Latest / Jeep Talk Show / Don't Get Stranded! How Glue Tread Fixes Torn Sidewalls

Transcript

Don't Get Stranded! How Glue Tread Fixes Torn Sidewalls · Jeep Talk Show

0:00
(upbeat music)
0:04
Hi, yo, boys and girls,
0:05
it's time for another
0:06
Jeep Talk Show interview.
0:07
We're gonna be talking with Andy again.
0:10
Andy is back with us.
0:11
Andy grew up in Northeast Ohio
0:13
and moved out West after
0:15
college where he drove,
0:16
I'm sorry, dove,
0:18
yeah, I guess you
0:18
could have drove into it,
0:19
dove into a product development.
0:21
He eventually founded
0:22
Glutread alongside his dad, Dave.
0:25
Glutread offers
0:26
innovative repair solutions
0:28
for off-road tires.
0:29
It's permanently, I'm sorry,
0:30
it permanently repairs sidewall damage
0:32
on any tubeless tire,
0:34
plus provides fixes for tread area damage
0:37
and valve stem replacement.
0:39
On the valve stem replacement,
0:40
you guys partnered with somebody, right?
0:42
Or do you have your own thing?
0:44
Yeah, we partnered with
0:44
Colby Valve on that one.
0:46
So yeah, we made some slight
0:49
adjustments to the product.
0:50
The biggest thing that
0:51
we did is we tried to make
0:52
all our stuff tool-less repair.
0:53
So what we did is we actually,
0:56
they had a plastic wing nut
0:58
that they were using to
1:00
seat the new valve stem.
1:01
And we kind of changed the
1:03
engineering on that a little bit
1:04
and then actually manufacture ourselves
1:07
an aluminum one, CNC machine.
1:09
So it's lower profile works.
1:10
I mean, some of these new beadlock tires,
1:12
or excuse me, the beadlock wheels,
1:15
they're like, they
1:15
really protect the valve stem.
1:17
So it's hard to get some
1:19
of the bulkier Colby valves
1:20
in there.
1:20
So this one's lower
1:21
profile and it's metal,
1:22
so it won't break all
1:23
that still on maybe US,
1:24
but yeah, it hasn't worked well.
1:27
So something I didn't
1:28
notice the last time,
1:29
at least I don't
1:30
think I noticed last time,
1:32
you moved from Ohio
1:35
out west after college
1:37
and you and your dad
1:38
developed this product.
1:39
I remember your dad
1:41
being involved in this.
1:43
So was he still in
1:44
Ohio and you were out west
1:46
whenever you guys developed this product?
1:48
Yeah, so after
1:50
college, I moved to Salt Lake
1:53
and I worked for a product
1:54
development company there.
1:55
And then we took
1:56
product from concept to shelf
1:58
and to Lowe's and Michael's some stores.
2:00
So that's kind of where I
2:00
got the product background.
2:03
After that, I actually
2:04
moved home for a short time.
2:05
So moved back to Ohio
2:07
for about six months.
2:09
During that time, I actually
2:12
worked at a rubber factory,
2:13
ironically enough,
2:14
worked at a rubber factory,
2:16
which is just a lot of
2:17
those in Northeast Ohio.
2:19
And it was like kind of during that time,
2:20
my dad and I started really diving into
2:22
the blue tread stuff.
2:24
And then, I think we talked about before,
2:27
we actually originally
2:28
came out with a product
2:29
that you would add to
2:30
the outside of tires.
2:31
He would like almost like individual lugs
2:33
to retread an agricultural tire.
2:35
Right.
2:37
So that's kind of what
2:37
started the whole thing.
2:39
And then from there,
2:41
we kind of pivoted
2:42
into the sidewall thing.
2:43
So my dad spent a lot of time
2:45
in the basement of the house in Ohio,
2:49
like he has an engineering background,
2:51
but figuring out
2:53
things about the adhesive
2:54
and the rubber and
2:55
the process and all that
2:56
to figure out how to make all this work.
2:58
But yeah, so while he was doing that,
3:01
I was back and forth between Ohio a lot.
3:04
I was in the time that
3:06
we started the glue tread,
3:07
I was guiding, so that's
3:08
actually how I'm in Bozeman now,
3:10
but I was guiding
3:11
backpacking in Yellowstone
3:13
in the National Park.
3:15
Oh, I bet you it was amazing.
3:17
Yeah, it was great, it was great.
3:19
And then I was doing that in summer,
3:20
and then during the fall,
3:21
I was guiding elk
3:22
hunting in Northeast Nevada.
3:25
So that all worked really well.
3:27
I mean, glue tread wasn't
3:28
making any money at the time.
3:29
My dad was really
3:30
focused a lot on R&D stuff.
3:32
I was working on something like the
3:34
external business stuff.
3:35
And then, but again, it
3:37
wasn't making any money.
3:37
So I had to find a way to make money
3:39
where I could work like a week or two on
3:40
and then have a week or two off
3:41
to focus on all the other stuff.
3:43
So yeah, so I did that.
3:45
During a lot of that,
3:46
I was actually living in
3:47
my Ford Ranger full-time,
3:50
which I'm 6'1" and the bed of a Ford
3:53
Ranger is like 5'10".
3:56
So it was kind of tight,
3:58
but it's kind of the
3:59
only option at the time.
4:01
So yeah, I was doing that.
4:03
And then eventually we got
4:04
the sidewall stuff to work
4:05
and it's just kind of been
4:08
on an upward trend since then.
4:09
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4:19
So when you say you got it to work,
4:21
I mean, sidewall damage is something
4:23
that everybody has been told.
4:25
You get sidewall, it's done.
4:28
You have to replace the tire.
4:29
And on a four-wheel drive,
4:31
that means you're
4:32
replacing four tires usually.
4:34
So it had to been very difficult to,
4:38
from the liability standpoint,
4:40
like you can repair a sidewall.
4:42
And it's for off-road use only.
4:44
We joked around about that last time
4:46
because you've had people that,
4:48
that contrary to what you gotta say,
4:51
have used it on the road
4:53
for a long period of time.
4:55
But it's off-road only to
4:56
help protect you liable wise.
4:59
But it really is good stuff.
5:01
But I would have been very nervous.
5:02
I'm just the nervous type.
5:04
I hear about these wonderful inventions.
5:06
And I think to myself,
5:07
"My God, that would be hard to put out."
5:09
I mean, I often make Tesla references.
5:12
Can you imagine making a
5:13
self-driving car unsupervised,
5:16
no steering wheel or pedals?
5:18
Just hop in.
5:19
(laughing)
5:20
Yeah, yeah.
5:21
No, you're right.
5:22
I mean, I think originally,
5:24
and even I noticed in
5:26
the entry or in the intro,
5:28
it said permanent fix.
5:30
And we don't ever
5:31
market it as a permanent fix,
5:32
to be clear.
5:33
It's always like temporary fix,
5:35
get you off the trail and so on.
5:39
But like you said,
5:40
especially for guys that are
5:42
trailering their vehicle
5:43
places or stuff like that.
5:44
I mean, there are
5:44
obviously a lot of vehicles
5:45
that are like off-road only too, right?
5:47
The vehicles themselves are.
5:49
People use them for a really long time.
5:51
I mean, that's one of the cool things
5:53
about the trade shows
5:54
that I've been liking
5:55
and really enjoying recently.
5:56
We were just-
5:56
People come up and
5:57
they'll tell you stuff.
5:59
Oh man.
6:00
Easter Jeep Safari this year was a blast.
6:02
I mean, first of all,
6:03
our booth is just packed the whole time,
6:04
which is really fun.
6:07
But it's just people
6:09
walking up and telling you
6:10
all these crazy stories
6:11
about how they used it.
6:13
And what if, I mean,
6:13
radiator hoses, a gas tank.
6:15
We had one guy like actually fix a wheel.
6:17
He like glued a patch
6:18
to like the metal wheel.
6:21
We had, I mean, really, really cool stuff
6:23
just to see all of that.
6:25
But yeah, back to your original question.
6:26
I mean, we initially,
6:29
released this as like a temporary fix.
6:31
And frankly, my background
6:33
is more in like power sports
6:34
than it is in like full size vehicles,
6:36
Jeeps and Toe's and so on.
6:38
So like my dad, my dad is,
6:40
he's what 63 now, I think, 62.
6:44
Yeah, 63.
6:45
And he still races ATVs like in-
6:48
Sure, why the hell not?
6:50
Yeah.
6:50
All across the country.
6:51
Awesome.
6:53
But for us, it was like a
6:55
power sports focus thing
6:57
where it's like, all right, well,
6:58
you get stuck where you're
6:58
like, what are you gonna do?
6:59
And the same thing with a Jeep, right?
7:01
In some cases even worse,
7:02
you can go even further
7:03
away from civilization.
7:04
So, I was like, well,
7:07
wow, yes, it is like, man,
7:09
you don't want somebody to
7:09
drive some highway and wreck
7:10
or all this other stuff.
7:11
It's like, well, off-road use only.
7:13
And all of our
7:15
packaging says this now too.
7:16
It's like, we have
7:17
limits on the size, the damage
7:18
and how fast you wanna
7:19
drive and all this stuff.
7:20
But like the remainder, I
7:22
mean, the reality of it is
7:24
that like people use it in
7:25
ways that we do not intend
7:27
and we advise against,
7:28
but are still pretty wild.
7:29
You know, so-
7:30
Right.
7:31
Well, I mean, just finding the right glue
7:33
that will set in a
7:34
reasonable amount of time
7:36
and will hold in a harsh environment.
7:40
So, I think that fire
7:42
extinguishers, for example,
7:43
and I think the Colby valves also too,
7:46
I think that they are generally,
7:49
especially the fire
7:50
extinguisher, generally speaking,
7:51
the fire extinguisher is gonna be used
7:53
for somebody else that's on the trail.
7:55
And I can see the Colby
7:56
valve having the same thing.
7:58
Do you hear about the glue tread
8:00
that you're really helping out buddies
8:02
more than you're helping out yourself?
8:04
Yeah, all the time.
8:05
I think we, I mean, it's
8:08
part of the funny thing
8:10
is we'll often have somebody like walk up
8:11
and be like, this
8:12
happened just to DJS recently.
8:14
They walk up and they're like, yeah,
8:16
I just used my kit last
8:17
week for this other guy.
8:18
You know what I mean?
8:19
It's like, you hear that all the time.
8:21
Or the other one we get is
8:23
like, oh, I don't carry it,
8:24
but there's a lot of
8:24
people in my group that do.
8:26
Right?
8:27
So, it's just, you know,
8:28
kind of like a communal,
8:29
like, you know, maybe one
8:30
guy's got a car and a bike.
8:31
Somebody needs this thing.
8:32
I mean, I'm not kidding you.
8:33
This thing is really important.
8:35
It's just a small bag.
8:37
And I mean, how many patches can you do?
8:39
I mean, you can do a
8:41
fair number of patches
8:41
with a bag, right?
8:43
I mean, yeah, we have
8:44
kits that range in price
8:46
from $10 up to $200, right?
8:48
And, you know, the $10
8:50
kit will do, it's one patch
8:51
and it'll, you know,
8:52
it'll fix one piece of damage.
8:55
Kind of our sweet spot is
8:56
like, we have the $50 kit
8:57
that'll do like four to six patches.
8:59
And then like $100 kit
9:01
that'll do four to six patches,
9:02
but also has plugs and
9:04
valve stem, the Colby valves
9:06
and all that stuff.
9:07
So, yeah, it's, I don't know, you know,
9:12
it's the closest thing
9:14
you can get to a spare tire
9:15
in a bag, right?
9:16
I think.
9:17
So you have a kit that
9:18
not only does the sidewall,
9:19
but also does the tread?
9:22
Yeah.
9:22
With the plugs?
9:23
Yeah, so we came out
9:24
with our own plugs too.
9:25
They're still, they're
9:26
self-vulcanizing plugs.
9:28
Everything we do is all
9:29
made in the United States.
9:30
So it's really important to us.
9:30
So the plugs are made in the U.S.
9:32
We came out with our own T handles too.
9:35
You know, you see these T
9:36
handles at advanced auto,
9:38
wherever they're plastic.
9:39
And if you've used one,
9:41
you know how hard you have
9:42
to crank on them.
9:43
Oh yeah.
9:43
You know, and you see
9:44
stories all the time
9:45
when people break in
9:45
the plastic handle off
9:47
and putting that rod through their hand.
9:48
You know, and then all
9:49
of a sudden you got a hole
9:50
in your tire and your
9:51
hand and like, you know,
9:52
that's not a good way to hang out.
9:53
So we got-
9:54
The intro of the Glutri-Med Pack.
9:58
Yeah, exactly.
9:59
Exactly.
10:00
Well, we, you know, we
10:03
actually designed our own T handle
10:06
that it's all CNC machined aluminum.
10:08
And it's like way overbuilt.
10:10
Wow, fancy.
10:11
But they have set screws in them as well.
10:15
So if you carry power tools with you,
10:17
you can actually loosen the set screw
10:19
and instead of like
10:19
sitting there and reaming it,
10:20
you can, you know, fix
10:22
that into a Milwaukee
10:23
or whatever, whatever you have.
10:24
And then you can drill it
10:25
out, which goes a lot faster too.
10:27
It's like faster and safer.
10:28
So just another thing, it's like,
10:30
what we're really trying to
10:31
do is like genuinely make it
10:33
the best kit that we can
10:34
and make it all domestically.
10:36
Because if you have to use the kit,
10:38
it's already a bad day, right?
10:39
Like things aren't going well.
10:41
So it's like, when you pull that out,
10:42
you want to feel like, oh, this is
10:44
something I can rely on
10:45
and something that's going to work.
10:47
And another thing on that topic,
10:49
something that comes up
10:50
frequently is our adhesive, right?
10:53
And this is something
10:53
that we try to get out
10:54
to people all the time, but we have,
10:56
we occasionally have people be like,
10:57
oh, I had damage on my tire,
10:58
opened the kit and the
10:58
adhesive was dried out, right?
11:00
So, and that, that happened.
11:02
So it's, the adhesive is a
11:04
sinacrylate by definition,
11:06
just, it will eventually dry out.
11:09
When we initially started,
11:10
we were packaging in plastic bottles.
11:15
We've since transitioned
11:16
into like a metal bottle
11:18
with a metal barrier and
11:19
doing everything we can
11:20
to extend the shelf
11:21
life of that adhesive.
11:22
We're somewhere now
11:23
between two and four years,
11:25
actually haven't had any
11:26
dry out of the new stuff, but.
11:28
That's really frustrating.
11:30
Oh, I mean, some people
11:31
are going to be excited.
11:32
Like I spent the 50 bucks on this thing
11:34
and I finally get to use it.
11:36
What the hell?
11:37
This thing, it's like that
11:38
50 year old tube of caulk
11:41
that you've been saving.
11:43
Exactly.
11:44
And we do, you know, when
11:45
people reach out to us like,
11:46
hey, this happened, it's
11:47
like, I know it says it,
11:48
it says it in the kit.
11:49
We send out emails about it.
11:50
We post about it.
11:51
Nobody's going to read that stuff.
11:52
Yeah.
11:53
Exactly.
11:53
So it's like, no,
11:54
whatever somebody reaches out
11:55
with that problem, it's like, all right,
11:56
here's a whole new kit for free.
11:58
Just check this.
11:59
As long as it's liquid, it's
12:00
fine, you know, and whatever.
12:01
So we do the best we
12:02
can to like, you know,
12:03
serve the customer on
12:04
that, but it is just something,
12:07
not that you need another
12:08
thing to add to your checklist
12:09
before you go out on a trail,
12:10
but it's something that you just need
12:12
to make sure is there, you know.
12:14
So I probably cursed you
12:17
with this on the last interview.
12:19
The Jeep talk show, "Me and Other Idea."
12:21
Have you guys, if you're
12:22
not currently doing it,
12:23
have you guys considered
12:25
putting the Glutread logo
12:27
on your patches?
12:28
So whenever they patch
12:29
their tire, you know,
12:30
it's theglutreadglutread.com.
12:32
I thought that, I think
12:33
that'd be really cool,
12:34
especially if it was embossed.
12:36
Yeah, we've put actually
12:37
a lot of effort into that.
12:40
We have figured out a way to do it.
12:44
It's really expensive.
12:45
And it's like, you
12:48
know, yeah, it's, it'd be,
12:50
well, I guess there's two ways to do it.
12:51
You can either print it or
12:52
you can emboss it, like I said.
12:53
Our worry with embossing
12:54
it is if you emboss it,
12:56
it compromises the
12:57
structural integrity of the patch,
12:59
which is like, that's
13:00
the most important thing.
13:01
And emboss it out, outwards.
13:04
And also too, that
13:05
means they're going to,
13:06
well, not everybody, but
13:07
that also means they're likely
13:08
to put the logo on the
13:10
outside and not try to glue it,
13:12
which is what you want.
13:13
All those bastards advertising,
13:15
I don't want to advertise for them.
13:16
Oh, why didn't the tire,
13:17
why is the tire hissing at me?
13:18
(laughing)
13:20
Yeah, I mean, with it,
13:24
yes, we've looked at it.
13:26
That would be really hard
13:27
to emboss it even externally,
13:29
just the manufacturing
13:30
process itself, you know,
13:32
we'd have to change the entire process.
13:33
I bet it would.
13:35
At least three X, maybe four or five X,
13:38
the cost of the patch to emboss it.
13:40
At that point you're
13:41
paying for advertising.
13:42
So yeah, I don't know how much
13:44
advertising you guys do,
13:46
but we'll get to that in a second.
13:47
Yeah, I mean,
13:49
obviously there's crazy ideas
13:51
and that's the difference
13:52
between people with ideas
13:54
and people actually making things.
13:56
Yeah, another one we worked on
13:59
that I actually have
13:59
prototypes for is like a sticker
14:03
that you can put over the top of it.
14:04
Like I made it look like a Band-Aid.
14:07
Yeah, that's good.
14:07
So you can put the Band-Aid on the patch.
14:09
And I've had one of
14:10
those on my dirt bike now
14:11
for gosh, like three years.
14:13
We never released them publicly,
14:15
but they actually look pretty cool.
14:17
That's a good idea.
14:18
I like that, the Band-Aid idea.
14:20
I've seen that on damaged vehicles too.
14:21
You know, whether you
14:22
have a Band-Aid on it,
14:24
it's pretty funny.
14:25
Yeah, yeah.
14:26
So, but then we looked at printing them.
14:28
We could print it.
14:29
The problem is it would
14:30
just rub off pretty easily.
14:32
So it's like, it would look good.
14:33
And then the other thing is
14:34
if you stack them back to back,
14:35
some of the ink would get off
14:36
on the backside of the other patch.
14:38
And then that could
14:39
interfere with the adhesion.
14:40
Right, yeah.
14:41
Yeah, who knows what
14:42
it's gonna do to the glue.
14:43
So let me ask you,
14:45
I don't wanna advertise
14:47
somebody else's stuff.
14:48
Maybe you guys are
14:49
already looking into it,
14:50
but have you seen the
14:52
little plastic or rubber screws
14:54
that they're screwing into the thing?
14:57
And I thought that
14:58
might be kind of rough to do
15:00
depending on where the damage is
15:02
on a maximum traction tire.
15:04
You know, how long does it
15:05
screw and so on and so forth.
15:07
But what do you think about those things?
15:09
I thought it was a cool idea,
15:10
but it looked like it
15:11
would be problematic.
15:12
But a lot simpler
15:13
than reaming things out.
15:15
Totally, totally.
15:16
I haven't personally used one.
15:19
My initial impression of that
15:21
is that it is a somewhat
15:23
gimmicky Chinese product,
15:26
which I feel like we see everywhere.
15:27
And I am just so,
15:29
I'm so avoided of anything that even
15:31
vaguely resembles that.
15:33
Sure.
15:33
But so I haven't used one myself.
15:35
I mean, instead of the
15:37
plugs, maybe, yeah, I don't know.
15:38
I think, again, having not used one,
15:41
to me, plugs in the
15:44
tread area of the tire
15:45
are just like so
15:46
tested and tried and true
15:47
and not that hard.
15:48
Oh yeah, no.
15:49
I mean, you know, so it's like,
15:50
But I reinvent.
15:50
No, it's more work.
15:51
Yeah, yeah, totally.
15:52
And then the biggest
15:54
difference, you know,
15:55
in the sidewall is like,
15:57
you're gonna have the
15:58
same problem, you know,
15:59
screwing into the sidewall
16:00
as you would plugging a sidewall, right?
16:02
Oh, I don't think they use them.
16:04
Yeah, I don't think
16:04
they use them on sidewall.
16:05
I don't think anybody
16:06
else does sidewall repair
16:08
other than you guys.
16:10
Right, right.
16:11
Yeah, so I don't know.
16:12
I haven't used them myself.
16:14
I've seen that, you know, for a while,
16:15
they were kind of going viral there.
16:17
I've seen the ads for them.
16:18
I've had people bring them up.
16:19
I haven't used them
16:20
myself, but to me, it's like,
16:23
I don't know, it's, you still have to
16:25
have an additional tool.
16:25
You have to at least
16:26
have a screwdriver with you.
16:28
And I don't know, sometimes you can only,
16:31
I don't know if you can
16:32
put two inside my side.
16:33
Like what happens if you have a,
16:34
Oh, I bet you can.
16:34
That you normally would put two in.
16:36
I don't know.
16:36
Yeah, I just, I just haven't used them.
16:39
Not anything you guys are
16:40
looking at or working on.
16:41
And also too, it kind of looked like
16:43
it might be a bad idea to me.
16:45
So I figured with your
16:46
expertise, you could,
16:47
you could clarify, but
16:49
that, that isn't something
16:50
that you think would be great,
16:51
which is just basically what you've said.
16:54
Yeah, yeah.
16:55
So on the, so you've,
16:59
you've got a kit that has plugs,
17:01
has patches for the
17:02
sidewall and nobody's watching you.
17:05
You can do whatever you want,
17:07
but it's really not designed
17:08
to get up at plugs and patches.
17:09
Although I've seen
17:10
people just patch the hell out
17:12
of a sidewall damage so
17:13
they can get off the trail.
17:15
And that's the great
17:15
thing about this one.
17:16
And I don't know if that
17:17
we've actually explained
17:19
and I forgot to do the website,
17:21
glutred.com, glutred.com.
17:24
Go over there and visit.
17:26
And you can look at some of this stuff,
17:27
but basically the
17:28
product allows you to patch
17:30
a sidewall damage usually on the trail.
17:34
And that's the, that's
17:35
the place that you guys all
17:36
only recommend using it is
17:38
off-road, not on the streets.
17:41
Correct.
17:41
Correct.
17:41
Yep. Yep. So all off-road use.
17:43
And I think one of the
17:45
biggest advantages to the product
17:47
is you can do the whole
17:47
thing without removing the,
17:49
Yes, I was going to bring it up.
17:50
from the vehicle.
17:51
Yeah.
17:51
So you just, you can put
17:53
the patch on and re-inflate
17:54
and then continue moving.
17:55
And so it's like
17:56
something that's, you know,
17:57
meant to be done on the trail like that.
17:58
We have had people that
17:59
like for really serious damage,
18:01
like they'll get home and then they'll
18:03
patch from the inside.
18:05
So they'll patch from
18:06
the inside and the outside,
18:06
DB the tire and all that.
18:07
But like the whole idea of
18:09
the product initially was that,
18:10
you know, you wouldn't
18:11
have to do anything like that.
18:12
Right.
18:13
And you guys have had a
18:14
lot of success with this.
18:16
Any failures that weren't
18:18
due to improper placement
18:21
of patches, I would
18:22
assume that it's pretty simple.
18:25
Yeah.
18:25
You got to make sure you
18:26
get enough glue on there.
18:28
And then there's a
18:28
certain amount of patch
18:31
that has to go around the damaged area,
18:32
like eighth inch,
18:34
quarter inch, whatever it is.
18:35
And have you seen anything?
18:37
Have you learned from
18:38
anybody that maybe you need
18:41
to make them sign a waiver
18:43
that they've read the instructions first?
18:45
Yeah, totally.
18:47
I think we have a couple
18:48
really common mistakes.
18:50
The first one, the one
18:51
that we dealt with early on
18:52
was people using way too much adhesive.
18:55
Oh, that makes sense.
18:55
So they use like, yeah,
18:56
just oh, more is better,
18:57
put more adhesive on there, hold that.
18:58
Well, you don't want to put too little
19:00
and then have to go through
19:01
the whole thing again, right?
19:03
Right, so, and we, in all
19:04
of our kits, we have cards
19:06
that shows exactly how
19:07
much to scale and everything,
19:08
but that's no one reads instructions.
19:10
So that's the first one.
19:13
The next one is just not
19:15
enough prep to the tire, right?
19:17
So it's kind of a pain,
19:20
but like if you have
19:21
damage over lettering
19:22
or something like that,
19:23
like you have to get the lettering down.
19:24
It has to be flat, right?
19:25
You need a rubber to
19:26
rubber contact is what we say,
19:28
but so it has to be sand down flat.
19:30
So sometimes we'd be
19:31
like, oh, it didn't work.
19:32
And I'm like, all right,
19:32
great, send me a picture.
19:33
I sent me a picture and
19:34
they just like glued a patch
19:35
on top of the word good year, you know?
19:37
And then I'm like, well, yeah, of course,
19:39
like look at all the,
19:40
I can physically see where
19:41
that air is gonna come out.
19:42
So that's, and then the one we've been
19:45
having most recently,
19:46
and this is a new
19:47
one, I think that happens
19:49
because people have heard all this stuff.
19:51
Oh, these guys didn't prep enough.
19:52
I'm gonna prep more.
19:53
They use an angle grinder, right?
19:55
Which is great.
19:57
Honestly, it works if you do it right,
19:59
but like often what
20:00
happens is people just rip
20:02
the angle grinder and then, you know,
20:03
grind the heck out of it.
20:05
And then what happens is the tire smokes,
20:07
the rubber gets too hot,
20:08
and that rubber compound
20:09
actually reverts and gets tacky.
20:11
Right?
20:12
And then at that point,
20:13
nothing's gonna stick to it.
20:15
The rubber is like, the
20:17
rubber is like a really interesting
20:19
part of this entire process.
20:20
But what happens is rubber cures,
20:22
and if it gets too hot again, it like
20:24
un-cures pretty much.
20:25
That's like the reversion.
20:26
And that's what happens.
20:28
So then the adhesive doesn't work.
20:29
So you're like, oh, the kid didn't work.
20:31
It's like, well, no, you,
20:32
this is also on the
20:33
instructions that weren't read,
20:34
but you like angle
20:35
grind the heck out of it.
20:36
The whole thing smokes, and then it's
20:38
like sticky, you know?
20:39
So that's the one we've been-
20:41
Sticky's gotta be good.
20:42
You're helping the glue.
20:44
(laughing)
20:45
Yeah.
20:46
If you were like, you know,
20:48
old school when they did the,
20:50
oh, I'm drawing a blank on the term,
20:52
when you like caught
20:53
the whole thing on fire,
20:55
that might help, but in this case, you
20:58
don't need it to be hot.
20:59
Yeah, that's interesting.
21:00
I'm glad you pointed that out.
21:01
That actually changes
21:02
the structure of the rubber
21:03
and makes it where it doesn't stick.
21:06
So it sounds like it's
21:08
really simple to use.
21:09
And in common sense,
21:11
you need a nice flat area
21:13
or flat-ish, as flat as you can be.
21:16
And so in the kit, do you guys have
21:19
anything like sandpaper?
21:21
Do you have anything like, I mean,
21:23
the other thing is, how
21:24
do you know it's sealed?
21:25
I mean, you can drive a
21:26
little bit and then, or listen,
21:28
you can drive a little bit
21:29
and see if the air is
21:30
holding on the tire.
21:31
But do you guys
21:32
recommend like a water bottle,
21:33
maybe soapy water in the
21:35
bottle to check the patch?
21:38
Yeah, great question.
21:39
So we, first of all,
21:40
we offer two different kinds of prep
21:43
solutions in the kits.
21:44
Every kit has
21:45
sandpaper, it's 80-grit paper.
21:47
It's cut to size so that you can put it,
21:49
use the patch to backing
21:51
and sand it down by hand.
21:52
It sucks in some cases,
21:53
but that's always an option.
21:55
Our Expedition kit,
21:56
our highest-stolar kit
21:57
also comes with a flat disc.
21:58
So an 80-grit flat disc
22:00
that you can chuck into a drill
22:02
again and then do that
22:04
all with power tools,
22:07
which of course goes a lot faster.
22:08
Oh, yeah.
22:10
Yeah, so that's really,
22:12
those are the kind of the two,
22:14
the two ways we suggest prepping.
22:16
After you have the
22:16
patch done, like you said,
22:17
you can look at it, you can listen to it.
22:19
Something I do is I'll use just water.
22:24
We have, this is another
22:26
issue we have sometimes,
22:27
but when you introduce more
22:28
chemicals into the process,
22:30
then it just kind of hits things.
22:32
So a lot of times people will be like,
22:34
this is another good one.
22:35
Oh, I used brake cleaner
22:36
all over the whole tire
22:37
so that it would be
22:37
clean and then use it.
22:38
It's like, no, don't do that.
22:39
Like, it doesn't say do that
22:40
anywhere in the instructions.
22:41
But like, my concern is always,
22:43
well, if I use soap and then soapy water
22:46
and then I have to go back and repatch or
22:48
something like that,
22:48
it will be residue of soap that's
22:50
absorbed into the rubber.
22:51
And then that, depending
22:53
on the soap or whatever,
22:54
whatever chemical
22:55
will interact differently
22:56
with the adhesive and will likely hurt.
22:59
So I always just use
23:00
just normal water myself.
23:01
Cause you can see, I
23:02
mean, if it's leaking,
23:03
if you drip water on there, a water
23:05
bottle or something,
23:05
you can see where it's spraying it out.
23:06
It's not as obvious if
23:08
you have the bubbles.
23:08
Well, this is good too,
23:09
because everybody's got water with them.
23:11
You may not have
23:12
soapy water on the trail.
23:14
And I didn't think about
23:15
the chemical composition
23:16
of the soap causing an issue.
23:18
Yeah, why risk it?
23:19
Absolutely.
23:20
Yeah, totally, totally.
23:22
All right, so now we have a patch.
23:26
I guess it's not always
23:28
on the outside of the tire.
23:29
It could be on the
23:30
inside of the tire, can it?
23:32
Yeah, we've, you know,
23:33
initially that was not our intent,
23:35
but we've had people use it that way.
23:37
I mean, the inside
23:38
being where it's mounted.
23:39
So you have the
23:40
stuff, the side of the tire
23:41
that's on the outside,
23:42
then you have the other stuff
23:43
that's towards the inside, which is, I
23:46
mean, it's also nice.
23:47
I mean, it's a little
23:48
more difficult working there,
23:49
but it's also nice.
23:50
You don't have to take the
23:50
wheel and tire off to get to it.
23:54
Yeah, I mean, we see that all the time
23:55
on the inside of the tires.
23:56
Definitely, I think
23:57
more common on the outside,
23:58
but we see it frequently.
24:00
And yeah, like I
24:00
said, you can still do it.
24:01
You just have to be, I
24:03
guess, obviously always be careful
24:05
if you're crawling under your vehicle,
24:06
but then making sure
24:08
that the damage is oriented
24:10
in such a way you can get to it.
24:11
Right, but I mean, I'm just thinking
24:13
it doesn't really matter
24:14
if it's on the inside or the outside.
24:16
You did mention about
24:18
people taking the tire off
24:19
and patching the inside of the tire,
24:22
which I would think that would
24:23
be a great way of handling it.
24:25
I mean, if you really
24:26
want to make sure that tire
24:28
is gonna be not leaked on
24:29
you when you're off-road,
24:31
the only potential issue,
24:33
I don't know how thick these patches are,
24:35
but I would think the
24:36
only potential issues
24:37
are changing the balance of the wheel,
24:40
depending on how much
24:41
patch you're putting on.
24:43
Totally, I mean, I think we recommend
24:46
in all the instructions,
24:48
keeping it at a very low rate of speed
24:51
when after you've patched the sidewall.
24:52
So I feel like generally you
24:55
run on those balance issues
24:56
when you're running
24:58
higher speed or on the road.
24:59
Oh yeah.
25:00
But yeah, I mean,
25:02
we've definitely had
25:04
people patch from the inside.
25:05
The biggest thing on the
25:06
inside is that the prep work
25:07
is even more important.
25:08
When they're manufacturing those tires,
25:11
a release agent on the
25:12
mold that's often left,
25:16
residue is left on the
25:17
inside of the tire afterwards.
25:18
So you just have to
25:19
make sure you prep enough.
25:20
And I suggested now
25:22
with an 80-grit flap wheel,
25:24
you can buy it from us.
25:25
You can also get them from whatever,
25:26
Home Depot or Lowe's or Ace.
25:28
Well, you already got the
25:28
drill with a big battery on it,
25:30
and now getting the little
25:31
attachment for the drill,
25:33
you're probably carrying it anyway.
25:35
You may even have one of those impacts
25:36
so that you can work on your stuff
25:38
or like other people's stuff
25:39
when you're out on the trail.
25:40
So yeah, it just makes sense to do it.
25:42
You just have to be careful not to
25:43
overheat the rubber,
25:46
which I think is a
25:47
great thing to remember
25:48
whenever you're trying to do this.
25:50
So do you guys have any
25:51
king of the hammer stories?
25:53
I mean, I can well see the glue tread.
25:56
I don't know if they
25:56
just changed the tire.
25:58
I mean, changed the tire and
25:59
wheel when they have problems.
26:01
I would think that patching
26:02
it, it would be the way to go.
26:03
Welcome to the Jeep
26:04
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26:06
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26:07
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26:10
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26:10
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26:12
See you on the trail.
26:14
Yeah, there's definitely,
26:15
I mean, obviously it depends on the case.
26:17
We've heard stories of, you know,
26:19
just various ultra four
26:21
cars using it for that.
26:22
I think one of our really early stories,
26:26
there was an ultra four car.
26:27
It wasn't at king of the hammers.
26:28
I forget which race it was at.
26:30
Maybe the men or something, I forget.
26:31
But he got second in his class.
26:34
I think he was a
26:34
4,500 class with a patch.
26:36
And there's a picture
26:37
of him holding the trophy
26:38
and the patch behind him
26:39
on the tire, which is cool.
26:41
But yeah, I'm trying to think.
26:43
We were down there this
26:44
year at king of the hammers.
26:47
And, you know, we ran
26:48
into a boatload of people
26:49
that had used it.
26:50
I'm trying to think
26:51
if we talked to anyone
26:51
that had used it during the race.
26:56
I know we had some people
26:58
use it on their pre-runners
26:59
at Baja this year.
27:02
Oh, this seems like the
27:03
thing you got to have.
27:04
It's inexpensive.
27:06
And I mean, from the
27:07
pros to just the everyday,
27:09
the weekend warriors, because nobody
27:12
wants to have to stop
27:13
and do a lot of stuff
27:14
or limp back to base.
27:16
I mean, this thing, you
27:18
patch it and more than likely
27:20
you're done for the rest of your trip.
27:22
I mean, all you do is just drive it.
27:24
And if you get the kit
27:25
that has multiple patches,
27:27
you really don't have
27:27
to worry about fixing
27:29
any other issues that you have.
27:30
I think that, I mean,
27:32
you can run hard enough
27:33
where you can get more sidewall damage,
27:35
but I think the vast majority of people,
27:37
it's gonna be rare.
27:38
And just to have the ability
27:40
to change it quickly is great.
27:43
Oh, and it also, it's
27:44
great if it's not your Jeep
27:45
because you get to
27:46
practice on somebody else.
27:48
That's right.
27:49
We had a guy this year at EJS,
27:53
trailer his Jeep, I
27:55
think from Pennsylvania,
27:56
maybe New York.
27:57
I mean, trailer it
27:58
all the way out to EJS,
27:59
pulled it off the trailer
28:01
and caught it on the trailer
28:04
on the inside, as you were talking about,
28:05
on the inside tire, caught it, ripped it.
28:09
And then he actually
28:10
brought the tire to our booth.
28:11
We patched the booth,
28:12
then he was able to run the
28:13
rest of his week at EJS with-
28:16
Did he at least have a kit?
28:17
Or was he getting the free kit
28:21
and having somebody do the work?
28:24
I think he got a free kit too,
28:27
if I remember correctly.
28:28
I was like, but we
28:29
gotta take a video of it.
28:29
So we did a video of it.
28:30
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:31
That's it.
28:32
This is another great thing.
28:33
If you use a Glutread kit,
28:35
there's a card in every one
28:36
of our kits that says this.
28:37
If you use a kit, take a
28:38
video of yourself using it
28:39
and set it to us and you'll
28:40
get a free replacement kit.
28:42
So, if you do it
28:43
right, you can buy one kit
28:45
and it's good forever, right?
28:47
Because if as long as you
28:48
take a video of you using the kit
28:50
and doing the repair,
28:51
like we'll literally
28:52
trade you a replacement kit
28:54
for that video.
28:57
That's great, I really,
28:58
that's a lot better idea
29:00
if you get anybody to do it.
29:01
That's a lot better
29:02
idea than putting the logo
29:03
on the patches.
29:06
Yeah, it's easier to keep
29:09
track of it if nothing else.
29:11
So I don't wanna make this sexist
29:13
or the border on mansplaining,
29:16
but this is something that, I mean,
29:17
it doesn't require a
29:19
lot of physical force
29:22
to do any of these things.
29:23
It's just a step-by-step procedure
29:25
and most women will read instructions.
29:27
So they'll probably be
29:27
more successful at it.
29:29
But this is something
29:30
that men or women can use.
29:32
Yeah, I mean, especially, I mean,
29:34
when you're handling a
29:35
40-inch tire, 37, 42,
29:38
all these tires are getting so big now.
29:39
It's like, I'm a
29:42
physically active, physically fit,
29:44
32-year-old and it's like,
29:46
I have trouble moving a 40-inch tire.
29:48
Sure, yeah.
29:49
It's like, especially
29:50
if you're on the trail
29:50
and if it's mounted
29:52
somewhere or whatever,
29:52
it's like, it's difficult
29:54
to move these big spares.
29:55
So it's like, it's really
29:56
easy to put a patch on it
29:58
or you're in a place where you don't want
30:00
to jack up the vehicle,
30:02
but you're on an angle or whatever,
30:03
it's like, and that's risk in itself.
30:05
So it's like, I think if
30:07
you're spending any time off-road,
30:08
there's just inherently risk.
30:09
And it's like, oh, it's
30:10
risky to patch your sidewall.
30:12
It's like, yeah, it's also risky
30:13
to use a high-lift jack on an incline.
30:15
Oh, man. You know what I mean?
30:17
Yes. Right?
30:18
Like, just pick your battle,
30:20
decide which risk you want,
30:22
but that's just, that's
30:23
the nature of spending time
30:25
off of your couch.
30:27
So it's like, just kinda what it is.
30:29
Adventures, you have to
30:30
pay for your adventures
30:31
one way or another.
30:32
And sometimes it's just paying with
30:34
discomfort, concern.
30:36
It's like the high-lift.
30:36
We all make fun of the high-lift jacks.
30:38
They're very good jacks.
30:40
And if you read the instructions
30:42
and just think it through, they do well.
30:45
But I mean, it's scary.
30:47
I haven't used one that
30:49
much, but they're scary.
30:50
And especially when they start slipping
30:52
or sliding off of the vehicle.
30:55
But they're great tools.
30:56
Yeah, no, I think you have to have one.
30:58
Absolutely, you gotta have one.
31:00
And make sure it's a high-lift
31:01
and not something that,
31:04
high-lifts are dangerous enough.
31:06
I don't get something
31:07
that's a third-party,
31:08
non-high-lift jack, a farm jack.
31:12
But yeah, that's really cool.
31:14
So men, women, you don't
31:16
have to take the tire wheel off.
31:17
You can patch it most
31:19
times right where it is.
31:20
There's prep work that you have to do,
31:22
but my God, you got
31:24
that power screwdriver,
31:25
or I'm sorry, power drill or whatever.
31:28
The 80 grit sandpaper,
31:30
don't set it on fire.
31:32
I mean, I think we
31:33
all go back to the time
31:35
that we were burning
31:36
tire rubber in our vehicles
31:37
or even in our jeeps.
31:39
It's like, you love that smell.
31:40
I don't know if you hear that way.
31:42
I love that smell.
31:43
So if you start reminiscing
31:45
and enjoying the smell of the tire,
31:47
you've gone too far.
31:49
Yeah, that's right.
31:51
I remember that burnout I did.
31:55
All right, so I was gonna ask you,
31:58
you have to have a way of
32:01
airing the tire back up.
32:03
So, I mean, there's all
32:05
kinds of things out there,
32:07
onboard air, there's power tanks,
32:10
there's all kinds of ways
32:11
of re-airing up the tire.
32:13
Are you guys partnering with anyone
32:15
or working with anyone to
32:16
be the blue tread air source?
32:21
Yeah, I think, I guess the short answer
32:23
is nothing official.
32:24
Long answer is I think it
32:26
depends on what you're doing
32:27
with your vehicle, right?
32:28
If you're airing up and down frequently,
32:30
we love the guys at
32:31
Morflate, they're great.
32:33
Tyler's an awesome guy.
32:35
I think they run a
32:37
pretty stand up company.
32:38
They guarantee their
32:39
products, have great customer service,
32:41
and they're always
32:42
doing some innovative stuff.
32:43
So we love the Morflate crew.
32:46
We have some inflation
32:47
options for power sports.
32:49
Like US Border Patrol,
32:50
they carry kits with us
32:53
that are smaller than
32:54
the size of a tissue box,
32:55
and they come with CO2 cartridges,
32:58
and just a 16 gram
32:59
cartridge, it's not a full power tank,
33:01
so that you can have it
33:02
under the seat of an ATV.
33:05
And then we have Chucks that we're
33:06
actually now manufacturing
33:07
here in the US, that's
33:08
something that's been
33:09
kind of a long-term endeavor for us.
33:12
So yeah, the small CO2
33:14
works well for an ATV,
33:15
works well for some side-by-sides too.
33:17
I mean, some of these side-by-sides now
33:18
are running 35 plus inch tires now,
33:21
and you don't wanna be blowing that up
33:23
with a 16 gram cartridge.
33:25
But, you know, and then
33:26
for more like a daily user,
33:28
you know, I don't know,
33:29
there's a ton of options out there.
33:30
Oh yeah, yeah, I just thought you guys
33:32
might be recommending
33:33
someone, but it's neat
33:34
that you guys have a
33:35
side-by-side or ATV kit.
33:38
So I'm glad you brought up Tyler.
33:40
We recently did a third
33:42
interview, I think, with Tyler.
33:44
And not this one, but the one before,
33:47
I just randomly asked him about,
33:50
cause he has a good
33:51
company and it's a neat idea.
33:54
And I asked him, has anybody purchased
33:57
or wanted to purchase your company?
34:00
And we went down a
34:01
rabbit hole about, yeah,
34:04
and he actually had a
34:05
company, a well-known company,
34:07
tell him that he didn't
34:09
have patents on his products.
34:11
And he could sell it to them,
34:13
he could sell them the company
34:14
or they would just make a copy of his
34:16
and run him out of business.
34:18
And I'm very naive
34:20
about this stuff I had,
34:21
oh my God, that's just so distasteful,
34:23
that why would anybody do that?
34:24
And then I thought about it, went,
34:26
hey, this is just how business is done.
34:29
And so, most recently had him on
34:32
and we identified the company that,
34:35
I had identified the
34:36
company based on clues
34:37
that Tyler gave me and
34:39
he smiled and laughed.
34:40
He didn't do it himself.
34:42
Legal implications, obviously.
34:44
So with all that explanation,
34:46
so you'll be up to speed
34:47
on where we are with that,
34:49
have you had any situations?
34:52
I mean, I think you
34:52
have a very unique product
34:54
and I can see very well
34:56
how even a tire company
34:58
would want to have your product.
35:00
Maybe they want your
35:02
product so they can squash it
35:04
because you're not selling as many tires
35:06
if you don't have the old
35:08
sand by of the side wall damage,
35:09
the tire's done.
35:11
Yeah, I think, I mean,
35:13
we have people reach out very frequently
35:16
wanting to acquire the company,
35:19
but I don't know, I think,
35:23
I think there's two main
35:25
things I think about here.
35:26
First of all, we do have
35:27
utility patents on this product.
35:30
So, just, I don't know if you're familiar
35:31
with intellectual property law,
35:32
but essentially you
35:34
can have a design patent
35:35
or you can have a utility patent.
35:35
Design patent would be me like designing
35:37
a three by three inch
35:39
patch that was all black
35:40
and like no one else could make,
35:41
but you could make one
35:42
that was three and a half
35:42
by three and a half or whatever.
35:44
So, there's the design patent,
35:46
we have actually utility patent
35:47
on the way the whole system works.
35:49
So, that helps us a lot.
35:52
We have had people,
35:54
we've had a couple of
35:55
Chinese companies try to copy it.
35:58
Most recently we had a company,
36:00
a Chinese company come
36:03
out with a product that was,
36:05
it's like they were selling the exact,
36:07
like, you know the internal
36:08
patches that they still use
36:10
at times on the inside of
36:11
patches in the tread area?
36:13
They had those exact
36:14
patches in their kit.
36:16
They used pictures of
36:17
our patches on tires.
36:19
My hand was in their packaging.
36:21
They had all the
36:23
instructions that were copyrighted,
36:25
they used, they violated the patent,
36:27
all this stuff we took into Amazon,
36:28
got them shut down
36:29
immediately, stuff like that.
36:30
So, you just have to keep an eye on it.
36:34
But we have had some
36:36
people try to copycat.
36:37
The other thing is,
36:38
it's so funny when you look at it,
36:40
it's like, oh, it's just rubber and glue.
36:41
It's like super simple and it's not.
36:44
Like the rubber is so
36:46
much more complicated
36:50
than what people give it credit for.
36:52
I mean, the amount of R&D
36:54
that we've done on rubber,
36:56
I mean, I've thrown away an
36:58
embarrassing amount of rubber
36:59
that just didn't work
37:00
because you can't do things
37:02
in a couple of matches.
37:02
I mean, it's like,
37:04
and it's really hard to
37:05
reverse engineer as well
37:06
because it's like baking a cake.
37:07
It's like, if I hand
37:07
you a cake and be like,
37:10
you have to tell me how to make this.
37:11
It's like, well, how did you mix stuff?
37:13
How long did you bake it?
37:15
What kind of oven, all this other stuff.
37:16
So it's really complicated thing.
37:19
Plus the utility patent makes this,
37:23
like, go back to your initial question,
37:25
like definitely a target
37:26
for someone who wants to.
37:27
Oh yeah, any success at all,
37:29
I would imagine makes you a target.
37:31
Yeah, the other thing
37:32
that we do is we don't
37:33
cut any corners.
37:34
We manufacture everything here in the US.
37:35
So like when you
37:36
manufacture things overseas,
37:38
you have this problem
37:38
where your manufacturer
37:39
is selling you a kit,
37:40
but then they're also
37:41
selling your competitors
37:42
out the back door and not telling you
37:43
it's the exact same product often.
37:45
You know, it depends on your quality,
37:46
all this other stuff,
37:46
but we manufacture everything here.
37:48
So we don't have that
37:49
international like question mark.
37:52
And we've also done everything right.
37:54
You know, it's like,
37:55
we've made it actually the best we can.
37:57
We build the brand in a way that like,
38:00
I mean, a perfect example is
38:02
we came out with better rubber
38:04
about a year ago.
38:05
You wouldn't know looking at it.
38:07
Looks the exact same.
38:08
Everyone who bought a kit on our website
38:10
in the year preceding that,
38:12
we sent them free rubber.
38:13
Just like they didn't,
38:14
if you bought a kit, you received it,
38:16
you know what happened.
38:17
Not if you bought an Amazon
38:18
cause you don't have your customer data,
38:19
but if you buy it on our website,
38:21
we just sent everybody free rubber.
38:22
It's like, hey, this is
38:23
the best stuff we have.
38:23
Don't worry about
38:24
sending us any more money.
38:25
This is just yours.
38:26
It's like, I think the real value,
38:29
and I think Tyler's done
38:30
a really good job of this,
38:31
but the real value in
38:32
your company is the brand
38:33
as much as the product, right?
38:34
Yeah.
38:35
People know it's like, if
38:35
you have a more-flate product.
38:36
They trust that
38:38
relationship that you have.
38:39
Yeah, absolutely.
38:41
100%.
38:41
If you have a more-flate
38:42
product, they'll take care of it.
38:43
Same way, you can call our 800 number.
38:45
And my dad will
38:46
literally pick up the phone
38:47
and he will be like, what do you need?
38:49
And we'll take care of it.
38:50
I mean, that's the
38:51
brand that we're building.
38:52
I think really in a lot of ways,
38:53
more value than the
38:54
intellectual property associated.
38:56
So have you had to defend your patent?
39:00
Or have you just used it as a pry tool?
39:03
Yeah, we haven't had any lawsuits yet,
39:07
but it works for Amazon.
39:12
Oh, I'm sure Amazon's huge,
39:14
getting them to take down that seller,
39:17
which is great because
39:19
I remember asking Tyler
39:20
or Tyler offering the information.
39:22
It's 50 grand just to start
39:24
the defense of the patent.
39:27
That's crazy.
39:28
Yeah, yeah.
39:28
So that's why, I mean, it was neat
39:30
talking to him about it
39:31
because it taught me how naive I was
39:34
because I'm thinking
39:35
people shouldn't do that.
39:37
And if they do, it's very few.
39:39
And I mean, China, we
39:41
understand how China works.
39:42
So yeah, I know that they just do things.
39:45
But other people, other US companies,
39:48
they would just be silly and the bad,
39:51
it would get around and they
39:52
would be bad for the company
39:54
that they're just copying something.
39:56
This well-known company
39:57
that I found in the interview
40:00
and put on the show,
40:02
they're a nice company.
40:04
And not only did they
40:06
copy the Moreflate product,
40:09
they copied the color.
40:10
It's the same damn color.
40:12
You can't even come up
40:13
with a different color.
40:15
It's crazy, yeah.
40:15
Yeah, and if you look on Amazon,
40:18
there's a bunch of
40:19
companies selling the same type
40:21
of setup for the Moreflate system.
40:23
So yeah, like I said,
40:25
it was very eye-opening.
40:27
And I guess that you
40:28
have to distinguish yourself
40:30
with the quality of
40:31
products, like what you're saying,
40:33
the customer service being
40:34
available, so on and so forth.
40:36
So I think a lot of people
40:39
think it would be so cool
40:41
to own a company, but
40:42
there's so many things to it
40:45
that you have to deal with.
40:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot.
40:51
Part of it's, parts of it are really fun
40:52
and awesome, really
40:53
rewarding, and parts that are like,
40:56
you know, I was like,
40:56
"Oh, I'll be self-employed,
40:57
"then I can just work my own hours."
40:59
It's like, yeah, congratulations,
41:00
your hours are now 24-7.
41:01
Oh, yeah.
41:01
I literally dream about work.
41:03
It's like, there are times it's like,
41:05
"I'll go to bed," and
41:06
then I finally get a break,
41:07
you know, it was a long day, and go back,
41:08
and I just like, thinking about work
41:09
in my dreams while
41:10
I'm sleeping, I'm like,
41:11
"God, you can't get a second off."
41:12
Which is better though?
41:14
Running your own company with all the
41:16
headaches and stuff,
41:17
or working for somebody else?
41:19
I think it just
41:20
depends on the individual.
41:21
You know, for me, I'm a bad employee.
41:24
I just, that's just, I've
41:26
always kind of been there.
41:27
I want to work, I work
41:28
really hard for myself.
41:29
I have trouble working
41:30
hard for other people.
41:32
Oh, I'm exactly the same way.
41:35
Because they're idiots.
41:37
They don't know what
41:37
the hell they're doing.
41:39
Right, right, but you
41:40
know, there's stress
41:41
that comes with that, right?
41:42
And I think, I think a lot of times,
41:44
I think about people I went to high
41:45
school and college with
41:46
that were frankly,
41:46
like, way smarter than me.
41:48
And, but my risk tolerance and ability
41:52
to manage the stress was, I
41:54
guess, superior to theirs.
41:56
And then, and I think,
41:57
but that's not
41:57
necessarily a good thing either.
41:59
You can work for someone else,
42:01
and live a life that you absolutely love.
42:04
You know what I mean?
42:04
I think it's just
42:05
dependent on your risk tolerance.
42:06
Oh yeah, no, absolutely.
42:07
But you personally, I
42:08
think you personally,
42:09
you're doing this business, and you
42:11
wouldn't be doing it
42:12
if you weren't enjoying all
42:14
the things that you're doing.
42:16
I think just having a
42:17
product that people appreciate
42:20
and enjoy and helps them is a big deal.
42:23
I mean, and you mentioned
42:25
the people coming up to you
42:26
at the booth.
42:27
That's wonderful.
42:28
It's like whenever people talk about,
42:30
I listen to the show,
42:31
I've listened to it for many,
42:32
many years.
42:34
And you hear that stuff and you go,
42:36
I made, or the show has made a
42:37
difference in somebody's life.
42:40
And your product has as well.
42:42
I think that's the most,
42:43
there's two things that
42:44
are most rewarding for me.
42:45
The first is like you said,
42:46
somebody coming up and telling me,
42:48
we had another one recently,
42:49
the other guy's like,
42:50
I was with my family
42:51
and we were snow wheeling, you know,
42:53
and we were in the middle of nowhere
42:54
and had this problem
42:55
when user product got out.
42:56
Like, so stuff like that is like,
42:58
it's what drives you to do
42:59
as good a job as you can.
43:00
It's also the most rewarding part.
43:02
There's that, and then the
43:03
other part for me is like,
43:04
is providing jobs and
43:05
lifestyles for people
43:07
that I care about that they enjoy, right?
43:09
I want to pay my employees well.
43:11
I want to be flexible
43:12
with their scheduling
43:14
and I want them to like genuinely enjoy
43:16
the place that they are.
43:17
Because I think I've
43:19
definitely had jobs where it's like,
43:21
it makes me hate
43:22
everything about everything
43:23
the rest of my life.
43:24
Oh yeah.
43:25
It's so mad, but I
43:27
think being able to provide
43:28
quality jobs and good experiences for
43:30
people you care about
43:31
is the other really rewarding part.
43:33
Yeah, and I could also
43:34
imagine that it makes you
43:35
really nervous from the standpoint of
43:37
making the right decisions
43:39
so that they can continue to be employed.
43:42
Yeah, that's the most stressful part.
43:44
Yeah, yeah.
43:45
Oh, let me ask you this.
43:47
So we've noticed a decline in
43:51
an advertising here on the show.
43:53
How is business?
43:54
How is the off-road business for you?
43:57
Have you seen something?
43:58
I mean, it was like September last year
44:01
that we saw a dive and
44:03
it hasn't come back yet.
44:04
How's the industry doing, at
44:05
least from your standpoint?
44:07
Yeah, we're continuing to
44:10
grow at a really steady rate.
44:13
I mean, I think a lot of that is because,
44:19
I think there's a couple factors.
44:21
So for business for us in general,
44:23
I think it's going well because
44:26
our biggest hurdle is awareness.
44:29
So as soon as someone
44:29
learns about the product,
44:30
they buy it, right?
44:31
So I think we're
44:31
definitely in that growth curve.
44:33
I think generally speaking,
44:36
I've talked to a lot
44:37
of other business owners
44:38
in the off-road space,
44:40
but also outside of the off-road space,
44:41
just in the outdoor space in general
44:43
and otherwise within product.
44:45
And they've all been slower.
44:46
And I think that's just
44:48
the effects of economy stuff.
44:49
I mean, yeah, you have gas
44:51
prices and stuff like that
44:52
that's been over just
44:53
maybe the last couple months.
44:55
But life's really expensive.
44:58
And I mean, there's all kinds of ratios
45:00
that you can look at
45:00
that say exactly that.
45:02
But I think about people my age,
45:04
like I said, I'm in my early thirties
45:05
and I have a lot of
45:07
responsible friends that work hard
45:09
and that work well and
45:11
are responsible spenders
45:12
and they still can't
45:13
afford houses and stuff.
45:15
And I think generally
45:17
life is more expensive
45:18
and you have to give up somewhere.
45:19
And I think the reality of it is that
45:22
we in the off-road
45:23
space, that is recreational.
45:24
It's like, you don't have to drive,
45:27
go on a road trip or
45:28
something like that to get by,
45:30
but you gotta buy groceries.
45:30
So I think that, and
45:34
then that trickles down
45:35
to your advertising spend, right?
45:37
It's like if people
45:38
are buying less product
45:39
and the company's less profitable,
45:40
they can't put as much into marketing,
45:42
even though in some ways
45:43
that's what they need to do,
45:43
but the money's just not there for it.
45:45
Well, I think it's an important thing,
45:47
what you said, it was
45:48
important that the way life is harder,
45:52
you can't buy a
45:53
house, so on and so forth.
45:55
So some people might go,
45:56
well, you certainly
45:57
shouldn't have a Jeep,
45:57
you certainly shouldn't be going off-road
45:59
and maybe damaging your
46:00
vehicle or you need stuff.
46:02
Screw that, you need to enjoy your life.
46:05
I mean, ultimately that's why we're here.
46:07
So I'll just point out that
46:11
you can take your Jeep off-road
46:13
and if you get sidewall damage,
46:15
you have a cheap way of fixing the
46:19
problem very quickly.
46:20
I would think under 30 minutes,
46:22
depending on your level of expertise,
46:25
and then getting back to the fun.
46:27
I mean, literally getting
46:28
back to having a good time
46:29
with your life.
46:31
Right, I think that's the
46:32
other part of our business
46:33
that's really helpful is it's,
46:34
I don't know if anything
46:35
is totally recession-proof,
46:36
but generally speaking,
46:38
adhesives do well in a recession
46:40
because you're going to fix something
46:41
instead of buying new.
46:43
So it's like, while at
46:44
the same time it's like,
46:44
yeah, this is not a permanent fix,
46:46
I think people try to
46:48
stretch things like that
46:49
when times are more financially trying.
46:52
Welcome to the Jeep Talk Show.
46:54
Got a story or question?
46:56
Send us a video
46:57
voicemail, just use your phone.
46:58
We'll play it on the show, link is below.
47:00
Keep jeeping and talk soon.
47:03
Yeah, and also too, we'll just mention,
47:05
if you don't already know,
47:06
tires are kind of expensive.
47:08
Yeah, and they're
47:09
getting crazy expensive.
47:10
I mean, even just the
47:11
last couple of years,
47:12
like, you know, I mean, it makes sense.
47:14
It's oil-based and
47:16
there's a lot of travel.
47:17
I mean, I guess some
47:18
of them are made here,
47:18
but, and then, yeah, everything's just--
47:23
We need to start making them out of corn.
47:25
And then the price will go down.
47:28
Yeah, that's right.
47:30
All right, well, really cool.
47:32
Oh, and I'm not saying that you need to,
47:34
but do you have any products that you're,
47:36
new products that you're coming out with
47:37
or changes that you anticipate?
47:41
Yeah, a couple things.
47:43
We released a snowmobile kit
47:44
that fixes the paddle of the snowmobile.
47:47
Oh, interesting.
47:48
Not necessarily
47:48
relevant in the Jeep world,
47:49
but a lot of people maybe
47:50
who drive Jeep also snowmobile.
47:53
And that kit just absolutely blew up.
47:55
That's been doing really well.
47:57
We crushed it.
47:57
I mean, we released it in February.
47:59
In the month it released,
48:00
it was our best-selling kit,
48:01
which is just wild.
48:02
So in the off-road space we have,
48:04
we're working on some other stuff,
48:06
nothing like publicly yet.
48:07
I think the coolest thing right now,
48:09
we, so one of my good
48:11
friends here, his name's Brian.
48:14
He comes to the trade shows with us
48:15
and we actually worked with him
48:17
to put together a
48:19
glue tread rock crawler,
48:20
which is built on a Mighty Max frame
48:23
and it has 40 inch tires and just,
48:26
he did a great job with it.
48:28
But if you ever see
48:29
that out on the trail,
48:30
he'll have kits with them.
48:32
Then you can go up and get a kit.
48:33
It'll be one with a
48:34
kit that you can only get
48:35
if you find them on the trail.
48:37
So he'll actually be down in San Hollow,
48:40
I think next week.
48:41
I'm not sure when this will air, but he-
48:43
Poor bastard.
48:45
Yeah, I know, right?
48:46
It's tough life.
48:48
So I don't know.
48:49
Yeah, nothing like,
48:50
nothing that we're ready to release yet,
48:52
but we're always working on more stuff.
48:54
Yeah, and that's a good
48:55
way to prove the product
48:58
from people that are
48:58
stealing it, making copies of it.
49:00
I mean, patents are
49:02
fine, but like I said,
49:04
they're expensive to go after people.
49:07
Oh, real quick, Amazon
49:09
doesn't give you customer data.
49:11
How do you know whenever
49:12
they have a warranty concern
49:13
that they actually bought it?
49:16
We will get their name,
49:19
but not like any other
49:20
shipping information.
49:21
They'll get like a name and a
49:22
confirmation of their order,
49:23
but not a shipping information.
49:23
Okay, but not an
49:24
address or anything like that.
49:26
So you can't use it for advertising,
49:30
or if you want to do point
49:32
advertising, that's interesting.
49:33
Yeah, I mean, they just
49:35
protect customer data.
49:36
I mean, in some ways
49:37
as a customer of Amazon,
49:38
I'm glad they're not
49:39
giving my data to everyone else,
49:40
but on the backside of it, it's,
49:42
in our specific case, it's great.
49:44
Like most recent, like I said,
49:46
we just ship free stuff to
49:48
people, we'll improve it.
49:49
But you have to buy on our website.
49:51
If you buy on Amazon, you're kind of
49:52
like, well, good luck.
49:54
Oh, did you, just a side story here
49:56
that might affect you on shipping things.
49:58
Did you hear about Amazon has opened up
50:01
their shipping
50:02
business, their shipping planes
50:04
and 18 wheelers and to your door.
50:07
They've opened up the shipping to compete
50:09
with UPS and FedEx.
50:11
Yeah, yeah, I've heard that.
50:13
Let me actually see how that does.
50:14
I mean, we almost
50:16
exclusively use UPS now.
50:18
Sure.
50:19
Our office is like 10 yards
50:22
from a post office, a USPS,
50:24
but they lost, they were
50:26
losing such a high percentage
50:27
of our shipments that
50:28
it was more expensive.
50:29
Mistelivering over here.
50:31
Yeah, so we just went to UPS entirely
50:34
because like we had so
50:35
many people that were like,
50:36
"Hey, my stuff never showed up."
50:37
And it's like, well, the
50:38
tracking number says it didn't.
50:39
Like, I don't know, it didn't.
50:39
It's like, well, they probably lost it.
50:40
Oh God, USPS lies.
50:43
They say dropped it off
50:43
of the residence address
50:45
and I'm looking, I got cameras set up.
50:47
You'll see me glance at me occasionally
50:49
as of the security cameras.
50:50
And I know if they delivered
50:52
anything to my house or not.
50:53
And I think they have
50:55
to meet certain quotas
50:56
and I think they've been
50:57
instructed just to market
50:58
as delivery, they'll get there tomorrow.
51:01
So, you know, Congress
51:02
doesn't bitch at them or something.
51:03
But I think it's really cool.
51:04
My wife, I wanna tell my wife about that.
51:06
She goes, "Does that
51:07
mean Amazon, the delivery,
51:08
Amazon delivery thing is gonna pull up
51:10
and you may be getting
51:11
stuff from something,
51:12
somebody that's not Amazon."
51:13
And I looked it up and yeah.
51:15
So, I mean, they're out
51:17
running around anyway.
51:18
They might as well deliver for everybody.
51:20
So anyway, hopefully
51:22
that'll be good for you guys
51:24
and shipping where you
51:25
can get a more inexpensive
51:28
shipping deal.
51:30
Yeah, that'd be great.
51:31
That'd be great.
51:32
Generally, Amazon is
51:33
the worst to work with,
51:34
but hopefully they are better
51:36
when they're shipping side-in house.
51:37
Yeah.
51:38
But.
51:39
Yeah, who knows?
51:39
I mean, I've always enjoyed UPS.
51:41
I think that their
51:42
delivery is a little more,
51:43
a little higher.
51:45
Certainly whenever I
51:46
buy something from Amazon
51:47
and shipping is included,
51:49
it makes it nice that I,
51:50
I mean, even if they add
51:51
to the price of the part,
51:54
there's something psychological about
51:56
getting free shipping,
51:57
even though you know it's not free.
51:59
Yeah, that's right.
52:00
All right, something that
52:01
is free is social media.
52:03
I know you guys are
52:04
all over social media.
52:05
I remember seeing, I
52:07
haven't seen one recently,
52:08
but where you take a
52:08
knife and you stab a tire
52:11
and then repair it and
52:12
doing various other things.
52:13
So there's fun things to look at.
52:15
Working the kids who love
52:17
looking at the pictures,
52:18
where can they find
52:19
you guys on social media?
52:21
Yeah, just glutred, G-L-U-E-T-R-E-A-D.
52:24
That's Instagram,
52:25
Facebook, TikTok, you know,
52:27
you name it all.
52:29
And you guys are on Facebook?
52:31
You got it.
52:32
How about YouTube?
52:34
Yep, yep.
52:35
We have some YouTube stuff as well.
52:36
A lot of YouTube shorts.
52:37
We're gonna start doing
52:38
some longer form YouTube stuff,
52:39
but yeah.
52:40
So if somebody would like to just see
52:42
how the glutered is used
52:44
in practical environments,
52:45
I think any of those places you can look,
52:47
but certainly YouTube
52:48
is usually a longer form.
52:50
So you can go over
52:51
there and see how easy it is
52:52
to apply your product.
52:54
Yep, totally.
52:55
And you can watch me do it
52:56
or you can watch, I mean,
52:57
anymore, there's hundreds of videos
52:59
of other people doing it too, so.
53:01
So nice.
53:02
I'm glad you guys are having success,
53:04
especially if you're young of an age.
53:07
Had your dad done anything
53:09
business-wise prior to this?
53:11
Yeah, so my dad was an engineer.
53:13
This is part of where my
53:14
root of American manufacturing
53:17
comes, like my grandpa was
53:18
forced into early retirement
53:20
because all the steel mill
53:21
production went overseas.
53:23
And then my dad was a mechanical engineer
53:25
working factory
53:26
automation in those steel mills
53:27
all overseas, he lost his job.
53:29
So my dad actually, he's
53:30
like, you know, I was young.
53:31
I think I was in second
53:33
grade when that happened.
53:35
And he's like, I have to do something.
53:36
He actually started
53:36
selling health insurance.
53:37
So he started a
53:38
health insurance brokerage
53:40
after his engineering
53:42
career and then built that up
53:44
just in our hometown
53:46
and grew it and turned it
53:47
into a really nice company
53:48
with his business partner.
53:49
And then he eventually retired.
53:50
And then that's when
53:51
he and I started this.
53:51
So he had, it was a really
53:53
fun pairing of, you know,
53:55
he had his background in
53:56
engineering and in business
53:58
and I was in business and
53:59
we were able to just kind of,
54:00
yeah, go and do it together.
54:02
So awesome to have him
54:03
on at some point actually.
54:04
That'd be kind of fun.
54:05
Oh yeah, absolutely.
54:07
So the on Thanksgiving day,
54:09
do you guys actually not talk about
54:11
business, about glue?
54:13
Oh, I was gonna ask earlier, does your
54:15
dad get really happy
54:16
when he's working with the glue?
54:18
And then when he gets out
54:19
of that blue environment,
54:20
it has a crash.
54:22
Yeah, he likes sniffing it.
54:25
No, he definitely does not.
54:27
But we do talk about work all the time.
54:29
I mean, my sister runs
54:31
all of our social media
54:32
and then my dad's still very involved.
54:36
And then my mom is
54:37
actually the one that like
54:38
holds the whole thing
54:38
together and makes it all possible.
54:40
So it's like, yeah, family
54:41
dinners are often consumed by.
54:44
Is there a lot of eye
54:46
rolling and face palming?
54:47
Would you guys shut up?
54:50
Yeah, there are times
54:52
my dad loves taking,
54:53
like I said, if you call 800 number,
54:55
he'll pick up the phone.
54:56
It's, we always joke.
54:57
He'll take a call of the matter.
54:58
It'd be like Christmas
54:59
dinner and had 800 number
55:00
on the glue tray and he'll pick it up.
55:02
It's hilarious.
55:04
All right, Andy, well, let's,
55:05
I'll get Chris to send over some stuff
55:08
and we'll get your dad on.
55:09
I think that'd be fun too.
55:10
Yeah, it'd be really fun.
55:11
Especially if I get
55:11
him to tell off on you
55:12
about some of the bad
55:13
things you did in high school
55:14
and junior high.
55:16
(laughing)
55:16
There's plenty.
55:17
Yeah.
55:19
All right, man, thanks
55:19
so much for being here
55:20
and glad to get you on again.
55:22
I'm sorry, it's been so long,
55:23
but we'll reach out to you
55:25
again here in the near future
55:27
and get you back on and reach out
55:29
if you got anything new about the product
55:31
that you want to share with us.
55:34
Yeah, we really appreciate it.
55:35
And thanks for having us on again.
55:36
It's always, always fun.
55:37
Oh, we need to get your sister on too.
55:39
That'd be fun to get
55:40
all three of you guys.
55:40
Be the whole family.
55:42
Yeah, family fight.
55:45
(laughing)
55:47
Yeah, yeah, it'd be good.
55:49
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55:50
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55:53
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55:54
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55:55
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55:56
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55:57
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56:00
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