Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Made in the West: American Innovation in Overlanding

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Made in the West: American Innovation in Overlanding · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the Overlin Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: host Matt Scott and I'm here with my new co
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: host Sinwey Xavier.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Hello everyone.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so today we're talking about the importance of American
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: innovation and the overland industry. We have Graham McPherson, and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Matt Linder here. Graham is with Go Fast Campers, Matt
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: is with Truckhouse, and Sinwey is a world renowned photographer.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: That's a fact. Yeah, big time, thank you.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: I feel like I've got more going for me than
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: just shooting photos.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: But I'm glad much.
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: But here i am.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: Maybe podcast Ostine's my next next chapter.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Coming for me. We were all just cutting on. I'm
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: really just the importance of America remaining this innovator in
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: this space. Like it's been fun to see this industry grow.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Like when I started in it at a young age,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: America didn't really have anything that was I'm gonna say
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: like really of note like we had. We've always had
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: like suspension, We've always been pretty good with lighting because
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of the desert racing industries that were really popular here.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of money in that, but historically, like
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: all of the cool stuff has come from overseas. I
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: think like early OJ days, like it was all about
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: like that the defender. You couldn't get, the lankers, you
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: couldn't get, the camper, you couldn't get the unimog you
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't get. But now like we have the cool stuff,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like we have the good stuff, and it's as cool
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: to see like America is now innovating in the stuff.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And I'm so glad to have you guys in the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: podcast because I think Go Fast and truck House have
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: so many shared ideals. Right, there's all of these different
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: types of products on the market, but I think what
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: stands out with you guys is that you like to
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: position your brands for people to actually use the stuff, right,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Like it's not overdone, it's not overdone. It's really high quality,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: but it's really considered, right.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, intentional.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that one thing that I've I appreciate.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: I've known Graham for a long time and Matt and
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I are new friends. But they actually use it. They're
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: not just guys that are looking at a spreadsheet going, oh,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: we can make margin on this product that we create
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: or import or whatever. It's just they use the product
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: and they are constantly trying to innovate and make it
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: better for their own use.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but you have to do that stuff, right. If
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: you're not actively using the product and actively developing the product,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: you're just stagnant. Like, I think it's cool, like you're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: what is this the third version? Because you've had V one,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: V two and V two pro ye to go Fast Camper.
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Kind of a third iteration of product, like at a
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: major categorical level, But because we've always manufactured in house,
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: there's been so many little tweaks to that product throughout
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: each generation internally, right, So you have like V one
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: started out as a Kromali steel space frame tube, and
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: then that switched to aluminum of the V two, and
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: then now all the neutral level stuff with the pro
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: and just each era has ten or twenty iterations where
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: there's little tweaks and differences as it evolved pretty much
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: entirely as a function of community feedback and internal needs.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, it's fascinating because I think with Go Fast,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: they all look the same, but they're all a little
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: different when you get in closer on the details.
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: Right, yep, especially if once it's all closed up, the
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: goal is just had something really simple minimalist. I grew
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: up doing a lot of their bike travel and bicycle travel,
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: so used to not carrying everything with me and the
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: ability to have more fun by carrying less stuff is huge.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I think Sway shares that.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah completely for me, I'm new to the go
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Fast Maybe let's see I picked it up in December.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forgot you actually have them there? Yeah,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: it's it totally sounds like an ad now that I brought,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: but it.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Really like the lightweight makes such a huge difference.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that we're in this kind of
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: renaissance in this space where people are realized, like you
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: say had with backpacking people with backackings, Oh, we can
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: make these big packs because we can stuff everything in
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: it and be more comfortable. But now we're in this
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: renaissance where it's like we need to make it lighter
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: so you can go farther. You're not wearing your truck
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: out so much, your bushings don't need to be replaced.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: And for me to lose the weight that I did
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: with my previous setup, which was a rack and a
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: rooftop tent and a drawer system, now I have a
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: goose gear system and the Go Fast I lost close
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: to two hundred and fifty pounds.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: You look so much better, man, it's nice to see
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: when those close.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: The slim past diet does work, it does completely.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: So it's that and that innovation that's happening of making
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: things lighter, more usable.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: I think it's really important.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: And one of the things that I really love about
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: both the truck House and the Go Fast is it's clean.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: They're just clean lines. There's not a bunch of freaking
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: stuff all over it. When it's just they're clean, you know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: and they work And to.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Your point earlier some way kind of like spreadsheet engineering
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: or product design, right, Okay, if we believe that the
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: total adjustble market is this much, and we can get
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: thirty five percent of it if we offer these features, therefore,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: this is the product we're going to make. That's what
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: pretty much every major company and a lot of folks
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: that are making stuff overseas look at. And when you
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: look at like American manufacturing, especially like what Matt does
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: with Truckhouse and what we do at Go Fast, being
• 5:30
  Speaker 4: able to take and distill that way down and say, hey,
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: this is what you actually need. You can provide really
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: good value. And I'm not going to say any of
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: our products are cheap. I think go faster expensive, but
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: they're worth it. That's the big difference, is like there's
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: the difference in being like expensive and not worth it.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: It's not like a luxury good because you're getting good
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: value for money. And I think that's really where like
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: the American manufacturing has to live. And the more passionate
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: you can be around the product, and the more curated
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: you can be around that product, the more value you
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: can deliver for your customer.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I second that on the passion and Truckhouse
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: for me was never a get rich quick scheme. It
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: was something I was really passionate about the product, the
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: experience it enabled you to have. The first time I
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: met Graham was at an Overland expo. We drove into
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: our Toyota product and Graham climbed right underneath it. Clem
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: came out and said, you did it right. And we've
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: been friends ever since, and I would say I've really
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: been inspired by his passion for American manufacturing. Graham and
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I talked once a month, once every two months, just
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: making sure that we're on the same page of creating jobs,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: creating lifestyles, and then producing a product that creates experiences
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: for our customers, the experiences that we we want to
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: have and share.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Grandma's like your biggest cheerleader for the longest time, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, dude, all of the conversation, Grandmo, grand
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and I would have conversa I'm like, man, that truckhousing
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: looks so cool, but it's on it's it's a coma,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and I hate Tacomas. And you have what they're really
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: nicely you look at him like, no, it's on a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to comas. You need to look at it like it's
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: really good.
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: They actually did it right. We did all the work,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: but the biggest reason to switch was just because you
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: were doing so much work. It wasn't worth it on
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: that platform exactly. But I'm still convinced that potty, you want.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: One you like you quite specifically, if somebody has one
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: of the Tacoma truck houses.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Yea, if anybody's listening, they should buy the RAM. But
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: if anybody's trying to sell their toyto one, sell it
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: to me, because those things are sick.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now they are sick. And it's like to Graham's
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: point about being able to innovate during a production is
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: really key, especially for a new company. We're not perfect,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: but being able to have all of our core competencies
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: be in house and own the composites and own the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: design it enables us to iterate on the fly to
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: produce an easier to build product, a better product for
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: the customer, a more reliable product, something that if we
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: outsourced all of our manufacturing myself or Graham, that's way
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: harder to do. They want. You need to be in
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: design lock and have someone else build your parts if
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: you want to do it that way, and design lock
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: on a product as complex as a go faster a
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: truck house is really hard to achieve. And if you
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: think you achieve it and stop trying to innovate, the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: product suffers from it. You need to be conscious that
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: there's always improvements to be made, and some of those
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: improvements you won't know until you build enough products. So
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: once those products are on the ground or on trucks,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: you start to realize, wow, I could make this better
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: by doing ABC and D and you're not, and even.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Your fundamental concept is better. Right. There's a full podcast
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that Matt and I did with Scott and Dave from
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: av On just like what makes the weight size tire
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: choice everything about the truck House. Totally listen to that,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: but that's linked in the description, right, Yeah, make good bile.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: We talk about this concept of America finally being the
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: innovator in this space forever. In the Expedition vehicle thing,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: it was all in Europe. That's where the game really was.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Helling Moon Hannibal awnings like back in the day.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but in the expedition and in Matt's space for
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: truck House, like we're going from boxes in Europe, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: they had some innovations that we didn't have here, like
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: core construction more instantly whatever, Like they are very durable.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: They have these cab over trucks to where it works
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: for them too. But you're talking like high pressure aerofoils
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: in the front for stability and you're talking aerodynamics, and
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: you're talking carbon fiber monocoque and CNC cut foam panels
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: for your insulation and structural rigidity. It's so cool to
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: see that happening. It's like supercart for campers, but it's
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: so cool to see it happening here, and it's cool
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: to see it happening with this next generation in the space.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: We're not that old, so it's cool to see it happening.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Yeahs no, it is, and I think at least for us,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and I know Gram enough to know that he's the
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: same way. It's all about the people and the team.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: We would be nowhere without our guys. Could We couldn't
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: build anything without our guys. It's about creating jobs that
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: hopefully turn into careers that enable people to raise families
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: and do their own type of travel.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: And that's another big thing that you guys are huge onis,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Like you could pay your people less. I know that
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: something could go fast is huge ons you guys are
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: in Bozeman.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think like what's funny too, though, is
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: like we could pay our people less, but we wouldn't
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: get what we get out of them if we did.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: So it's like a lot of people in the States
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: all into this fallacy of oh, I got to bring
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: my pay down in order to be competitive with Asia
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: because I need my cogs to be minimalized in production.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: But you don't realize that you can get more output
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: if you pay a living wage. Bozeman is a very
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: expensive market to be in but we employ a lot
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: of automation and then pretty much everything we do is
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: design run manufacturability. And that's a topic that I could
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: go on for hours of that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've chatted about that a bunch.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but basically being able to and like fundamentally what
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: that means is if you design something to being made
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: in the States, or if you want someone who made
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: in the States, that has to be designed to get
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: made in the States. Because what we've done in this
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: country for so long is make some napkins sketches of
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: a backpack and then send it over to Vietnam and say, hey, guys,
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: can you figure this out? And they are so smart
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: and so industrious and they figure it out. But like you,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: the way that's done is by paying really low market
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: labor in order to accomplish this really complicated work. And
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: if you want to make something here, you just don't
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: have the luxury of having free labor or cheap labor, and.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: You don't have the luxury of doing justin nap can
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: sketch either. You have to actually figure it all the
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: way out. You have to figure it out to be
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: manufactured totally. You can't just sketch it and hand it
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: off and say can you build this?
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: And kind of the upside to it, in my mind
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: is that by doing things in the States in house,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: especially at the beginning of phases of a business, you
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: can figure out what it is you're trying to accomplish,
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: and you can innovate and you can actually try something.
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: Because if we just called up the CM for every
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: other tent company in Asia, that makes for eighty percent
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: of the brands here at Everyone Expo, because really are
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: only two or three little shops.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I've been in like two of those shops. It's crazy,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like diametrically opposed brands. You have the same supply chain
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: totally like how the roof tent thing works. People don't
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: know is that there's two three companies that make most
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of these YEP. You get to choose your grams per
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: square meter of your canvas if you want to go cheap,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: if you were grams per square meter. You get to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: choose your piping color, your stitching color. They have a
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: predetermined place for you for your branding YEP, and sometimes
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: they will have designs that if you do a certain
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: minimum you'll get like market exclusivity on YEP.
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: But when you're first starting out and you have like
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: low emoques, right because you're a passion oriented business, Like
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: they're not going to really care about helping you figure
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: it out because all they want is.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: But they're not most of the people in this space,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: like particular now with like campers coming out of China
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: that are copying you and roof tents are just this
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: best example that company did not design that product, Like
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that product is fully designed overseas. That is their design.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: That is someone else's design that is being white labeled,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and it's crazy, like you're not actually bothers me.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And the thing is, I think there's a lot
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: of people that would like to have the ability to
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: design products overseas, but they don't have the ability to.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: So what's neat about making stuff in the States is
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: you get the ability to actually innovate and try something.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: That's why, like when you see innovation from overseas products,
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: it's usually from a brand that's like the size of
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: a yetty. It's like a big company has the capital
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: tool up for that to take on that risk and
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: develop those factories. Maybe they own the factories in Asia
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: that do it. But if you want to make something
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: in the States. I remember when I first met Matt,
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: we'd be going to a trade show and it'd be
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: Sunday afternoon. He's got to be back at work at
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Monday eight am because he's just physically going out and
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: building the product that he's showing and iterating on it
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: and constantly working on it. And I think that there's
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: a lot of sweat equity that people don't realize. And
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: then when they go buy the derivative product from Asia, it's, yeah,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: if you only buy the Asian product, then the American
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: product that's actually creating the Asian product like innovating to
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: create that market. Like, they'll stop innovating and then they'll
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: stop existing and then you'll end up with a bit
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: of a derivative of a derivative and you'll have nothing good.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: But that said, it's the ownership is still on the
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: American brands to create value to where it's still worth
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: buying American made.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's one of the things that when we have
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: like our business chats, I never hear Graham talk about
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: raising prices. I hear Graham talk about trying to get
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the prices lower, and I think that's like always something
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: like super fascinating in our conversations because with the other
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: people I talk in the industry, it's how do I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: make more money? How do I make more money? How
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: do I expand how do I grow this? How do
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I make this nicer? How do I put Swatsky toilet
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: crystals in the toilet seed or whatever where you talk
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: about in the stuff we've been working on together, Like,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: how can we get it lower so we can have
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: more people afford it, so more people can buy it?
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the key, is like, the way you can
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: make the most money possible organizationally is running the most
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: value for your customer possible. Right, Yeah, And there's definitely
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: value in wearing a hat. Right If you showed up
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: to this roundtable here with an RTIC cooler hat, I'd
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: be like, and you didn't have a yety hat on,
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: I'd be like, I don't know about that guy. So
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: there's more value than just the product. There's value in
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: being associated with something. But like, at the end of
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: the day, if you can match that brand value with
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: that product value, you have something really special. And I
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: think that a lot of people get complacent and say, oh,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: I can just keep raising prices and keep going up
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: and they don't realize they can go down market potentially
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: to get better volume and better reach and better growth
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: long term. And the way that I see it, like
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: that's what creates like real American businesses. Because if you're
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: making like a couple of something in your garage, that's
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: cool and there's nothing wrong with that, yeah, but that's
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: not going to bring back domestic manufacturing infrastructure, right, Like,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: go to fox con compare yourself to the biggest operations
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: in the world, and that's now what you're competing against.
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: And the ability to automate products like that. You've seen
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: in the last five ten years, the tooling cost for automation,
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: CNC machines, laser press break, all that stuff. It's gone
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: from being completely unattainable to being really reasonable. And the
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: ability for us to automate a lot of our manufacturing
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: processes and use that to basically subsidize our employee labor
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: so we can still pay twenty five to thirty bucks
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: an hour for like base shop labor.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: That's the same thing that's hugely like, that's a that's
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: a really livable wage too.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: And it's amazing too. Robots are great. We're all for
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: them too. We have CNC machines in our shop and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: what they do, the accuracy, the repetitiveness, it's something that
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: it can't be replaced by a human at our wage.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: But we can hire better people, better craftsmen, to do
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: a more enjoyable job, and they feel fulfilled and they're
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: a bigger part of the team and more passionate about
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: what they do instead of being like, hey, can you
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: shape foam for the rest of your life? It's no
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: CNC machine cuts that. We need you to be a
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: craftsman and that's something that provides value to themselves. They
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: become better at it, they feel fulfilled when they go home. Absolutely,
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: they're not just doing some repetitive, meaningless job. Use the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: robots where you can, and then boost the people up
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: to fill the roles where it takes a human, which
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of the roles take really skilled humans.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And I haven't been at the GFC manufacturer, but I've
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: been at Truckhouse, and knowing you Graham, I feel like
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: you empower your employees. If they can do something better,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: you give them that power. I know you do a
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: truckhouse and it just feels it's there and you see
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: it really in like the evolution from the Toyota Toyota
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: to the RAM. You see that evolution where you guys
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: were you weren't complacent with this design works you really,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: even now from the prototype that I've been fortunate enough
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: to drive around in to what's actually going into production,
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: there's this evolution to make it better. And with the
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: GFC the same thing. From My biggest thing was the
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: pistons on the outside because I'm a terrible driver and
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: I hit things constantly, yep, And I was like, oh,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: that's such a weak point. But you guys brought them
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: inside and now it's just this solid thing.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: We've never had any failures of the external pistols.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Which yeah, I believe it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, it also looks really nice to just clean.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: It's super clean.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: And I'm sure there's a million other things with the
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: new V two p pro that were these little teeny
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: things that we may not even as a consumer, YAH
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: know about for sure.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: And it's it comes from that.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Culture of the empowering your employees to do the best
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: they can improvement exactly.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Every day a truck house is a school day.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: We're learning.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: We don't have an ego. We want to be better.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: We want to be better humans. We want to build
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: a better product. That is a double edged sort. If
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: you want to improve constantly, it is hard to manufacture.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: But as a perfectionist, I'm always chasing it. But it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: is hard to attain and at some point you do
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: have to ship a product. And that's something that I
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: struggle with myself is I'm always trying to make stuff better.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: And at some point you have to say go yep.
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and better for Matt is unattainable for anyone else,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: So I don't know.
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: There's like a like a three micrometer bubble in this
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: curbon fiber up on my ladder and you're like, oh,
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: I didn't even notice. And Matt's that's a huge problem
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: for me.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: The first day I met Matt, he was apologizing about
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: the paint on the silver one. He says, this drives
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: me crazy. I'm like, I've seen a lot of man, yeah,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: I've seen a lot of very nice cars in my life,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: and I was just going, yeah, okay, it looks pretty good.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: You're a big, old, huge sheet of silver ten feet tall.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: It's the only camper shell that can actually be painted
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: because everything else is LINEX because the molds are so bad.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Ye dirty little secret on that as to why.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, only adds like eight hundred pounds. But like the Linux,
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: but it really makes any imperfection go away.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I I think like the LINEX and the bottom is great,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: like I have that on mine, but Linux and the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: whole thing. I'm like, man, it's like I'm going to
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: be in that movie Twister or something like.
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: If that's what you want.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess if you are specifically close to the.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Apocalypse, we're not quite there yet.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: In my podcast yesterday with Mike Pfeiffer from Last Line
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of Defense, I realized him prepper.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, well yeah, do you have a little gun
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: port out of your bed area.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea. See, you should innovate and put
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that in the truckhouse.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: And if you be the it's not a problem.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: E the first EXPERI vehicle with a gunport.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: As we're sitting in your earth thrummer Man truck house,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: we can put on the roof. Note problem.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: Did you guys see that trailer a couple of years
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: ago that was here at Expression Portal right at auld XPO.
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: That was a fully contained cure drop and you could
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: go inside and press a button into its very bear
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: spray all around the whole perimeter of it.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: It's here?
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: Is it here?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Still?
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: All that thing is so bitching.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think something Graham said earlier that really resonated
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: with me was the sweat equity part. It's like I've
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: had I've followed earth Thrummer when from since they were
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: a photography and journalism company.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Like when Bell built the Ram, I was probably twelve
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: years old. I've always wanted one, And if I could
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: have sketched it on a napkin and had someone else
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: build it, Truckhouse would not be a very valuable company.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: Like we have so much ip in manufacturing such a big, unique,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: beautiful carbon viber part that we have grown so much
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: value as a brand and a company. We could build anything.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: We choose to build expedition vehicles because we love it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: But by just outsourcing all of that hard fought manufacturing
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: and design and problems, we've solved so many problems internally.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Now we own that knowledge and that's going to make
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: our next version better. That's why the Toyota the RAM
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: is so much better than the Toyota. Wait for V
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: three truckhouse. I'm sure it's going to be absolutely mind blowing.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: And to that point, most people don't think that bringing
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: back American manufacturing is about that institutional knowledge, but that's
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: actually all it's about, because you could mimic any factory
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: anywhere in the world, but if you don't know how
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: to run it, because like a factory is not turn
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: the machine on, it works. The factory is turn the
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: machine on and constantly fix everything all of the time
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: and figure out why the thing that did the thing
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: yesterday isn't doing the thing today is different than how
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: it did that yesterday. And it's like, the institutional knowledge
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: is the biggest problem that we are that we're missing
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: right now to bring back domestic manufacturing. So bringing back
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: that infrastruction for compositess because you're gonna have employees that
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: come work for you for a while and they're like, oh, dude,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: I can do this for the turban industry and then
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: go do that, and I hope they do one hundred
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: percent exactly.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Wou I will help them. They leave and they're like, hey, man,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I have a carbon product. I want to go build
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: absolutely build a carbon yety cooler. I'm like I'm your
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: biggest resource. ND wouldn't be like, oh no, you can't
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: leave truck house. I'd be like, go do it. Yep,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: they're living the same dream.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You're such a great example of that. You've had so
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: many go Fast employees that have started their own businesses.
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if we try to support them too. So I'm
• 22:53
  Speaker 4: learning one of our old employees hats right now. Yeah.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Give a big shout out to Taylor absolutely Coffee and Bozeman.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Era, both Arizona.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: He's such a Taylor is just the best guy.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm lucky to call him a friend. I know
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not a host, but I'll poise a question to
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the group. How do we deal with labor intensive jobs
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: being less desirable as they used to be for people
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: of our age? A lot of my friends have desk jops.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: They want to work in tech. Do we see I've
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: seen there's less craftsmen of our age than there used
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: to be. There's lots of people retiring and not passing
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: down that tribal knowledge. Yeah, younger people because there's less
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: young people and well.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: We're all roughly the same age. And the thing is that,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: at least in my school system, it was like if
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: you went in you were never taught to go into
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the trades. It was never discussed. You are a doctor,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: lawyer there you're shooting for the moon. And the kids
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that went into the trades, that was I don't know
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: how else to say it, but that's just that's the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: way it was.
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: I Meanwhile, they're making more money than one hundred.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Dude, do you know how many people I know they
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: have a degree in like communications that like I grew
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: up with that are like, they're making like one third
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: of what my contractor friends are making. So if it's
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: about money, you can make so much money with your
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: hands right.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: One of my first assistants in photography was he was
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: on the track to become this great celebrity photographer and
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: he just got so tired of the mess that's going
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: on in there. He's a welder in Marfa, Texas now.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: Love his life looks amazing. I go to work for
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: eight hours a day. When I'm done, I don't worry
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: about it. I don't get an email in the middle
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: of the night looking for stuff. It's and he's and
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: he has a great outlook on that. It's I wish
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: when I was younger that it was promoted.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. Do you guys agree. I don't know
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: if it's different schools or whatever. I'm from the mid West.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: It was like, you're going to become a knowledge worker.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: That is what you are going to do.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: And then the problem is like you created all these
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: knowledge workers and then there's no trades people. So now
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: like when you get electrical work done, you get a
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: new bathroom fan in your house, it's like the bill's
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: twelve hundred bucks and wait, what like how did that happen?
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: The electricians?
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: Hell? Yeah, and he has some knowledge that there's no
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: one coming up to get that knowledge from him to learn.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Like we do a lot of body and paint the
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: body shop. All bodymen are old. No one wants to
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: go do body work. It's hard work. You can make
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: great money at it. But that's problems we deal with
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: is we want young, hungry guys.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: We just need Jeremy Clarkson to do some kind of
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: like manufacturing jobs series instead of farming, because now I
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: want to be a.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Farm I think that could be your thing, Matt, because
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I'm such a you could do You're the Arizona Jeremy Clarkson.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Sure, we both do drink copious amounts of pink wine. Yeah,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that's where the similarities stop, brose. But really, I think
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: like micro is a really good advocate for this stuff, right,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: He's got his micro Charity, which I think is always
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: worth mentioning his association. But I don't know how you
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to anyone listening, one of the coolest things that's
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: ever happened in my entire life is to dream something
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: and then hold it in my hands. And that takes
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of knowledge, skill, labor, and I think that
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: needs to be broadcasted as a fulfilling lifestyle is to
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: create something. You don't have to sit on a computer.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: You don't have to crunch numbers, you don't have to
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: build spreadsheets. You can actually dream it, build it, feel it,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: use it, and it's so fulfilling it. Like I remember
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: the first time my dad saw the first Toyota camper.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: My dad's got a boat, your inn saucelito. He's a
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: craftsman himself. He came in and saw it and said,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: holy you built it from the air. And I think
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: that was like one of the most proud I've ever
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: seen him of them.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: That's so cool.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: Came from air came from it came from my brain,
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: went to the computer, and then we built it. And
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: now I get to share that with my team, and
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I hire guys who all they have to do is
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: have attention to detail, good work ethic and are good people,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and we'll teach them whatever they want to know. I've
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: got guys who we've taught how to do CAD that
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: three D print things now that can run C and
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: C machines that they have become such more valuable human
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: beings because they can dream in and build it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: And that's exactly the key is. It's on the employer's
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: responsibility to make those jobs appealing, and it's also the
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: employers responsibility to make those jobs add enough value to
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: able to compensate them well. Because anybody can have somebody
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: sitting there with a drag knife, like physically cutting fabric out,
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: but like that job sucks, Like you could argue that,
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: like the monotonous, repetitive labor is arguably like unethical, right,
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: And a lot of people are like, oh, robotics are
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: and of the world. Automation is going to take all
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: of our jobs. And it's yeah, look at like an ATM, right,
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: So would you like, do you want to be a
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: bank teller if all you're doing is giving people like
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: twenty dollars out all day, like a twenty dollars transaction,
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: a forty dollars transaction, would rather do like high value
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: relationship based transactions, things are humans are actually good at.
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: And like when you elevate your team out of that
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: direct manual labor, you're creating those jobs that are really appealing.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: And then what we're really working on right now is
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: basically positioning are really incredibly skilled laborers like I'm thinking
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: of like some of our folks at the shop that
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: have been with us for a long time that are
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: incredibly effective. It's let's put those people in the highest
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: regard and let's get the junior intern level people in there,
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: like looking up to that person to be like, hey,
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: I want to get there and compensate accordingly.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I agree, And I make sure at our
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: shop we hire a guy to be a general shop tech.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I let him know, Hey, man, anything we do here
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: that you want to learn, ask me.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: It's a good apprenticeship.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: I will stay thirty minutes after work any day of
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: any week. You want to learn how to tig well
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I'll teach you. You want to learn how you want
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: to learn how to model something in CAD in three
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: D print it, I'll teach you. You want to learn
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: how to spray paint, I'll teach you. I'm going to
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: I'll teach you. And not only does it make them
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: more valuable, makes people want to be more like them,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: but then they have the ability to be more influential
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: in our design and our changes because they're more well rounded,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: knowledgeable totals.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: And here's something really interesting by you saying that there's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: a real value in being able to teach someone else.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: And I think that's really important to people to have
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: to get that knowledge to where hey, I can whether
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: it's a colleague or your son, your daughter, to be
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: able to pass something on that's important.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And I think it has to be egoists.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: It's like we need the team. Truck House needs a team.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Go Fast needs a team. I can single handedly build
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: a camper at Truckhouse from starting to finish. I can
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: do one a year. That's not a business. My guys
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: are a truck house. That's what's important. And more of
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: them that drink the kool aid for lack of a
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: better description is really important and making sure they're fulfilled
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: and have room to grow and learn. And I think
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: learning is contagious. You show up and you learn something
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: new every day or once a week. It's for me,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I want to keep going there. I want to get smarter,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: I want to get better, constant improvement. It's fun. That's
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: a fun part of it.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: And we've gotten to the point now where I'm aware
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: of everything that happens at the company, but I don't
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: know how to do everything that happens at the company.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: And like, when you walk in one of your teammates
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: has done something incret uble, it's holy shit, we can
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: do that here, and it's really cool. Whether it's like
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Ian who's doing insane mechanism design for us right now.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: You come in every day and you're like this is
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: like delightful, Like how cool is this? Or and then
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: we've got a Allan fabric right now, Betty Ann, who's
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: she stays late at night and sews run clothes for fun,
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: and she's kind of starting a side hustle making clothes
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: for her friends. And it's just rat you know what
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: I mean. So we're definitely here for that.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's I pictured it as a championship sports team.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: You're a really bad coach if you don't hire the
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: best people. And I want to hire or train people
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: to be better at what they do than I am,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: just like Graham's saying, Graham's been around a little bit
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: longer than us. I haven't quite we haven't quite got there.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: But I can't wait to be there when everybody knows
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: more than me. And I am like, wow, this is
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: that's the goal. I don't want to I don't want
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: to be I don't want to hamstring or hold anybody back.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: I want people to improve and teach me how to
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: get better.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: Totally. Yeah. Like I can't take any credit for what
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: GFC is doing nowadays because it's it's the team. Like
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: I'm just a team member.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So that's a good that's a good mentality
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: to have.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: You're the big toe that it happens. It happens for sure,
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: And it's what I love about the contagiousness of American manufacturing.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Is what I've learned is once the consumer buys into oh,
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: it is important to buy from my neighbor.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: If I can get my.
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Eggs from the guy from down the street and I
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: can buy my clothes from the guy in the state
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: next to me. Like I've been a very strong advocate
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: for American made products across the board, as much as
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: I can't my glasses everything I'm wearing because growing up,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: my mom always said, if your neighbor does well, you
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: do well.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: And growing up in Bozeman, that's the way it was.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, we just took care.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: Everybody took care of each other, and we've I feel
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: like we've gotten to this place, especially in this industry,
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: where when this started, we were at the press at
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: the first Overland expot. We were at the Prescott Fairgrounds
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: with twenty trucks, and we all knew each other, we
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: all supported each other, and we've gotten to this place
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: where now it's it's not that anymore, and there's the
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: few core that still in that ecosystem, but I think
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: that we can get back to that place where it's
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: the American almost a guild of the American manufacturers within it.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And I as a lot of people trying to claim
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: American manufactured or made in America. A lot of stuff
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: is assembled and some of that stuff rubs me the
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: wrong way. You're like you didn't build that, Like all
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: those parts got shipped here from receives and you put
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: together and now you claim it's made in America.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: That's a loophole.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: It's a loophole. Yeah, I don't know.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Rubs me the wrong way for sure.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: You know, I go back to what Cinema was saying
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: about where the industry came from, where the industry is heading,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: and this guild, this group of people, and I really
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: do believe in this world in Overlin and have spent
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: my entire adult life here. But you also have to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: put the effort in to make it what you want
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: it to be. Like if you just decide, hey, the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: rebranded Alley Barber Roof tent that we're using as example,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: if that's going to be the new norm, Like that sucks,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: But it's cool to connect people and work with people
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: that are share that share those same values as you. Right,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: If you want this industry to not suck, don't buy
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: products that suck. It's really simple.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: But and like it, I get that, But I also
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: agree that people should buy whatever gives them the most value.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's but to go back to your thing,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: is that's what you're constantly trying to do right. Yeah,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: people are buying those products right now because everybody else
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: has gotten so sky high. So it's cool to see
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: you being like, hey, how can I be like an
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: actual alternative to that product?
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Or better?
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: So it's international manufacturing, especially pre tariff, has been like
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: they're incredibly efficient, and we look at the design. There's
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: a lot of clever things that they do on the
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: DFM side, the design for manufacturability side that a lot
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: of domestic manufacturers don't consider, and that design for manufacturer
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: ability is like pretty much the last eighteen months is
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: all I think about. It's if you can design it
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: to be made well. You can design ethical jobs that
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: pay well, you can design great value for the customer.
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: You can and really what it comes down to is
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: we've been like kicking around this like slogan phrase for
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: go fast of like architects of Adventure. It's like, we
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: want to be an architectural firm for you. Like you're
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: not going to frankld write and asking him to make
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: you like a craftsman home or a Victorian house. You're like,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna buy this house, I'm going to eat this food,
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: I'm going to listen to this music because that person
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: is like a leader like in that space, and it's
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: creating a lifestyle that you want to be a part of.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: And I think that's what you've done a lot, Matt,
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: with the brands that you curate. It's like I get
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: to become that guy, whether it's like sort of Indiana Jones,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: sort of James Bond, there's a guy that your guy
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: gets to be in the same way that there's a
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: guy that your guy gets to be. Our girl that
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: your guy gets the girl gets to be. Sorry. Yeah,
• 35:28
  Speaker 4: But basically, like that ability to create this like a
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: brand that allows the customer to buy a product to
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: live a lifestyle is really cool as opposed to buying
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: a commodity. But at the end of the day, like
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: that overlap between like value and brand and product, like
• 35:47
  Speaker 4: those things are all so important. And I think that
• 35:50
  Speaker 4: your point earlier about kind of like thoughtful design and
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: like things that are like really well curated as opposed
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: to just like a spec sheet of if I'm cross
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: shopping these two products, this one has more stuff, therefore
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I will buy it, you know what I mean.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where you said it's important for
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: people to get what provides them the most value. I
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: think when they make that purchase, some of that information
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: is inaccurate. I think they might think that they're getting
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: a better value because it's specsheet or the price, but
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: real up like real like in reality, the longevity of
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the product, the brand, the support, the customer service totally,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: how it's going to use, how it's going to weather,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: how it drives, how whatever the product is. I think
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of people there's some misconceptions of what the
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: value you're going to get when you buy it. Yeah,
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: when you don't know until it's too late.
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: And like the best way to look at that is
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: to look at the resale price in the market. We
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: make a lot of go Fast campers and my team
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: crushes it and the quality is really good. And if
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: you look at the secondary market for these things, but
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: you can own it for three years and spend a
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: thousand bucks when you're ready to sell it, like, it's
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: pretty impressive, especially if you pick a high volume platform,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Like people are paying the same amount of money for
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: a new one or use one? Is there for a new.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: One only used to come when we ever sold for
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: more than it would have when it was new.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, totally. Yeah, And I think to that point, it's
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: We've talked about this forever, but I think you should
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: raise your prices because if you look at but if
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: you look at everything else in the category, like the
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: quality of what's going into that build, it's similar to
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: aev right. Av is building tooling for hot stamp bar
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: on steel skid plates, and nobody even knows what that means.
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: But that's the steel alloy that was it Volvo developed
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: for the A pillars and it's just the tooling to
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: scamp the stamp. The skid plate is like more money
• 37:29
  Speaker 4: than a lot of these businesses.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Annual revenue millions of dollars.
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And being able to have access to that to
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: give the customer that much value and still be a
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: product that's directly competitive with everything else in the market,
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: it's like it's not even close.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you and I talk about it a lot,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: and I go back and forth. I would like to
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: also provide more truckhouses for people to use and totally
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: create more experiences. So I don't want to I know
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: it's a very expensive product. It's a product that I
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: personally can't afford myself currently, but I want to make
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: sure that it's accessible enough that we we move more
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: product to create more experience. I go back and forth,
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: and I've always said it's not a get rich quick
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: scheme for a truck house. It's a passion project that's
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: turning it into a real big business here as we
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: move into our new manufacturing facility. And I've worked eighty
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: to one hundred hours the last five years for my
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: sweat equity, And I don't know. I go back and forth.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: I love it, but I could see it, I could
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: see it. I want I'd like you to be cheaper,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I like it to be
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: better and cheaper, just like you.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: And totally that's a hard thing to do.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: No one kind of circle back on that idea of
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: like passion, Like it's so important to keep passion centered
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: in all these businesses. And I think that a lot
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: of what we're seeing in the evolution of this space
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: that's making us feel like the space might not be
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: the best sometimes is all the private aquot's coming in
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: and buying up all these companies and putting them all
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: under these conglomerates and rebadging everything to one central brand.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: And that's what's so cool about domestic manufacturing is you
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: don't need that scale to be successful, Like you can
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: do it out of your garage. You can provide value,
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: you can solve a problem for a customer really well
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: and focus on that niche and that transition from small
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: garage build like that you're going through right now, that
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: we're always going through to like more scale manufacturing. That's
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: really hard. But being able to keep the passion through
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: that and not not sell out and then not become
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: another spec sheet sales brand. That's just basically diluting your
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: brand reputation that you've built over those eighty hour work
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: weeks for the past four years, five years. Yeah, it's
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: it's really interesing. There's a lot of intiditional problems to
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: solved there when it comes to business financing and infrastructure
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: and expertise. There's after building go fast into what it
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: is now. I'm like, man, it would be so cool
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: if there were more resources to help other people do this,
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: because sometimes it does feel like self flagellation.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: It's a fact, it's overwhelming. Just us moving into a
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: new building. Industrial leases, industrial contractors, TIS buildouts have never
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: done any of this before.
• 39:51
  Speaker 4: And it's all on you and you're personally guarantee.
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: God facts facts, big fact, big fat.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: So what are the other brands in the US right
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: now that are inspiring you guys?
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Go fast for us? Yeah? Yeah, we follow followed Graham
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: since I met him.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: And okay, Graham, you can't say truck.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: House, no no. Honestly, though, Graham super inspirational. Obviously, I agree,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: you've heard him on this podcast. He's so well spoken,
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: he's this isn't his first time thinking about any of
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: these questions. He says he thinks about this stuff all
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: day every day, and he's inspired me just from the
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: first time I met him about how important being vertically
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: integrated and doing everything you can in the United States.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And yeah, we're still trying to catch up with him.
• 40:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I think like one of the people I look
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: up to the most is David a at Av.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: I think we both do.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: Like Dave has just done such an amazing job of
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: building something worth emulating and building a product that's pretty
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: much like Uncompromised.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I think people like don't understand how good av stuff is.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: DA.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Dave was just in the realm where we were talking
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: about that, and it's like, there's so much. It's like
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: I have spent so much time with Dave talking specifically
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: about the stuff, trying to absorb, trying to learn. It's
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: so complicated. It's things like if you don't know what
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: boron steel is and you don't know the significance of it,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and you don't know what it does, why it does it,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: why it's important. There's like fundamentals that are missing from
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: like the automotive enthusiast that is buying this because it's
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: one level past anything that they can really figure out.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and should I buy an AV part or this
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: other part? And if the answer is if there's ever
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: an opportunity to buy AV or the other, the answer
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: is always AV. It's not even close.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: And I think it goes back to what we were
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: talking about.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: It's the Dave is a user.
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: He's I've spent so many days out on the trail
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: with Dave and he's constantly how do I make this better?
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: He's always asking me about my truck, Absolutely, how do
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: you like it?
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: How's this? How many miles? How's it feel? Blah blah
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: blah blah. And that's part of it.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: You got both of all three of you, your users.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: You use the product. It's not just a spreadsheet going
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, how's this? How much money is this going
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: to make me?
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I also shout out to Earthromer. I wouldn't be
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: here without them. Yeah, especially yeah, yeah Tie, I look
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: up to Redtail to Redtail.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Tie is.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: An incredible designer and human being. But shout out to
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: them kind of forging the path for these big expedition
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: vehicles being built in the United States. Can't go without
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: mentioning that totally. I know you looked up to him.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was always the goal for me. I'm we're
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: sitting in my goal.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's your new goal.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Truck house, clear jet Ye, dude, Like a plane would
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: be really cool, but I'm not in that space.
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: The cool thing with this podcast, you're talking about the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: importance of building a team, and you just you build
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the team and the team is doing these things. That's amazing.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to talk much in this podcast. Really good, right,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: Like this is great?
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I learned quite a bit.
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: And I've never really chatted with Graham about manufacturing, but
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: I've always heard that you were that was your flag,
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: the plant was American manufacturing, and it's great to hear
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: your perspective.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't want to take all the credit
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: for it because my former business partner, Wiley really instilled
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: all of those values in me. But it's been really
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: cool to learn about it because like I'm I have
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: an engineering degree, but I'm mostly a random marketing guy,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: and I would.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Never marketing guy. Yeah, we hear you campaign dude, so
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: good genius. He's a genius.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: But without Wiley, I don't think I ever would have
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: would have had this mindset and learned about why it
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: was so important. So he's no longer with Go Fast,
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: but he's he's still in my heart.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: He's a He's a good guy. Wiley genius, another genius.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's just important to be considerate with your purchases, right,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: because it really does affect a lot more than you think. Right,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: we're talking. We've talked about so many different concepts here.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: We've talked about making the trades cool. Right, But that's
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: how you do this, right. Is there's so much going
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: on here. So I just want to thank you guys
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: for being on I'm in this. I'm in this quiet,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: contemplated mode because I'm like, man, I learned a lot, But.
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: If I could add something because yes, I agree that.
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm gonna keep putting the ownership back on
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: the businesses, right because like at the end of the day,
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: we only exist to serve our customer base. Like we
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: exist to do nothing else, we deserve nothing. The only
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: thing that I think I would challenge customers to do
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: is ask questions and be curious because if you're like, oh,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: that product's expensive or that, even though that might be
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: the thought leader, I still want to go by the
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: harbor freight version, right, thinking that brands like ohvs go
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: to the brand that they copied and ask them why,
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: or go to the brand that does something different than
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: the way that you think you'd do it and ask
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: them why they do that, and if they have a
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: good reason for it, it might be an interesting conversation
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: for you. If they don't, then they might not be
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: passionate about the category. But I think that consumers should
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: really take a position of curiosity instead of dismissing something
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: before having that conversation.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Smart yeah, no, And for me, it's everyone thinking about
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: the engineering behind the products, especially in this space. Yep,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who have missed at the
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: physics lessons that the whole world's trying to teach you,
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: so really, Like I know when Dave was on an
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: early over in General podcast, I think maybe Scott asked
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: him who else makes good products in the space, and
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Dave said, anyone that does tooling, because they've put enough
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: thought in to invest in tooling to either stamp, infuse,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: prag build parts. So it's don't get overwhelmed by the
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: spec sheet and do you dive one step deeper into
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: what value does this provide me? And a lot of
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: that value is going to be realized through the engineering
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: that it took to build that product. The products that
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: are going to provide you less value aren't as well engineered.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: And that's a phenomenal answer, like the investing in tooling,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: because it's like, hey, I didn't just go to McMaster
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: car and build this eighty twenty product. Yeah, out of
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: thin air.
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: It's like real And I think it even goes down
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: to the smaller things like I just recently learned Brian
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: from Goose Gear he has all of his screws made
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: because he couldn't from He tried mcmastercry but they didn't
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: work because they'd catch on the slide, so he had
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: to have them specifically made. And that's a huge deal.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: And that's another great American manufacturer.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: And that's so cool, another perfect example of someone that
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: absolutely uses the product.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Perc, Yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: Awesome, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having us.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, learned a lot, Thanks.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Jo jeez, I'm still I'm a little I'm a little
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I'm a little quiet right now, man, genuinely, thanks for that.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: I learned some stuff, and I think the best podcast
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: that we end up doing are the ones where everybody
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: learns something, including the host. So thank you for listening
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: to the Overlain Journal podcast. We'll see you next time.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Howdy else,