Latest / Never Apologize Podcast / Ep. 4 MAGNITE replacing Carbon Bows? Inside Xpedition’s NEW Nexlite Bow | Never Apologize Podcast

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Ep. 4 MAGNITE replacing Carbon Bows? Inside Xpedition’s NEW Nexlite Bow | Never Apologize Podcast · Never Apologize Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for this blessing out here, enjoying your creation.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this weather.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for our friends and family that we're able to enjoy this with.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let us have fun, save hunt.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: In your name we pray.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_02: Never, never, never, ever.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'll death.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_07: Alright, well, guys, we are here and we are kicking off episode number four of the Never Apologize podcast.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_07: Mark, this is starting to go pretty quick here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_07: What is this one?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_07: Well, not this one.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_07: We're moving on our podcast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_07: We're already up to episode four.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_07: And tonight we have a special guest.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_07: This guy's near and dear uh to our hearts.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_07: Um, we have Jason Fogg, the general manager of Expedition Archery, the guy that really gets things done at Expedition Archery.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_07: Shout out to Brady Arview.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say a general manager might not it might be actually the perfect title.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: You're because you're basically in charge of everything.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_05: I put my hands in a lot of places for sure.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have come a long way, and and I don't mean that in a uh uh disrespectful way, but I mean it in the most complimentary way.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: You have come a long way in the last two or three years now from just being an engineer and changing the way we do business to now basically running the whole thing.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Again, sorry, Brady, but you know.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_05: And it's been a ton of fun.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_05: There's some fantastic people that work at Expedition.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's a fun environment.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_05: It's also super fun to be back in the industry.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_05: I took a little sabbatical and played with some crossbows for a few years there.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_05: Ouch.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_07: There you go.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_05: Saw the light and came back to the into the into the side of the world.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_05: And it's been awesome.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_05: More to come on that.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, no, nice play there on words.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_07: I like that.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_07: Um, well, I think it's pretty like it would be good for us to talk about um, you know, Mark, if you don't mind, kind of your connection to Expedition, how the company is now up and rolling, you know, where it came from.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_07: Because I'll tell you, man, like as a passionate bow hunter and an archery geek and a guy that worked in the industry, when Expedition first hit the marketplace, um, it was a South Dakota company and it was aerospace engineering, and they were doing this as a side gig, and it it had a lot of steam for about two, three years, and then it disappeared.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_07: And about a year after that is where you came along and had a an opportunity, and we're all here because of that now.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_07: Um at the end of the day, the majority of us, not all of us, Tyler, Kenneth, we're here already, but the majority of us kind of spawned off of that initial step.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it was kind of a uh a weird thing, you know.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: I get a call from a friend of a friend, and I won't make the story long because it we don't have enough time for the whole story, but friend of a friend calls and says, uh, I and you're really getting into this outdoor stuff now as a hobby, semi-retired from you know real business, which isn't ask my wife, it's still 60, 70 hours a week, right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, there's this archery company called Expedition.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: I said, I never heard of it, and I really truly didn't at that stage, you know, wasn't a a tech or a geek, you know, as far as the technology goes on bows.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, There's this company for sale.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Well, I yeah, I what do I I I can't do an archery company, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Not ready for that.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: And called back about two weeks later, and he says, Well, they're they're they're not really selling, but they'll do an asset sale.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Well, let me look at it, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: So make a few phone calls.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, we talked to some people we've got with Chris Cobbett and says, You've done this before, you've you've bought companies, you've you've consulted with people before bigger than me.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: And we looked at it really close, looked at the books, and did all the work and said, It doesn't make sense.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Even if they gave it to you, it probably doesn't make sense.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess that's all it took for me.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Let's do it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_05: Jones accepted it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was that quick, right?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: So we're like, we're starting to work through the logistics of the whole thing, and basically it was a kind, it was you know, aerospace space and out of New York, and I happened to be on the East Coast.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I called the talking gentleman, talked to him, he says, Why don't you come up and have a drink with me?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we're like, I I, you know, sure.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I went up to New York, had a drink with him, and he said, for the cost of the lawyers, you can have it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, But I gotta charge you something.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: So whatever it took for the lawyers to make the deal work is what we got expeditioned for.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it came with uh um uh we'll call them assets.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: We had to go out and tell you Yankton, North Dakota where we went.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: And before we tore the equipment down, we had to learn how to make bows.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Seriously, learn how to make a bow.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because the engineers they weren't moving, and we couldn't afford it.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't know what we were doing.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I sent Chris and Dan, which everybody knows, they they know Chris and Dan, right?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: They they know who they are, they're the ones who put the seed in the ground for us.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: They went out and learned how to make a bow.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: From scratch.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're you're you're a geek, you're you're a techie, you know how many years of experience it takes to really you know.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Now, now Chris, on the other hand, he also shot Yeah, he was it he was competitive over the yeah.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: He was competitive, so he had an advantage over all of us.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: Five days later, they came back experts.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: So they loaded up the equipment out there, uh, two containers full.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: We I bought a building the week that they were learning how to build bows.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: I bought a building here in Decora for us to open up in.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's five days.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: She goes, Oh, we can close in 60 days.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: I said, No, no, ma'am.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: We need to close in six hours.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it cost me more for that, of course, because they knew I couldn't negotiate, wasn't it?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: But anyway, we bought the building, and as the containers arrived, we hired the uh decora or uh uh the wrestling team, the local wrestling team.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: Luther, Luther College.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: We hired them for a weekend, they came up and unloaded it all for us and we opened up.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's how we opened up.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's a story, it the story is really cool, it's a long, long story, but that is the gist of it, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And we we obviously had one engineer, and we had one of this and one of those, and and and we started, and we and and and we we we got into it without any idea of the direction.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: None whatsoever.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: But being in business long enough, you you you can make those things work sometimes, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: So we had a really slow go of it.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, they didn't make a lot of bows anyway.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: They were making 1,300, 1500 bows a year, so it was kind of a boutique type type of bow, high-end bow, but boutique, you know.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh then obviously COVID came along, didn't help much at all, and then we decided to get serious, right?
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: Magnite came available.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, all right, we got something special here.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, bows as people all know.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I won't get into it in depth because I'm not the guy to do that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've kind of hit peaks of of you know, where can you go with a bow?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: How much more can you do with it?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Magnite changes that game.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it does.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: At that point, we found our buddy Jason.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was actually Brady who contacted.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: He said, I know a guy, but he's not gonna be cheap, but he's gonna be really good for our brand.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew we needed somebody like Jason.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: I just didn't still have an uh a great handle or wrap my head around where are we gonna go with this?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna compete with the big boys?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: Do we compete with the big boys?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: Where are we gonna?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: But we knew we had to go somewhere with it, or just close it, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so uh a la, that's where Jason came in.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: And basically, and and please jump in anytime.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was he was gonna be our engineer, and and here may be the perfect time maybe for you to give us a background of where you came from and what you did, then we can tell the story a little bit further from there.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think uh for me you gotta start way back.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_05: So my dad was an outdoorsman, loved hunting, um, and specifically loved archery.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: After he'd shot enough stuff with a gun, he got bored with it and said, Hey, I'm gonna start shooting archery.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_05: And that was about the same time that I was born.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_05: So for my second Christmas, I got a bow.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, cool.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, we had you know those suction cups on it, and the front door had a big oval window.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_05: We still have some you know black and white pictures from my day of me shooting at that front window, and my mom said I would spend hours just and was a two and three-year-old, shooting arrows at this front door.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_05: And it just carried it just carried on.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_05: I I shot um a lot of arrows as a little kid.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I you know, moved um to a bigger place with some outdoor room, and so we had an outdoor range, and so I just kept shooting and shooting and shooting.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_05: And uh, when I was 11, my dad heard of a local archery tournament, and he's like, Hey, this ought to be fun.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_05: So we went and he shot, and then you know, had the peewees or chicks or whatever shoot at lunch.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_05: And so I went out there and I won.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_05: And it was like that started it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_05: Dad was sold.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_05: Oh everybody, we're going.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, quite frankly, so was I.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, hey, I got this really cool trophy.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_05: This is kind of fun.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_05: And so then, you know, I shot another tournament and won, shot another tournament and won, shot another tournament, shot a regional tournament and won, shot a state championship and won.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_05: And so that was kind of my that was my insertion into like the holy cow, I wanna I wanna do this a lot.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, all through my teen years, I shot, competed.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_05: I grew up in Idaho, so we didn't do a lot nationally, but a lot of 3D tournaments, indoor tournaments in the Idaho area.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_05: So then the dream is always to go work for an archery company.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, at that time I had called BSE and called Hoyt and called Martin, kind of those those guys that were um of that I knew of those that I had, you know, I I worked in an archery shop, so I had exposure to all of those guys.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_05: And the owners and the founders were the engineers, and so they were like, Yeah, we don't hire engineers.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_05: So as a 16-year-old, that just crushed my bubble.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, oh, this is dumb.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_05: So then I, you know, went on my way and ended up getting a mechanical engineering degree with a manufacturing emphasis.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_05: And uh one day we were sitting doing our capstone project, and I overhear somebody in the background saying, Archery experience, why do you need archery experience for an engineering job?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, game over, I'm done.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_05: What's going on?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_05: So I went and looked, and I had since you know grew up in Idaho, moved to Utah to go to school.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_05: And Hoyt, when I was in high school, was in Missouri.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_05: But during the time that I was was going to college, didn't realize that Hoyt had moved to Salt Lake City.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so then it was like, oh boy, stores are I'm liking this.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_05: So went right away, submitted an application, and um met with Randy Walk and got hired.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_05: I actually got hired a semester before I graduated, which I know now looking back, that never happened.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_05: So I was super excited to just roll into the archery industry and be able to design bows.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_05: Definitely a childhood dream to be able to design stuff for yourself.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_05: So then I spent 15 years at Hoyt.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_05: Started out as a design engineer, kind of progressed through managing the engineering team and managing engineering, um, both product development and manufacturing engineering.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_05: And then ultimately, by the time I was 15 years into it, I was managing all of the operational elements of Hoyt other than sales marketing, accounting.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: See, I I thought there was a gap between college and when you got into Hoyt.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know it was like right out.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't get it.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_05: Usually you gotta go pay your dues somewhere.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: Somewhere, yeah.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_05: Um so I got super lucky, super grateful that Randy took a chance on me and you know let allowed me to grow up as one of the first like degreed engineers that were designing bows.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, started in 1995.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_05: And if you look at the things that happened between 1995 and 2005, big advances the stuff we were doing.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_07: Arguably one of probably the most uh advanced time periods for the vertical bow industry from a compound standpoint, like a lot of technology, crazy amounts, so cool.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, and it you know, and it I wasn't the last engineer that got hired, like we kept hiring mechanical engineers.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_05: We called them arch engineers, so bow hunters with engineering degrees.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_05: That's great.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we looked for bow hunters who also had mechanical engineering degrees because we've we knew that those guys were the ones that knew what a bow actually was supposed to do, and then they had the mechanical sense to be able to then go make it happen.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_05: And uh you saw that happen along a lot of brands, did that same thing.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_05: It was basically 95 to 2000, is when all the engineers started to land in the in the actual jobs in the archery industry rather than the owner founders.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_05: So cool, man.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_05: It was super fun, it was a great time.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_05: And then, you know, as you you know, I I got lucky, but you know, 15 years and a lot of job advancement and progression, I kind of said, hey, you know, this is the only place I've ever worked.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, am I a big fish in a little pond or am I, you know, a big fish?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_05: Can I be a big fish in a bigger pond?
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I decided to do an e executive MBA program.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, the weekends every other weekend, Friday, Saturday for two years was doing an executive MBA.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_05: And so when I got to the end of that MBA, then you're you know, you're smart because now you have an MBA.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_05: You have another piece of paper.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_05: So then it's like, all right, well, I don't have an opportunity to do anything more than I was doing at Hoyt because you know Randy's not that much older than I am, so he had plenty of time left.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_05: So I I left and I went on my archery sabbatical, I call it.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, first job was to manage a business called Thompson Manufacturing.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_05: We did a lot of outdoor climbing equipment.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: Carabiners, um, swivels, everything that you could see in uh like most of the stuff that we were doing was work at height, so not necessarily the sportsman climbing a rock, but more the you know, the the firefighter or the lineman or somebody like that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_05: It was pretty high-end stuff, and that was great.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_05: That was my first general management experience running that 50-person business, and you know, we grew it by about 25% from a six million dollar company to an eight million dollar company, and that was that was a lot of fun.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Were you missing something in your heart?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: Were you like okay?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_05: I was I was wondering.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I tried to climb rocks, but this body's not built to climb rocks, and so then I I had somebody that I'd worked with at Hoyt that was now connected with um a guy named Larry Butler, and he had a shotgun concept, and this Jeff Edwards had um kind of put together an equity team and was ready to launch Butler Arms.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Hey, I need a really good engineering operations guy.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_05: So, Jason, are you interested?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, an opportunity to get back in, grassroots, entrepreneurial, start from scratch.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, Randy Perkins was the first billionaire with a B that I'd ever personally met.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_05: And so you're you know, you meet these guys and you're like, wow, that's this is just a cool opportunity.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_05: So left Thompson and went to Butler Arms, and you know, we learned we we did some really fun stuff with that technology.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_05: Unfortunately, the timing was bad, and the Sandy Hook shooting happened right as we were ready to launch.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_05: Like we had we had sold 50 guns to Cabela's, we felt like we were like there.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_05: Making a step.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_05: And then as soon as that happened, then all the equity partners were like, not interested.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_05: Most of them were California guys.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's it's a horrible situation.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_05: So then you're like, oh, now what do I do?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I continued to just pursue general management opportunities in Salt Lake because that's where I was.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_05: My kids at that point were high schoolers.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_05: My oldest one was in high school, and the idea that I was going to move, I had an opportunity to move to Oregon to Eugene, and then my family is kind of like, hold on.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_05: Eugene's a long ways away from you know where we grew up and where our family is, and you know, our kids were crying and all that.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, you kind of do the soul searching and say, Have I really tried to find another job?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_05: And the answer was no.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_05: So I looked and and found uh an a company named Handstands, which was kind of unique, and I thought, this is interesting.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_05: So I interviewed there for a general management position, and the founders of that company were just some of the coolest guys that I had ever met.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, they had this philosophy of um, you know, work hard, have fun, make money, repeat.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_05: And and they built this environment where you could really come to work and have a great time.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_05: It was still work and you were still expected to produce.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_05: But I mean they were making 25 point bottom line EBITDA numbers.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: Those are pretty good numbers.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_05: Selling to Walmart manufacturing in China.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_05: Wow.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_05: So, like, that's just unheard of.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_05: That doesn't happen because it's there's too many things in that pipeline.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_05: Too many people want their hand in the margin jar.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_05: But they were able to do it because of the way they ran their business.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_05: And so that was just a really cool opportunity to spend several years there learning from those guys.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, we had two divisions, so I was running the legacy division, and there was uh, you know, Chris Anderson was running kind of this the split-off because oddly enough, this company started out making mouse pads.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_05: They I mean they they invented the mouse pad.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_02: And where were they selling them to?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Walmart.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's like it had it had morphed into a company that was doing anything that was a technology accessory.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_05: So whether that was a power bank or a Bluetooth earbud or anything that would attach to a computer, a laptop, phone, tablet, I was all in this technology division.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_05: But along the way they had an air freshener that they made for a car.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_05: And so oddly enough, after running that section of the business for because this one of the promotional products was a sticky pad.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_05: It was a thing that you put on the dash or your so they invented that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_05: So that got them into Walmart in the automotive section, and then Walmart Automotive is looking for something new.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_05: They had a tree, and uh, and so they were like, Whoa, if we put scent, if we put scent in the sticky pad, then that allows you to have a sticky scent.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and so that was the first product that was done that way.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, you fast forward through seven, eight years, and all of a sudden handstands under the refresher car was the main brand, but California Scents Driven were all brands that were created by handstands, and it was the largest automotive air freshener company in the world.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_05: Wow, had 65% of all the SKUs at all big box retail in Walmart.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, it was fun.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_05: I got to go run this technology division, and we had a different group, but you know, we sold the stables in Walmart and all that, so I had that type of experience, but we also had branded merchandise because you know, very early on with mousepad, somebody said, Can I put my logo on that?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: And they're like, Yeah, for sure.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: So we sold quite a few branded products in that promotional product space.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it was super fun.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_05: And then one day we get this knock on the door, and Energizer wants to buy it sold.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_05: I was waiting for that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_05: It got sold, yeah.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_05: So the bottom, so Energizer comes in and pays a stupid amount of money and destroys the company, you know.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_05: The rest is essentially history.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I had been doing some consulting through that time because it's hard to get away.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_05: Um, one of the unique things that I had for the period of time when I was away was I was an engineer who wasn't under an NDA with any other company.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_05: So I did a lot of um litigation, test, you know, expert opinions, um, did a lot of work at BoTech.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, went to a couple of trials.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and so in that I just maintained some connections within the industry.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_05: And so, as that sold, it just happened like we we decided to sell it.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the terms were great, everything was good.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_05: And like a day later, I get a call from Ryan Kleckner at Plano Synergy.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Hey, I know you probably aren't interested, but we're heading down a path with crossbows, and we're running into some technological difficulties.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_05: We need somebody who really understands bows to come help us with this crossbow stuff.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, You got really good timing, really good timing.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_05: Jason's on his way back to the archery industry.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, all right, here we go.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where you met Brady then.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_05: So I had met somewhere down the line.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so when I was at Hoyt, I actually met Brady for the first time at because he was at NAP when I was at Hoyt, and we had a Hoyt version of the NAP REST that we'd integrated.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_05: So we we had a lot of integration with NAP, um Bob Misac, Andy Simo, all those guys were people that I I knew and had worked with, and Brady was always a sales and marketing guy that was there.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_05: So I think that's where he we didn't know each other super well, but we knew of each other.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_05: So when he calls, you know, then I talked to Kleckner and then I knew Brady was there.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_05: So that was my next text.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_05: Hey Brady, I just got called by Ryan Kleckner.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_05: We need to talk.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what's going on with Barnett, and what are you really looking for from me?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_05: And so that was it was a cool opportunity because I had said, you know, when I left Archery, we we moved a long ways in 10 years.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_05: But but at the end of the 10 years, especially when we launched the Carbon Matrix in 08, it was kind of like the the whole hit list of everything I dreamed about since I was a little kid was done.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_05: And you're like, what's next?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_05: How far can we go with this?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_05: Um and you know, the it was really flat as I looked into the future.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_05: And but I had said if I ever came back, I would come back in on the crossbow side.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_05: Because the crossbows really hadn't they hadn't taken the jump.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_05: Um you know, engineers had taken the easy way out, which is you just add more weight and then they go faster.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_05: You don't really have to work on any of the vibration or efficiencies.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_05: So I'd always looked at that and thought, man, that's like 1995 when I walked into Hoyt.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_05: Um so when I had the opportunity to come in and work specifically with Barnett, and at the time no limit archery, um and I thought, okay, this is this is something I can do and have a good opportunity to get back in.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_05: And it's crossbows.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_05: And I think we can do some really Really cool stuff with crossbows.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: And so I know I spent um a few years there, and then you know, something else happens, it gets sold again.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_05: You see the pattern here.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_05: Um, just when you start doing something really good, it gets sold.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_05: Um, and then you know, GSM ended up getting it from pure fishing, but then GSM oddly was pretty excited.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_05: Like Eddie Castro, we talked, and he's like, Yeah, this is awesome, but I have a problem.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_05: The board won't let me have anything with a trigger, so I need to sell you.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, really?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Again.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: Again.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_05: Like I made it through, like the sale from pure, you know, to pure phishing, then over here to GSM, and now you're gonna sell me again.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, that that it, you know, we ended up somewhere, but at that point, it's like, you know, we Barnett's great, but I grew up at Hoyt, and that it's like, you know, you you grow up designing cars for Mercedes, and all of a sudden you're working for Ford, yeah, making a focus, and you're like, I need I mean, this focus is really awesome, and you can make some fast version of it and cool, but then I had an opportunity with 10-point.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you know, Rick Bednar reached out and said, Hey, we've got some really high-end technology that we're trying to bring.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_05: And I thought, man, if there's ever a company that's gonna go all in on high-end technology and they've got the position in the marketplace.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: And even back in the day when I was at Hoyt, there was some collaboration that happened between the Bednars and Hoyt, and and so I knew of them and knew their legacy and knew it was family owned, which had now become one of the most important things for me.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_05: Like I wanna I grew up with Jim Easton.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like we had quarterly meetings with Jim Easton, and we could talk about archery stuff, and I knew who owned the company, and I knew why he owned the company, and I knew what his you know, you start looking, you you learn things like liquidation events, yeah.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_05: And you're like, okay, so what's your liquidity event?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I'm gonna die and I'm gonna pass it on to my child.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, pretty simple.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I understand how that works.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, and then but these other situations weren't that, you know, these you know, handstands like what's your liquidity event?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I'm 65 and I want to go spend a lot of time with my grandkids, and I don't want to work anymore, so I'm gonna sell it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_05: And then, you know, Plano Synergy owned by Ontario Teachers Association, just really strange situation there that they want to get out of it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I I really enjoyed the time that I was at at um 10 point, and that was probably um, you know, if I look back on my life experiences as in employment, um, the very hardest conversation that I had was to sit down and say, Hey, um, I'm gonna leave.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, and it was it was personal to them and to me.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_05: And it was like, what are you doing?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, Well, I just shot a thousand arrows out of the new twin riser bow as a reverse draw, and another thousand arrows out of the reverse draw that was or the the twin that was a reverse.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_05: And after shooting at least two thousand arrows out of crossbows in the course of like 40 days, I was over it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I just was.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, ah, because it they're they're it's really like trying to shoot a like a wind mag in your backyard or your basement.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_05: I have two holes in my basement wall from a crossbow, yeah.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_05: All the way through six inches of I mean, and so you you see stuff like that, and you're like, Man, I could get hurt.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: And and I got a few stitches and things that I that I got along the way of designing crossbows.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_05: Battle scars.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_05: And and so then Brady calls and said, Hey Jason, I'm with Expedition.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_05: Magnite is this new cool revolutionary material.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: You just you gotta be involved.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_05: Well, the funny part was he called me like a week after I started at 10.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Was that timing thing?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean to this whole story, it's timing timing, timing, and you know.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_05: That was the that was the bad timing because it was like a week after I started.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_05: He's like, I had no idea that you were gonna leave.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: Like, why didn't you tell me?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, Brady, I'm gonna tell you that I'm leaving Barnett.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_05: But um, so I just said, Hey, you gotta you gotta hold it, which I'm super grateful because he went through a lot of hell with getting Magnite up and running through you know first generation X-Lite 31s, 33s, and I was able to kind of come in when life was a lot easier.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, he did finally just pull the trump card and he sent me an X-Lite 31 and said, You just need to shoot this, and I want to know your opinion.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I grab it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, this is cool.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_05: I got a new bow, and I shoot it, and I'm like, Holy crap, that's I haven't felt a bow that feels like that.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_05: Intriguing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_05: Because it was light, and every light bow that I'd ever shot to that point had a ton of vibration and a ton of jump.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_05: Like you had to weight it down to make to tame it.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_02: Then there goes the lightness of the bow.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Why have a light bow?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm shooting this thing without a stabilizer, and I'm like, whoa, this is kind of crazy.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_05: And you put a little eight-inch stabilizer on it, and you go, okay, this is interesting.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_05: So then you bolt, you know, I'm a target guy, so I you know, bolt on a scope and a and the and a long rod, and you're like, and it's you know, it's I keep reminding myself, this is a 31-inch axle to axle bow, and I'm shooting pretty darn close to 300 Vegas rounds.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_05: And I'm like, wow, I haven't shot like that since I had like a long hoi target bow.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_05: And so then ATA comes around, and I'm like, all right, we gotta have a conversation.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_05: And so then, you know, we had that conversation, and then I met Mark, and I'm like, okay.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_05: We stood in an aisle.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I know we stood in the aisle and I talked to him, and I knew who he was, but I didn't, you know, didn't know him.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we took talk for an hour, probably.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: Just casually talked, watching people come in and out.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll just watch him.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's good, he's good at pulling me in.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's Chris Cobbett about that.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_07: He's Chris Company.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_07: He said, Layton told me no three times, and then you walked in and he's working for it.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: But I mean, the cool part about you know, Mark and his sales pitch to me, I was only looking for one thing.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_05: Like, who are you and why do you own this business and what's your liquidity event?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_05: That's all I really want to know.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because I have been through this cycle too many times to think, all right, just as soon as this business gets good, then whoever owns it's looking for a liquidity event.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_05: And when that happens, whoever buys it is gonna kill it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because they're just good at killing it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_07: Throw a big curveball in your plane.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, I and when I was doing my MBA, it was funny because we had a couple of professors that said, Hey, look, do you know what MBA stands for?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_05: And we're like, Oh, you know, master of business administration, they're like, No, murderer of brand assets.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's what that stands for.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_05: And they're like, please, whatever you do when you get out there, just remember that you're just not that smart.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like the guy who's running the business and running it successfully is doing something that is making it successful, right?
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_05: So be slow, be quick to learn and slow to change.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_05: And so it it was, you know, and I learned that the hard way a few times, um, but definitely learned that that was true.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, as I was meeting with Mark, I'm like, okay, so how did you get this business and what are you trying to do with it?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, how much does it have to generate from a revenue and profitability?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_05: And how are you gonna when are you gonna sell it?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, I just got some fantastic answers to what I was looking for.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I didn't know the the grave details of your your past.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as much as I found out tonight, but somewhere in there I was waiting for you to stop and say, I started my own company.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you have the entrepreneurial spirit, you deep down in you do, and for the right reasons, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it boils down to passion, and that's where a lot of times people just take that jump and start their own company.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I'm I'm yeah really surprised that somewhere in there there wasn't a gap that I started my own company, but you know and and when there was like my jump, when I was at Hoyt, they they did a really good job of helping us to feel like we were really bought into the company.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_05: Jim Easton was great at saying, Hey, this this is your company, especially you guys when you're in the senior management roles.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_05: It's your company, you guys go run it, and and that was fun because you really did feel like you were running your own company.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_05: Butler Arms for me was that opportunity, and that was like, hey, you know, we're we have some funding here, we need somebody to come run this business, and you know, you got a big equity stake in this, and let's just go see what happens.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and so you know, I jumped in and went that direction, and then you know, it just kind of fizzled out.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_05: It kind of felt like your own company and a sorts, and so then it, yeah, and it that one totally did, and it hurt bad to go in there because we had I had you know bought a facility in Salt Lake, we had fitted it all out, I had hired 10, 5, 15 people to run, I know engineers, this you know, it just a whole bunch of stuff.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_05: You build it basically in your mind, yeah.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_05: And then to come back and say, Well, actually, you know, we're gonna shut this thing down.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, tough to be able to do that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_05: And that was tough, but yeah, and and then you know, the next the next bounce on that was uh to go to handstands, and when I was with handstands, same thing.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_05: I came in with an equity stake.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, and so and they were really good, and that opportunity, and then when I got to the end of it, um, and it got sold to Energizer, then it was like, okay, well, here's an opportunity to get back in the industry.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_05: I had toyed around with starting my own crossbow company, kind of had some ideas, but the timing kind of burned itself out with the time that I spent at handstands.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_05: If I could have gone 100% back and said, all right, when I when everything went down with but with Butler, I should have started a crossbow company at that point.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_05: I had an idea that could have been okay, and it and we could have done it.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but the the five years that I spent at handstands that kind of burned out.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_05: There was some other similar IP that had happened during that period of time, and and so then it was like a little bit of the all right, well, I should have done that, but here I am, and and you know, there's still some good opportunities.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, um, which, you know, partly that's the reason why I'm here is you know, you're in a situation where you're like, hey, I don't, I'm not gonna run this company.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_05: I need somebody who can run this company and can run it the way that it needs to be run because you know how to run a company.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_05: Like, all right, give me a little time.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: And you we work well together, and I think we as a group, but you and I are maturing together more than you maybe even realize, because again, it it you know, I run companies, right?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I have passion, right, for hunting and and being able to have some say in the bows, but I'm having less and less say in the bows because you're taking over more and more.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_02: Where you came in, and this is all complimentary.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's all great, great positioning for all of us.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: You were in as an engineer, and that's that's great for me.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: We need a good engineer, and you got great experience, and Brady, you know, everybody was like, Oh, yeah, you got Jason, you got Jay.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: But now you're running more of the company and you're getting involved in Magnite into the level that I'm not sure.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you you you had that vision of being, but you're basically in control of the magnite.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: And again, if Brady was here, he'd probably be kicking me.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yo, dude, what do I do?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing but Love you, Brady.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_06: We like to let him stay in control of Magnite.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_06: I just like to convert Magnite into cool stuff.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: But you're you're becoming more uh you're you're the guru, you're you're the nucleus of how Magnite is working within our business and where what and how it's igniting our business.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_05: So frankly, the only reason why I came to Expedition after I vetted you and said, come on, it wasn't my sparkling personality.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_05: I can't you know, it's like okay, I can work, you know.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_05: I guess I have to start back.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I did I did have an experience with Magnite on that X-Lite 31 that I couldn't quite explain from an engineer standpoint.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_05: I put the engineer hat on, I go, it shouldn't happen.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_05: And I put the archer hat on and go, that's really cool.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_05: So then you're like, okay, I get there's something different than anything that I was ever able to do when I was at White.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_05: So then you go to the next step and they meet you and go, okay, so this is like somebody that I can work with and for and actually, you know, be all in and be excited because I know he's all in and all excited.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, then you really come back to this magnite situation and go, all right, so from an engineer, what do I have on the table?
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_05: Well, from an engineer, I have aluminum.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_07: If you don't mind, before you get started on that, I just want to take a second and talk to the audience about you know, like this is the significant competitive advantage for expedition as a whole right now.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_07: Like a lot of people just see this as an archery company, but we see it as a technology company, and we've been put in that position because of this material.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_07: And so it's one of the hardest stories we've had to tell as what I would say a mid-major company.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_07: I'd label us as a mid-major, you know, like you got D1, you got D1AA, then you got D2.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_07: We're right in that D1AA slot.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_07: And it's I think a lot of people from the outside just see us as an archery company.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_07: So I I'm glad that we're covering this first because it's really gonna help us set the stage for the archery side of the business.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_07: So didn't mean to interrupt you, but I want people to just understand what this means to us.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna tell you right now, we're not gonna do it justice.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I know that it sounds like a used car salesman's pitch to some of these people out here, but I I think we're on the cusp of something.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: I know we are.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's taking us seven years, yeah, six or seven years, maybe even eight.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really bad with time frames, to get Magnite ready, not just for this industry, but for other industries.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I it's gonna be something special.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: It it's there now, the world just doesn't know about it yet.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: So I set the stage and the bar very high for you.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I guess we have to go back to Hoyt, because that's where everything started.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_05: When when I was at Hoyt, we designed, you know, hundreds of thousands or manufactured hundreds of thousands of magnesium die cast bows.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_05: And they were made out of a material called AM60, and we designed Magnetech and a bunch of really cool things.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_05: And the magnesium did some things that were really novel because it was super light, and the die casting was a good property.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_05: It it managed the properties of that material really well because it created a skin structure around the outside that made it mechanically stronger than it should have been, because the inside of it was always sponge, like it was just so porous.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_05: Um, the downside is that sometimes there's too much porosity and she just cracks because the skin layer wasn't strong enough.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, fast forward a little bit when I was at Hoyt, we actually got to the point where there was some extruded magnesium.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_05: It was an A Z series and a ZK series, and they're like, you know, this is high strength magnesium, this is gonna be the coolest new thing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_05: And so we machined and tested a lot of bows in that A Z and ZK series, and what we found is that they had a tendency to crack unexpectedly.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_05: We would get one that would test great, and then the next out of the three would fail.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_05: And so ultimately, you know, Hoyt was really good at making sure that it had to hit a certain threshold and be very, very, you know, durable in the marketplace.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_05: And so we always just put those aside.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but it was always in the back of my mind, like, man, if you could ever use something that had a magnesium base, you've got the weight and the strength ratio that should be better than everything.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: For sure.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_05: So when this came along and Brady's like, hey, you need to check out magnite, I had enough history to know what we're talking about and to also know what the issues were.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_05: So then when you come in and you're like, okay, so what's what's magnite and how is it made?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_05: What's a difference in regular magnesium?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_07: Because the perception is like you said, in the industry for those bows that did hit the marketplace like early, let's call it early to late 90s.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_07: Is that fair?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_07: Um, the they kind of went away due to that fact.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_07: Like a lot of people, when we first started talking about magnite, immediately went to, well, it's magnesium, it doesn't work.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_07: We proved a century, not a century ago, a decade ago, yeah, that this is uh an inferior material, but it's not magnesium.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_02: If I had anything to do with this back when they named us, it would not start with mag.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_02: I can tell you that because everybody gets these mixed, they just don't understand yet.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I I don't want to say that the consumer doesn't isn't a smart consumer because they really are.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: They are sharp.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it this it's not magnesium, though.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the your your old man's magnesium.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_05: If we could, you know, I would call it serellite, and you're like serolite, what's that?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_05: Well, you know, the distinguishing feature between magnite and a lot of the other AZs and ZKs is that it has ceramic nanoparticles.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_05: That's really the distinguishing feature because there are some alloys out there now that have rare earth elements in it.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_05: That's kind of taking the A Z and ZK series that we had in the 2000, you know, 2000 to 2010 and ratcheted it up a notch, and they're definitely stronger, but you still have all the issues with the porosity and the corrosion, especially corrosion.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_07: Corrosion, corrosion, yeah.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_05: So then you get this ceramic nanoparticle and you add it in there, and all of a sudden the homogeneous nature of the material is perfect.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_05: Because I mean, like magnesium is super light, and these rare earth elements are on the bottom of the periodic table, they're super heavy.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so unless you're really able to magically keep them dispersed evenly, one is going to be strong and one is gonna be weak.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_05: But these, because of the ceramic nanoparticles, it's just equally distributed, and we've had such phenomenal part-to-part consistency.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_07: Get a very consistent product all the way through the basically the whole stretch of the metal that you're using for a riser or an accessory.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_07: There's no weak points.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yep, and it's so nice to be able to test one and then create another one and test it again and get the same results.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_05: It's like, oh, that's good.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_05: And then the secondary benefit of those ceramic nanoparticles is they're vibration isolators.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_05: So now all of a sudden you have something that disrupts the natural flow of vibration.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, it's a third lighter.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_05: You know, these two parts are exactly the same dimension.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_05: The magnite part is one pound, and the aluminum part is one and a half pounds.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_05: So this is, you know, as easy a way to be able to look at it and go, that's say say that together again.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_02: The importance and the significance of this, and not just the pound and a pound and a half, but go back to the vibration thing again.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: What's one of the number one things?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_02: I can't say it's number one, but one of the number one things as a bow hunter that you want in a in a bow.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I don't want it to shape a tuning fork.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_07: I don't want one of those.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_07: Vibration leads to sound, you have vibration that you feel like it's it's a huge, I would say, um, unattractive thing.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Naturally, though, it comes as a bonus, and a value added, all those types of good marketing tools that you want to use.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_05: But you know, the interesting part is like if we go back 10 years, bows weighed three and a half pounds.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_05: That was pretty common.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_05: But there was a lot of vibration that happened, and so now the risers had to get longer and the limbs needed to get shorter, and that's how we controlled vibration.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_05: But then the bows got much heavier because there's just a lot more aluminum.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_05: So it's so weird in my experience to say, okay, I have something that's really lightweight and it doesn't vibrate as much as aluminum.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_05: So you're like, what?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_05: So we're talking a half pound to a pound lighter, and on the shot it has less vibration.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_05: That shouldn't happen.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_05: And that was my experience with the 31 that I got from Brady.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, what?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_05: That shouldn't work.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_05: And I pick up a, you know, I had Botec and a few other bows at the time, like, shoot it.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, yeah, that's what I expected.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: That's what I expect.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_05: I had like hoit carbon, a couple heart hoit carbon bows, and you're like, they all vibrate like a ton and they all weigh significantly more.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_05: How is this possible?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_05: Yep.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, then you really get into it.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_05: And once I got to Expedition and was able to sit down with, you know, the inventor and say, All right, walk me through this because there's a bunch of stuff here that doesn't make any sense.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, one of the other cool things about it is magnesium always corrodes in open air.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_05: We ran into it like every time we die cast something, we had to make sure it was hermatically sealed and it didn't make it all corroded before you could powder coat it.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_05: Well, this piece of magnite is raw magnite.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_05: It was a loomed, it was machined six months ago.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_05: It's not treated in any way.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_05: If this was made out of ZK or AZ or any one of those, it would be white.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_05: You could just wipe it off with white or pitted.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, that's the that's where you really get to the grassroots and say, is it different than the normal stuff?
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_05: Well, look at that.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_05: And we've thrown some stuff out in the back, you know, behind the shop and said, okay, let's put magnite against ZK and against A Z and against competitor Bows and products, and let's just see what happens.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_05: And you come back a week later and all of the threaded holes are all white, and then you come back and you know another week later, and the all the seracoding or powder coating is starting to crack out, and you're like, Yeah, and the magnite's just fine.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_07: I like you said, I think, you know, and I stood these up because I want the audience to be able to see them and see that, like, look, they're the same height, they're the same width, they're the same size, they cover the same amount of surface area.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_07: The aluminum block is literally 30% heavier.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_07: And it's hard for the audience to be able to experience that, but when you get the chance, walk into your local bow shop expedition dealer and stack it up against your nearest aluminum aluminum 6061 competitors, which is the the most common aluminum that's used for risers in the marketplace.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_07: Pick them both up, and you're gonna have the same aha moment.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_07: That's one aha moment.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_07: And shooting it is the second aha moment.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_07: And I think what's really throws guys off to your point of understanding you know, from an engineering sense, how much of an advancement this is, is we have a tendency, I think, as archers and bow hunters, to associate uh density or weight with premium nature.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_07: And so when people pick up the bow and they go, Oh, well, that's all cool, but it's still light, it's not gonna do me any good.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_07: And then you start to shoot it because there are other properties from a manufacturing sense that lend this material to be or or build out a more consistent end product because you have consistencies and your tolerances are so much better.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_07: And you really build a finely tuned machine just in the manufacturing process.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_07: You don't have inconsistencies that aren't allowed because you have a better material that you're working on.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_05: But the only thing from a raw material standpoint that's close to magnet is carbon.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, carbon is, you know, if you just take pound for pound, carbon for carbon, that's that's the strongest material that we have.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_05: But you can't make a bow out of carbon.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_05: You have to glue aluminum parts onto your carbon bow in order to have a place to mount your site, mount your rest, mount your limbs.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_05: And so at the end of the day, you don't ever have an opportunity to have an alumin a true carbon bow.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_05: It's an aluminum carbon bow.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_05: And because carbon is full of glass and resin, and it has to get put in a mold and cooked, and it's so it's so time and temperature sensitive, it's hard to get those things to come out the same every day.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_05: The tolerance just is not that.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's a lot of the reason why you know you you do glue these parts on so that you can take some of the tolerances out of it and try to get a bow that's consistent.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_05: But it's also the reason why it's it's almost impossible to get two carbon bows from any manufacturer to shoot the same.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: Same.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_05: And and it's even really hard to get the the same carbon bow to shoot the same from one season to the next.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_05: For sure.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_05: Because, you know, it shift.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's you know, the material that they're using to hold it all together is the same material you use to glue your inserts into your arrows.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, they come out all the time, right?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the simple way I've ever heard anybody.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: I got a big smile on my face.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_01: That that's actually a really good way to yeah.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, the inserts are great for a long time, right?
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_05: It's the same arrow you've shot a hundred times, and that and that arrow did not did not lose its point.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_05: And all of a sudden it lost its point.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_05: Like what happened?
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it got a little hot or it got a little cold or it just wore out.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_05: And that's exactly what happens to anything that has glue in it.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_05: So with magnite, as you mentioned, this is a solid bar of material, and we put it in a CNC machine and we machine it all the way.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_05: So you get perfect CNC tolerances, part-to-part variation is almost zero.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_05: Um, you you really get all the benefits that you could ever imagine from carbon being a lightweight material without any of the downsides.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_05: Any of the downsides.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_05: There's no downside to it.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, right.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, man.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_07: And I I think that's the third aha moment that I've experienced when I've watched literally at this point tens of thousands of people picked up pick up this bow and shoot it.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_07: And whether it's any of the X lights or or now the new next light that's coming down, the the amount of consumer interaction that we've had is that they come back, especially from a standpoint of, and it's probably more so the folks that have purchased the bow and they've had time to spend on the range.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_07: They're like, this bow makes me shoot better.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_07: And you just go, no, we've removed the inconsistencies.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_07: Like you gotta understand, it's uh a lot of times bows, aluminum or carbon are not perfect objects, they're not perfect finished products.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm not saying that ours is, I'm just saying that there's a lot more consistency there.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_07: I'm all right, I'm calling it ours.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I like it.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_07: Thanks for wearing, yeah.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_07: Thanks for wearing the merchandise today.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I'm preaching to the car today.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_07: But I it is that's the the comment that I continue to get back, whether it's buddies or it's uh it's a dealer or it's folks that we talk to at the Iowa Deer Classic or that we you know come across when we're out hunting and is that an X-Lite?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_07: You know, I've been hearing a lot about those.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it it's hey, I am a better shooter, I'm shooting better groups with this.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_07: And I said, Well, see what you're capable of when you have the right tool in your hand.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you know, and I I it's just an impressive thing.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_07: So I think that's a it's worth explaining to people.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_07: And I I won't go too far down the rabbit hole of carbon, but being a guy that worked in the archery industry myself and that was beginning to play with carbon projects and played with carbon projects that we were taking to market at that point in time for that manufacturer.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_07: Um I I I want people to understand that this is truly a carbon comparant that has benefits that you both described that carbon just doesn't have the consistency to provide you at the end of the day.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_07: It's truly a premium product, it's a new material.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_07: And to your earlier point of the archery industry doing this, for the last decade and a half in the archery industry, we've been trying to take little advantages that improve consumer experience or maybe put more power in the hand of the consumer, like giving the them the ability to tune or without having to take different things.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_07: But this is a step up.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_07: Like you've now come out of the plateau, and I think that that's why we we feel like man, we can't tell the story fast enough.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you know, like we for sure.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_05: And and it's you know, it's super fun at the bare bones level.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_05: But the fun part of it is I was at a big uh retailer and we were you know talking about these bows, and we were shooting them, and all the techs were shooting them, and I had a bow that I had been using for tech.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_05: So we'd had a front bar and a back bar, yeah, and I had had it set up with a quiver and everything.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_05: So, like, this is like you would go hunting, yeah.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_05: And so, you know, they're playing around with it and they're like, Man, that's that's really light.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_05: And so I hung it on the scale, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but like, and the guy had another brand bow.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we won't name that brand, but it was a carbon bow.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, Hey, mine's super light, and he hangs it on there, it's 2.2 pounds heavier.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, I mean, and he's like, Well, that's because I had to put a bunch of stabilizers on it.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_05: I was like, No, no, no, no.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: Why did you need those stabilizers?
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'll call weight I had to break in.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_05: I was I was like, the word he used had.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I had to put I had to put weight on it.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_05: I'm like, see?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, tell me how much weight would you add to this bow?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_05: You shot it.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_05: How much weight would you add to this bow to get it to aim better?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_05: And he's like, none.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_05: It aims great, it shoots great, it feels great.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_05: And like, and then there was another brand, another one of those carbon bow guys, yeah, and it was three and a half pounds heavier.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_07: Well, I think there's a that's a common misperception with carbon bows in the industry, too.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_07: And I say this as a guy that again, like I said, I was part of developing and building and taking to market carbon bows, so I don't feel like I'm picking on anybody when I say this.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_07: There is a lot of smoke and mirrors to carbon going on a bow.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and the way that it's sold and the perception of what you're selling it being carbon, and like the reality is you hang most of those bows on a scale bare bow, and they're gonna stack up at a much higher mass weight than what is printed on that card at the end of the day.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_07: They are, and and and I'm like done that, yeah.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_07: And I'm telling you, it's it's maybe not what it what it uh it says that it is in many cases.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_07: So I would I would tell you, like, even if if carbon, if for some reason we can't convince you to come to Magnite, I would tell you, like, hey, do your research, dig in a little bit, don't believe just what you see, get to understand what you're shooting because it may not be what it appears.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: The common ordinary redneck, way back when loved the carbon bow.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: Very, very light.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: Then I realized I had to keep adding weight to it to shoot, and I still didn't shoot.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Even I figured it out without doing any technical that I might as well just go with aluminum bow.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I'm not beating up carbon or any one name, it's just it was a redneck and figured out adding weight to it.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, no, it's just as heavy as the other bows, right?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_07: It did me no good to buy a light bow.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_07: Well, what you didn't realize you were doing is you were covering up some of those inconsistencies that had more.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_07: And you thought your perception is like, yeah, and and in most in most and bow techs, I'm not talking about the brand.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_07: I'm talking about guys behind the counter that wanted to sell you that bow at that point in time that was the pinnacle of the marketplace.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_07: They would tell you, like, oh, sure, they're gonna tell you to put another uh stabilizer on they get to sell you more accessories, but they get a higher problem margin.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_07: You know, and to to their to you know their um support, I would say, a lot of them didn't understand that either.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_07: They they really and in many cases, like there were portions of that that were were true.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_07: It's not completely inaccurate, it's just maybe not what it appears.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_07: And so I I think that you know, for people to really, man, I'm telling you, encouraging you, I can't tell you enough.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_07: Like, go do a side-by-side shooting experience and spend some time on the range.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_07: There are there are dealer bows at the range or your local archery shop, and you can shoot them all, and you can you might just have to ask for it.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, you might want it's an expedition.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Can you give it to me next to the other two that you're gonna give me to shoot?
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's all.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, shoot it, feel the experience.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_07: Like, seriously, the wait is over.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, what do you got next to all the things?
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the wait is over on the on the on your list of tricks coming up here.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, I mean that you're allowed to talk about.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I think we can we'll talk about three generations here.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_05: Like X Lite was the original generation.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_05: We had the 3133 and then came out with a longer 2935, and then we had a 32 last year, um, which you know won the ATA bow of the year.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's a fantastic series of bows, but there was some kind of creature comforts that you know were missing um just based on the time and season that it was designed.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_05: So this year we were able to go out, and and I have been in the industry a long time.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_05: So um I was able to go out and say, all right, what's the best riser structure that we can design?
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_05: What's the optimum amount of flex in the riser to balance weight with stiffness so that it's got a really good degree of tunability for the average person?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_05: What does a grip look like that's very easy to get your hand into it the same every time so that you just without noticing it, you just shoot a lot better because it's hard to shoot it wrong.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_05: Get a pocket system that takes all of the slop intolerance out of it, um, you know, shorten the limbs up a little bit so you got a little bit less vibration coming from there.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_05: Redesign the cam system so that you've got something that draws smooth but still has great performance.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_05: Make the module so that it's quarter-inch draw length adjustable.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_05: You can adjust the let off with the little mod foot that's on it, put in a tuning system that you don't have to put it in a bow press for.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_05: And so all of a sudden you just check off every box.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_05: Like, what is a what's the best available bow out there do?
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_05: And I feel like with Nextlight, everything that the best available bows have, Nextlight has.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_05: We have, yeah.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_05: And and you have the Magnite Advantage, which is you know, a 33-inch one compared to other 33-inch ones is half a pound lighter.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, I I just I'm smiling because I I just shot one of the newer ones, uh, 33, right?
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, next slide 33.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_02: And as I shoot, and I don't have great form.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody ever watches me in a tree st and they kind of make fun of me, right?
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: But I it is what it is, right?
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and the way I I get my grip into the right place in my mind is I put a little tension before I started drawing, which again, not maybe not the most.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: I did I kept doing it out there and you kept seeing me holding it down.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: I I I didn't, it never moved.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it it it was the first bow, and I'm saying this is first bow ever in my life.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: There was no readjustment there, it just fell into it.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, it must just be me.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then Joe shot it.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: Same he said the exact same thing.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: He didn't there was no adjustment.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: There was no it just fell into play.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean how how you those things you just checked off, they're not minor things.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: And and they're and and and you take all the best tr traits of all these different bows out there, and it seems like you hit them all.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_02: So they're I'm in the It's pretty significant, Jason.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_05: Well, it it it's I mean what it is is I have been in this industry a long time.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_05: I mean 1995 was a lot of years ago.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_05: So we're you know, I don't even want to count how many years ago that was, but it's a lot of years.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_05: And and during that time, you know, I've designed enough bows and shot enough bows personally, hunted with them as well as shot Vegas tournaments with them to really be able to say these are the things that matter and these are the things that don't.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_05: And if I have a clean slate from uh, you know, an owner that says, do whatever you need to do to make this thing the best thing possible, um, you go do everything that you want to do to make a bow that you can shoot as good as you want to shoot it.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_05: And so that's really where next slide is.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_05: So you know, you say, hey, what's a what's coming?
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_05: Well, this is where the job gets really hard for me.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_05: Because you know, you get to a point where you're like, hey, I did everything I knew I wanted to do, and we blew our wad in one shot.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_05: Some some might say, Yeah, you should have like strung this out.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_05: No.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's not what we did.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what we do.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: We go all the time.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: We'll figure something else out for we'll find next the same.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what's kind of cool about the relationship, because I I I told him, I was like, we we can't hold things back like most big manufacturers, it doesn't matter what cell phones or TVs or whatever it might be.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: They they have a plan for four or five years because you can't come out with something new every year or put them all together to make something super.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's time for us to do this.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: We found Magnite.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: We got Magnite down to the science literally now.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: This thing's gonna explode in the next 12 to 18 months.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, Magnite itself is gonna go to a different level, which will take our bows to a different level.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep I mark my words, it's gonna happen.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_02: So come out with a bow that has everything, just blow it out of the water, yep, and and and just go for it.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of the stage we're at.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's very generic, very, you know, you know, well, low level way I'm saying it, but that's that was kind of the what the goal was.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_07: I I'll tell you, I can remember the day that I sat in the meeting, one of the initial planning meetings, and I heard you say that.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_07: And I like I'm I'm not I wasn't laughing at you.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_07: Uh like I've like I said, I haven't been in the archery industry since '95, but um, 2008, 9, somewhere in there, right?
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_07: Been involved in some way, shape, or form, whether it's a competitive shooter or working for manufacturing.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_07: And when Mark said that, I was like, Yeah, I've heard that.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_07: You know, like this will be interesting, but you meant it, and I I want to thank you for that.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_02: Multiple people have asked me in our businesses in the outdoor world, and they probably think I'm out of my mind, and I might be, right?
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_02: But but look at the element and some of the other things we're doing.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, guys, we're not getting into this to play.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, we want to win, right?
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna play because this is what we love is starting, but I like winning just as much, right?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and it is about the money, but it's not about the money, it's about having a product that somebody says you can't do.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_02: And and you kind of heard that a couple times out of me.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_02: I I kind of it chips my trigger, right?
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and I looked at it, I said, he goes, Well, how far do you want to go with this?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_02: I said, What do you need to get it where we need it to be?
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_02: Just tell me what that is, and I'll make a decision, and then it's yours.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Go do it.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I told him, Go do it though.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Don't don't play with me.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: Don't don't let let's let's get this to where the the best you can do.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I I shot that bow tonight.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, damn.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's that was my words.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_07: Damn.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's a stellar bow, man.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_07: And I and I and I think too, like, yes, it's all on the table, but again, going back to Magnite, there are things that you can do to continue now that you have a platform that you have said, hey, I've optimized the grip, I've optimized the the uh brace height, I've optimized the the limb angle, I've optimized this, this, this, like we can keep going for a while.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, but there are ways that you can naturally extend on that platform that are traditional to the industry, and and I think like just one of the the coolest things, and we really admittedly, we haven't really tapped into the Western marketplace yet.
• 58:56
  SPEAKER_07: Like we could like we could.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_07: And I think that they're some of the most technical bow hunters because they face different elements and angles and stuff that us whitetail hunters, when we go and we have the you know 75% of our average shots within 25 or 30 yards, call it what it is, um we don't necessarily need that optimum performance all the way out to 70, 75, 80, 85 yards.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_07: But magnite being I'm telling you, one-third lighter, the benefits that came with that traditional longer axle to axle bow and bigger brace height platform that were unbearable for most guys because when you had a 35-inch axle to axle bow, it weighed five pounds, not four pounds, it weighed five pounds, 20 25% more than the average bow, man.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that changes that game.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_07: It does.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: I can't just ask me.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, we still can't get the X-Lite 35 out of his hands.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: I've been shooting this 35 for a couple years now, and they can't get it out of my hands.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they're that when we shoot something.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, guys, I have a bow that weighs less than most 30 or 31s, right?
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's the same as carbon, and it's in a 35-inch axle to axle, sturdy, rigid, non-vibrating, not non-vibrating, but low vibrating.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: Why I got West all the time.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_06: It's the perfect bow for that now, right?
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_06: But those longer bows.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't mean to get down these proverbs, but it's it's it's it's there.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, for sure.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_05: And the longer the bow, the more, the more demonstrated the differences.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_05: Because, like you said, uh a long 35-inch axle to axle bow today, most of them are approaching five pounds.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and our 35 is sub-four.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's 3.95.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_05: I know, man.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: So even when you talk about a shooter and a draw, it has everything you want in a bow that you would never want to shoot a 35 because you're hunting with it, or it's out west, and I gotta carry it.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: All those things are gone now.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_02: We need a lot of excuses.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's the part we need to get out to the public.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we do that's the the that's the that's our job now is to help Jason.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_02: Jason did his job.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: Now we gotta do ours.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_07: For sure.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_07: Well, let's talk like quickly about the next light um both models that are hitting the marketplace.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_07: Um, 30 and 33, axle to axles, stated obviously what they are.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_07: Brace height 6.375 on both of them.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_07: Mass weight is at 3.36.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_07: So 3.6 um and very close on both of them.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, 3.7 on the longer weight.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_07: So 3.7 on on the 33.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_07: Um, the riser design is is noticeably different for those that pay attention to it.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_07: Um, I I'll I it's something it's not complete.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_07: I'll say reflex versus deflex, and people who know know what I'm talking about, but you've definitely shifted that pivoted uh point forward in relation to where the limb pockets sit.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_07: So that front plane.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_07: So there's some, I guess you call them physics that work in our favor there, some geometries that probably you could also identify that work in your favor from a uh stability of platform standpoint.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_07: So there's gonna be some some changes that you'll notice out of the gate just visually.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_07: Um, but man, like speedwise 336 is kind of where we're IBO, um, right along those lines.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_07: Um, you guys are gonna see the same finishes and decorations that you've seen, a lot of customization there, still running ABB platinum strings and cables there out of the top.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_07: That's another thing that I think is it it's not a big miss.
• 1:02:17
  SPEAKER_07: I just don't think everybody, I think everybody looks over it.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_07: We we have a string and cable system in there that is top of the line, out of the gate, factory in our bows with yeah, with a premium warranty.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_07: And like, man, like we're bringing our A game.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_07: It's overlooked a lot, yeah.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_05: And and we offer a lot of different colors, right?
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_05: And none of it is an upcharge, yeah.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_05: So you can mix and match limb colors, risers colors, ancillary parts colors, string colors to really customize it to exactly what you want, and it costs you zero dollars.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_07: Yep, it's just a part of the package.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_07: So there's all these step-ups that you would pay hundreds of dollars more for in the competitive products.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_07: Um, and just like, man, it it checks everybody's boxes, you know.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_07: And I I I want to go back to that checking everybody's boxes because I tell a lot of people, man, bow hunters are all different, every single one of them.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_07: The palm of my hand's different than the palm of your hand, like all the way out to what I visually like to see.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_07: It's different.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_07: So I tell a lot of people, up to this point in the marketplace, there are a lot of good options out there now.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_07: A lot, like there's the it's a bow hunter's marketplace because they can go and they can find what they need.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_07: Rarely can they find all of them in one.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_07: And I would argue never until now.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_07: And so, like, I'm I'm geeked about it because I can go say, Yeah, you can shoot the other ones.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_07: I would have told them a year ago, I'd been like, Yeah, go shoot them all.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_07: Find the one that fits.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_07: There are a lot of good bows out there.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_07: You can't go wrong.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_07: Now I'm gonna tell them you can shoot them, but shoot this.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_07: Save horse for last.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you've got to shoot them.
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_07: It'll make a difference.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_05: You know, in the last, you know, I kind of alluded to this earlier when I was saying, you know, my timing of coming was fantastic because Brady did all the hard work.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_05: And that's because, you know, when Magnite started, we just didn't have a lot of volume.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_05: And so anytime you have a really novel, unique to the world product and you have very low volume, it's super expensive.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_07: Right.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_05: So one of the big knocks on our X Lite series was these were expensive bows.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_05: They're they're carbon level pricing.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_05: But now that we've worked that supply chain and we're and we're buying at volumes that now make it make sense from uh economies of scale standpoint, you know, we're$14.99 on the 30 and$15.99 on the 33, which is right in the middle of where aluminum bows are priced.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_05: And significantly less than carbon bows.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_05: So, you know, I've really, you know, this is me talking, but I can't come up with a reason why somebody would ever choose to shoot a bow that's not a next light.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_05: It doesn't make any sense.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_07: I agree.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_07: I'm biased, but I'm gonna say you're darn right.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, no, seriously.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_02: Whether you're looking at a carbon bow or aluminum bow, it makes no sense to spend that much, and I hate to keep saying, but uh that much for a carbon bow when you got a better product at the same price as aluminum, so why buy aluminum when you get it at the same price?
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Magnite, it it makes no sense.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_05: Because I mean, if you can have the free weight, and really it's free weight because it's the same cost, yep, and it doesn't cost you any extra weight by vibration dampening treatments.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_05: Why wouldn't you do it?
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_07: Well, it's gonna be a big year for us.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_07: Um I've I just got mine Friday, so three days ago, for well, I guess the week's getting on here.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_07: So less than a week ago, I got it.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_07: I set it up.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_07: I was telling Jason I was watching March Madness with the boys, and I was tying D loops on and serving in my peep, and and uh got out Saturday morning to shoot it, and and um I I am very thoroughly impressed.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_07: Very thoroughly impressed.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, above and beyond.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: You did a great job.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: My friend, you did a great job.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: You pleasure working with you.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: We did a challenge, you did.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_02: I gave you one or two things, and I was like, he won't be able to get this done.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_02: But that's okay, but that's okay.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: But he he did them all.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: He did them all quietly, behind the scenes, working and clicking away, and yeah, he'll every six weeks he'll send me something, and you know, and then but yeah, so great job.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_05: And and then we decided to throw in some accessories too.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's an exciting thing.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_05: Sean Sean Keeney's done.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_05: They turned out wonderful.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's like our first round on accessories, and I'm not gonna be too impressed.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_02: They turned out phenomenal.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_05: Sean's done some design work in his first rodeo.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_05: Sean did good.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_07: A lot of good ones, but I will tell you the the number one one is the the stands.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_07: You can see them right there behind us.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_07: So um new X-Lock system that's that's on the bow.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_07: You guys will learn more about that if you're in the firearms world.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_07: There's some similarities out there with some other tech um or platforms that apply and it makes sense.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_07: Stan rides on the bow with you, folds up nice and clean so you can get it in your bow case.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_07: Yep.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_07: Um, man, if you if you don't want it out while you're carrying it or packing it on your on your on the back of your pack or you know, whatever, it's fine.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_07: It stays right there, it stays quiet, it doesn't vibrate.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_07: All those things that you want out of again, like, hey, do it, but do it right.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_07: Mark challenge.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: We would make a less vibration bow and then put a bad uh accessory on it.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_02: Makes no sense.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_02: It makes no sense.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: It has to match.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_02: He knows how I work.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_06: Very high expectations.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_07: Man, somebody might get the 30 for the X-Lite 35 out of your hand.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_07: I'm like, I wouldn't have to do it.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_07: When it makes it 35.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, man.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: I might have to.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate it very much, Jason.
• 1:07:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for coming out.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_06: Thanks for letting me come and hang out with you guys.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_07: Well, you guys had it.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_07: This is episode four with Mr.
• 1:07:18
  SPEAKER_07: Jason Fogg, the general manager of Expedition Archery.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_07: You know what we say.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_07: Never apologize.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_07: Never apologize for your god given right.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_07: Never apologize for your passion, buddy.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_07: And I like kudos on following your passion.
• 1:07:29
  SPEAKER_05: Never apologize for shooting magnite blues either.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_07: There you go, guys.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_07: Thanks.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_07: Appreciate it.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_07: Thanks.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_07: Let's see.