Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Turning Negative Experiences Into a Thriving Brand: The Story of Teton with Scott Holmes

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Turning Negative Experiences Into a Thriving Brand: The Story of Teton with Scott Holmes · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

0:05
It was just a feeling that, you know what, I'm this entrepreneurial bug has bit me and I'm not sure there's any recovery from that.
0:14
I Today we sit down with Scott Holmes.
0:17
Scott's journey is truly unique.
0:19
He grew up dreading camping thanks to bad gear, only to channel those experiences into building a brand focused on quality and and positive outdoor adventures.
0:29
With a background in import, export and invaluable mentorship, Scott leveraged strong relationships with factories and major retailers to Launch Teton in 2005 and drive rapid growth.
0:42
In today's conversation, Scott shares the story behind Teton's origins, the lessons learned from his unconventional career path, and how he built a company powered by strong core values and culture.
0:55
You'll hear about scaling a product business from managing inventory to working with Amazon in its earliest days, implementing the entrepreneurial operating system for operational excellence and what it takes to build lasting business relationships.
1:12
If you're interested in entrepreneurship, fulfillment or turning tough beginnings into success, this episode is packed with insights you don't want to miss.
1:22
As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
1:27
All right, Scott Holmes, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
1:31
Thank you.
1:31
Glad to be here.
1:33
Absolutely.
1:33
We appreciate you taking the time.
1:35
You bet.
1:36
So Scott, you are the founder and the CEO of Teton, which makes a wide variety of outdoor gear.
1:45
But interestingly enough, the company wasn't born out of, out of the, the love for the outdoors, but it was actually born out of the bad experience with bad gear.
1:58
So can you just to talk more about why you started the company and.
2:03
How that came about, I would say, I would say it was influenced by some bad experiences, but it, but it was started.
2:12
I mean I, I love the outdoors now.
2:14
Let's, let's, let's be real.
2:16
But when I was a kid, I certainly didn't and I would be forced to go on these campouts as part of a Boy Scouts organization.
2:23
And then to, to get rank advancements, you'd have a certain requirement for how many nights to spend outside, you know, camping.
2:33
And I remember my parents, they didn't know better.
2:36
They just got me the, the gear out of the local J.C.
2:39
penney's catalog or Kmart or wherever it was at the time that they bought camping gear.
2:43
And it was really probably a sleeping bag meant for a sleepover, you know, in, in your friend's basement.
2:48
It was not meant to be used outside, but we didn't know any better.
2:52
And I just had some miserable experiences camping out.
2:55
I just couldn't figure out why anybody would camp would leave their bed on purpose to go sleep outside in a tent in a, in a freezing cold, you know, sleeping bag.
3:06
I, you know, it was just, it was just an experience that I thought, I will, I will never do this on purpose ever.
3:13
And then when I finally had a good experience, I, I started experiencing the outdoors in a different way.
3:19
Not necessarily sleeping out, but just experiencing the mountains.
3:22
I live in Utah.
3:23
These mountains are incredible.
3:24
I had a friend get me started in, in trail running and I just, I just started living in the mountains, at least during the day.
3:33
And this love of the outdoors, you know, just, just got me to the point where I wanted people to experience what I was experienced from a positive standpoint and not experience what I had experienced as a kid from
3:47
a negative standpoint.
3:48
So that was, that's really the impetus of the whole thing.
3:52
Okay.
3:53
All right.
3:53
And so let's, let's talk about your early career too, because you, you were fortunate enough to have some expertise in import export business and, and have some great early mentors which kind of laid the foundation for, for when
4:09
you started the company.
4:09
Can you talk about that more?
4:12
Yeah, I had, you know, my, my initial plan was to go to medical school.
4:16
So I was a biology major in college at Utah State University in Logan, Utah.
4:22
And one summer between, between my school years, I got a job working for this guy and, and we just hit it off.
4:32
He was, he was an entrepreneur.
4:34
He imported auto body parts from Taiwan.
4:37
Just a, a really solid, solid guy.
4:40
Had at the time six kids, eventually ended up having seven.
4:44
And you know, this friendship got so close that I thought, you know, I could, I can go back to school and, and eventually become a doctor after, you know, what, eight, nine, ten more years.
4:57
Or I could tie myself to this guy and become a doctor, I guess through, through experience, you know, just the doctor of experience and learn all I can from him about, about importing from Asia.
5:13
At the time it was from Taiwan.
5:15
China hadn't really gotten the stranglehold on, on manufacturing like they do now, but I just saw an opportunity to really learn a ton from him.
5:23
And you know, he took me under his wing after, after that summer job.
5:28
He invited me to be his personal assistant at his work, which gave me an even greater view of, of what he did for a living.
5:37
And, and you know, every once in a while he asked me these what I considered strange questions to ask a 20 year old, you know, like, like, should I buy a helicopter or a Learjet?
5:49
And I thought, what, how can I contribute to this conversation?
5:54
Right?
5:54
Because because that was just so unbelievable to me that he would ask me such a question.
5:59
But those are the kinds of things that, that he would think about.
6:03
And, and I just thought, yeah, I can, I can learn so much from this guy.
6:07
So, yeah, I learned all you can learn from, from him as a mentor when it comes to importing from, from Asia.
6:15
And that certainly helped me get into this industry because, because I was, you know, a few years later hired by a company who needed some, some import expertise and I had it.
6:27
And it's because I had that experience that they hired me and that, that actually led to me being in this industry.
6:33
So it's, it's, it's strange how the universe works.
6:36
You know, one, one door opens, you close another door on purpose.
6:40
Sometimes that door closes on accident.
6:42
But whatever the reason, the other door that opens up ends up being the opportunity that of a lifetime, which is, which it was for me.
6:53
Wow.
6:53
Yeah.
6:53
Quite a serendipity.
6:55
Serendipity for sure.
6:56
Just to go back in the story one for one quick moment.
7:01
So when you made the decision to drop out of medical school and be a personal assistant for this successful entrepreneur working, what type of backlash or you know, comments or you know what, what type of reaction was there
7:16
from like friends, family, parents for a 20 year old saying, yeah, I'm not going to medical school anymore, I'm just going to go, you know, work for this entrepreneur?
7:24
Yeah.
7:25
The question really is what kind of backlash did I get from my mom?
7:29
Right.
7:29
Because that was the difficult conversation.
7:36
You know, one of the things that, that, that she knew about me is that I'm, I'm a little headstrong and you know, so I, so I, I think the backlash from her was, was, was tempered to my face.
7:50
But I knew that, that, that she was, she was having a hard time with this decision because, because, yeah, you think about that.
7:59
Oh, my son dropped out of the, of, of his effort to become a medical doctor, to become a personal assistant.
8:07
I, I don't, I don't think that, that she or anybody else for that matter could, could see the long, the long term and frankly I couldn't either, Dave.
8:16
I mean I, I felt like there was a long term opportunity here, but it's not like I had, I, I had this grand plan and I had perfect vision of that plan and I, and I wouldn't pursue was
8:27
just a feeling that, you know what, I'm, this entrepreneurial bug has bit me and I'm not sure there's any recovery from that.
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It checked more boxes for me, more core value boxes for me than the medical field did.
9:35
And I sensed it.
9:38
My primary core value is freedom and independence.
9:41
Entrepreneurship allows freedom and independence.
9:46
I don't know a whole lot of people in the medical facility that would say that's their primary core value because they're always on call.
9:54
And certainly maybe once they've arrived in their profession, they have a little more freedom, but certainly getting there.
10:03
I had gone to Creighton, out to.
10:05
In Omaha, Nebraska, Creighton University, to talk to some medical students out there.
10:10
And I'm telling you, they put the fear of God in me.
10:16
Half of them were walking around like zombies.
10:17
They were working these incredible shifts.
10:21
And I just, you know, for me, the comparison of the two, I just felt such, such a strong feeling to go down the entrepreneurial route.
10:31
And yeah, there was.
10:32
There was some, you know, to answer specifically your question, there were some.
10:35
There was some pushback.
10:36
There was some negative feedback.
10:38
I don't get it anymore, obviously, but.
10:42
But at the time, I'm trying to think of how I would be with one of my kids.
10:46
I have, I have eight kids.
10:48
And I'm wondering what I would do in a similar situation.
10:53
I know the answer now because I went through it and so.
10:56
But.
10:56
But if I hadn't gone through that experience, I would probably react like any other parent would.
11:02
Like, you're doing what you're.
11:04
You're dropping out of school for.
11:06
For what?
11:06
Again?
11:07
You know, just asking a lot of questions.
11:08
I'm sure I'd be that way.
11:12
So, you know, it's.
11:15
It's an interesting experience that I lived, but it seemed right at the time.
11:20
It seemed like the right thing to do.
11:23
Okay, all right, so you, you go that route, you have some.
11:28
You gain the experience working for this entrepreneur, and then later on that evolves into another company.
11:34
Needing your expertise for the import export stuff.
11:37
And so let's talk about how, how you started Teton.
11:41
How did that come about?
11:43
Okay.
11:43
I've been working for a company in the, in the industry.
11:48
This, this company had, had not only been in the camping gear industry, but they were in, you know, four or five, maybe even six different different categories that, that were seemingly unrelated small hand tools, for example, paintball fishing.
12:05
You know, you're, I'm trying to find a connection between them all and the only thing they had in common is that they were imported product.
12:13
I, I learned a lot from working for that company.
12:17
A lot of, a lot of good things and a lot of things that I would put on my to don't list.
12:21
You know, if I were ever to, to, to start a business, I wouldn't do that.
12:26
Or if I were to ever start a business, I wouldn't do that.
12:28
You know.
12:29
And, and I started actually physically creating this to don't list in a, in a notebook that I'd carry around on the, on the back page.
12:37
And one of those things was, you know, don't, don't, don't chase all opportunities.
12:43
There's so many opportunities when you're an entrepreneur.
12:46
You can't chase them all and do them all justice.
12:48
So don't, so don't chase them all because, because that's one of the things that we did in that company is chase a lot of opportunities.
12:55
Not me per se.
12:57
I was in charge of one of the divisions.
12:59
But I could see the problem with chasing good opportunities.
13:05
You spread yourself so thin that you got to the point when a great opportunity would come along, you couldn't really give it your all.
13:12
You couldn't say yes in full strength because you'd already said yes so many other times to, to other opportunities.
13:20
So, you know, I learned about what a lot about what to do and what not to do from, from the industry that I was in.
13:26
But one of the things that, that is invaluable are the relationships that I made along the way.
13:33
I made some incredible relationships with some factories in, in China in particular.
13:40
They were Taiwanese owned factories in China.
13:45
And, and you know, to this day I still consider these guys my friends.
13:51
So I had these incredible relationships with these, with these factories.
13:55
Great communication which is, which is so critical in business.
14:00
They, they listen intently to, to, to what I, my, my vision for, for building product.
14:08
They were the experts in how to build product, but I wasn't the expert.
14:12
I was the expert on how to use it, at least here in the States.
14:15
How to use the product.
14:17
So we had to blend the use of the product with the, with the fabrication of the product.
14:23
And it was just a great experience getting there.
14:25
But I also had some over, over the years built some great relationships with some customers, some, some big retailers here in this, in the States.
14:34
Sportsman's Warehouse is an example.
14:36
I was, I was very close with the president of the company who happened to love camping.
14:43
And so even though he was the president of the company, he retained the, the, the buyer of camping gear responsibility.
14:53
So the president of the company was also the camping gear buyer, which was perfect for me.
14:56
Right, because he was both, he was both the buyer and the buyer's boss all in one.
15:04
I also had a great relationship with Cabela's out in Sydney, Nebraska before they'd gotten purchased by Bass Pro.
15:09
So between, between the great relationship with factories and great relationship with, with these customers.
15:16
When I decided to branch out on my own, largely because the company I was working for started having some financial trouble, I believe the financial trouble was, was a result of them spreading themselves too thin, saying yes to
15:27
too many good opportunities.
15:30
That those financial trouble troubles were signal to me that it was time to step away.
15:37
And so I stepped away, started my own company really solidly focused on, on, on camping gear specifically because that's where my, my relationships were.
15:47
And so that was in 2005.
15:51
I had a couple, I had a couple to don'ts.
15:53
This is going to make you laugh Dave, because one of them was don't have a warehouse.
15:59
Scott, you don't, you don't know how to manage inventory.
16:01
So why in the world would you try to manage it?
16:03
So don't have a warehouse.
16:06
Well, that might sound pretty interesting for a product based business to not have a warehouse.
16:11
Right?
16:12
So I got my factory and my customer together and I said listen, I don't want to manage the inventory and I want to be able to run this business at super thin margins as a result which you customer
16:26
are going to benefit from.
16:28
So can I fill full container loads of product at the factory and ship it directly to you at your, at your fulfillment center, at your distribution center?
16:36
And because Sportsman's warehouse was big enough and because Cabela's was big enough, they both said yes to that plan.
16:42
And so for the first couple of years I didn't have any domestic inventory which is full container loads.
16:47
I'd sit with the customer, I'd get their purchase orders, you know, five months in advance.
16:53
I would, I would build the order, custom custom build the container and ship it directly to the fulfillment center.
17:00
And it was beautiful at first.
17:03
The problem was, and you can probably relate to this, is that forecasting is an imperfect game.
17:10
So as they forecasted their needs over the next four or five months, because that's how in advance I needed to get these purchase orders.
17:17
If they oversold, which they.
17:19
Which they frequently did, then they're now sold out of product and they're waiting another month for that next container to arrive.
17:27
Well, that's, that's not an option for a retailer.
17:29
They have to have product on their shelves.
17:32
As.
17:32
As the president of Sportsman's warehouse put it to me numerous times, Scott, I can't sell from empty shelves.
17:37
I can only sell from full shelves.
17:40
So he would then have to buy product from my competitor and put it on the shelf until that.
17:45
Until that container arrived a month later.
17:48
And so this happened enough times that I thought, you know what?
17:51
I've got.
17:51
I've got to solve that problem.
17:53
I've got to carry some domestic inventory.
17:55
Not a lot, but enough that if this keeps happening where they.
18:01
Where their forecast is off by a month, I can fill in with some domestic inventory for 30 days until the next container rise.
18:09
And so I thought, okay, I'm gonna.
18:11
I'm gonna.
18:12
I don't have my own warehouse, so I'm gonna use a 3PL.
18:15
Well, I didn't really use a bona fide 3PL.
18:18
I used a.
18:19
I used a friend who had a warehouse and said he could fulfill my orders for me.
18:23
So I'd bring in the containers to him.
18:25
He'd fulfill my orders.
18:26
But it didn't seem like his level of customer service was.
18:30
Was my level of customer service.
18:34
So I'd ask him, can I, can I.
18:36
Can I hire somebody to come into your warehouse and do all of my fulfillment?
18:42
Then they could do it to my standards.
18:44
And so that was.
18:45
That was how I started getting not only into domestic.
18:49
The domestic inventory game, but also hiring employees.
18:55
So I had two to don'ts that were on my.
18:58
On my to don't list that are now no longer on my to don't list.
19:04
One was, you know, don't have a warehouse, and the other ones don't have employees.
19:07
I have now learned at least somewhat enough how to manage inventory and how to manage employees that I.
19:13
That I've moved both of those to my to do list.
19:17
Okay, wow.
19:18
So quite.
19:19
Quite interesting to don'ts.
19:22
Right.
19:23
For an entrepreneur.
19:24
And I'm sure plenty of the entrepreneurs list.
19:25
And listen, I'm sure that there's employees oftentimes will give Us headaches, but at the same time, right.
19:31
Very necessary and an integral part of your business.
19:34
And you know, the right employees are so valuable.
19:37
But yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting that story where you had, you knew the power of relationships.
19:44
You were a very hard worker, right.
19:46
You built up this, this acumen.
19:48
You saw the opportunity to go out on your own.
19:51
You made the leap.
19:52
You found a way to do it virtually at first without even having to have a physical location.
19:58
And wow, talk about what perfect, you know, I guess things falling into place where the, the president of the company is the camping gear buyer and he's a good friend of yours and you in the camping gear business.
20:12
So when, when you, you know, you go through these initial struggles, you realize you have to have warehousing, you have to have employees.
20:19
What was the trajectory of the company in those early years?
20:22
Did things like take off right away or did you face some, some challenges?
20:28
Things took off right away and largely a result of those relationships.
20:33
I really can't stress enough how even though I started the company in 2005, I didn't start the relationships in 2005.
20:41
They predated me starting the business by several years, and that's why it took off.
20:47
I'm a, I'm a firm believer that I was successful from the very beginning solely because of the relationships I'd built over, over, you know, in previous lives with the different businesses.
20:59
So, you know, I, I leaned into those relationships.
21:02
They trusted me.
21:03
I trusted them.
21:06
One of the things that, that was super helpful from day one was that my factory gave me payment terms.
21:12
You know, as, as close as I was to my customers, they required payment terms from me.
21:17
And if I hadn't gotten payment terms from my factories, I would never have been able to.
21:21
To debank the, the accounts receivable from, from my customer.
21:26
So my factories gave me payment terms that, that lasted longer than the payment terms I gave to my customers.
21:35
So I was able to cash flow from day one, which was, which was huge.
21:39
The, the, the other thing that, that I will say in hindsight is that when you are moving things from a to don't list to a to do list, that, that is, that is not something you do just randomly.
21:53
If, if it made your to don't list to begin with, there's a reason it made you to note list, dive deeply and find out what is that reason and how, what are the steps that, that, that you have
22:07
to go through to move that item from your shoulder list to your to do list.
22:10
So I Didn't just willy nilly say, oh, I can suddenly manage inventory.
22:17
I was, I was still convinced that I wasn't very good at it and that I needed to become good at it if I was truly going to manage inventory.
22:24
So I started out very small in terms of moving that from my to don't list to my to do list.
22:31
I was, it was a very small part of my business and I, one of the things that it did though is it now allowed me to go after customers who weren't big enough to do full container loads.
22:42
They weren't big enough yet.
22:43
And this is going to make you laugh.
22:45
One of those was Amazon.
22:47
Amazon was a CD seller, a bookseller, and they were trying their darndest to become the everything store.
22:54
But, but, but nobody really believed that they could.
22:56
This is the early days, right?
22:58
So they're like, you're, you're a bookseller.
23:00
Why would we sell baby products on Amazon?
23:03
You're a bookseller.
23:04
Why would we sell home goods on Amazon?
23:06
You're a bookseller.
23:07
Why would I sell camping gear on Amazon?
23:08
Well, I was one of the first ones to say yes to that, to that plan.
23:15
So I started selling product to Amazon on a weekly basis.
23:20
Small, really small.
23:21
But because I had domestic inventory, I could, I could fulfill those orders.
23:26
And it was, they had a pretty decent trajectory.
23:29
They were growing leaps and bounds, but they were a pain to deal with.
23:33
And I remember, you know, my office was downstairs in my house.
23:37
Remember I didn't, I didn't have to go into an office.
23:39
I didn't have a warehouse of my own.
23:43
I had, I had a third party warehouse.
23:46
So I'd come upstairs and complain to my wife about the last, you know, I'd spent two hours processing Amazon orders.
23:53
And they were, they were puny in comparison to a Cabela's order or a Sportsman's Warehouse order.
23:59
But yet they took so much more time.
24:02
And so I'd complain to her and she'd say, well, do we really need them?
24:05
I mean, are they really going anywhere?
24:09
And I had a friend that was, that was in the IT industry, close friend from high school.
24:15
And I would talk to him on a regular basis about business.
24:17
He's very entrepreneurial himself.
24:19
And so I'd talk, I'd have the same conversation with him that I had with my wife and he'd say, you know what?
24:24
I'd think twice before you dump that account.
24:27
I think they're going places.
24:30
And I'd repeat this conversation every couple months with my wife.
24:32
And she'd give Me the same response.
24:34
And I'd get the same response from this friend of mine.
24:36
You know what?
24:37
I think Amazon's going to be somebody someday.
24:40
And sure enough, they, like, rule the world now.
24:45
But we were an early vendor to Amazon, largely because I had domestic inventory to start with.
24:52
Now they, too, do full container loads with me.
24:56
But you got to start somewhere, and I suggest starting pretty small.
25:00
If the to don't is clear in your mind, do two things if you need to.
25:07
If you need to move that to don't to a to do, you got to do two things.
25:11
One, start small and two, hang out with people who know what they're doing or read books.
25:17
I tell my kids this all the time.
25:19
The two things that are going to influence you the most in life are the five people with whom you listen to or that, you know, whatever.
25:32
It's the media.
25:33
It's the media that you absorb and it's the.
25:37
The people you hang out with.
25:38
That's how.
25:38
That's how you learn the best.
25:41
Yeah.
25:41
Such great advice.
25:42
Such great advice.
25:44
Yeah.
25:44
And funny.
25:45
Funny to look back on those conversations now, right.
25:48
With, like, you say, Amazon basically being one of the biggest companies ever and, you know, such a crazy trajectory they've had over the past 20 years.
26:01
Oh.
26:04
You still there?
26:05
Okay, so another thing is, speaking of.
26:09
Dealing with employees, I'm wondering.
26:13
Wonder if I had a bad connection.
26:17
I think I got.
26:18
I got you.
26:19
Now you have me.
26:21
Okay.
26:21
Yeah.
26:22
One of the other things dealing with employees that you've been.
26:27
You've mentioned on, on other shows is you've implemented the E.
26:31
The Entrepreneur's operating system, which is all about having the right people in the right places.
26:37
Can you just talk more about that and how important that's been to your business success?
26:45
Yeah.
26:47
You know, Davis, it's an interesting question because I've learned so much in life and in business.
26:56
This is.
26:57
This is one of them.
26:58
I had.
26:59
I had moved to Puerto Rico in 2018.
27:03
Took.
27:04
Took my family.
27:05
I took seven of my eight kids.
27:06
The oldest was an adult, so she didn't go with us, but the other seven were.
27:10
Were still under my roof, and we moved to Puerto Rico and I hired.
27:13
I hired somebody to run Teton while I was.
27:16
While I was in Puerto Rico.
27:19
And one of the things that she was really good at is.
27:23
Still is.
27:23
Is organizational development.
27:26
And so she took Teton to a whole different level organizationally.
27:31
And one of the decisions that she made while she was CEO was to have us read a book called Traction and have us adopt the EOS entrepreneurs operating system eos.
27:49
So, you know, I, I was introduced to EOS and traction because of the CEO that I had hired.
27:57
I moved back from Puerto Rico in 2023 and took back the reins of the company.
28:02
One of the things that I so appreciate about her leadership was this.
28:10
You know, I had these two examples of running the company.
28:14
One before I moved to Puerto Rico and one after I got back and before I moved to Puerto Rico.
28:20
It was me wearing multiple hats.
28:22
It was haphazard meetings.
28:26
You had those meetings when you needed to have them.
28:30
I had some meetings with the cadence, but a lot of meetings with just haphazard.
28:34
This is all 2018 and before I come back and I run the company again in 2023.
28:41
And it is super structured.
28:43
I mean, it truly has an operating system where our, all of our meetings have a cadence, they have an agenda.
28:52
We keep them very tight, we score them all at the end of the meeting.
28:56
You know, what was that?
28:58
Rate that on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of best use of your time.
29:02
Could you have used your time better elsewhere?
29:05
If the answer is yes, we shouldn't have had that meeting.
29:08
Right.
29:09
So I highly recommend eos.
29:12
Read the book Traction.
29:13
See if it fits for your business.
29:14
It definitely fits for Teton.
29:16
We use it company wide.
29:20
All department heads use it within their department as well.
29:25
We do the, you know, the three year plan, the one year goals, the quarterly rocks, you know, the, the weekly, what are called L10s, you know, your level 10 meetings, these 90 minute meetings.
29:39
We do it all by the book and it is super helpful.
29:44
Okay, all right.
29:46
And Scott, you know, clearly you've had a 20 year run with Teton.
29:49
You're still growing, going strong.
29:51
I mean, given your journey and everything you've been through and the success you've had, what's been the best part of it for you?
30:00
I think the best part of it for me is being able to run an organization that, whose culture so fits with.
30:14
In the early days, a company matches its founder, a company's culture matches its founder for sure, because that's the definition of a company, is what the founder brings to it.
30:27
But over time, oftentimes what happens is the culture dynamic changes as a result of hiring people who might have bring different core values to the table, who might have a different culture.
30:43
You end up having this disjointed culture thanks to a lot of study and a lot of reading.
30:52
I knew from the early days and frankly a lot of bad experiences at previous companies.
30:56
I knew from the early days that how important culture was to Teton and that if I was going to grow this thing, I was going to grow it consistent with the culture that mattered to me, this set of
31:09
seven core values.
31:11
And I was going to hire and fire based on those core values.
31:14
From the time I started hiring people, they needed to be a culture fit.
31:19
And to this day, we are an organization of.
31:23
Of culture fits.
31:24
Now, we've had moments where we've strayed.
31:28
In fact, during this.
31:29
During this time when I was gone to Puerto Rico, I would say this a perfect example of this.
31:35
We hired people that weren't a solid culture fit.
31:39
So one of the things that I did when I came back in 2023 is clean that up.
31:44
So I think the thing the most gratifying to me is the culture of the company, that we.
31:50
That we adhere to core values, that we make decisions based on these core values.
31:55
And anybody in the company, you can ask anybody in the company what the.
31:58
What our core values were.
32:00
They would all know what they are, and then they could all give you an explanation of what they mean.
32:05
And that is.
32:06
That is super gratifying.
32:08
Love that.
32:10
All right, well, Scott, if people want to learn more about Teton or they want to reach out to you in any way, what's the best way people can find you online?
32:20
Our website is tetongear.com you can reach out to us on tetongear.com and then I'm on LinkedIn.
32:26
So if you just search for Scott Holmes on LinkedIn Teton, you'll find me there.
32:31
Okay, we'll link all that in the show.
32:34
Notes for everyone.
32:37
Scott, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
32:43
We greatly appreciate it.
32:44
It's been a pleasure.
32:45
Let's stay connected.