hobby. Yeah. And that's sort of I don't know. I I maybe that's a little better. speaker-0: No, that's cool. I mean, it's great that you get to go out and like ⁓ every time I go out and do the same thing, I'm like, ⁓ I'm I'm going out to do this thing for work, but I'm also going out to do my hobby. And like, okay, I have to the last trip I went on, I I told my daughter we were gonna take a bunch of pictures and she goes, and she was with me. And she's like, Daddy, can we just not take pictures? And I was like, Well, okay. It was so hard not to because The sun is setting, everything looks so cool and I'm like, okay, I I won't do it. And then what does she do? She asks me to take all these pictures of her and I ended up turning into like a photo shoot on the mountain. But I and I was happy 'cause she wanted to she wanted to do it. But yeah, I think using it for you have a great product that you get to go in like, okay, we're gonna go for a hike, but we're also get to test this. We're gonna go out for a hunt. We also get to test this. Hopefully it's Testing well or else you're gonna freeze to death if you're at my whole in the winter, but speaker-1: It ⁓ it really is ⁓ nice. I mean the winter's here and we hunt in the mountains, we're we're trackers, so it's like you're hiking out into the ⁓ wilderness into the middle of nothing and you really, really wanna make sure that you have everything you need on you in case things take a turn, because up here in New England, ⁓ the weather changes on a dime and I don't know, but the weatherman doesn't seem to be very right very often. speaker-0: Yes. Especially up where you guys live. It can f it can fluctuate like crazy. For us, ⁓ me down here in Georgia, like no one ever believes the weatherman ⁓ for two months in the summer because there's just so many pop up showers from the humidity and everything. But then other than that, in the wintertime everybody like religiously relies on the weatherman, especially in the winter when we get like a half a half an inch of snow and we have to shut down the roads and stuff 'cause there's no way to to get around. ⁓ speaker-1: Your roads aren't fifty percent salt like ours, are speaker-0: ⁓ kind of I would like to go kind of into how you guys design what you design. So like who creates the designs for it and and and everything else and what are some things that you guys look for ⁓ when you're creating new designs? speaker-1: So most of our designs were made in house. ⁓ sometimes we contracted with other designers if someone had like a specialty, you know, like they were really great at ski gloves and we were entering into that space. But at this point when we do design, it it really is just like functionally. Is this going to accomplish the task and last the longest and do it the best? And that's and then afterwards we're like, and also does it look pretty good too? Does it look like we made it on purpose? Yeah. You know, we want it to look nice, but mm our primary thing here is if you're caught out in the wilderness and you have our gear, it's going to hold up and do the thing that I'm supposed to do to keep you, you know, safe and comfortable. ⁓ but yeah, that's really our our design purpose. But like our our philosophy. And I think that goes really well with the word amount brand because you can if we made a flashy, really attractive product and spent ⁓ you know, most of our money on marketing, I could probably run the same business. Yeah. But ⁓ I wouldn't like to wear my product as much. So we're making a functional product that you'll recommend to all your friends and ⁓ and then I get to come out here and be really excited and tell you that I'm making the best stuff ever because you know. If someone was making something better, I I would be like, Well guys, we gotta redesign this product. Someone made a better one, you know? Yeah. speaker-0: Do you guys ever t go and I I'm sure you do, but ⁓ do you take a lot of ⁓ feedback from people over the years, say that, hey, we're gonna do this thing and a lot of people had said this about it, so let's chain let's tweak this just a little bit. You know, has anybody ever sent you like a design and you're like, Hey, let's put the mountains of New Hampshire on the side of the sock, for example, or something? speaker-1: Yeah, it's funny. ⁓ you know, you might not think ⁓ you know, every company's reading every email, but like we read every email that comes in management because we're just like, ⁓ what? You know, it it's like that's how you get a pocket put into the Expedition Women's Leggings, you know, and that's how we, you know, add different colors, ⁓ when people are really ⁓ you know, saying negative things about it. When we get a ⁓ Because I'm the sock designer and and and programmer and QC guy, every time we get a pair of socks returned, ⁓ we like just have a whole meeting in the sock department about what we think happened, what went wrong, all this stuff, you know. It's sort of ⁓ you gotta take all this feedback because I mean sometimes it feels a little trolling. You know, we sell this ⁓ beanie that ⁓ it we sell a ton of them. They're very popular. It's just just a ridge cup beanie. And every once in a while someone will send feedback like, That's not warm enough. And you're like, ⁓ you never put it on your head. I know that because if you did, you'd be like, this is how hot had just like the other 50,000 people that bought it and didn't complain about that that this year. You know, like and so sometimes you're like, I I I want to ignore these people because they're clearly not using it right. But most feedback comes from a place of some for frustration that someone has. So yeah. ⁓ I feel like we do a lot of reading and figuring out and just trying to understand our customers and what they and in the past few years we've done a lot more surveys, which has helped us so we don't have to just troll our email for feedback or, you know, go on Amazon and read every comment on every product. speaker-0: Yeah. I'm sure it's you it's hard w especially when you are designing that specific thing and someone comes back, you're kinda like for the first twenty minutes when you read those emails, you're like, ⁓ well, whatever, you know, like back at you, buddy. But then you you know, you calm down, you look at it and you go, Okay, there's some truth in it. I mean, that's why, you know, most I think what is it like one out of every ten emails are usually nine out of ten emails are usually complaints. It's that one, that's a good people don't email you unless they have a problem with it. Which should be the opposite, right? We should everybody should email like, hey, thank you so much for this great thing. I mean, I do it even in my my marriage, I've always forget like to say a lot of compliments over saying, I know you're getting married, so say a lot of compliments. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yep. Okay. Yeah. It ⁓ you know, and but that's the thing, you know, it's the same thing with ⁓ if you have a ⁓ customer that has a bad experience, they're gonna tell 10 of their friends, and a customer that has a good experience might tell one of their friends. So you're you're really fighting an uphill battle of ⁓ you know, do you wanna make a product that doesn't offend anybody or do you want to make the best product ever to get that one person that ⁓ one time to recommend it to their friend. But that recommendation that you give when you're giving a recommendation to your buddy about, you know, the products he should take trail running, you're invested in that and they're invested in that. That's an invest like you're putting yourself on the line. Cause if you recommended him a product and he came back and he's like, my foot's, you know, all covered in blisters because you gave me these terrible shoes that, you know, are whatever it is, you know, you don't want to risk it. So Those recommendations, that word of mouth for someone recommends a product to their friend is ⁓ it's the most powerful ⁓ I think activation that I ⁓ we we we we can do here. But yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: That's cool. ⁓ I I want to run into some different type of questions. W what's ⁓ w this is kind of just completely changing gears, but what's one of the weirdest, most unexpected places your product has ever shown up? You know, over the years I'm sure you've seen it or heard about it being somewhere weird, or maybe it's not even a use case that you even thought of. speaker-1: ⁓ geez Louise, that is tough. Cause I mean, yeah, that we've had hikers go Everest with it. I just think that it's really weird that we have a a a small contingent of divers that wear our product all the time underneath their wetsuits. And every time I think of it, I'm like crazy. And then I think about some more, I'm like, no, that's perfect, right? Like, cause the wetsuits squishing the water out, but they want something comfortable that is organic, but it's not moving around a lot. And It creates those ⁓ natural kinks and crimps to hold air bubbles in. ⁓ that's that's what one of the properties of wool, why it's one of the only fibers, ⁓ natural or otherwise, that actually has an insulation value when it's cold or when it's wet. It's because ⁓ the wool has little pro proteins that like form yeah a perfect little space for an air pocket to form all over it. Yeah. And your body can then heat up those air pockets. Yeah. But ⁓ divers, cold water divers. That's correct. speaker-0: I've never in my ⁓ because I'm thinking like I get it now because it's inside the wet soup versus like if you're in the water with it, you're totally just not gonna be able to swim, you know. But ⁓ have you seen that video by Steve with My Life Outdoors, ⁓ the YouTuber? He basically like dove into a freezing cold river with like synthetic versus wool and everything else and was just kind of showing the difference ⁓ in the heat and stuff like that. I'll I'll send it to you. speaker-1: Absolutely send it to me. I'll send you the Big Woods Bucks video where we we did that. It was like ⁓ they we had ⁓ one of their their their hunting guides and yeah he wore a bunch of wool, jumped into a frozen river, got out, took out his dry bag, made a fire and explained the properties of wool. But yeah, no, I I'd be really interested to see Steve. Yeah. speaker-0: It's it's really cool. I love all those kind of like sciencey things behind it and everything where I'm just like especially when you're doing it on your own when there's you're out in the middle of nowhere by yourself. I'm going, Man, I wouldn't well, I say I wouldn't. I pr I'm crazy enough, I probably would have done the same thing if I had the idea. But ⁓ I I've done I'm originally from Canada and I've gone like jumping in ⁓ you know, the lake when it's frozen over and gone ice fishing and then jumped through the hole and and stuff like that. But it's usually with no clothes on. I wouldn't like wool on at the time. speaker-1: That was it. Part of Canada. I'm I'm I'm actually ⁓ my mom is from Newfoundland. speaker-0: Okay, so I am from everybody knows where Toronto is. So I'm about forty minutes east of Toronto. ⁓ my family has a bunch of acreage. Well used to have a bunch of acreage of apple orchard and and everything, a pretty big farm. ⁓ not not anymore. My dad works for another farm, but I mi I do miss the farm and stuff. That's kind of how I got into the out I used to hate the outdoors as a kid. And now as an adult, I'm like, man, going back, I wish I would have spent more time in the outdoors. speaker-1: I think that's the thing. I spent a lot of time in the outdoors as a kid. ⁓ half of it was like hunting and snowmobiling and recreation, the other half was just like logging and gardening and and and and and landscaping and I really love the recreation stuff, but the landscaping stuff really like, you know, not as much. I'm not I don't love tree work as much as ⁓ my dad does, you know? Yeah. But I I definitely that love of the outdoors is just it's ingrained. I yeah, I really need to I need the trees, I need the space. I need to just go into speaker-0: ⁓ I just saw in a research, another research that we all know is like the outdoors with the spores that come off the trees and everything else. It just helps you fight off things and the peacefulness of it and everything. And ⁓ it's funny, like when you're out there camping or hiking, you or hunting, you don't want rain, but then man, when it rains when you're in the tent, it's the most peaceful sound. As long as there's no lightning, you know. But speaker-1: No, I I just ⁓ the rain in a tent is is amazing. Or just ⁓ if you have like I don't know sometimes ⁓ you'll find a boulder up, especially in New Hampshire where we just rocks grand state, you know, ⁓ like a a leaned over a boulder that's just creating just enough for you and your your your friend to sit underneath and just watch this giant rainstorm that you know is going to rain super hard for about twenty minutes and then it's gonna be light again. It just I don't know. There's there's a magic to that. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: All right, ⁓ what what is suc what does success look like for you now or in the future? Like what what's the future for for MyS thirty three? speaker-1: ⁓ right now we're looking into doing some branding ⁓ updates just to get our look and feel to be, I suppose, the high quality that our products are. Cause ⁓ you know, we've got a functional name and we've been very, very product oriented people, but there's something to be said for having a a logo that kind of sticks in your head a little bit more. Yeah. And and that sort of thing. But success for me is just Convincing more people to try our product. Yeah. Because ⁓ once you've tried once once you have the product on, you're kind of stuck with me forever, especially like the socks. ⁓ because I I have really sweaty, kind of obnoxious feet that and so I've designed the sock to to alleviate that problem for myself. And therefore they are kind of the most comfortable sock you can have, ⁓ especially because ⁓ and I'll just tell you why really quickly. ⁓ they fit. ⁓ which it seems like a solved problem. But when you put on a sock, you really want it to fit over your foot like a second skin that gives it the most ability for the wool to wick the moisture off, but also prevents friction, which causes blisters, ⁓ tons of stuff like that. But essentially what I'm saying is I'm so confident in the product that all I need to do is get people to try it out. Yeah. And that's what success looks like for me right now is just getting more and more people to try it. And I think. You know, business wise, I was incredibly lucky to walk into a business where the product was exceptional. You know, some of the best textile, wool textile people in the world worked with mills to make this product and it it and and we know how to QC and we know how to fix anything wool related. But there was a huge need for just telling people to maybe try our product as opposed to being word of mouth. And and that's ⁓ that's I suppose our biggest hurdle and our next ⁓ our next big win is just win and the whole market knows about us. speaker-0: I think it's really hard to, you know, I know you're talking about like the logo and stuff like that. It's always hard to do a new not a rebrand ⁓ probably kind of a rebrand, but like, you know, rebranding a little bit is still gonna stay the same. But, you know, you're always like, ⁓ what are if what if people don't recognize this logo anymore or this thing, you know? And it's like I I've done my own rebrand and it was like a whole name change and rebrand and I was really worried about it 'cause we've been under another name for We've been to out there twelve years. ⁓ And then we're like, okay, we change it, and we have about twelve years of weddings and brides. And then especially like social media, the hashtags and stuff and and the the everything would change. But it went pretty much seamless. It was a couple of people who had it a little bit hard hard to find this or whatever. But for the most part, it was like, ⁓ they they had no problems. We we did a really big push. I think it's more like you have to. keep pushing it out so people can recognize it quickly as opposed to before you could just kind of slowly roll stuff out. You had to like, hey, this is it. This is the rebrand, telling everybody everywhere multiple times, getting that whole like brand awareness again out and stuff like that. But it'll be cool to see what you guys have come up what have come up with and stuff like that and and everything for the future. So speaker-1: Yeah, we got some cool ideas. I'm excited. I hope ⁓ I hope it comes to fruition pretty soon. But, you know, yeah, because we have inventory products, I got like three thousand individual SKUs, they all need to be updated. It's ⁓ it it truly is kind of the the ⁓ very large project project for us. Yeah. But I I think ⁓ you know, we'll be a little bit more sticky in people's brains. And I think in the end, you know, that's that's all we really need is just just for people to see our logo and say, ⁓ yeah, that's those guys. I remember them. Yeah. You know? And I I think, you know, a lot of times I can get worried about that thing that you were saying where it's like there it you you people might forget about us. But you know, if you own the product, you've tried it already, I'm not really worried about someone forgetting who we are. You know. speaker-0: Exactly. Okay. Well the last question I'm going to ask you before we go into our rapid fire round, what's one piece of advice to someone at the trailhead or the start of their business that you would give to them with their outdoor business dream? speaker-1: Outdoor business dream. I mean, there's so many different ⁓ Different piece of it ⁓ pieces of advice that I could give. But I think the one thing that keeps me excited all the time is just make sure you love your product. Whatever if you're gonna go into business and you have a great idea, yeah, and you're not using it all the time, you you might, you know, that's gonna be a big stumbling point for you because you really wanna know every single thing about it. You wanna be the you know, the person shouting it from the rooftops. If you don't believe it's the best, then maybe, you know, or you know, whatever it is about it. But I think that's that's ⁓ number one is, you know, if you're not making something good or better than other people and you don't believe in it, it I would do something else. Yeah. speaker-0: No, that's good. You have to believe I mean you have to believe in your product. You have or else you're just gonna unless you're I mean speaker-1: I don't know how I'd get through my day if I didn't if I couldn't tell you that I'm making the best products, you know, that you can buy. I it would be devastating. Yeah. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. Well cool. If people are looking for your product, what are a couple of ways that they can kind of ⁓ find it to buy it? speaker-1: ⁓ we're in a bunch of independent retailers, so not big box stores, but ⁓ the best way to get a hold of us is just minus thirty three dot com. ⁓ you could call us ⁓ as well. You're just ⁓ and you'll talk to customer service that's right down the hall from me. If there's something wrong, they will yell at me and tell me to make it better. So, you know, that's a direct line there. We're also on Amazon and a lot of third party. Yeah. ⁓ so just ⁓ independent retailers or or You know, Myus thirty three dot com or anywhere kind of on the internet that you buy clothes. speaker-0: Perfect. Well Lawson, thank you so much. I'm going to go ahead and run into our little bit of a rapid fire around. So ⁓ really quickly, they're not one-word answers all the time, but they're pretty quick stuff ⁓ to answer. ⁓ what ⁓ first question is what is your favorite national park? speaker-1: Favorite national park. ⁓ geez. ⁓ God, that is ⁓ a really tough question. I guess I'm just gonna go with the White Mountains in New Hampshire because that's the easy one. Yeah. I was just like, ⁓ my gosh. ⁓ Rapid fire. speaker-0: can't betray the state you live in, right? speaker-1: You cannot, no. speaker-0: ⁓ all right, next question is ⁓ tent, hammock, or cowboy camping? speaker-1: ⁓ I gotta say tent. I just don't like being wet at night, you know. And I know you could put the thing up, but it yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. ⁓ next one is favorite trail snack you use. speaker-1: ⁓ Just gotta be, you know, almonds and peanuts and and and and ⁓ and ⁓ GORP. Just like, you know, just just ⁓ just ⁓ you just buy some nuts and some candy and throw it in there and boom, just hand reach whenever you're hungry. speaker-0: I know what's the worst trail snack you've ever tried? speaker-1: ⁓ geez. ⁓ anything spicy. Like if you don't give me anything really spicy at the top of a mountain. I think one of my friends did that to me as a joker once and I like, Gosh, man, I am now ten times more thirsty than I was coming into this, you know. speaker-0: So maybe Takis. You don't want Takkies. speaker-1: No, I wouldn't do talkies. I think ⁓ yeah, yeah. Just ⁓ l I I guess when I'm outside I lay off the spice, you know? speaker-0: I don't know how my son eats those Takis. Like I don't get them to them anymore 'cause they're just so unhealthy for him. But he has a dairy allergy, but there's certain ones that don't have milk in them and he turns around, his whole face is just blue from all of it. And I'm like, How are you eating these things? Like now I granted my wife's Koreans and the kids eat spicy food, but different spices from different cultures are different. And that type of spice is just like I I can't even I can't even do it. Plus it would might throw my stomach to a like a complete that's speaker-1: The real thing for me, I used to eat a lot of very, very spicy stuff all the time. And then one time I had a authentic Jamaican jerk sandwich with like like all the authentic spiciest stuff. Yes. And ever since then I feel like I've injured myself and now I can't have too much spice on my stomach. It's like, hey, you're gonna have a really bad time, so you're gonna cut that out. Yeah. speaker-0: Fun fact, my family's ⁓ ri a lot of my family's originally from Jamaica and then they immigrated to Canada. So I ate Jamaican food all the time. And so I I think I got like a little bit of a ⁓ accustomed to like that peppery kind of spice and the Jamaican patties, the spicy, spicy Jamaican patties ⁓ that we'd have. ⁓ all right, next question. ⁓ what's the one of the biggest splurges you guys have ever made for your ⁓ for your business? speaker-1: ⁓ well, we're under construction with our ⁓ new building. We've over doubled our footprint and we're gonna be moving in in a few months here. And ⁓ that is you know, and and so the building I'm in is part of the old mill complex and we're gonna keep domestic manufacturing and ⁓ long term storage here and the new building is gonna be all of our office work, marketing and delivery. ⁓ cool. And y you know, it's tactical business related, but it also is very expensive. So you know, it it doesn't feel like ⁓ you know, maybe it's not splurging but because we needed it to grow, but in a lot of ways money going out. speaker-0: ⁓ that's still a big Yeah. ⁓ I can only imagine. I mean it's it it's also exciting, right? When you expand, especially like that it's like that conference hype, right? You get in a new building and then like everybody's just so excited. So like sales will explode and everything too because everybody just looks so rare in the go. And you're like, Okay, what what hype do we to do? We need to build another building again? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I ⁓ I hope I have to build another building in two years or whatnot. But I I think that would be some dramatic expansion if we had to do that. speaker-0: Awesome. Well, Lawson, thank you so much for being on the the podcast. And everybody, thank you so much for listening. ⁓ if you're looking for minus thirty three again, just check out minus thirty three dot com, right? Perfect. And I can attest to using the gear too. And I actually use the socks. ⁓ last time I went hiking with my wife in Yosemite. We were up and it was like three feet of snow up on top of ⁓ one of the ridges we were at and ⁓ it was freezing and speaker-1: Yep, that's right. Per speaker-0: my feet were so warm inside of my shoes and I wore them specifically because I I knew that they were gonna be warm and comfortable and usually I'm not I'm wearing a different type of sock. And I was like, ⁓ I'm actually glad I wore these. So ⁓ I appreciate it. ⁓ Yeah. Thank you so much. I look forward to meeting you ⁓ in person someday and good luck with the wedding and the new building and everything else and ⁓ we'll see you next time. speaker-1: We'd love to hear that. Thank you, looking forward to it. We'll see you next time.