Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / The Accidental Fuel Mogul: Rand Taylor's Decade-Long Bet on Fuel Ox

Transcript

The Accidental Fuel Mogul: Rand Taylor's Decade-Long Bet on Fuel Ox · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  I just learned a lesson that I will never ever build anybody else's dream.
• 0:08
  And anything I build will always be my own.
• 0:11
  What if you stumbled into an industry you knew nothing about and ended up building a global company with your family?
• 0:18
  That's exactly what Rand Taylor did.
• 0:21
  With zero background in fuel additives, Rand took a chance on a military grade combustion technology originally developed at Bell Labs and turned it into Fuel Locks, a company now making waves in mining and industrial markets worldwide.
• 0:36
  But it wasn't easy.
• 0:37
  Their first year in business, just $25,000 in revenue.
• 0:41
  What kept them going is relentless hard work, customer education, and an unshakable belief in the product.
• 0:48
  Today, Rand shares the hard lessons behind building a family business from scratch.
• 0:53
  How they broke through market skepticism and and why patience and grit were the only real strategy that worked.
• 1:01
  If you're an entrepreneur grinding through the early years or you want to hear what long term commitment to a vision actually looks like, this one is for you.
• 1:10
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:16
  All right, Ran Taylor, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:20
  Hey, great to be here.
• 1:21
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:23
  Absolutely.
• 1:24
  We are excited to talk to you.
• 1:26
  So Rand, this show is all about the entrepreneurial journey and you certainly have an exciting journey as far as I'm concerned.
• 1:33
  So excited to set the stage for our listeners.
• 1:37
  So you're the co founder of a product called Fuel Ox, which is the most powerful fuel additive on the planet.
• 1:47
  And the way that you started this company was quite interesting because initially you had no interest in doing so.
• 1:54
  So if you could, can, can you just set the stage for our listeners and tell, tell.
• 1:58
  Yeah, tell them how this came about.
• 2:00
  I think everybody has their own crazy reason for getting into the business they get into.
• 2:05
  Right.
• 2:06
  And in our case, we probably are at the far spectrum of not seeing it coming when it did come.
• 2:13
  And what I mean by that is that a good friend of mine who I had known for my Wall street days when I ran a.
• 2:20
  A large trading desk in New York for many years came back to me about 10 years after I left that business and said, you know, you've been entrepreneurial, you started a couple other companies.
• 2:33
  You know, I really want you to help me start this company which would, which is to take a fuel additive that my uncle had created at Bell labs for the US primarily for AT&T and for the US military
• 2:46
  and to help sell it to the general public.
• 2:50
  I told him at that time that I don't know anything about fuel additives and I'm not your guy.
• 2:55
  You know, but I did give him a caveat which was, you know, send me some product.
• 3:02
  I have friends that own trucking companies.
• 3:05
  My next door neighbor was a commercial farmer who was farming 10,000 acres or so or more.
• 3:11
  I don't know the exact number, but both of these guys love the product.
• 3:16
  In the end and which allowed us, allowed me to go back and explain to them, okay, here's a deal.
• 3:22
  You know, we'll.
• 3:23
  We will be the brand, we'll build the brand which is now known as Fuel Ox.
• 3:28
  But I'm not building anybody else's anybody else's business.
• 3:34
  I'm certainly not going to build anybody else's dream.
• 3:36
  And let me tell you why I said that because in 1995, I helped start a company in, in actually Jersey City, but a big trading house that was tremendously successful.
• 3:52
  I was employee number one.
• 3:55
  I ran the trading desk for them and one was one of their largest producers.
• 4:00
  And for many years we ended up going public and in the end, the four guys that were, that started the company, that were the owners of the company, keeping in mind, I was the first employee.
• 4:14
  All of them walked away with about $150 million each after about less than 10 years.
• 4:21
  And I said to myself, even though I was a very highly paid employee and have no complaints at all, if.
• 4:27
  Your business is an E commerce brand, this message is for you.
• 4:32
  Logistics can make or break you.
• 4:34
  If you're tired of being just a number to those big box 3pls, you need to check out our team at Easy DC3.
• 4:43
  We're a different kind of partner, built specifically for growing brands that ship between 1,000 and 10,000 orders per month.
• 4:51
  We offer warehousing, fulfillment and transportation with a focus on personalized service and flexibility.
• 4:58
  Our Central Kentucky location gives you nationwide reach, turning logistics into a competitive advantage.
• 5:05
  So if you're ready to partner with a 3PL that actually gets your brand, visit EasyDC3PL.com I just learned a lesson.
• 5:14
  That I will never ever build anybody else's dream.
• 5:17
  And anything I build will always be my own.
• 5:20
  In this case with Fuel Ox.
• 5:23
  My son and I are the.
• 5:24
  My son Alec and I started the company together.
• 5:27
  He had just graduated from college about six or eight months earlier and was working in a cubicle also in Jersey City and, and was not very happy.
• 5:36
  So he was an easy recruit for me, you know.
• 5:39
  So we started that company, the company together basically on our kitchen table with this product.
• 5:47
  Okay, wow.
• 5:48
  All right.
• 5:49
  So you have that earlier experience with the trading company where like you said, you were Employee number one, you certainly were valuable to contributor to their ipo.
• 6:00
  You learned a valuable lesson that you didn't have any ownership, so thus you didn't get that big payout.
• 6:07
  Right?
• 6:07
  So that lesson stuck with you.
• 6:09
  And then this opportunity is presented to you and you didn't want to do it because you knew nothing about fuel additives, but you, you introduced it to some friends to see how they liked it and it got great
• 6:20
  reviews.
• 6:21
  So then you're able to negotiate basically taking over the company in a supply agreement with, with the person that brought this to you, really just taking a chance based on some good results from, from some people that you
• 6:35
  knew.
• 6:36
  And you, you recruit your son who's not happy, basically start this kitchen, this company at your kitchen table back, back in 2014, was it?
• 6:45
  Yep, that's right.
• 6:46
  Yep, that's correct.
• 6:47
  Okay.
• 6:48
  All right.
• 6:49
  So all that happens are thing things, right.
• 6:52
  Things are set.
• 6:53
  And then what happens next?
• 6:55
  Well, we, we start, we make the decision that Alec is going to be the inside guy and I'm going to be the outside guy.
• 7:01
  And basically he started cold calling departments of public works, trucking companies, garbage companies, any, anybody we knew, school bus companies that, that used fuel, you know, they used diesel fuel.
• 7:17
  Now keep in mind our product treats, treats all middle distillate fuels, which is one of the beauties of it.
• 7:23
  It treats gasoline and diesel.
• 7:25
  So.
• 7:26
  But it just so happens that most of what we sell is, is diesel oriented because that's where the real demand is.
• 7:32
  And I'll get into that a little later.
• 7:33
  Why.
• 7:34
  But so we started the company, the two of us, and I was out driving every day to go meet people and Alec was, Alec, you know, was making all the phone calls and we.
• 7:47
  It's interesting because in 2014 I went back and looked at it and we actually did about $25,000 in revenue for the entire year.
• 7:57
  So it was not flying off the shelves here.
• 8:01
  Okay, but it was.
• 8:03
  But what we didn't realize is we were creating a base and we just kept working at it and working at it and it's, it's a true testament to really hard work and having a, and having a great product.
• 8:16
  Okay.
• 8:16
  All right.
• 8:17
  And given the success that the company has had over the last decade plus.
• 8:21
  Right.
• 8:22
  It's easy for people to look at it and hear the story and say, wow, you know, right place, right time and, you know, they made this happen.
• 8:29
  But like you said very first year, I don't know what your expectations were, but I have to imagine you wanted to do more than $25,000 in revenue.
• 8:39
  I mean, what was it like at that time where you're excited, you negotiate this deal, you have some early feedback on the product, so you get out there and you go.
• 8:48
  And it just.
• 8:49
  It's not taken off right away.
• 8:52
  Yeah, it's.
• 8:54
  You know, one of the things that we have going for us, Alec and myself, is that we're both extremely hard workers.
• 9:04
  And we won't.
• 9:04
  And we will not admit defeat.
• 9:07
  We just won't.
• 9:08
  And we knew it wasn't going as fast as we wanted.
• 9:12
  In fact, even today, we don't think it's going as fast as we want to go, you know, so that's just a constant feeling with us that we will cut.
• 9:20
  We will.
• 9:20
  We keep that.
• 9:22
  That pressure on ourselves, but we also keep the pressure to just keep building all the time.
• 9:27
  And we knew that, you know, our first year, in fact, I didn't even go back.
• 9:30
  And look, I didn't know at the time that it was so bad.
• 9:34
  You know, it was just.
• 9:35
  We were so.
• 9:36
  We were so enthusiastic and so focused on building that it wasn't until, like I said many years later, I went back and looked at our yearly, you know, climb and realized that, wow, we did that poorly that first
• 9:52
  year because we were so focused on the big picture and the work, that it really never, never really, you know, appeared to us that we were doing as poorly as we actually were.
• 10:05
  Wow.
• 10:06
  Okay.
• 10:06
  All right.
• 10:07
  And then, so you.
• 10:08
  You mentioned.
• 10:09
  Right.
• 10:09
  You're so enthusiastic and you won't admit defeat.
• 10:13
  Was there ever a point where when things weren't going as fast that you thought about get getting out of this?
• 10:20
  I can honestly tell you, no, it's.
• 10:24
  It never, ever.
• 10:25
  The thought to quit never occurred to either one of us.
• 10:28
  At least.
• 10:29
  He's never.
• 10:29
  He's never expressed it to me.
• 10:32
  It certainly never occurred to me, and I don't think it did to him either.
• 10:36
  So we just know because we.
• 10:38
  Fortunately for us, the.
• 10:40
  The success, as slow as it may have been, was relatively steady.
• 10:46
  So we saw every.
• 10:48
  Every year we were.
• 10:49
  Every month we would do a little bit better.
• 10:53
  And we were.
• 10:54
  I remember at one point we were into this probably.
• 10:59
  Oh, gosh, we were probably into it five years, and we were wondering if we'll ever do $100,000 revenue in one month, you know, and sure enough, within a year or so, we did, you know, and it's just.
• 11:14
  But it's always had that steady growth.
• 11:17
  So we've never had.
• 11:19
  I don't think we've ever had any real Doubts about, about.
• 11:21
  And we know the product is so superior to everything that's.
• 11:24
  That's probably the thing that keeps us, keeps driving us that our own, Our biggest challenge is the education process that we have to have.
• 11:33
  I mean, it's hilarious in some ways.
• 11:36
  It's very, very frustrating.
• 11:38
  But it's also, it can be humorous if you take the time to look at it, you know, philosophically, is that our product is so superior to everything that's on the market that we compete against.
• 11:48
  Yet I still come across people either that, you know, are in love with the brand they've always used or are under the.
• 11:56
  Under the false pretense that what I'm selling is dangerous.
• 12:01
  And they read about it one time and they heard about it.
• 12:04
  And the or OEMs, which are the original equipment manufacturers, like the big, the big companies that make the engines and so forth, you know, they don't recommend anybody uses fuel additives and so forth.
• 12:18
  This is all coming out of the 80s and 90s when there was.
• 12:21
  There were a lot of fuel additives out there and some of them were not very good.
• 12:26
  But it's just old thinking that we have to combat.
• 12:31
  And the more we educate our people and the more people take the time to evaluate our product, the more success we have.
• 12:39
  So we've seen a tremendous change just in the last couple of years in that regard where people are starting to understand that what we bring to the table is very different than what they're used to and much more
• 12:52
  powerful and much more valuable.
• 12:54
  Something that might be that kind of is a testament to that also is that there's a couple more competitors out there that have popped up in the last year or two that have a combustion catalyst like we do.
• 13:07
  And they're, you know, again, they're, they're very niche.
• 13:10
  They tend to be very, very expensive, you know, and we, and, and.
• 13:15
  But the fact that they're happening, that they're even, even showing up on the horizon tells us that we must be in the right doing something right if competition's increasing.
• 13:26
  Okay, all right, so like you said too, even five years in, you.
• 13:30
  You weren't even at 100 grand revenue per month.
• 13:33
  And like you said, you're wondering, will it ever happen?
• 13:36
  And before long after that, it did.
• 13:38
  And what was really the inflection point that really took you to the next level?
• 13:43
  I think it's the hard work, the super hard work and the hard work we do to educate people and the improvement of our online exposure.
• 13:58
  You know, we've.
• 13:58
  We've always Taken the stance that, you know, while other companies will, will pick out certain industries to concentrate on, we've actually taken the stance that, you know, we're, we're good for everybody and we go, and we'll go after
• 14:16
  Department of Public Works, which was, by the way, an early, that was an, they were an early adopter here in New Jersey and we're probably in about 100 or so new public works in New Jersey, probably a couple
• 14:29
  hundred on the east coast without really focusing on them.
• 14:33
  You know, it just so happens we solve so many problems for them.
• 14:37
  That's an easy sell once they start to use our product, you know, so it's just, I think we've just gotten a lot of success into by, by working hard and continuing to educate everyone.
• 14:51
  Now if you look at our website, we have, we have blog posts, so we get, we get a lot of exposure from SEO and now, you know, now that a lot of the AI bots and so forth will
• 15:03
  pick us up, it's that we do all those little things.
• 15:07
  So I guess the answer your question is we just work really hard and we try to cover as many bases as we can.
• 15:15
  Okay.
• 15:16
  All right.
• 15:16
  And like you said, it's been a two man team in terms of he's the inside guy, you're the outside guy.
• 15:22
  And it's really been a sales company.
• 15:25
  Right.
• 15:25
  Just when you say hard work, it's just that continuing continuous cold calling, continuous outreach, continuous.
• 15:33
  I'm sure you do trade shows, right?
• 15:35
  That type of thing?
• 15:35
  Yeah, we do about 20 trade shows a year.
• 15:38
  As a matter of fact, I will be going to Indianapolis next week for what they call the Impact Show.
• 15:46
  It's a, it's a show primarily for fuel distributors in the Midwest and C stores, so forth.
• 15:54
  That's a big part of, that's turned into a big part of our business now.
• 15:58
  And then the following week I'm down in, I'm down in Washington D.C.
• 16:02
  you know, with the talking, talking to defense fuelers, guys that use fuel for the, for the Defense Department.
• 16:10
  So we're, we don't, we try not to leave too many stones unturned, you know, anywhere that uses a lot of fuel.
• 16:19
  We're very interested in talking to you.
• 16:23
  Okay.
• 16:24
  All right.
• 16:24
  And when you look back too at like how this developed, right, like you had the early lesson with the Wall street situation, you didn't want to do this, really some serendipity to where, you know, you had some friends
• 16:39
  in the, that used a lot of fuel.
• 16:41
  You introd it to them, they loved it, you took a chance on this company, you really just grew it through pure grit over years and years and years of consistent discipline activity.
• 16:55
  Right.
• 16:55
  And you really started to see the returns in the later years of it, looking back at everything.
• 16:59
  And again, right, as we record this, you're in your car, on the road, making appointments, that type of thing.
• 17:07
  When you look at this whole journey, what's been the best part of it for you?
• 17:12
  The best part of it for me is working with my two sons because my second son, Grant has joined the business.
• 17:21
  A few years ago, he actually was working for a defense contractor and has his MBA and so forth, but he really wanted to work with what Alec and I had started.
• 17:32
  So we brought Grant on a few years ago.
• 17:35
  And the best part about this for me is working with my boys, you know, and knowing that we're building something together, that's nothing else comes close.
• 17:46
  Love that.
• 17:48
  Love that.
• 17:48
  Okay.
• 17:49
  All right.
• 17:49
  And you also mentioned too, about the diesel.
• 17:52
  I mean, if you just.
• 17:53
  For the people, too, that maybe are in that area, why is it, why is it so much more valuable to people that use diesel fuel?
• 18:02
  Yeah, sure.
• 18:03
  Let's.
• 18:03
  Let's.
• 18:03
  Let's talk about what a fuel additive is for in the diesel world and whether you're going to.
• 18:12
  Going to a truck stop as a trucker, and you look at, you walk in and you'll see there's five or five or six of the same names for diesel fuel diesel additives in there.
• 18:23
  Or if you are, you know, if you're running a trucking company or a.
• 18:30
  You run quarries and you have heavy machinery and you're treating your diesel fuel with something that your distributor brings to you as a premium diesel additive.
• 18:40
  Most of those additives all do the same thing, meaning what they'll do is they'll add a little cetane.
• 18:46
  The way that diesel is rated for power is similar to the octane rating you have for gasoline, which we're all familiar with, but they call it cetane.
• 18:58
  So they'll have a cetane improver in their additive.
• 19:02
  They'll have something for a detergent to clean out the injectors because they'll get buildups of all kinds of carbon and things like that.
• 19:14
  They'll have something there for water because you want to get the water out of the diesel fuel.
• 19:19
  That water can be a real problem.
• 19:22
  And a dispersant or something that just keeps the fuel flowing.
• 19:27
  So it doesn't.
• 19:28
  It doesn't, you know, stop.
• 19:30
  Because diesel fuel is very different than gasoline.
• 19:32
  It's A thicker product it had.
• 19:34
  If you let it sit for long periods of time, bad things happen to it.
• 19:38
  It'll turn into.
• 19:39
  It'll basically turn into tar if you let it sit for a long period of time.
• 19:42
  Whereas gasoline may evaporate, but it's nothing.
• 19:46
  You know, it doesn't have all the issues that diesel does.
• 19:49
  Diesel also has another issue called, called.
• 19:51
  They call it Diesel Bug, but essentially it's bacteria, and bacteria will grow in the fuel.
• 20:01
  Okay.
• 20:01
  It actually feeds off the iron particles, the iron molecules in the fuel, and it lives in any moisture or water.
• 20:08
  So at that point where the water sits below the fuel, because it will separate, right.
• 20:14
  As we know fuel petroleum is lighter than water.
• 20:18
  So at that point where the water and the fuel meets, you could get bacteria and mold growing in there and it'll feed off there and it causes all kinds of problems.
• 20:30
  So you want to avoid that as much as possible.
• 20:32
  So that's what additives are used for.
• 20:35
  They're used to create a better.
• 20:38
  A better fuel, stabilize the fuel for longer periods of time.
• 20:42
  And so it, so it doesn't cause problems in the engine.
• 20:45
  Now, here's where, here's where we separate from all the rest of them.
• 20:50
  We do all those things, but what we do that they don't do is we have a combustion catalyst in there.
• 20:56
  It's an organometallic compounds.
• 20:59
  And diesel fuel, for example, will combust around 1200 degrees normally.
• 21:03
  Okay.
• 21:04
  With our product in it, it'll combust about 800 degrees.
• 21:07
  So almost 30% earlier.
• 21:09
  Okay, around 30% earlier is when the combustion will start.
• 21:13
  What that will result in is a more thorough burn.
• 21:17
  So you're going to get better fuel efficiency.
• 21:19
  Because remember, remember the black smoke we used to see coming out of the exhaust of trucks driving down the highway?
• 21:27
  Well, we don't see it anymore because there's diesel particulate filters that are on the exhaust that catch all that.
• 21:34
  Okay, it's still there.
• 21:35
  It's just not getting out into the atmosphere because it's being filtered.
• 21:40
  So what we do is we reduce that soot that normally you would see by about 75, about between 50 and 70%.
• 21:49
  And by doing that, you end up.
• 21:52
  You end up taking a lot of strain off of all the emissions.
• 21:57
  So all those emissions issues that you have with your diesel particulate filters, your emission gas returns and all those problems for maintenance are reduced massively by our combustion.
• 22:13
  And in addition to that, because it's a more thorough combustion, you're actually getting better fuel efficiency.
• 22:19
  So most of the users of our product are going to get between 6 and 9% on average, depending on the type of driving they're doing and the type of equipment they have.
• 22:28
  So that's really how we're different than every fuel additive out there.
• 22:32
  So when I say it's more powerful and it checks more boxes, you know, we do more and we give you this added performance that reduces your maintenance and improves your fuel efficiency at the same time that other additives
• 22:47
  don't do.
• 22:49
  Okay.
• 22:50
  All right.
• 22:50
  And so ran, when earlier in the interview you said when you, when you got this opportunity, you knew nothing about fuel additives.
• 22:59
  And then hearing you explain that, you're clearly so well versed in the industry, the product, all of that.
• 23:05
  What's been that process like in terms of just learning this industry?
• 23:10
  Because I could just hear the enthusiasm from your voice when you talk about how well this product performs and how it does well.
• 23:17
  Let me tell you something.
• 23:19
  It happens every day.
• 23:22
  I add to my knowledge every single day, because I don't think you can ever know everything.
• 23:29
  But I will say in the very beginning, boy, we did a lot of homework, because the last thing we want to do is go out there and just, you know, BS people about something or just be.
• 23:42
  You don't want to come off as a salesman.
• 23:44
  You want to come off as someone who actually knows what they're talking about and more importantly, believes in what they're talking about.
• 23:51
  And I think that's what we do.
• 23:53
  I think that.
• 23:57
  Love that, love that, like, and I can, I can hear the conviction, too, in your voice and the way you explain it.
• 24:02
  And like, you said that that's a great.
• 24:05
  It's a great reframe in terms of not just being a salesperson, but actually being someone that.
• 24:10
  That knows the product, believes in it and uses it, and therefore that translate.
• 24:15
  That transmits to other people when you're.
• 24:18
  You're explaining it to them.
• 24:20
  Yeah, for sure.
• 24:22
  Okay.
• 24:23
  All right.
• 24:23
  And so, Rand, if people want to learn more about Fuel Ox or they want to reach out to you for any reason, what's the best way people can find you online?
• 24:31
  Well, at.
• 24:32
  It's.
• 24:32
  It's fuel ox.com is our website.
• 24:36
  We also have a nice YouTube channel, you know, that you just go to Fuel.
• 24:40
  Go.
• 24:41
  Go put Fuel ox in the YouTube and you'll see it.
• 24:44
  You'll find that too.
• 24:48
  We have a lot of content that's constantly coming in.
• 24:51
  You know, we like to.
• 24:52
  We have.
• 24:53
  What's interesting is that we have.
• 24:55
  We have our next big step as a company is going to deal with overseas and large corporations and the countries themselves dealing with right now overseas.
• 25:09
  We have a handful of countries, literally countries, that are talking about treating all of their fuel with our product because they want to reduce the emissions and the environmental impact of fuel.
• 25:23
  The fuel is being used.
• 25:27
  We're doing testing right now in Mongolia in mining companies in Mongolia.
• 25:35
  We're doing testing in Ghana.
• 25:38
  We have companies we have mining companies in Ghana that use our product right now.
• 25:42
  South Africa, all these countries.
• 25:46
  We have a lot going on in Indonesia, it's really.
• 25:51
  And then South America is just starting up now.
• 25:56
  We have inquiries from some of the biggest mining companies in the world coming out right now, coming out of Peru and Chile.
• 26:01
  And they came to us because they found out about our product and what it does.
• 26:07
  So it's really exciting because we feel like we've finally.
• 26:11
  All the work we've been putting in, the traction is just now beginning to really, really take shape and we're super excited.
• 26:19
  We really are.
• 26:22
  Wow.
• 26:22
  All right.
• 26:23
  Well, congrats on the success and it's certainly well deserved given the.
• 26:27
  The journey and all the work you've put on put in over the past decade plus, for sure.
• 26:33
  So we will link.
• 26:34
  We will link all that information in the show notes and ran.
• 26:37
  Thank you so much for taking the time to be here today.
• 26:39
  Thank you for inviting me.
• 26:40
  It was nice being here.