Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Wambolt Founder/CEO Scott Wambolt| Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 53

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Wambolt Founder/CEO Scott Wambolt| Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 53 · Beyond The Trailhead

• speaker-0: Alright everyone, welcome back to another incredible episode of Beyond the Trailhead. this week we got another special guest on. we got Scott Wombolt with Wombolt and it's basically named after you, right, Scott. So I don't want to ruin it for people because your story is a little different than most people that we've had on. Right now you're still currently currently in the process of launching your product and everything else, and you're gonna kind of give us a little more information on that. But wanted to have you on. We met at Outdoor Retailer. Had a great conversation. We've been talking a little bit back and forth as well before the show. but just wanted to have you on to kind of let you kind of talk through the process of you know creating a product. We have lot of people that listen that are thinking about creating a product or in that same kind of process that you are, or just in the first few months of launching their business. And wanted to just kind of hear your thoughts and your background first of all. so I guess. Again, thanks for being on and without further ado, let's hear your story. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, Greg, thank you so much for having us. I know, like you said, we're earlier than most of your other folks. So we appreciate you giving us the platform to to chat early. And so my background, I'm an ER doctor. So initially in the Air Force was stationed in Alaska till 2024. And really that time in Alaska was formative for why this company started. So I've also got five kids. and so when we were in Alaska, we were really pretty aggressive out there, you know. We We're all over the state in terms of activities. We went to Homer and Seward and all the way north to a town called the North Pole. And we really tried to capitalize, knowing we had a few years to really do all the outdoor stuff there that we could. And so what that meant for us was constantly unpacking our garage into our vehicle and then getting back and constantly repacking the garage. And so we just dealt with the logistics of that over and over for a really focused period there during those four years. And really the formative time that crystallized it for us was when my brother's family came out to visit us in the summer of twenty twenty-three. between the two of us, we had nine kids and we were like, we got two weeks to do everything we possibly can, right? And so we were packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking. We hit so many spots in the state for for a short window. And we just were standing there in the garage looking at all the stuff that we just unpacked. We're like, man, there really has to be a better way to do this. We're spending half the day when we get home repacking the garage only to resort stuff and do it again the next day. And so we just had this moment in the garage together where like, why is it that even in the best case scenario, you might have the most organized garage in the world that's got, you know, 40 different totes on the wall and they've all got labels on them. And then when you go to travel, you still have to pull those totes off the wall, but they don't really travel in the back of your car very well. So you got to unpack everything on the totes. And then maybe best case scenario, you've got a roof box on top of your car. Maybe you also have a cargo carrier off the back, but there's still this very laborious transition phase between the two where you've got to unpack everything from the garage, reorganize it in a way that's gonna fit into the roof box, or you're gonna play a Tetris in the back of your car, or you're gonna somehow stack stuff on the cargo carrier and bank on, your Rap to strap and tie-down abilities on the back. And so For us, we just looked at it and said, why are these systems separate? if these systems were blended and it was just one system and you could merge your garage and your vehicle so that when you wanted to leave, you could just do that. You didn't have to unpack, repack, and go and then come back, dump everything on the garage floor and repack it whenever you could. And so that idea of how could we make these two one system instead of two fully independent systems began back then in like 2023. But we lived so far apart that it didn't really have a chance to get off the ground for a while. And then when we moved back in 24, New England is the same way, we would spend weekends trying to go do activities in the White Mountains. We go ski in the wintertime, or, in the summertime, we might try to go down to the Cape or go, you know, to Lake Winnipesauke in New Hampshire, where my family's fortunately had a place since the 60s. but it's the same thing. Those weekends are gold. And so we're trying to capitalize on them. You get the same process of pack, unpack, pack, unpack. And really, not only is it logistically challenging, but it's pretty high risk to lose stuff, And so you're constantly moving things in and out. And so there's the stress of always trying to run around and find where is stuff. And so we begin to dial in the process a little bit more. And what we came up with was a modular storage system that lives in your garage, right? Replaces the totes in your garage. And then when you want to go, you just unclick them in the garage and click them on a receiver on the back in your car. So they're multiple sizes, right? So you can think of them like Lego pieces. And so there's customizable for whatever your family's needs are. If you need bigger ones, you need smaller ones, depending on what you're doing. But you just click it out of the garage, click it on the car receiver, go do whatever you're gonna do. And when you come home, unclick it, click it back in the garage and go back to life. And so we just view this as there are so many lost hours in the lead up and in the takedown when you get back, both for big trips and for small ones. I think about, my skids are in sports all the time. And so if we get a cancellation, right midday, okay. Baseball game got canceled. It's like, okay, well, I've got a three hour window now that I wasn't supposed to have. And, you know, I live an hour from the beach. So it's like, well, I could theoretically get to the beach and go do that, but I can't because it takes me two hours to get out of the house. So it's like, well, that's off the table. So I'm gonna be staying at home now. or you get a last minute trip for the weekend or whatever. And it's like, if I could actually just go when I wanted to go and wasn't dealing with this process from making the decision to leave and then actually rolling out of the driveway. I could actually capitalize on those opportunities so much more. And so for us, it's a logistical solution. But really, the aspirational view, the reason for it really for us is if I can capitalize on those opportunities, what it means on the ground is I'm getting more time with my wife, more time with my kids, more time with friends or whatever. And we just know that for us, there's nothing more important, right, than having those memories together. Both anecdotally, but then there's also statistical data that shows that people's most formative memories are those vacations with their family from ages five to ten. And so we want to capitalize on this. We want to give the most seamless way to actually make more of those memories happen so that we can just live a life that you love, have better relationships with your kids, get outside together more, unplug, no phone, just interact with them one-on-one. And so we genuinely feel that if we could just remove this logistical burden. What you are really unleashing is a better life for families. So yeah. That's what we're doing. speaker-0: That's cool. No, I I as you're saying all that, I'm looking over to my right and there's this huge stack of totes that are just it just says tents on it. Or it d you know, and I'm like, we were just before I got on with you, I'm like planning some the camping for the next November and December with my wife. We're looking at the calendar and going, Okay, all right, we're doing a car camping one for this one. So now I'm gonna have to move this from there, grab this from there and And the fact that you're making it, I'm just thinking back to the road trip that we had where we had that thing on the back of our Honda Odyssey. Yeah. And I had them like ratchet strapped on. And every like hour I'd go back and kind of check and be like, my gosh, is it still back there? I'd literally just throw the car in reverse real quick, pull over, put in reverse and go, Yeah, still there. Because we couldn't see anything out the back of the car either because we were just packed to the brim in the van. Yep. And no, I think making it easy, cause I I dread that whole having to pack it and then I end up just kinda saying, you know what, forget it. We're just not gonna go. We'll do something else. Let's just go for a day hike instead that we always do that the kids don't wanna do. Yep. so no, that's a g I mean it's a real speaker-1: Common story. And I think for me, I think about the night before, right? Like if I'm gonna go on a trip in the morning, like I cannot pack the car the night before because I don't know about you, but for me, like the cooler has to go in first, right? So it's always the first thing in the back of the car. And then everything else is stacked around it, which two issues. One means I can't pack the night before, so I gotta get up at four o'clock in the morning to pack. And then two, it means I can't get to my cooler while driving. So the system just is It's really dysfunctional right now. It's really hard to look at it after having built this system and say, Why, why does this not exist already? Yeah. it seems crazy. So yeah, no, I think the the problems you're dealing with are ones that we dealt with many, many times and still do. speaker-0: Yeah, I think you're solving that problem like you just said. Like a lot of us, we come up with the idea based on you go, this is such an easy idea. Why hasn't anybody thought of it? And then you look and you're like, why really? Why isn't this out here? Yeah. And it just takes somebody to go out there like yourself and go ahead and do the idea and take the risk and and everything else to do that. So so kind of walk us through then the process that you've been kind of going through once you came up with the idea. for people who are listening that are in that same kind of mode or just have that idea process right now for the outdoor space, what was your next step once you were like, Okay, I have the idea. What's what's it? speaker-1: Plan I Yeah. So mine's maybe maybe less generalizable, but for us, I knew that we had just moved in an era where unfortunately, mortgage prices were super high. And so I couldn't just say, I've got this idea, I can just ditch what I'm doing and chase this full boar right off the bat. Now longer term, hopefully that can you know, pivot. But initially it was a lot of let me try to sketch this out on my own. What are some different interlocking mechanisms that could work so we could We could ditch the ratchet straps and just have these boxes locked together. and so it was a lot of research on our own. And then, you know, realized pretty early on that we're I'm gonna need an outside engineer to help me with this. I'm not an engineer by trade. you know, I can I can go on clawed like anybody else and look up plastic blends and their strength and all this kind of stuff, but I'm not an engineer and it takes it takes an engineer to do that. So ended up talking with several manufacturing, engineering and design firms. and partnered with one in Boston to help us along. And so we've really been working with them in lockstep, having their engineers do it and sort of offloading that part of it from us. And so we've been more on the vision side of it right now of where do we want this to go while they actually do the, you know, the engineering side of it. And then we're just chucking in along the way, giving our input, feedback and all of that. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I think it's hard sometimes depending on the product you're coming out with, that you can't always do everything. It's great that you're outsourcing that and figuring that out instead of trying because we've had people on before that have had to do that themselves and they've told people they've said like, Hey, if I could do it over again, I would find an expert in this field instead of me trying to do it all myself. speaker-1: I think one of the things that I was really wary of was I felt like I probably could have, if I had a long enough timeline, I probably could have tried to build out some functional demos at my house and tried to work through mechanisms. One of the fears that I had with trying to extend the timeline that long was because to me the the solution seemed so obvious. It was such an obvious miss in the market that I I just felt very convinced that some of these bigger players were gonna realize that as well. And so if a Tulli or a Yakima or somebody realized that hey, we could just blood these two, why don't we do that? That they were their idea conception to market would be so much faster than mine that it was a race against the clock as well. speaker-0: No, there with there's so many times that people have had their stuff stolen in a conversation that seems like it's a totally fine conversation with a company and then you're like, wait a second, they just backstabbed me. Yeah. You know, and which is terrible for for people to do that, you know. But I I just know from following your social media as well and stuff like that, your heart for family and and people and stuff like that. I mean, you being a doctor, you know love people. That you're an honest dude that's like wanting to do it the right way. And so, you know, I that's why I love just hearing about your product, but then also I love the people behind the product. And I think that's why a lot of people like we just had the last podcast we were talking about, it's the person, it's not always the product, it's the person behind the product. speaker-1: of the things too was, if we look back over historically in our country, like the way that families have operated from a business standpoint was that they just handed down the business to their kids, right? Like that is a blacksmith, I guess I'm a blacksmith, right? Yeah. And so, you know, for our vision for the country is that these families really are the backbone of the country. And so, you know, as an ER doc, I can't pass down my ER doc business to my kids, right? And so I had a sense of this is a really good idea. There's a really good market for it. business-wise, it makes sense, but it also gives me an opportunity to work alongside my kids as they grow. And then if things work out, hand them the business and and keep it in the family. So obviously having the name helps with that. But but that was a part of the vision too. It was like, I think that's a much more beautiful way for families is to really work together alongside each other. I can't vision a better a better world than my son and turns eighteen and we work together until he's like forty and then takes over the business and and I step away. that's that's perfect look. Right. So speaker-0: That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I guess my next question is gonna be a little a little different, but what kind of fears do you think you kinda had going, Okay, I wanna do this, but what like, this is our this might not happen right or this might not happen right. What were some fears that you had? speaker-1: So I would say one I mentioned. So one is that we're gonna get undercut by a bigger player who could do it faster. That was a huge fear because it's a ton of money for us up front. And so my brother is investing with me as well. And so we're out of pocket right now. and so we're self funded. So that was a huge fear was like we're gonna we're gonna expense our retirement accounts trying to get this off the ground and then one of these bigger players is gonna come and circumvent it and then we're, kinda done for. so that was a fear for sure. I think we had fear that we were gonna get deep into this and realize that there just wasn't a good way to actually do this without straps. And that was a big part of our whole vision was to have a strap free system. and that we would be at a place where like what we thought was a a major part of why this is so great would actually not be there. And the same thing, you're kind of financially in a hole and can't get your way out of it. I mean that I had a fear that we would I guess this gets back to sort of Another part of our vision is we really, really are wanting this product to help families domestically is our first focus, right? So we're we're very focused on our country. We love our country. And so we have a fear that manufacturing costs would get so high domestically that we'd be sort of forced to outsource it overseas to stay viable. I can't say a hundred percent that we're gonna stay, but our conversations with manufacturers thus far are leading us to believe we should be able to manufacture domestically. So hopefully we vote on that. And then I certainly had a fear and still I guess in dealing with the fear of of trying to run both this business and stay full time in the emergency department, you know, I know that at some point that's not gonna be able to hold and I'll have to, you know, give up money in the ER and probably, you know, be in in the negative for a while while this gets off the ground. so that that's probably coming still. but that's definitely a fear is is my I don't want to be in a place where I don't go all in enough to actually get it off the ground. But I also I've We're a single income family with five kids and so it's to step away from the ER is is also kind of scary, you know. So speaker-0: No, well I'll be praying that you guys do really, really well and so you don't have that kind of hump to come over and stuff like that. Right. Cause I it it's great that you're going 'cause a lot of people will wait a little too long, I think, sometimes where they'll do just a little, little I you watch Shark Tank, I'm sure. And you know, see people and they they'll always say, like, you have to go they I want you to go all in and I'll invest in you versus someone who's like, Well, I still need to keep this 'cause it is hard. I mean, did it for Years and years and you being a doctor, I I'd gone back and forth with the doctor trying to figure out what my health issues were. And then when they found out that I hadn't been sleeping more than two to three hours a night for about three years, they were like, you don't have a hole in your heart or anything, you just have stress and you haven't slept. And so they were like, You have to pick between and I I was I'm so bad at taking risks that my wife and I finally sat down and she was well, we didn't. She told me, Let's sit down and Make a decision on what I had to do versus not do. Yeah. and went all in on it. And no, that's I I I think that the idea is great. I think it's gonna be something that's gonna be you're gonna end up seeing it all over the place. People are gonna be having it on the back of their cars, in their cars, on their trailers, yeah. and everything. And so speaker-1: I hope so. I'm excited to see those first vehicles. speaker-0: Yeah. No, no, it's gonna be it's gonna be really, really cool. So I know we're talking pre-it being out too. So it's it's interesting to talk through it, but if you can tell me what and I I know I have some pictures I'll I'll put up on the screen, but what is specifically unique about your product. speaker-1: Yep. So ours is the only system that will live both in your garage and then travel on your vehicle. So to to break it down very clearly. So you're gonna have boxes that will replace the totes on the shelves in your garage. We will also have a proprietary shelving system, but they're designed such that they'll fit on your garage shelf too. So you don't have to sort of go, you know, both feet in in order to get into the system. good. And then we'll have a cargo carrier that goes into your two inch receiver on the back of your car. So you can people have seen those metal basket ones that go on the back. This is our version of that. and it's gonna have a place on that bottom row where each individual box will kind of tow in and then we'll have a single a single lever on the side that when you put that lever down, the whole bottom row is locked. And then between the boxes, we'll have a latch on the the vehicle side and the rear side. And just as long as you lock those latches, it's secure. Like you don't have to worry about did I ratchet it tightly enough? Is everything bungeeed well? if the lock if the latches are locked, you're secure. now the couple of the unique things about our cargo carrier platform as well is it's gonna be a swing-away deck. So you'll always be able to get into the rear of your vehicle. Okay, so swing away and then it will lock closed again for travel. And then on the bottom of the deck, we're carrying through your two inch receiver off the back so that you can still take your bikes or your skis behind our system. So you can't tow on it. It's too far from the tongue to do that. but one of the main things that we ran into when we were starting to develop this was so many of the families that we know. When they go camping, they're also gonna bring bikes, right? Or they're gonna go and they're gonna go do a ski trip, but they also gotta bring their skis as well as all their helmets and whatever else. So so yeah, so we manufactured it so that receiver carries through, so you can still carry those off the back. You know, you probably can't carry six bikes off the back, but you can throw, you know, a few, it just gets so far from the top to carry that many, but speaker-0: No, I love the swing away option that you're talking about now too, because it doesn't matter what if it's my minivan or my SUV, the tailgate pops up and then I'm I'm like having to take everything off. Yep. That whole headache of taking everything off just to get one thing out of the back. Right. And then having to restrap it all down. Yep. And everything. So so are there color options or I'm I'm assuming first first round of product you're probably just gonna have a single option for for colors and stuff like that. speaker-1: Yeah, so single color for the first one. we actually haven't confirmed exactly what that's gonna be. we may end up utilizing our founders list to actually give us some feedback on what they want. we'll probably we're c we're considering at least doing a unique color run for that initial one, but that hasn't been finalized yet. Yeah. Down the road, certainly, other color options. I do think that color coding something like the Liz is a way that some people may organize their gear too. so there will definitely be color options down the road, but And probably seasonal options too, we may put out a lighter colored one for summertime and then some other winter options, stuff like that. speaker-0: That's cool. No, because I I do color code my stuff. Yeah. I know everybody's different, right? So it's so hard to I th that's probably one of the hardest things, right? Is being more general versus specific. Because I could tell you the way that I organize my stuff and then it's gonna be completely different the way other people organize theirs. speaker-1: Yeah. And well, one of the things right now is there is nothing that's going to customize it for you. So if you have a roof box, it's one big egg-shaped thing that can fit your soft goods well. Or if you get the systems off the back, either it's an open basket that's one size, or you know, some of the other companies will have a big single box that goes on the back, but it's nothing is designed to fit the way people actually carry their stuff in their garage or customize it. So using the different size boxes that we have will hopefully make that a lot more customizable for folks. speaker-0: Yeah, that's cool. speaker-1: And we'll have dividers and stuff in there too that they can use as well. speaker-0: Yeah. do you have a labeling system for it as opposed to meeting right now I just throw scotch tape on the outside of my totes and th write something on it. speaker-1: Yep. So on the latch side, which would be the side that's sticking out of your shelf in the garage, we'll have basically a clear plastic piece that will just fit right into this little notch on there. And so if you want to throw a sticker or whatever on there, you can do that and then you'll just see right there what it is. speaker-0: Okay. Awesome. So I I kinda wanna go shift a little bit and go back in time a little to when we first met in person. Yeah. Because we're at Outdoor Retailer and I'm assuming that was your probably your first trade show. speaker-1: Correct. speaker-0: Right. So walk me through in the outdoor space, first trade show. Yeah. What were you expecting? What happened? That kind of thing. speaker-1: outdoor Ito was super fun for us. We were grateful to be in the Ascend program there. So in kind of the center part of the whole expo. And you know, we weren't sure exactly where we were gonna be from engineering side when when we signed up for the show. We just knew that we wanted to get in front of people and get some feedback. because I'm a outdoor consumer for sure in for many products, but I'm an outdoor industry, you know, outsider, right? And so I needed to get in front of a lot of people who were in the outdoor industry and throw the idea out and see what the feedback was to confirm directionality. we've pitched it off of all of our friends and family and and so we got green lights all over the place back home, but it's tough to fully trust that and assume that's not just a biased, you're my buddy, you're gonna tell me you like it idea. and so I would say for us, it was a great experience, We we had a a lot of conversations with retailers with other brands with influencers that were there. And I would say that our feedback was pretty uniform across the board that people wanted it. So you know, we we did not publicly display imagery of our stuff there. It was sort of our our public facing you know, materials were all the problem that we're addressing. We've got this other account called Rooftop Wranglers that shows sort of the the ludicrous ways people are carrying stuff on their vehicles right now. And so we showed some footage from that. as a a conversation starter and but really the feedback that we got was just universally positive. I think there's a lot of a lot of us have just sort of dealt with what's already there. We just have stuff for the car and you have stuff for your garage. And you never you just assume like I want to get the best for my car and the best for my garage not realizing that well there could be one that just does both. And so when that light bulb turns on for people, pretty uniform recession of yeah that makes like why don't I why I don't do that. So speaker-0: So I'm gonna be I'm gonna play devil's advocate a little bit, but did you d did you have what were any negative feedbacks that you had? 'Cause I think you were just alluding to, friends and family will pat you on the back. Yeah. Even if they don't like it or they think it's off. Yep. And some strangers will I've been to enough trade shows that people will be like, Hey, that's a great product and they'll walk away and go, Okay, well, whatever, right? So was there anything you were like, Maybe we need to change this or that's a good idea for the next rendition or anything like that. speaker-1: I would say the biggest thing was that secondary part of good ideas for down the line because we have we have a lot of visions for where this could go. I mean, if you can just you have this interlocking system that doesn't need straps and you can apply it to so many different fields. and so we got visions for a cooler and we're gonna have, you know, a vented box for your wet gear and your kids' sports gear so that it doesn't stink the back of your car up and it can just dry out on the way home rather than put, you know, wet towels in the back of your car, that sort of thing. So we have a lot of visions and there was it was actually really neat to have a lot of people there sit there and ruminate for a second and have their own vision of where it could go, like what it would do for their we had people who were there who were hunters who would envision a rifle or a bow box for that, And so, ideas like that, or people who were golfers who were like we have a golf specific one that we could just go with our buddies and and stack them all up together and go golf and then take them all off as we drop each other off on the way home, So there was that. I don't know that we had anything. I'm trying to think if we had anything there where our vision pivoted because of a conversation there. And I don't I don't think that we did. I think if anything, one of the things that was really reaffirmed for for us was that swing away that you were talking about because we were on the fence initially about if we should do it just because from a cost standpoint and the engineering standpoint, it's just so much more intensive. But everybody from a feedback standpoint there was like that you have to have that. that's such a dynamic part of it. and then, you know, there are areas where it's it's not gonna work currently, you know. So like if people have a tire off the back of their car or something like that, like it's gonna get in the way. And, you know, we're not we're not advocating that people put an extender on the back of their you know, receiver to do that. So it's not universal at this point. And so there were some folks who have that situation or you know, we met with some Some folks who did overlanding who are worried that the, the angle clearance would be too tough for that overlanding, which is definitely something to consider. You know, if you're doing like some pretty rugged off road stuff where you need that angle clearance, then anything off the back is gonna be a challenge. So, you know, that just sort of is par for the course, but but a reality. So there was a few things that, you know, you recognize that it's not gonna be for every single vehicle, but yeah, but nothing that that I don't think we changed our directionality based off conversations. speaker-0: Good. I'm sure you went away with a lot of notes then on hey, these are the cool ideas that we can potentially launch in the future. I think that's that's the good part about it, is you I think some people always want to come out with and I've worked with some clients of mine that are like I have to have it 900 SKUs out before I can launch my product. Right. But if you launch your initial one or two SKUs. then you can get that feedback and then you're not wasting money on product that you created that you're like, man, I just wasted, $50,000 on something that I can't ever sell. And then you realize that everybody needs a cer a certain component. So I just bought a this was two or three months ago, I just bought a a new bike rack because my my kids got electric dirt bikes. nice. And I was like, okay, I need to find a a rack that I can put the bikes on, but I can always use my bicycles. And I watched a video of the guy taking it completely just off roading and not bouncing off the trailer hitch and it was keeping everything solid and I was like, All right, sold. Just 'cause I saw it bouncing around and it wasn't gonna snap off and stuff. Cause sometimes, you know, put a lot of weight on the back of your car and you kinda go, Is this really gonna I drive with it all the time and I'm always looking in the mirror going, Is that gonna stay there? You know, and lose twenty grand of stuff off the back? So so it'll be interesting to see when you get product in and you start doing testing and stuff like that. I'm sure you've got videos, ideas for social media and stuff to speaker-1: Kinds of stuff. speaker-0: do and and everything else. So do you have like what's your next steps in terms of getting product and then doing your your marketing piece? speaker-1: Yep. So we have a conversation with several marketers right now to sort have to decide which one we're gonna go with. But we're gonna be heavily marketing through the holiday season this fall. pre-sales, like we mentioned before, are gonna be coming up here very shortly. And so we'll do pre-sales through the fall. And then I really we're gonna have to sort of make a call sort of halfway through that on if we're getting enough funds coming in that we'll be able to use that pre-sale money to do our tooling and all of that. Cause we we already know what that cost is gonna be. And so if we get the movement. through the fall to do that, then we'll just use those funds and go tooling and and straight into manufacturing, as soon as we can. if we're gonna be a little bit slower, then we've got a number of folks who want to invest. And so we'll end up making those phone calls about getting some outside funding to get the the actual manufacturing done. I mean the tooling for all these parts is it's so expensive, you know. It's just it's a it's a big haul. So that's the next step really is is pre-sales through the holiday season. make a call on where we're at come late November. if we're got a great headway, then awesome. We can hopefully just fund it through that. But if not, then we'll we've got a number of folks that will end up probably getting our you know, some initial outside investments and and get it off the ground that way. speaker-0: That's cool that you have that ability though to do that versus hey, I'm just gonna go investment heavy and go go for it. You're like, hey, let's try to do it this way first. Cause I we've had this conversation with a lot, a lot of people, and then I'm very much in the like, hey, do it ourselves and do it where I don't owe anybody anything. And and then you know, if I have to do it, like whenever I teach people photography stuff and they ask me, Camera questions. I'm like, well, what do you have on you right now that or what can you afford versus what should I tell you to get so you're not like because you can always buy lenses. You can always rent lenses, figure out what you like and then buy it, that kind of thing. So that's good. And then it's great that if you have people that are will wanting to invest, I'm sure they're probably going, No, please take my money, like I want to be a part of it, because they're wanting to make money because they know it's a good idea. speaker-1: So yeah, I know that's that has been the feedback. We've definitely been fortunate to to put a lot of people on the back burner. Yeah. speaker-0: That's cool. and I wanted to say too, thank you for your service. Again, I always forget to tell tell our military veterans and stuff like that that that. But my father in law was in the army his whole life and I tried to join the Marines when I was younger, when I first moved from Canada here, but they wouldn't let me. and everything else. So speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. I I have a hard time even taking the thanks because I had such a good time, so yeah, I I you're welcome, I guess. It was but I had sighted such a great time in residency and I love being having the opportunity to get out to Alaska. I mean, I wouldn't have had it otherwise. I grew up as a kid, like all right, it's someday I'm gonna do one like fishing and hunting trip to Alaska. Like I have to I've seen all these videos, like well, someday I'm gonna go once and then to have had the chance to do what I did for four years was just a blessing. speaker-0: That's cool. Yeah. My my good friend, his wife is from North Pole. yeah. And they live here now. but they go up there in the summertime for like two, two months or a month and a half every year. And when I wanted to go, this is like 2021, 2022, we were taking a road trip with our kids and we were like, hey, let's go to Alaska. And we are scheduled for like the end of June, first couple weeks of July. Yep. And thank goodness we asked her. because she said, do not go that time of year because the mosquitoes are like the size of dragonflies. yeah. And that's the peak mosquito time. And so we canceled that and I think we ended up going to Yosemite and Washington State and then w hounded over to Chicago to do the city for a little bit or for two weeks. But speaker-1: Well you gotta get back though. You gotta do it at some point. speaker-0: I gotta go. I gotta do I really wanna do Denali just 'cause it looks awesome. I figured I'd take a plane up speaker-1: Say for Denali if you go is so they run tour buses through there through the summertime. But there's a period before the tour buses start. I forget exactly how long it is, but before the tour buses start, if you come in with a private vehicle, you can go like an extra seventeen miles or something like that into the park. And so I've done that where you go in the springtime before everybody else comes and you can just go far deeper into the park. which is nice, yeah. speaker-0: Cool. Yeah. I'm just I always like I have this pact, so so to speak, with my wife that I'll I'll do I'll do crazy things, but I won't go anywhere where there's grizzly bears. But that's slowly changing. The level the level of danger slowly changes as I get comfortable doing one thing and then I'm like, okay, now I can do this thing and this thing. Or I take her out and then she gets comfortable and she's like, I can do that now. Like, you know, even going for like a five or ten mile hike now is so basic compared to what we've done before that it just seems so easy and when yeah so I'm sure I'll get out there sooner than later. especially 'cause I know people have different speaker-1: Man, they are they're they're wild to see for sure. speaker-0: Yeah. Did you ever see them doing that s I I know people watch them do the salmon ketchup? speaker-1: I never got out to McNeil River Falls or out in Katmai. I never got out there. I I've I've seen a number of grizzlies in the wild just out on my own, but not at that specific spot. speaker-0: Yeah. That's crazy. all right, so I I I usually ask a few other questions, but because you don't have your product, I'm not gonna ask those questions. so but I d I will ask this question. It's it's interesting because you're at the beginning of it. So if your business was a trail, what what would it be and what mile are you speaker-1: if it was a trail, what trail would it be? well, I would say the type of trail that it probably would be is an Alaska style trail where they always joke in Alaska that every other state seems to have switchbacks, but Alaska doesn't. it just goes straight up the numbers. I would say that's that's us. Like we are we're we're pretty aggressive with how you know we're trying to do this. Like we're not We're not easing our way into it. Where we started really this back in the spring. And so within the calendar year, we're gonna be taking pre sales from idea to pre sales. So we're trying to be pretty aggressive. and where we're at on the trail, I mean, we're I don't know. I mean, we we've got through the we've got through the initial like rolling hills and we're we're getting ready to start going uphill in a big way, you know. So yeah, I think we've gotten through, you know, the warm up and it's it's time to start climbing. speaker-0: Yeah, that's cool. Wow, I look forward to updates on social once you product is seeing stacks of product and yeah, all this crazy stuff and and hearing stories about garages packed full of pr product and everything. It's gonna be it's gonna be it's gonna be an awesome adventure for you. I I really think it's gonna be cool. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I guess since we talked a little bit about legacy with your family and stuff like that, the last question I would love to ask is what's the legacy or impact? you hope to leave and you kinda did talk about it a little bit, but what's the legacy or impact that you hope to leave on the outdoor space? speaker-1: Here's what I would say. When we started getting into this, we knew we knew the family was at the core of of what we were doing. And we know that there's so many use cases beyond the family, but we can only point our arrow in one direction as a company. And so we're pointing it at outdoor adventure families and sports families. and one thing that we realized, I guess that we didn't know when we started down this road was that if you look at the outdoor industry broadly, and then if you just get into the minutia websites and and imagery and everything. The outdoor industry really is geared towards singles. it I think the assumption there and maybe an accurate assumption is that that's a lot of the people with expendable time and income. and so all of the imagery really that we come across is all groups of single friends. And so if I was gonna hope to leave a legacy in the outdoor industry, I would love to have built the family outdoor company. Like that's our focus. Those are our people, that's who we resonate with. And we feel like that's the core of the nation is the families. And so we want them to be strong. We want them to love each other. We want generational memories to be formed. And so we want to capitalize on those opportunities for people. And so if you look at our imagery going forward, that's going to be what it is. It's going to be families outdoors together, laughing, making mistakes, building memories. both in those small ones, right? the afternoon trip and also grand adventures, it's for both of them. Yeah. And so I want that to be our imprint, we want to be the family outdoor company 'cause I don't think there really is one. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's really good. I love it. so if if people are looking for Womble, you know, where can they find you? How can they get on the pre sale bandwagon? speaker-1: so our website is wombolt.co. so if you go on there right now, it's a a founders list email chain and that's going to transition here in the next couple of weeks to actually doing pre-sales. so that's the way to get on our website. Wombolt Official is our handle on all different socials. We're on Instagram, we're on X and TikTok and whatever. and so those are the places to find us and we'll have sort of emails for that founders list as we come. And that founders list is also gonna get our best deal. So if you're on there, you have the best access to both early pricing and better pricing. And we're gonna use that group going forward as well to help influence what products come next, what colors, all that stuff. So we'll be harvesting feedback from those folks as our our early adopters and and believers in the vision. speaker-0: Awesome. I I do have one last question actually, one one other question. Just as you're talking and thinking about pre-sales and stuff like that, and are you are you looking for doing big box, you know, D to C? What is your I mean, are you you're open to kind of everything at this point or what is your your focus for that? speaker-1: On this initial run, I think it's going to be almost exclusively D to C. and I think the reason for that is A, we don't have a lot of product in hand right now or any product to show a retail shop. So to get them to gamble on floor space and all of that for something that's unproven, I think is a hard sell. and so though I think it will sell great, I think just it's a hard sell for us. You know, I if we end up doing that, you know, we've send some messages and want to have some initial conversations with more local sponsors that we can get more FaceTime with. Eastern Mountain Sports is a a regional outdoor store up here in New England. So something like that I would love to do. but I do think we're gonna start out as as almost exclusively DC. speaker-0: Yeah. I do have a a connection with an off roading place here, a big off roading place here. So I'll I'll make sure to send that info over to you if he if he wants me to. I think it's great 'cause it's the big off roading community and and camping community that Yeah. It's huge. I did my family with his car one time, not even realizing that he owned the this whole chain of stores and I was like, What? He was in the parking lot with his Lamborghini and I was like, What? Can we take a picture with your Lamborghini performante? Because it was the perfect color with everything. And then to find out he owns this whole off-roading thing and he used to race for Lamborghini, now he races for Porsche and stuff like that. But he owns this it's crazy weird story, but speaker-1: We love connect with them for sure. Yeah. speaker-0: all right. So I guess thank you so much for being open and honest with with everybody on your product and this the process and stuff like that. If you know people who are listening right now, if you're in that same kind of journey in your business. I hope that you learned a lot from this. But Scott, we wanted to just go into a quick lightning round, get to know you a little more. and so the first question we always ask people is you what's your favorite national park? speaker-1: My favorite national park. I would say probably the best experience I've had in national park was at Yosemite. Just speaker-0: Sweet. speaker-1: so beautiful. It's so hard that I was fly fishing in the meadows, you know, up on the north side. I've been through the valley. Like it's there's a lot of people there, unfortunately. So you go, but I mean, that valley is just incredible. speaker-0: Yeah, that's our that's our number one slash number two. Yeah. that we always always love. all right, next thing is mountains, desert, or coast. speaker-1: mountains, then coast and desert. speaker-0: Okay. Yeah. and then tent, cowboy camping, or hammock. speaker-1: I've never really done the cowboy camping thing. it seems like a great time, but 'cause I haven't done I gotta I gotta stay tent. speaker-0: Yeah. There's a as a great tent. they were actually at yeah, he was at OR. but he has sky view tents. I you pr maybe saw it, but you were also probably busy at the show. But he's got a great tent, which is a great kind of mix you can get that cowboy camping view. Yeah, but you're still in a tent. But then you it's a fly is internal. So if it starts raining, you can just but the mesh is so like so I don't know how it what kind of mesh it is, but it's just so dark that like when it's at nighttime it feels like you don't have anything a around you. Hmm. And you can see the stars and everything. It kinda gives you that little kind of sneak into the cowboy camping game and stuff like that. speaker-1: But you get no no critters in your pant legs, right? speaker-0: All right, now next question is favorite trail snack? speaker-1: man, there's a few. so I'm a big Uncrustables guy. so those are a go to. speaker-0: is that 'cause of your kids or is that just 'cause of you yourself? speaker-1: think I think I just remember, I think having them as when I was in college and stuff. And then now with with my kids, like they're just so easy for them that they're just become a staple. so if I was gonna pick one, I probably would say that. beyond that, I mean I always pack protein bars and I'm I'm not really super brand loyal on that front. It's sort of yeah, whatever I can grab speaker-0: You seem like a protein bar guy just 'cause when I met you in person, you're really tall. Yeah. And you're like really strong. And I was like, man, 'cause I didn't expect you to be so tall when I met you in person. I was like, holy cow, dude. speaker-1: Yeah, I gotta bring the protein bars. I can't can't operate too much of a calorie deficit. speaker-0: all right. What's the worst trail snack you've ever tried or something you like avoid on the trail? speaker-1: I would say for me, I mean, I'm I've got also a a background in doing some some backcountry hunts out of a backpack. So I'm so weight conscious on that side of it. so like I I never I I packed once and then have not packed like trail mix again because it's so heavy. so I made that mistake once. I I said I really just avoid that. I don't I don't really bring trail mix. Usually it's stuff that's I mean, that is packed certainly calorie dense, but it's just so heavy. Yeah. so that's usually avoid. speaker-0: switching to your business, if you could collab with any brand or any company with your product, this is good to see where you're at too. if you could collab with any brand, who would it be and why? speaker-1: the first collaboration I would wanna do would be to collaborate with Yeti for a cooler that locks in with our system. No question. That would be the best. that's we wanna have a high quality if I was gonna tell you what our second product is gonna be, it's cooler that locks in. So yeah. That would be number one. speaker-0: That's cool. We're gonna make that happen. We gotta make that happen. speaker-1: Yeah. I think it'd be amazing. speaker-0: All right, so I guess this question will be answered more in the future, probably, but what's the biggest splurge you've made for your business so far? I was gonna say your tooling for your yeah. speaker-1: It's gonna be yeah, it's gonna be tooling is the biggest upfront cost. But I would say if I can if I can dream a little, I think having a really cool retro Bronco or something like that, or a scout with this on the back to bring to trade shows and stuff would be an awesome thing to have. So I'd love to get like a you know mid seventies Bronco. Yeah. Looks awesome and has this rocking off the back. speaker-0: That's cool. Yeah. I love that. Awesome. Well, Scott, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being on. and look forward to the updates. Everybody, thank you so much for listening to Be On the Trailhead this week and we look forward to next week's awesome guest. Thank you so much, Scott. speaker-1: Yeah, thank you so much, Greg.