Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Skyview Tents Founder Joe Bissonnette | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 39
Transcript
- speaker-0: All right, everyone, welcome back to another incredible episode of Beyond the Trailhead. We got a great guest this week, ⁓ Joe Bissinet with Skyview Tensus here. Hey Joe. speaker-1: Hey, how's it going, Craig? speaker-0: Good. Thanks for being on. ⁓ we just really wanted to, as we basically me, ⁓ wanted to chat a little bit more with you. I came across your company, which ⁓ is called Skyview Tents, and it is a cool looking way of basically, and I don't know, correct me if I'm wrong, but ⁓ cowboy camping meets camping meets tent camping at the same time. It's like you get that cowboy camping feeling, but you're in a tent. And for everybody who loves just stargazing and everything else, it was such a cool idea. And not even that, just the ⁓ the way that you made the tent and the ⁓ way to seal out the weather and everything else. It's just very unique. So I wanted to kind of pick your brain on, you know, how you came up with the idea, ⁓ and then just kind of go from there. So I guess go ahead and just let us know a little bit about Skyview Tents, ⁓ how you came up with the idea and ⁓ your background. speaker-1: Right. So you nailed it when you mentioned cowboy camping. Our tents give you the same exact feeling as cowboy camping, but with the comfort of knowing that there's no bugs, no critters, and if weather can be detected in seconds. And the reason for that is because we developed the first ever patent pending internal rainfly system. Like some people are calling it the inside out tent. ⁓ our rainfly sits underneath the mesh. And ⁓ you can pull it to the front. In like yeah, literally a second and a half, and you're waterproof. It's it's another probably minute and a half to do all the clips and really batten the hatches from the inside, but you're doing it from the inside, right? And thank you. ⁓ the reason I made this is because I was looking for a stargazing tent, right? Like I grew up ⁓ like single wide trailer surrounded by cow farms in the northeast, spending nights on the trampoline looking up at the night sky, and I've speaker-0: So cool. speaker-1: Yeah. Always like had an affinity for the night sky. ⁓ and typically when I would go camping, I would, you know, stay outside of my tent for as long as I possibly could and then get in the tent at the very end, always with the rain fly on, because you know, out here and ⁓ in most places, especially in the mountains, it could be the most beautiful night ever, but it could very well rain very hard for like 15 minutes at two a.m. Right. So it's like so risky to sleep without the rainfly. And nobody really does. I feel like it's this very like rare coveted experience. Like sometimes I see posts on social media where someone would be like, I'm rich because I I, you know, slept without a rainfly tonight. It's like a once a season thing when the conditions are like absolutely perfect. ⁓ and so I've always been annoyed with rainflies in general. And I've also always been like a little annoyed because you know I will risk it. And it like I will be look I'll be in Moab or something looking at the forecast. It's absolutely clear all night. The stars are incredible. And everyone I'm with just puts the rainfly on when they just set the tent up. They're not even thinking about it. And I'm always the one I'm like, guys, what are you doing? This is crazy. So, anyway, that's always been going on in the back of my mind. And ⁓ it was ⁓ New Year's Eve going into 2023. ⁓ I was in Mexico, ⁓ it was late night. I was there with my girlfriend who's now my ⁓ fiance, and we were ⁓ just stargazing. And it was getting late at like it was like 4 a.m. getting late. And we had to walk back to the hotel. And I was like, man, you know, we should have brought a tent out here so we could just spend the night on the beach. Like, how incredible that would that be? Yeah. And I don't remember who said it first, but it popped into our minds like, what about a stargazing tent? Right. Yeah. Pulled my phone out, Googled it right there. And I was like, ⁓ stargazing tent. I hadn't even thought about that, right? Yeah. And so I Googled it and there was a bunch of websites, well, a handful of websites that were like best stargazing tents. Of twenty twenty two. Yeah. And they were literally just normal tents, right? And I was like, these tents all have normal rainflies and normal mesh. Like when and so I clicking on the URLs to like go to the specific, you know, ⁓ because it was like space.com, like BBC Night Sky Bag had these articles. And I was clicking on the tent specific URLs. They didn't even mention stargazing. So that's when I realized, like, hold up, like this is an opportunity. This is something that I really want that doesn't exist. Yeah. ⁓ but I knew I couldn't just make a normal tent, like I was kind of like offended that the people were calling these tents stargazing tents. I like, what do you think? These are normal tents. It's like they pulled this list out of thin air. ⁓ so I was like, I want to make a real stargazing tent. Like, what makes a stargazing tent? ⁓ and to me, the ability to stargaze like on a regular basis, yeah, not just on these super sweet spot rare occasions where weather is absolutely perfect. So I started working on. A rainfly that you could open or close from inside of the tent. ⁓ and then I and then I designed it. It took like a year and a half to come up with a design that actually worked well. ⁓ but I did, and throughout that process, I also found I tried out a ton of different meshes, and we use a mesh that is literally designed for clarity. Like you you can't see this mesh at night. It's completely invisible. It can even be windy, like the mesh can be blown around and you know, you can put your hand to it. And feel like you know, blowing around, can't see it, doesn't impact your view. That's cool. And then we use the A-frame shape for two reasons. First and foremost, because it allows the internal rainfly to function. It has to be kind of like it can't really be dome-shaped, yeah, with my design. ⁓ and because the a-frame just has a single pole in the top and a single strip of fabric that joins the mesh together. So when you're in our tents, you have this panoramic view of the night sky. Yeah. Not like a little panel. window that you're looking through, you know, it's completely immersive. You feel yeah like you're cowboy camping. We give that experience to everyone, you know, instead of once a season, it's like every night almost. You know, I've had nights where I get in the tent and it's raining. And so I close the rain fly. And then maybe 40 minutes later stops raining. Take a peek outside. It's clear. You just slide that rain fly right back. And yeah, and have this incredible experience where would I have crawled out of the tent and taken the rainfly off that was soaking wet? Yeah, exactly. Probably had to put it back on in 30 minutes. Like, no way, you know? Yeah. Even on nights like that, you still can have this like amazing experience. Yeah. speaker-0: That's so cool. I love the fact that you know, I I do that all the time where I put the rainfly on and I'm like, ⁓ man, it's nice outside now, but I'm too I'm all wrapped up or I don't want to put my shoes on or it's it's cold, so then I have to throw a whole bunch of stuff on instead of just being able to lean up in my sleeping bag and open it up and get ready to go again. So I I mean, do you have any engineering background or speaker-1: Yeah, I'm a mechanical engineer. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And I did ⁓ I did product design for like I started working at an engineering firm when I was like sixteen because I went to a grade school for drafting. ⁓ so really I guess my drafting and design started in the ninth grade because yeah what at my high school it was like it was like nine days of shop and then nine days of academics. And when shop it was just nothing but CAD, AutoCAD and stuff that works all day long. So I've been designing things forever. Ever since then I've wanted to be an inventor and I've had a billion ideas, but they're all taken. Like you every idea I've ever had, you Google it and it was like a Kickstarter fifteen years ago or something, and you're like, Yeah, never mind. The first thing I was like, internal rainfly, it was nothing, you know? Yeah. I had to go for it. It was my opportunity. speaker-0: That's wild. That's so cool. I so if someone out is out there trying to create their own product, right? And they're not a mechanical engineer, ⁓ before I get into more of your tent and stuff like that and the ups and downs of creating that creating it, ⁓ you know, if someone doesn't have a mechanical engineering background, what are like the first steps they would probably have to go through in a in an idea? Let's just say let's just keep it with tents. speaker-1: Yeah. Well, I mean, if you had some kind of like innovative idea, but you didn't know how to get it down in like CAD software and the exact dimensions and figure out everything specifically, I mean I think it would cost a little more, right? Because you'd have to you'd have to at least have like hand sketches or something to like illustrate and explain the concept. And then I think you'd have to make some kind of NDA, maybe have a lawyer make it so it's enforceable. ⁓ use like legal zoom or something to, you know, keep the costs down. You'd have to like get an NDA and then go find like a freelance designer. I don't think you need you don't need an engineer if you know if you can specify, you know, how things are laid out. What you really just need is a designer that's gonna give you the size and the dimensions of each part and really lay it out for you. And then you have to go to a prototyping shop. ⁓ so and that's what we did. We like I designed it and we went through a million different iterations, but there was a ⁓ a sewing shop in Colorado Springs called DSC Sewing, and they kind of specialize in prototypes. ⁓ and that made me feel ⁓ because when you first come up with an idea, you think like everyone is gonna steal it. And yeah, and then and and it's so funny, like in all the podcasts, the business podcasts that I listen to, they're saying, like, ⁓ don't worry about it. Nobody's gonna go through the work like you're gonna go through the work. And now I actually believe that. Now that I've been working like a hundred hours a week, it looks great. Yeah. Like nobody else would do this. You know, I mean some people would, but the random person that you know, whatever. so but anyway, ⁓ DSC sewing, they're happy with signing NDAs. So that you feel really comfortable. All their employees have NDADs because they do prototype. So yeah. Went there for like a year and a half and did all these different iterations. And I'd be like at my day job, like ⁓ like meetings and stuff, just like in her in her office. like just being at work. And then as soon as the meetings would end, I'd run out there and check on stuff. It was very like and I had to, you know, I lived like an hour and a half away from the prototyping shop. So I'd have to like And I couldn't have my coworkers know what I was doing. So I'd drive down there. Yeah. And I worked East Coast time too. So so never ending. But I worked East Coast time. So my job started at like six AM. So I'd leave Buena Vista at like four AM, get to the springs, log in, take meetings like from a Starbucks or something. Like I was like things were normal. And then eight o'clock would hit, go to the prototyping shop. ⁓ it was a grind. ⁓ but yes, yeah, that's what someone sorry, that's diverted there. That's what some speaker-0: No. speaker-1: You'd have to find a prototyping shop, they'd have to make hand sketches, they'd have to hire a designer. yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. So with the iterations that you went through then, ⁓ how how many iterations do you think you went through before you were like, Hey, I think this is it? 'Cause I know, you know, from your website and stuff like that too, I know you're on version two now of the originals. That that's right. Is that c yeah, yeah. So like how many versions did you go through before you were like and how many r nights did you go out on the trail before you're like, ⁓ this is this fly isn't working in the interior fly isn't working in so I gotta do it differently because I'm getting wet. speaker-1: Correct, yeah. Yeah. ⁓ so I spent about Well, the first the first couple iterations I actually tried to use a plastic top with an internal privacy screen. I was gonna and it was like the worst idea ever, but I'd kept it down for like a while. I was working on yeah. You had to like roll the tent up in like a gun case looking thing. It was like to not like crack the plastic. Yeah. Plastic with yellow and it wasn't even that clear. Yeah. And then I found this mesh that's like that was super invisible at night. Yeah. And that's when I was like, ⁓ this mesh is way better than the clearest plastic. So how do I how do I do it with the mesh? I had to change my internal privacy screen to an internal rainfly. Okay. First it was like a tube, it was like a dome-shaped, like tube. ⁓ with and then and then when I found the mesh, I ended up making, you know, the A-frame shape to make the internal rain fly function. Yeah. There was about four different versions and a lot of tweaks. ⁓ part of what dragged it on was DSC sewing is it was that was like really busy at the time. So I would get the latest tent, take it out, spend the night in it, start testing it. Within a couple of days I would like be ready to make some changes, but they would be able to get me in in like a month. So there was kind of like gaps in between that kind of spread the process out. Yeah. ⁓ It was it was like three or four or it was definitely at least three iterations before I landed on what we sold last year. And throughout the year, ⁓ after getting like customer feedback and testing the tents more, I yeah, like a bunch of little tweaks and changes and then like the accumulation of those tweaks and changes combined with things that I couldn't change at that time. Yeah. Like just everything we want it to be. speaker-0: Yeah. Do you think that, ⁓ well not think, but I know we had talked a few times in the past on different pods on, you know, when you get out your first generation of your product and next thing you know, you have to kind of you're you refine it, right? And your customer looks at it and goes, ⁓ now, ⁓ they give you feedback, you got a new product. It it's it's almost like they're the it's like when Tesla came out with their car, you know, and then they're Everybody's kind of being the guinea pigs, so to speak. Yeah. And not you're not treating your customers like guinea pigs, but you know, you're like, please take a risk on me and stuff like that. And then when they give you the feedback, you're like, ⁓ I have to tweak this. What were some things that you found in the f between the first gen and second gen that were like big ⁓ no's? speaker-1: Yeah, so this is very amateur ish and I hate to say this out loud, but when I designed the first gen tent, it was really like a fair weather tent, right? I had narrow taken it out on clear nights to like really and I really wanted to make sure like the stargazing experience was amazing and I wanted to make sure the rain fly was fast, but I hadn't taken it out on very many like nasty weathered nights. And it was clear on the website that this is a fair weather tent, but people kept taking them out in like gnarly weather. And I realized really quickly that like, no, I cannot have a tent that is like I can't I I didn't want to have a fair weather stargazing tent. I wanted to have just like a bomb proof tent that could handle like anything. So we made little tweaks and changes throughout the season to kind of like secure the rain fly down better. But it still wasn't really what I wanted it to be. Even at the end of the season, it was still a fair weather tent. But there was a lot of people, you know, that were just taking it out in in crazy condition. So what I what I did this winter was just change the design to really build it so it can handle anything. ⁓ I added like an internal cross brace to the inside of the rain fly that you can rig up really quickly. I added these connection points that Hold down the tr the base track that the rain fly runs across. I added a ton of ventilation, knowing that like, ⁓ people need to be able to spend like days in this in a rainstorm and not get stuffy in there. ⁓ I added dual vestibules. So when it is rainy, people can, you know, keep their muddy gear outside. Also, the dual vestibules allowed us to have like mostly mesh doors for better airflow. ⁓ and then I took our gen two prototype, which was like the culmination of everything I wanted to do in Gen One and the little tweaks that we made. And I took it to the coast of Oregon for five days this December during the monsoon season. And ⁓ it was at actually during like the atmospheric river. And I was in Lincoln, Oregon on the coast getting absolutely dumped on for five days straight. Just like rain like I've never experienced ⁓ found a couple little things that we wanted to tweak like where the where the pocket was sewn in, it was interfering with the seam tape. So it was a fruitful ⁓ trip because I was able to tweak them some things. But overall, aside from that pocket issue, it was perfectly fine. So now it's like when people ask, ⁓ well, what if it's raining like really heavily? It doesn't matter. Like ⁓ this could take a monsoon, right? And then last year also because I was so focused on the stargazing aspect And I just didn't have it out on as many nasty nights as I had wanted to. My focus also this winter was testing it in the wind. So yeah, in Buena Vista, where I live, I'm I'm like a mile away from the base of a 14,000 foot mountain, and we have really crazy winds in this town. Like actually saying the word wind, it's like a it's like a a ⁓ taboo in this town. People call it the view word, right? And This December we had crazy winds. Like the there's still a bunch of neighbors across the street that have like fences that are knocked over. ⁓ we had like house shaking winds. And so I had the tents, the gen two tents set up for like a couple months in my backyard under those conditions. And I was just like, Where is it gonna fail? You know, I need to find out where it's gonna fail so I can reinforce those areas. But nothing failed. Like we like over built the hell out of these tents. They're not like these aren't super light. Like our backpacker is not a through hiker at all. It's definitely like take it up to a mountain lake for a couple of days, have the most incredible experience ever. But it's you know, it they're really built to last forever and to handle like any weather. That was kind of my main priority this year after being like kind of insecure about its bad weather performance last year. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I I think you you nailed it on the head with the the weight thing and stuff like that at the end there too. That like it it every tent has its purpose, right? Yeah. And so I'm okay sometimes with carrying some extra weight when I go hiking because I know I'm gonna have a really good experience, right? Like like you said with the lake. There was ⁓ where was I I had a a Mount Whitney permit and we were gonna stay up on the lake for a couple of days. We ended up changing our plans, but Going up there, I was like, ⁓ I'll be able to stay up there. I'm gonna take a ⁓ an inflatable raft up there with me and just go out on the lake and just chill and everything else. And it would have been so cool to be able to sit up on the stars. And it's it's not like you say it's heavy, but it's not that heavy. You know, it's not like, you know, it's ⁓ what for the two person it's like five and a half. speaker-1: Yeah, right. It's the same weight as REI half to him too, right? It's like it's like it was like kind of industry standard, like aside from the ultralight industry, yeah, a couple of years ago. And that is our two person tent. So I mean if you someone if you split the poles and the stakes and the tent itself, yeah, ⁓ then that's ⁓ you know, like two and a quarter pounds and three and a three and a quarter pounds. It's it's brilliant. It's not crazy. ⁓ it's yeah, you can totally do, you know, five, six, even like ten days with this thing with ten two people. but That is like the biggest comment that we get from people who are like, ⁓ if it's not 14 ounces, like I'm not into all right. It's not for like the PCT, man. Yeah. Like and it creates this incredible experience and you're just blended by the weight to like what we're actually doing here. Because I mean, literally like after people spend the night in our tents, they're like, I get so many emails, people are like, This is the only thing I want to use from now on. Like, this is Yeah. Incredible to have this experience. Just like people are really hung up on the weight. Makes me self conscious about the weight. So I'm like, ⁓ it's something for me, but it's it's not that bad. speaker-0: It's like it's they're like body shaming you but they're tent shaming you instead. speaker-1: Well yeah, yeah. I was like, man, you know, I just I wanted a tent that's gonna last like forever. It's forty denier, it's got a heavy waterproof coating, ⁓ but it's strong, you know. And that and that was another thing. Like I when I I don't have like a whole R and D team, right? So I'm like I might as well just over like people know what the weight is when they buy it. I'm overbuilding it, so it's super strong. I'd rather It people be like, ⁓ it's like a pound heavier than I'd want it to be, but like yeah, be super secure when they're in it. speaker-0: Yeah. When ⁓ when you were sourcing the the mesh, 'cause I have a I have one tent that I use ⁓ that I won't put the fly on sometimes, but that they use a like a white type of a mesh on part of it and then a black part of a mesh, and I'm like, no, can you just make the whole thing this? I don't understand like I guess it's more of a trying to be a little bit of a privacy thing or something, but I I'm like I wanna see out, especially as a photographer. I'm like, man. I wanna see everything because that would be great to do a shot inside the tent, but you're only gonna see this like one little triangle part versus yours. Like the pictures online are so cool because I'm like ⁓ man, I I I can't wait to see that mesh in person because it just seems like it seems like such a dream to be able to just lay there and see out like that. So did you have problems f like finding that mesh or or where did you source it speaker-1: I tried a ton of different meshes. Yeah. ⁓ last year I was using in a ⁓ so last year we were selling the tents up ourselves too. Yeah. ⁓ and so I was using Piper ⁓ Ultra View two mesh. It's like designed for upscale houses and like screened enclosures and it's designed for clarity. ⁓ but it was like forty dollars a tent in mesh, like at wholesale pricing. It was like insane. And then last year also, you know, the the whole local fabrication in a small town. ⁓ it was hard to hire anybody, couldn't keep up with orders. So we couldn't keep doing that. So I went out and I found a factory and I gave them samples of this mesh and I had them send me a bunch of like, you know, a bunch of their options and I found basically something that was extremely similar, but not forty dollars a tent. ⁓ it's all black and it has like a ton of air transmission. It doesn't get stuffy at all. You really just you feel like you're outside. speaker-0: Yeah, that's cool. So I guess running into the business side of things now, now that you're going from working a job to running this business and stuff like that, what are some hurdles that you've found as you're just kind of like getting into the grind? Because you've only been, you know, you've only been in business for a couple of years, right? So I'm sure you're like, ⁓ man, this this sucks. I needed to do this. You know, what what's your process? speaker-1: Well, I think the biggest hurdle was probably the local fabrication. ⁓ so last year, you know, I had this vision of just starting this like beautiful factory and doing like profit shares with employees and like employee ownership and like having these long term people that were super excited to have a cool job and be making an incredible product. But what actually happened was I couldn't hire anybody. Like I had a handful of high school students that had no sewing experience. And and there was and then me and they also another like not a problem with this town, but there's a there's a lot of money in this town. And yeah, like when I was growing up, when I was in high school, I worked 30 hours a week. Like the second I turned 16, it was like 30 hours a week. And then the second like summer started, it was like full time plus. ⁓ and everyone that I was able to hire. in our town wanted to work, you know, five hours a week, ten hours a week. There's a football game or something. Like they're not showing up. And you know, so I ended up personally sewing sewing 80 hours a week on top of trying to trying to like run the business and do all the I don't know, like pay sales tax and keep the we have a little brick and mortar, like run the store, respond to emails and like even you know, I didn't have time to do anything other than sew. So that was like the biggest thing. Last year I just had like my hands tied behind my back. I couldn't focus on marketing at all. I was spending all my time sewing. And then I was really like surprised by how long it took to actually make the tents too. Like it was I mean I was we were losing money on every single tent last year. ⁓ so so I basically like blew my whole bootstrapped you know savings that I used to start the business. And we sold enough tents. Like we were selling tents faster than we could make them. It was like we had a really gr amazing response and really great reviews. ⁓ but at the end of the year I had zero money left. So then I was like frantically pitching to investors. ⁓ and it was just, you know, it was a stressful, stressful time. ⁓ but yeah, we did find the investors and it's and it's awesome too, because they're not like big evil corporations. It's like three people that are local and just you know high net worth, really cool people that are s excited about what we're doing. Yeah. And so we brought them on and that allowed me to regroup, like find a factory, improve the design, stop sewing. We stopped selling for like six months and just focused on like quality and RD. Yeah. and then Now we have tents in inventory and we just got tents in inventory like a month ago. And ⁓ cool. Now we're you know, they're selling ⁓ fast. speaker-0: Yeah. So getting that's I I guess that would be a hard decision to make, right? Is like, hey, okay, we need to do R and D a little bit more, tweak things, we gotta get stock, and so let's just stop selling for six months. So did you still I'm assuming you would still get emails from people, right, saying like, Hey, can when's it gonna be in stock? And then, you know, what's your what's your answer to people? speaker-1: Well, we took pre orders. So it was like my website's actually like really beautiful now. We've really, like, really improved it this year. But last year my website was just like cell phone photos and it looked like it was made in somebody's basement. ⁓ it already like was kind of a cheap looking website. So I like uploaded models of what I thought the Gen 2 was gonna look like. And yeah, just put a pre-order for ten percent down up on the website so people were able to lock in their tents. Yeah. ⁓ and so we were able to kind of keep people signing up and keep people purchasing tents. ⁓ and we gave, you know, I always in my something in my career, like it a a a good saying was always like underpromise and over deliver. Yes. So I didn't I wasn't like unrealistic with when the tents would be in. I knew it was gonna be like in the middle of spring. Or I knew it could be in the middle of spring. So yeah. I was realistic about when they were gonna be available. And so I didn't really get much, much grief ⁓ from yeah from anybody really. The customers were I think, you know, the customers that we have are really excited about what we're making because it's something that they have been like missing in their life. It's not just a new gadget. It's something that they're like, ⁓ my gosh, like I need this and this is gonna give me the most incredible experience. Yeah. And so the You know, there's a lot of grace with the customers, no no problems. speaker-0: Yeah. When ⁓ I guess going back to what you had said earlier too, when you were getting investors and everything, it's funny because people will look at a c a business, right? And I say this a lot that you'll have people on Shark Tank and they'll be like, I am doing a million dollars in sales, but we're still negative, you know? And people will look at it and see a website and see your ads and everything else and think, ⁓ they're doing great. And not that not that Every company's like this, right? But there's a lot of people when you start the business, you realize you're you only have a certain amount of cash and so you're now having to go to investors. So ⁓ if if someone's out there creating their business and stuff like that and they're trying to find investors, what were your steps to going in and getting investors and and everything else? Or what was your strategy? speaker-1: So there is a organization called Startup Colorado ⁓ that I found or they found me. I'm not really sure how it happened, but they offered a bunch of like classes, ⁓ also a pitch competition, and they also connected me with ⁓ an angel investment group in the okay kind of like the area that I live in. So it was it was pretty much like a shark tank for Like our small town, you know, a c a combination of like a couple small towns in the area. ⁓ and what I would recommend is if you think you need to raise money, do it long before you need it because it takes time and and you don't want to be desperate during negotiations. You don't want to be like, I don't care what the terms are, I need this money like right now. You know, you want yeah, some leverage. ⁓ so yeah, don't don't wait till the last minute. And ⁓ I can only speak for my area, but if you Google whatever state you're in and like angel investing groups, they're they're probably everywhere. speaker-0: Yeah. That's cool. I think that was a great point is that you have to do it early before you get desperate. Cause then next thing you know, you're giving away a huge chunk of your business or you're taking crazy loan percentages that you're just like never gonna be able to pay back. It's gonna take for forever. You know, like Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank, he's always like he sees the desperation, so he's like, All right, I want two dollars on every sale. Yeah. For forever. Yeah, sharks. And he's like and Yeah, and then they'll they'll take it because they're like, you know what? At least I'm making sometimes I sit there and I'm like, You're hemorrhaging money, just take it. Please just take it, you know? Yeah, it's it's wild. So ⁓ I guess my next question then is you know, since you've been No quite. speaker-1: No, no, go for it. I was just saying it's like you know, it's like it's like you can you can take this money and stay in business or you could not take it and lose probably your whole life savings that you invested in this thing. So it's like yeah, do feel incredibly desperate. I didn't have a negative investor in experience. Like our investors are amazing and I feel like I gotta get the deal. But I was like pressed. It was like, yeah, I was like, I need to get this done actually like next month, or else I'm not gonna be able to. pay my mortgage and I'm gonna be able to pay the rent on this building. It was yeah it was tight. It was super scary. speaker-0: I always tell people I'm so proud of them for being like super risk takers because I I wouldn't be able to take that risk. And I I'm like I'm like, okay, I'm living vicariously through all the crazy stuff that that you guys do when you start your companies and stuff like that. So I guess my next question then is kind of going from that to now that you've had your company running for a while and everything else, you know, how do you stay connected to the outdoors? Knowing that like, hey, and maybe now you have a little more time 'cause you're now you're at a factory position, factory point, versus like you were saying earlier where you're just sewing like crazy and trying to take care of everything. So how do you stay connected to the outdoors still? speaker-1: Walking to and from the shop a lot of times. ⁓ it's still so this is our first batch with an outside factory. And I'm kind of like a perfectionist and I probably don't even need to do these things, but there's a couple little things that I tweak on every single tent. We're not gonna do this on the next batches. ⁓ I still set I still take out each tent, make a couple of little sewing reinforcements. ⁓ wow set it up, take it down, box it up. So I'm still yeah. on the grind. like I was last year at this point with you know cause orders are picking up. Yeah. ⁓ but what I do is I walk to and from the shop. I walk my dog to and from the shop ⁓ quite a bit. And I often come home at night. So I walk home at night and there's like no street lights like in my neighborhood and stuff. So I have that time to like just kind of walk underneath the stars and that really like keeps me inspired to keep creating these incredible experiences. But my, you know, my my the amount of time that I spend in nature, you know, I can't wait to when the business is a little less hands on and I can and I can spend an equivalent amount of time in nature, at least to what I used to. But right now it's limited. Like I I get out climbing, maybe like I'll maybe get out climbing like four times this year and maybe reading like four times and it used to be like every day, you know. but but really just that walking to and from, you know, kinda helps to clear my mind a little bit and at least be outside and not just in the warehouse all the time. speaker-0: I w you know, kind of going back to what you were talking about, taking the tents out and doing those tweaks and stuff like that. So what's what's your overall like experience with finally having to work with a factory and what are some like maybe some I mean you kinda said the good points, right? That you're saving the ti your time and stuff like that, but what are some pain points that you think you're you're running into or kind of learning? Things you've learned so far? speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ so overall, ⁓ it's funny overall quality is like way, way, way better than it was. Quality is like excellent now. The design is way better than it was last year. It's funny, ⁓ and I'll I'll get to that in a second. But like sometimes when people hear, ⁓ you're not sewing them up yourselves anymore, like, how's quality? I'm like, I taught myself how to sew when I sewed and I had a bunch of 16 year olds working for me that like learned how to sew on the fly. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, quality like The factory, they all they do is make tents. Like they're what I mean. Like they're it's way better. ⁓ but there is a couple little tweaks that ⁓ that I'm making just reinforcing some things. I think that you know, I don't really know how I would even avoid this because what they do is you work with them, they make like a pre-production sample, you check it out, but they're like they're like master. Sower person is like picking that sample, like everything is perfect. And then when the bulk production happens, which I was at the factory for, but like when it happens, it's you know, it's a it's a now it's like an assembly line. And there and there's just a couple areas that I wish were reinforced a little bit more. Yeah. I don't know how I could have even found those areas before bulk production because yeah, it wasn't like on the sample. So now it's like Now I know exactly what they need to reinforce. They know what they need to reinforce next time. But like when you release a new product, I don't know. I think the I think the trick is to like probably have them do a bulk run as low quantity as you possibly can do. Yeah. Even if you have to pay a good amount more for it, keep that quantity down. And then you can really see what it's like when they're running the whole assembly line. Yeah. If you need to make some changes, it's not to like Hundreds and hundreds of tents, you know. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I can only imagine you sitting sitting there at your office, like taking a one out, putting it up and then like reinforcing those spots and then putting them all back and stuff like that. But you can put that on your website. It I it's I hand touch everything, you know? Kinda like Apple, they always say it's like assembled in California, but everything else is really just made in Taiwan or or wherever and stuff like that. So but no, that's a great point. Like people think that, ⁓ they and and it's It's okay that you wanna have people you support people who are like creating the product in their basement and sewing it themselves. But to your point, they those are the professional sewers that all they do is sew every day. They've been sewing for years. And what you said, like you have sixteen year olds that basically learn now from you to sew. Yeah. And there's only so much you can do. so I mean I think that's a really good point. It's like people just think the quality goes down when you go out to a factory. Yeah. But a lot of times it takes the quality up because you're taking it to the professional speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. The quality went way up. And then our tents too are like very complex to make the internal rainfly work. There's a lot of overlapping and underlapping materials. Once once it's together and once it's all like set up, it's super easy to it's like when the customer gets a tent, it's like the easiest tent ever to set. Yeah. It's the A-frame stream. You set it up in like a minute. When you set it up, the rain flies already tucked in the back, ready to go. So to operate. Easiest tent ever, but to build it with all the underlapping and overlapping parts, it's like a complicated process. It's a little yeah, a lot more in depth than a typical tent. 'Cause it's like it's like an an assembly. You know what I mean? Like yeah, like a dynamic assembly with the rain. Yeah. So yeah, it it had to be done. We, you know, losing money on every single tent. So speaker-0: So where do you see your company maybe in five years from now? speaker-1: I see us in stores beside beside Nemo, beside all the other ten speaker-0: ⁓ I forgot I was I was wearing a Nemo hat the whole thing while I'm talking to you about tents. speaker-1: ⁓ yeah, I I see us in stores all over the country. And the reason for that, the reason why we have to get in the stores is because right now, you know, we cannot compete for advertising spend for tents, right? Because we're about above up a bunch of like of other businesses that are doing like millions and millions in revenue every single year. So I could spend I could blow my entire budget trying to get the keyword tent and not a single person would see it. So we get if someone's looking for a stargazing tent, they find us right away. Those are the only people that find us. Those people, when they find us, we have a really high conversion rate because we make exactly what they're looking for. Right. Yeah. But we also need to get our tents in front of everyone that's just looking for a tent. Because people that are looking for a tent that didn't know they wanted a stargazing tent, a lot of them still want our tent when they hear about it. Yeah. And know that because we have a brick and mortar. And nobody knows what Skyview tents is when they walk into it, especially last year. We had zero brand recognition. So people will walk in just per kind of perusing and they'd be like, What's this? You know, and I'd tell them about it. Yeah. And they would like if 10 people walked into my store, someone was buying a tent. And and the crazy thing is that like these weren't people that are walking around looking to buy a tent. They're just kind of like perusing, you know. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. And so I know that when we get in the stores, And people are, you know, shopping for a tent, and they're like, ⁓ you know, dome tents, you know, dome tent, dome tent, dome tent, all the same, maybe the the differentiated by a couple ounces, a couple cubic inches, ⁓ and then our tent. And they're like, Whoa, like this is completely different. This has an inch rain fly. This allows you to like sleep under the stars. This is like the create this incredible experience. When we get in the stores all over the country. We'll be selling tents, even to people that are just walking around looking for tents. Yeah. That's ultimately the goal. We just got into our first stores. ⁓ like yesterday. ⁓ I started re I start actually, it's funny, I started reaching out yesterday morning and already we got a like a mom and pop shop in Breck ⁓ that is like, heck yeah, these look awesome. ⁓ so you know, this is just the very start, but we're starting with mom and pop shops all over the Countries starting really specifically in like dark sky areas. ⁓ and then hopefully, you know, scaling into the bigger chains with time. speaker-0: Yeah. No, I think it's so cool. I I think yeah, it's one of those things when you see it, you're like, ⁓ my gosh, I need to have that 'cause it's I don't think it's necessarily not it's not hard to convey online from w I mean from a visual side for me, I I looked at it and was like, ⁓ this is cool. But I was like, like you're telling me it's like invisible and like how dark is it really, right? Like how or how how can I see through it really? 'Cause I've seen enough tents to go ⁓ it's probably just about this dark. But like from what you're telling me, it's like you really are just gonna be like w it wow when when you experience it, you know. speaker-1: The mesh is so clear that, you know, all I do all day long on social media is talk about how incredible our tents are for stargazing. And we're always posting photos, pull photos, like no like nice slop, crap, like pictures from inside the tent. And they're all incredible, right? And even after that, when c I get emails from customers all the time, they're like, ⁓ my gosh, I could not believe how incredible this was to be in. Like, you actually can't see the mesh. And I'm like, I know. I say it a thousand times. You know, but nobody really believes it. And that is just a testament to how clear it is that even with that, like that like unabashed marketing, like, no, this is the clearest mesh ever. This is gonna blow your mind, like setting expectations super high. Even with that, people are constantly like, I can't believe how incredible this thing was. speaker-0: Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool. So I guess kind of winding down and stuff like that, what advice would you give for someone, you know, at the trailhead at the start of their business? You know, since you're fairly fresh, what what would you give advice for them if they're coming up with their idea or they're starting their business? What are a few things? speaker-1: well, my advice, I guess, would be to hold on to your job as long as you can, right? Like manage both at the same time. Cause I yeah I was like so gung ho to quit my job and I was like, this is the most amazing product. Like sales are gonna be incredible right off the bat. Yeah. And it takes time. Like the f I also thought that when you make a website, like people just see it. right away, right? It's like, ⁓ like I'm gonna make this website. People ever it's gonna be thousands of people a day are gonna see it. And it was like for the first six months, I swear like the only people on our website was me. Like I would be on it like day long making little tweaks and changes and looking at stuff. And then I would look at our traffic at the end of the day and it'd be like, ⁓ like 16 people were on the website today. I'm like shit like that that I'm pretty sure every single site was maybe So it was like it was a slow process. And it was like, yeah, I would it was a lot of like SEO work and making blog posts and then ⁓ and reaching out to other companies and trying to do guest blog posts. ⁓ we brought on a ⁓ a fractional CMO right from the beginning, like four hours of ⁓ cool. ⁓ we didn't have money for paid ads, but we had money for just Four hours a week, our CMO is like primarily a PR guy too. So he was doing like all the blog posts and reaching out to websites. And after like maybe, you know, six months, we started to like really show up to people. And then we started to well, actually, things were pretty dire and scary. ⁓ and then Gear Junkie mentioned us. Just mentioned, like, hey, there's this new company in Buena Vista. They're making stargazing tents. It wasn't even a review. They are doing a review right now. ⁓ but it wasn't even a review. It was literally a mention. And we had like 10,000 people on the website like that day. It was like crazy. Wow. And then and then what happened is this like spiral of PR went down. It was like New Atlas wrote an article about us like a couple of days later, and I didn't even like pitch anything to them. It was just like The stargazing tent and about the internal rainfly. And then there was this cycle of like every day almost a new website was writing about us. And like I would be Googling us and be like, Holy shit, there's another article, you know. Yeah. ⁓ and then that really like increased our web traffic and awareness. And then we started getting sales. And that was like when my bank account was like almost at nothing. And then we had a ton of sales. That was like last June. ⁓ that really so what I would recommend. Is to hold on to the day job as long as you possibly can and figure out the fabrication process before you dive in. I kind of like quit my job while I was waiting for materials and sewing machines to show up, right? And I was like innovating our showroom and I was working on laying out the factory, and then the materials show up, and I'm like, ⁓ my god, it takes me 10 hours to make a tent. Like, how is how am I gonna do this? Right. And so Dial in production, whether it's overseas or whether you're doing it yourself, hold on to that job as long as you possibly can. Really focus on blog posts and SEO. Also, you need a niche. Like if we didn't have a niche, if I was just making another tent that was a home tent with a new name on it, we wouldn't have got all that press. And that press is really what like saved us and kind of put us on the map. So you need a niche. Unless you're crazy rich and you can afford to add spend like n like the big dogs, you need something that makes your tent super special or your product super special and you need to blog, blog, blog, and guest blog, and then you'll start showing up on Google. But I remember like three months in, I could Google like stargazing tents, Colorado, and we'd be on like page six. And I was like, ⁓ my gosh, what is going on? Like it's this is crazy. Like I had to type in like Buena Vista, Colorado, Stargazing Tent, Inflow Rainfly. And then maybe we'd be on the first page, you know? Yeah. And now it's like you Google Stargazing 10, where the first thing that pops up, like even with paid ads, AI, everything's like, yeah, just, you know, they know that we we're the only ones that are really making a tent specifically designed for this. So, you know, now we got there, now we get healthy web traffic and a lot of orders, but it takes time. When I started this business, I was like, I had these like grandiose visions, you know, where I was like, ⁓ It's just gonna explode. We're gonna go viral. And it was like, No, man, it's like very very slow kind of like uphill grind. speaker-0: Yeah. I feel like the people who have that slow grind too, they're that slow ⁓ growth, they do a lot better because they their business grows healthier. I mean it's just like a tree or anything else, right? It it grows slowly, it's gonna have strength and it's gonna grow better. But when you have that instant thing, it can get to your head, or you can now not fulfill orders because you just have way too many orders. Yeah. All those things can just actually tank a business. even more so than not having any finances and stuff like that. So I mean that's that's really good. speaker-1: Andrew, also at that point you're selling your, you know, your gen one. You know what I mean? You're basically selling your prototype. And like no matter how good you think your prototype is, once it gets out to a couple hundred people, like you're gonna have some comments and things that you wanna change. And now we had great reviews last year. Like people loved Mortense last year, but But if I had I I wouldn't I wouldn't want thousands of those tents out there. You know what I mean? I want thousands of our current tent out there. Yeah. ⁓ because we've really perfected the design now. So a couple hundred out there of the gen ones in the wilderness, like that's you know, that's good enough for me. I'm happy that it's not ten thousand or something crazy. speaker-0: That's awesome. Well, thank you for all that insight and everything else into, you know, and being transparent too. Cause I think when you're transparent, it really helps everybody who's listening, who's in the business, kind of help grow their business. And then you know, people who are listening right now too that are just interested in your tent and everything else, ⁓ they're like, ⁓ my gosh, I understand it now a little bit more and everything. So I guess before we go into our kind of rapid fire round, if people are looking for Skyview tents, where can we find you guys online and on social speaker-1: SkyviewTents dot com and we're primarily on Instagram at SkyviewTents. we have a lot of really cool stargazing content on there. Tons of photos from inside of the tent, just like beautiful Milky Way photos. ⁓ it's really like a you know astrophotography page almost. do some, you know, skits and videos and stuff. ⁓ I haven't figured out how to use TikTok yet. I tried, but like I just can't speaker-0: You're good. Okay, cool. Well, I guess ⁓ we'll just go and quick in the rapid fire around this just to get to know you a little bit more and everything. And ⁓ so without further ado, ⁓ first question is your favorite national park? speaker-1: Ooh, favorite national park, Zion. speaker-0: Really? Okay. So that is speaker-1: It's the desert. And I love I love those steep walls. I mean Zion's just amazing. ⁓ speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ do you ever watch ⁓ I'm sure you watch YouTube, but like I just watched a video of Eric Hansen ⁓ going on this trek and these huge steep walls he did this pack rafting trip ⁓ in Mexico. Okay. That is like incredible. And I'm like, ⁓ that's a huge bucket list now. It's just these massive walls and you're going in this pack raft, and I'm like, This just seems like a movie, you know. ⁓ also speaker-1: Okay. Climbing would be the coolest thing ever. Yeah, please send that. speaker-0: All right, now next is coffee or electrolyte drinks on the trail. speaker-1: Both both have their place. I mean the electrolyte drinks in the morning definitely are key. But if I don't have my like powdered coffee, you know, ⁓ at some point during the day, I'm just not having a good time. In the morning the electrolyte, so I'm always a little dehydrated, so speaker-0: ⁓ this is a question I always ask everybody, but it'll be interesting to say what you say then. Tent, hammock, or cowboy camping? speaker-1: ⁓ well pre-Skyview tense, I would say cowboy camping. ⁓ post-Skyview tense, tent camping, because I feel like cowboy camping, but I don't have to worry about scorpions. speaker-0: Yeah. All right. ⁓ f ⁓ let's see. One one app you can't live without for for work. speaker-1: ⁓ hmm. Well, Shopify. Yeah. Couldn't live without Shopify. Yeah. ⁓ and then I would say like Instagram, you know, we reach a lot of people on Instagram and we get to have a lot of interactions with customers on Instagram. And definitely I've found that our like repeat customers, people that have bought Gen 1 and 2, or the Bank Packer and the XL, are people that we like speaker-0: ⁓ yeah. speaker-1: Or people that comments and we get to respond to and like actually interact with. So both of them are super key to my business. speaker-0: ⁓ what's your favorite trail snack? speaker-1: I love beef jerky. Love beef jerky. Yeah. I and and because I have a store, I get beef jerky for fifty percent off. I buy it like wholesale for the shop and eat it myself. ⁓ so I have like an infinite significant half price jerky. speaker-0: Okay, then what's your worst or least favorite trail snack you've ever tried? speaker-1: ⁓ you know, I don't want to do this to them, but cliff bars and and I only say that because I've had like thousands of them and I still get them all the time because they're usually like the cheapest thing at the grocery store. Yeah. ⁓ but I've just overdone them so much. They're great. Yeah, they're great company. ⁓ but but yeah, I've just, you know, every time I get them, I'm like, ⁓ my god, Cliff Bar number five thousand. Like speaker-0: I saw I I ⁓ I was at a trade show and I ran into the Cliff Bar team and I had kind of never like sworn off eating cliff bars, but then I I was like, you know, it's been how many years? I'm sure they've tweaked it and stuff like that. And I was actually surprised with the sample that I got. I didn't I was one of those samples that they gave me a bar and I didn't eat it for like I don't know, a few weeks, and then I was like, ⁓ let me just go ahead and eat this because I have it and I'll just use it. And I and I wasn't on the trail, so it doesn't have that extra like elevated trail flavor factor. ⁓ it was just like at home and I was like, ⁓ they've done something different. I don't know if it's just this bar, but I was like, Okay, I'll give them another chance now. But yeah like speaker-1: Bad, they're not bad. Like, I'm not even trying to dog on them. Like, I get the reason I say that is because I always get cliff bars. You know what I mean? I've just had so many of them. it's a great product, yeah, affordable, it gives you energy, like, and they don't even taste bad. It's literally just, you know what I mean, repetition. Yeah. speaker-0: You're just overdone with it. Yeah. ⁓ all right. This one's always a good one. If you could collab with any brand, who would it be and why? speaker-1: No, no, no. That's a tricky one. ⁓ it would probably be it would probably be C Star or Dwarf. They make astrophotography equipment. I don't even know if I would, you know, partner with another camping company because I don't have any interest in licensing the rank fly. ⁓ and I kind of want to hold that tight, but I would partner with in astrophotography, like the C Star and the Dwarf with these two little devices. That make deep space astrophotography like pretty easy for anybody. And our tents allow you to, you know, hike up to that mountain lake, get really far away from light pollution and setting it there would be incredible. And I think like that collaboration would also give us a lot of social credit in the astronomy industry. And it would just be be awesome. So yeah, dwarf or or sea star. I think yeah, Celestron makes Sea Star. ⁓ and dwarf labs makes dwarf, either one of those, I would love to partner with them. speaker-0: I could totally see your tent being set up in like B and H photos ⁓ store in New York City, like with the ph photography stuff. Cause I was in this I was at the store like a few months ago and I was like, ⁓ they should totally have this and this. I'm like, ⁓ that I could totally see that a display like that. That would be ⁓ All right. And then last question is ⁓ your favorite way to unplug? speaker-1: rafting and plumbing. I don't get to do it as much. But like that is really, you know, I struggle with being present currently because I'm always thinking about ⁓ the business next month or the business in five years, like and that's really on my mind all the time. But when you're flying down a river trying to stay out of holes and when you're you know clinging to the wall on the shark and then like you your mind is just completely clear. So I always feel best after those activities and I think it is because I'm completely present, you know, for that period of time. Those things, you know, they kind of keep me sane. And I I didn't get to do them very often now. So, you know, maybe I'm I'm as sane as I used to be. ⁓ but and it is my way to really, you know, feel free. speaker-0: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, I mean Joe, thank you so much for being on. I really appreciate you again with your open and ⁓ open and honesty, just with everything, and look forward to seeing you ⁓ in Colorado sometime. and I appreciate everybody who's listening and we'll see you next time. Thanks so much, Joe. speaker-1: Thank you, Craig. Let me know when you're out here. speaker-0: Yeah, right.