Latest / Beyond The Trailhead / Bearvault's Marketing & Sales Grant Breidenbach | Beyond the Trailhead Podcast Ep. 30
Transcript
- speaker-0: All everyone, welcome back to another incredible edition of Beyond the Trailhead. We got a great guest with us this week, Grant Brennbach with Bare Vault, who is with the marketing and sales team. He's here just to talk a little bit about Bare Vault, the history of Bare Vault. Grant, thank you so much for being on, first of all. speaker-1: Craig, thank you so much for the invitation. It's a really a joy to be on on the podcast today and have a channel speaker-0: Awesome. Well, I usually just go straight into it, Grant, instead of just, you know, bantering around and stuff like that. think people love getting straight into the nitty gritty, but just wanted to first ask you to just kind of talk a little bit about Bare Vault, maybe the history of the company, how long you've been on, ⁓ how it was founded, and all that good stuff. I mean, without further ado, take it away. speaker-1: Totally. That's awesome. So for anyone who doesn't know, Vault, we manufacture bear-resistant food containers for backpackers. You know, unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably familiar with bear canisters. You may love them, you may hate them, but that's what we do. And we truly believe in seeing humans and wildlife ⁓ have happy, healthy coexistence. We're a joyful brand that doesn't see bears as something that's scarier to be afraid of, but rather we approach it from the perspective of, hey, ⁓ how can we employ solutions here so that ⁓ while you're backpacking in a bear's home, you can properly respect that bear and take care of it. That bear lives a happy and healthy life and your trip goes well and you're not walking out hungry. ⁓ So the company started, the idea for the company was kind of late 90s. Really. So this place got some legs. It started basically in the Sierra where there was a ton of human-bear conflict and bears were getting into people's food ⁓ all the time. Bears were being put down, bears were getting aggressive, and there was basically a lot of back and forth between the National Park Service and a few individuals who were interested in creating solutions ⁓ to keep bears out of folks food in the back country. And the first canister that was on the market was not a Behrvault. It's one that think many of us have seen. It's the black one with kind of the thicker plastic and the coin opening. And that's called the Garcia backpackers cash, which has been, I mean, I got nothing, nothing bad to say about it. I mean, it's, it's indestructible. It's, stood the test of time. ⁓ But basically the original founder of Behrvault in the very early 2000s, was an avid backpacker, spent a lot of time in the Sierra and said, look, this is great. Love the concept, but there's gotta be a better way to do this. This thing is heavy. ⁓ You can't see inside it. The opening's small. can barely fit your arm down inside. How can we make this more user-friendly, have a bit more human-centered design baked into it, but also not compromise in the least on the bear resistance side of it? Because that's what's most important. Right. And so that's where the bear vault idea was born. ⁓ And, you know, instead using a transparent polycarbonate, similar material along the lines of bulletproof glass. ⁓ And the cancer's taking a few different shapes and sizes over the years, ⁓ generally becoming more robust, tougher. You know, the bears tend to point out our flaws. You know, we... ⁓ There is truly nothing that is bear proof. We do not advertise our products as bear proof. They are highly bear resistant. And ⁓ while people can backpack with total confidence in the product, we do get products back that have been chewed on by bears and we warranty all wildlife damage. And we're able to learn from that and say, well this bear chewed on this way, it did some damage here. How can we continue to iterate? the next evolution of the Bare Vault. And that's really what it's looked like for the last 20-some years of the company as the different Bare Vault models have evolved. I joined the team in 2021. I was living out in Idaho at the time and was looking for a bit of a career change, wanted to do something in the outdoor industry that also had a... a real mission behind it. I was coming from the nonprofit sector and I was working on proactively preventing homelessness as compared to a reactive approach. And I didn't want to work for just any corporate company that was selling another product that folks didn't really need. And the role of Bare Vault jumped off the page to me because, sure it's outdoor industry and outdoor gear, but there was this concept behind it of, we want people to have... less human-bear conflict in the back country. And we don't want to see bears euthanized. ⁓ We value them as just critical members of the ecosystem. ⁓ So I applied and the thing that I think might have, might have set ⁓ my resume apart for the crews that I was actually planning a hike of the John Muir trail that year. so I interviewed and I told the kind folks at Bear Vol I said, Hey, I'd love to join your team. ⁓ ⁓ I've got this month long JMT hike coming up. Can I push out the start date a little bit? I'm happy to grab some great, great photography for you and take a, take a nicer camera ⁓ into the back country. and ⁓ they were, they were excited to get some content out of it and knew that I would, you know, definitely fit the, ⁓ fit the mold for, ⁓ you know, a backpacker ⁓ using the product. So I carried my BV500. ⁓ through the JMT in 2021. And then it's been a great ride out here. And we're based just outside of Boulder, Colorado, if you're familiar with the area in Louisville. speaker-0: Okay, wow. That's a cool kind of a ride, like going from product and you and your journey just to come into the, how was the JMT by the way? speaker-1: JMP is awesome. I would highly recommend it to anyone. I think there are a few places in the lower 48 where you can get that contiguous of wilderness. It's uninterrupted by roads. are a few places you can hike for a few days or a week and not cross any sort of road. It's really unique. speaker-0: That's cool. I have it on my bucket list. I had a permit one time and then realized that I couldn't use that permit for the JMT, but I just didn't have the chunk of time in there to do it. And I was like, well, I guess I could run it for ⁓ a week. Yeah. speaker-1: do a fast tracking trip. you know, start to look at the elevations on those passes and the up and down, you realize that it's not going to go well. speaker-0: Yeah, no, exactly. Well, that's cool. So I guess, ⁓ you know, the, the product itself, ⁓ I think a lot of people think that, ⁓ a bear can or even kind of creating something like that, you know, seems instant to some people. Right. And even like we were talking earlier, you know, people think that bear vault is this huge company and it is, but like, in terms of like a team. Right? I look at that and see, you see it on all the stores. And when you're in retail, a lot of times people get this misconception of, this must be this massive company because they're in retail. But in reality, you're only a team of like five or so, right? speaker-1: Yep. There's a few more folks in kind of warehouse of production, but as far as our leadership and our development team and marketing and sales, we're a recruit five. speaker-0: Yeah. So see, hearing that and you know, for people who are listening and they're creating a brand or they have a brand right now that they think they need to be a huge company to get somewhere. You don't need to be ⁓ massive. You just need to have a product that people love and that is really ⁓ fulfilling a need. Kind of like what you were saying, how it really worked out really good for you. It was a need on your trip to have the bear of all. And a lot of times I think we all, when we go backpacking, We know there's no bears and we're using our bear can really to keep the mice and stuff as well out of it. I think that's a great marketing thing too, right? It's like, hey, this is multi-purpose. It's just not, you know, it's for the goats on the trail and everything too. speaker-1: We joke often about the microbears, know, the swirls and the mice and the marmots, but also the flying bears. You know, you've got your ravens and your seagulls you know, that could be, you know, maybe there's no threat to your life, but just as feisty and will absolutely tear apart your food and you know, could get these and whatnot as well. speaker-0: Yeah, when I was on, ⁓ shoot, where was it? It was in the North Cascades a few years ago. ⁓ I didn't have enough space and I was on a mountain, so I didn't have anywhere to put my stuff. So I had just enough for my essentials and everything else in my bear vault. But then the other stuff, I just put it in a dry bag off really far away. And I woke up in the morning and sure enough, like there's a massive hole in it and there was mouse droppings and everything. speaker-1: Then you can eat that food after that point, the hand of Iris or all the stuff. speaker-0: And I was. Exactly. So I was like, okay, what do I do? I guess it's all trash. I'm just now carrying like four extra pounds of random trash that I was like, I should have just, you know, I was like, I should have gone down maybe like a mile down and I could have at least hung it somewhere. But then I was like, then it's a mile off trail. speaker-1: And you know, North Cascades is not a simple mile. It's, you know, it's tracking. understand how that can happen for sure. speaker-0: Well, ⁓ I guess since I have it here with me, I have the new BV one that you guys came out with. Totally. Sweet. So I have it come collapsed and you have it extended. And I think people have been seeing this ⁓ a lot online. And I think, you know, what I really wanted to have you on here to talk about one was, you know, you're the company and the journey, but also the journey of creating a new product. You know, I think. being a company that's been around for, you guess around 20 years, right? That ⁓ you've gotten enough input that it's great to hear how, like, how did you guys go from the bare canister that you have now to this version? speaker-1: That's a question. mean, so we get a lot of feedback, both from users and from the bears. ⁓ And so, you know, from bears, it's great. You know, they're not quite as talkative, but they talk with their paws, jaws, and claws. we, ⁓ you know, we get all these canisters back. Basically we have a ⁓ lifetime warranty on any wildlife damage. So if a bear chews on your canister, doesn't have to do, you know, we can just put a single scratch on there. And we will swap that out for a brand new bear canister. And so we get all these canisters back and we get a wealth of data about how bears interact with our products. And so, ⁓ you know, we, when we were realizing that we wanted to design kind of a new generation of bear can, we first took that piece of data into it. And then we also took the second half, ⁓ you know, the customer feedback, right? And so having done this for 20 years, we hear a lot. from folks, right? And there are three common pain points that pop up. And they're not shockers. People say that Bayer canisters can be ⁓ heavy, bulky, and hard to open. And ⁓ we said, okay, well, how can we design a Bayer canister that solves all three of these problems? And it was a pretty classic, let's approach the pain points ⁓ type of... ⁓ know, product iteration cycle. ⁓ And at first we didn't have a solution for ⁓ the bulkiness. We were approaching ⁓ the lock first and foremost. ⁓ You know, a lot of folks, especially when temperatures are cold and dexterity goes down in the hands, ⁓ the existing lock on the classics line, it can be tricky, you know, and you can be left finding you need a stick or tent stake or something to push that in and it... you know, as much as we'd love for it to be perfectly easy, we admit that sometimes it's not as easy as ⁓ we would like. And so we said, all right, we need a new locking system that is going to be easy to push. We want it to be more accessible. know, folks that have older hands, maybe with arthritis, ⁓ cold hands, weaker hands. ⁓ And so we developed this new button housing that has this soft push rubber that basically is a spring loaded button that that pushes in and out, ⁓ still has a good bit of give, ⁓ but also is strong enough that it's not going to be torn apart by a bear. ⁓ Basically then, ⁓ rather than the simultaneous pushing a nub under a stopper, we have these two asymmetrical locks that you push it in, it releases off at the tabs, and then you're able to spin and... take the canister into the two halves. ⁓ And so that lock was really important for us. And we iterated through, I don't even know, I'd have to touch base with Mitch, our product developer, but I mean, based on things from various 3D models that we ran simulations on to 3D printed, mean, probably 100 different lock designs, maybe more, ⁓ until we settled on the lock we have here. That's this ⁓ simultaneous push. and then you spin the top of the canister once it's pushed in. And so we keep dialing that in, tested a bunch of different materials, bunch of different springs, basically every variable to find the right balance of something that, know, a bear's not going to mess with this, and it's going to be easy to open. And then the other thing we built in was we built in a really nifty little fail safe. Well, in all of our testing and all the bears we've put this in front of, we have yet to see a bear. to off the buttons themselves. ⁓ though they protrude and bears often will focus on things that protrude that could be a real focus area for bears. ⁓ If in the unlikely event that a bear takes off the buttons, we sized ⁓ the locking mechanism such that if you take the aglets on your shoelaces and put the aglets of your shoelaces in, it'll still unlock the canister. So we wanted to have a fail safe in there. so that nobody gets locked out of their food, even after a bear really goes to town on this canister. The next focus area was weight. And so basically on our existing canisters, ⁓ the biggest area where weight gets concentrated is in the lid. That lid has to be pretty beefy. ⁓ It's a slightly softer plastic. ⁓ And yeah, you get a fair bit of the weight just in the... in that lid. And we said, well, what if we could design a canister that didn't have a lid? And then suddenly you save a ton of weight. And so that's where the center opening came from. ⁓ And we were able to save additional weight ⁓ basically by using some new manufacturing techniques, some new tooling. So these bear vaults are made in a slightly different technique than the existing bear vaults. And this manufacturing technique allows us to ⁓ specifically place the exact thickness of material in the places we want it. We have additional, we have more control over the thickness than we on the previous canisters. so coming back to the idea of we've seen a lot of canisters chewed on, we put extra material in the places where bears chew on it and less in the areas where bears are less likely to chew on it. ⁓ And so by 3D mapping the places where the thickness of material should go, we basically were able to take quite a bit of weight off. And I mean, we're talking about, you know, grams to maybe a few ounces here. But all these things add up, right? You remove the lid, you change the buttons, you remove material here and there. And suddenly, you know, we have a can that comes in under two pounds, which is, know, that was our goal is we want it be sub two pounds. ⁓ And that's what this can is. It's one pound, 15 ounces. And so when you compare that on a weight to volume ratio, to our classic live canisters, that's about 20 % more efficient on a weight to volume ratio, ⁓ which for those of us who like to the grams, myself included, ⁓ it definitely has a real impact on the trail. ⁓ And a bare canister no longer is that thing that's holding you back. Now you're getting benefit from it and you still use it as a stool and all those things. The last piece that was the biggest component was the bulk side of it. How do you get something that's hard-sided, rigid, can withstand a grizzly bear going to town on this thing? It's very hard to calculate, estimates vary, bears can, ⁓ when they do this CPR pumping motion, what the grizzly bears enjoy doing the most. And estimates put that anywhere from a thousand, maybe 2000 pounds of force when bears are doing that pumping motion. you have an object that's under two pounds, but it has to withstand a few thousand pounds of force. on our tests and our calculations, the BV1 is ready for about 3000 pounds of force. ⁓ And so essentially we... speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: We wanted something that was that tough and durable, ⁓ but it also needed ⁓ to solve that issue of ⁓ the bulk. Those seem like opposite issues. Something that's flexible is not strong, and something that's strong is not flexible. Then our engineer really had this aha moment of, what if the two halves telescoped into each other? ⁓ We had this idea of it meeting in the middle. But it was just a slight adjustment to make one side a little bigger and one side a little smaller. moved the threads inside and suddenly it collapses down on itself. And you can shrink this thing to half the size, which we're, we're stoked about. Of course, we anticipate most people will use it in the sense of, you know, each day as their trip progresses, they'll make it smaller and smaller. It'll take up less of a pack. We also expect a group of users. ⁓ you're especially kind of the fast packing community or your bike packing community, ⁓ to basically take half of their food out, distribute it in hip belt pockets and, ⁓ do it elsewhere throughout their pack. Yeah. Laps it all the way down to that halfway mark at start of the trip. Put it in their pack. And then now they're carrying, you know, something that's roughly equivalent to our 425 in size. No matter how fast and light you're going, that can will fit and it's not going to be bulky in your pack. And then when you get to camp, you take everything out, you assemble it, and now you have even more space than our BV450 line. You've got four to five days of space, but you didn't have that full-on trail, which we were really excited about that piece of innovation. speaker-0: Yeah. So I know that was a, that was a ton on the innovation of the can and stuff like that. But I think it's really awesome to hear, like, I'm sure the engineer in your team, when you guys had this, like, especially the, the, the sizing portion of it, right. Where the, the, the twisting and being able to just collapse and stuff. Like that must've been such a cool moment to be able to like, Oh my gosh. Like this is it. We know this is it. Right. Was that iteration early on or was that like, like how long did it take you to get to the design before you started doing the prototyping and stuff like that? Were you like lost in on that? speaker-1: was just like mid design. Designing this cam is about a five year process. There have been oodles of iterations ⁓ along the way. It wasn't really towards, I would say, the middle of the design process where ⁓ that idea jumped off the pages. It really was that classic aha moment, so to speak. That was a really special moment. speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's really cool. Cause as soon as I saw it, know everybody saw it and was like, okay, well let's actually see once we get it in our hands, you know how it works. And once I have it in my hand and I was like, oh, this is awesome. Cause I, you know, I think we've all had that on the trail. It's too big or how do I fit it in my backpack? Especially when the more ultra light you go, the less room you typically have in your bags. You're usually standing it straight up and now you can actually like sit it where it's like flat on my back. If I want to have it in my bag. if it's collapsed or I can strap it on and stuff like that. So I'm just excited to use it for myself on the trail on my next trip. So ⁓ I wanted to go a little bit into the 3D printing side of it. Now, something like this, I'm assuming like you can't just, you could do prototypes on the design of it, but you wouldn't do anything testing wise on it. the innovation of having 3D printing, I think I... said something I was talking with Lloyd from Garage Grown Gear about 3D printing and how I really wanted to get a 3D printer was that ⁓ I think it's helping people go faster, right? With designs when it comes to a product, instead of having to send it out to get printed for yourself, to get prototypes back, you can literally do it in-house that day and then do iteration after iteration. So do you think that the 3D printing process, I know because five years in the 3D printing world is like, a huge leap in technology. So it'd be interesting to hear like how late in the game you started using 3D printing and if it was ⁓ kind of essential in getting it out a lot earlier or do think it would be potentially even a couple of years more because you didn't have that 3D printing technology? speaker-1: Yeah, I think 3D printing has really sped things up for us. I wish I had Mitch here to talk about some of the nuances of ⁓ the exact 3D printer we use, but I know that we use quite a few different filaments and ⁓ are able to simulate a lot of the materials ⁓ via the material properties of 3D printing have advantages and disadvantages. And ⁓ while you can simulate a lot, it's going to be inferior to the actual ⁓ plastic molding that you get with an end-use product. But as far as simulating user functionality, sizing, component wear, a lot of things you can test with a 3D printing system. And so we brought 3D printing into the process, ⁓ I'd say around, actually around the time of kind of that aha moment. And as we were doing that, we were able to you know, set, you know, a couple, you know, full size prototypes on the table, um, that had, you know, different thread configurations, uh, different locks and your entire team could basically pick up, you know, version A off the table, version B off the table. And then tomorrow you come back and you know, our engineer has version C and version D and version E and you know, actually it's one thing to look at on the computer screen and visualize the CAD model. It's another thing to pick it up. get it actually sense for a feel of it, go walk over to the closet where we have a giant library of backpacks. We put this in a fast pack. Okay, how about a bigger like Deuter Expedition pack, know, like a NOLS course, like let's put it in 10 different packs. Well, like, you know, this one, you know, the quarter rounded a bit better. It's able to fit, you know, it is hyperlite pack, but this one, you know, we designed it this way and, know, ⁓ it's good in this way, but now it doesn't fit in the hyperlite pack, right? And we can, you know, we can do all that. way quicker that you can't really simulate all of those things. speaker-0: Yeah, no, that's, I think it's always interesting to know, you know, for people who are listening, are again, creating a brand versus people who are just backpackers. And when you're creating a product, you know, hearing that you probably have this huge closet of bags, right? You probably have so many because, I mean, look at how many back, backpacks are out there of sizes of different, like you were talking about fast packing versus like, a big expedition somewhere, you know, where you're to have a bigger bag and all that stuff. And you've got to figure out, how can we fit at least, at least get it to that middle ground of it'll work with probably 95 % of the bags that are out there. speaker-1: Yes. I'll put in a plug since I know a lot of your audience is industry folks. I'm sure there's some pack manufacturers listening. We are working on a project and it's in its infancy now and it's actually, our data is published, but basically we are trying to compile basically a master spreadsheet of which packs fit with our Bayer canisters in which configurations. ⁓ And so if there's a pack manufacturer out there, that if you'd like us to measure your packs or if you'd like us to send some canisters for you to measure and share the data, ⁓ we've heard from a lot of pack manufacturers that ⁓ your users, your hikers are thinking about canisters when they're purchasing a pack and that's a purchase consideration. ⁓ And this is data that gives people buying confidence to say, I'm going on a seven day trip, I need this bare canister, is this can? going to fit in this pack that I'm purchasing. And so we're working to basically build that into a fancy spreadsheet. It's really what it is, but in a helpful, easy to use web format. And so if there's a pack manufacturer out there who would like to participate in the project, please reach out, touch base, and we'd love to collaborate. speaker-0: That's awesome. I love it when businesses work together instead of kind of compete against each other and everything else. I think we all grow a lot faster that way, right? As being a team in the industry instead of yelling at each other all the time and being bitter old people about it. So, yes. So, and it's great because I actually, after this I'm recording with a backpacking company. I'll tell her about it. she'll be like, ⁓ yeah, totally. you know, she's designs bags and I'm like, ⁓ yeah. Okay, so going into a little bit more about ⁓ the industry and stuff like that, I always try to ask a company if there was like an ⁓ crap moment ⁓ in building the brand, whether it was, you know, when, before you were there ⁓ on the team, that was a previous story. We've had some companies talk about how they had a shipment come out and then the truck caught on fire and it wasn't their fault. But then, the manufacturer wouldn't do anything and then the trucking company wasn't covering it or all these crazy things. Or maybe there's another story. So I don't know if you have an ⁓ crap moment that comes to mind where that you could share with everybody. speaker-1: Totally. Yeah, mean, in 20 years, there's plenty of things that happen. mean, even I think there's some story from maybe a decade ago of bear vaults rolling down the highway after something terrible happening. ⁓ I think the one that I think is kind of a really neat story of kind of industry collaboration is, and maybe it's not the biggest, crap moment in the world, But while we were ⁓ prototyping and doing field testing on the new BV1, and ⁓ this was actually pretty late in the design process. We had the design pretty much fully finalized, had done most of our bear testing, ⁓ and we had the canister out in the field with some product testers. And we ⁓ were collaborating with Sarah from TreeLineReview. which if you haven't had Sarah on the podcast, absolutely should. Okay. Right, write that name down. Just one of the most knowledgeable people you'll meet about ⁓ gear and understanding what makes good gear versus bad gear on the market. ⁓ when we were looking for testers, we wondered if folks were actually going to get out into the field with it, not just look at it at home and be like, ⁓ yeah, it seems nice. And maybe I'll get out there with it someday. Sarah took the bear vol out into some really nasty weather and basically ran in to some freezing, freezing rain conditions. Sarah had the canister completely collapse, kind of like the one that you have on your desk is. And when, when the freezing rain came down and dripped over the canister and cased the canister and ice, she wasn't able to get it open. It was frozen shut. ⁓ And we're going, ⁓ no, like this is not good. know, like the whole point of this canister is that it's easy to open. ⁓ You can get in. And essentially what we learned was that when it's fully collapsed, like the one on your table, ⁓ that you don't, you're not able to get the grip, leverage, the lower portion is almost entirely kind of sucked up into the, or the, or depending how you. view at the upper portion is completely screwed down onto the lower portion depending on your perspective. And so in that position, you know, your hand just slips off of the lower section. luckily the fix wasn't particularly elaborated, it was more of a customer education piece, a design change. so with that feedback, we were able to... ⁓ really change a lot of our customer education videos, our product pamphlets, and tell people, hey, you store this thing in a locked position with the lock fully engaged. Cause then you have all of this surface area to grip and it won't be any problem to break through any ice that forms in extreme weather like that. And so I think the biggest takeaway from that was, you know, working with, you know, product testers, you know, I think there can be kind of this fear of working with somebody who's maybe in a gear of view capacity and saying, ⁓ no, what if they have something bad to say about the product? that's fair concern. You don't want bad press for a product, but at the same time, you might learn something really important and get way ahead of things ⁓ by collaborating with somebody. And so ⁓ I think we were able to turn something that kind of was this ⁓ no moment If you are really awesome learning collaboration, strengthen that relationship and provide resources so that doesn't happen to anybody, any customers in the field. speaker-0: Well, and getting that feedback can be more painful depending on your role in it, right? Like if it's just me making my own bags at home and I send it out to somebody and they have a bad review or they're talking about it, it can hurt versus when you have a team, at least you're working together, it's still gonna hurt, but it might not hurt as much because it might not be so much your baby. I'm sure the engineer, he's like, well, ⁓ my gosh. speaker-1: Of course, of course. It's hard to look at it. Comments roll off sometimes and all those things, but ⁓ so it goes. speaker-0: Yeah, but at least you're able to change. Cause I think some people think sometimes you need to redesign your entire product, but a lot of times it might be a user education thing more so, right? Cause sometimes I get products in and I have no instructions at all. Cause I might get it in before there's even any of the pamphlets and instructions that come with you. so now I'm trying to figure it out based on just a short email from somebody or whatever. And at least you're able to kind of say, okay, we can make this video or we can put it in here to store it in certain weather conditions like this. Cause I would never have thought, you I would probably try to throw it on a rock and try to smash the ice off, but you're never going to get like certain amount of, depending on how you store it, right? You might get like, if I store it like this, for example, I might get, especially freezing rain. You're not freezing rain that often, but it's going to get in there and no matter how much you beat it, that the water gets in and then freezes. speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-0: So I see why you're like, yeah, that's a great point. And at least you didn't have to go back to, oh no, we gotta now make another 100,000 of these. Exactly. speaker-1: Which, you know, plastic molds are extraordinarily expensive, especially the way this one is designed. I mean, there's things you can do, levers you can pull, but you reach a certain point and you kind of, have your design, you validate it with bears and things come up, that could be concerning. But ⁓ luckily, there's a lot of things that you can educate around, right? ⁓ you know, it's just like a car, you know, when, when you get a car, ⁓ that requires maintenance, you know, and you have to know the rules of the road, how to drive the car. don't rev the tachometer, you know, past the red line, like you want to damage your car. And it's just like that with any piece of gear, even when it's something that's tough and durable, ⁓ and can withstand a bear, ⁓ like a bear vault, there's still, you got to take care of it. You know, there's, there's maintenance you need to do on it to keep it clean and functioning well. ⁓ know, there's a right way to use it and a wrong way to use it. you know, we, it's, it's the old adage, but in, in five years of bare fault, I have definitely confirmed that there is a substantial overlap between the, smartest of bears and the, perhaps the dumbest of our product, ⁓ users. Not all of them by any means, but you know, we, we do everything we can to provide. videos, pamphlets, for every communication style that somebody has. Hopefully we're providing an educational resource. speaker-0: Yeah. So I guess ⁓ my next question, I have two, I guess the first would be, ⁓ let me write this down so I don't forget it. ⁓ Is ⁓ the bear testing portion of it. So we've had GrubCan on the podcast before and talking to the owner's wife and stuff like that. Yeah. And so it's great to hear like, speaker-1: Holly's great. speaker-0: you know, we're not competing with each other. We have different products that have different functions and everything and different uses. But I, um, I heard that like the bear can, um, what do call it? When you get it like officially certified that you can use it in certain parks. Yosemite is one of those things where, um, it's hard to get stuff certified. Everything else seems to be something that's pretty much easier to certify versus like the backstory I could get into it, I'm sure with that, but like, is the new can versus the older cans? Is it take a while to get that certified? What's the process of getting your product, especially with bears, is it a government certification or is it more just a take our word for it? speaker-1: That's a great ⁓ question. Certification is a variety of things. That's also great that you had Holly and Jim from Grubkip and on. They're an awesome couple and they really care about bears also. yeah, testing for us is really a multifaceted process. It starts long before we get to a bear and there's a lot of, if you're in the design world, you might be familiar with FEA analysis. We probably have all seen at least maybe stylized ⁓ images of this, but basically this is where you simulate with a computer force on an object and you see how much it's deforming when you put a certain load on it. And so long before a product ever gets in front of a bear, you're doing thousands of these simulations seeing, wait, we have a stress concentration here. It would totally crack or deform. It probably would happen here. Let's change the geometry. Let's change the thickness. Let's do something different. All right, we fixed that spot. Oh, now I've created a spot over here. it's, you know, I, I can often be this balancing act. then you get to a really good spot and you're like, all right, let's 3D print this one. Then you learn a bunch more and you know, it's, you go through, you know, quite a few of iterations and then we're putting it in front of, you know, physical testing. could be as rudimentary as, you, laughed a minute ago about, you know, smacking our rock to try to get the ice off, you know, and. You know, in the early stage, it can be that rudimentary, know, we're spacking our rock, dropping it off of our roof, you know, just really basic stuff before we get, you know, quality lab data involved. ⁓ You know, once some of that early validation happens, you're doing some laboratory testing on it. ⁓ And then you're putting it in front of bears for the first time. This is often outside of the official testing channels. And we want to see how bears are interacting with this. Often too, when we go to test at the official testing facilities, which I'll share more about in a moment, we're often not testing the entire product at once. Eventually we reach a point where we're like, all right, this is the test. is everything put together, but we might go and say, right, we're just really testing the buttons here. We'll do something, we'll put the rest of the canister together. And what we really want to learn about is the buttons. And that's in Maranatha Bears, focus on the buttons and maybe the rest of the canisters. I don't know, glued shut or something like that. And we're not really worried about looking at that part of it. We just want to gather data on say the buttons. And we might do that a few times. And then, you you gather all this data, you keep refining, and then, you know, you kind of have your official IJBC test. And so the IJBC is the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee. ⁓ And it's basically representatives from the Forest Service, National Park Service, a other land managers. that have gotten together and broader IGBC, ⁓ their mission is tasked with the ⁓ reintroduction management and recovery of the grizzly bear into various recovery zones. For instance, you mentioned the North Cascades before we were on the call this morning. And ⁓ there's been a lot of planning and work ⁓ in place to reintroduce, for instance, grizzly bears to the North Cascades. ⁓ Similarly, got your Yellowstone recovery zone, Bitterroot. Selkirk's, Cabinet Yak, et cetera. One piece of the IGBC is their bear resistant products program. And they basically issue a certification number for ⁓ coolers, horse paneers, ⁓ and backpacking portable containers like a bear vault. And they also actually certify like the metal lockers that you so often see in campsites back in country, back in locations where those dumpsters and trash cans. And so, What the IJBC has done is they've partnered with two facilities that have ⁓ grizzly bears. So one is the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana. The other is the WSU Bear Center in Pullman, Washington. ⁓ And those two facilities ⁓ have awesome grizzly bears that are really good at getting into products. They've done it enough that they know where to shake and shimmy and where to press and techniques and these bears often will unveil your weaknesses incredibly quickly. You'll show up at a company like this is so tough. Bears got no shot on this and five minutes later, you know, it's in 14 pieces and you're touching your head how it happened, right? ⁓ And so how the test is structured is ⁓ you show up with the product and they first do a visual inspection. They make sure that there's nothing's gonna be dangerous for the bears. You don't have sharp nails sticking out that's gonna injure a bear or whatnot. And then they put something that's basically a high value food reward for the bears. In simple terms, that probably means pizza, dog kibble, honey water, something nasty. You often fish heads, when you get the product back at the end, it's a little bit nasty and you're proposing it out. know, still vaguely smells of fish. And... Anyway, so they'll put that out there and the bears will begin to engage with it and how you have to pass the test, has to be an hour of direct contact time. So that is defined as scratching it, biting on it, or pumping on it. If the bear is only licking it or steps back for a moment, the timer stops. And so only when the bear is actively engaging with it does that timer run. And man, do they engage with it. I mean, these bears go to on these products. And often it's in like a five minute segment and they'll kind of, you know, get out of breath, their mammals do, right? And they're like, all right, I need a break. But ⁓ once you accumulate 60 minutes of contact time, the product is pulled out. There can't be any holes or gaps or cracks greater than a quarter of an inch. So it's inspected, photos are taken, and then the video footage and the photos are all submitted. to a committee with the IGBC for review, then provided that everything checks out, no funny business or anything, ⁓ the certification number is issued. And that certification number is basically your ticket into the vast majority of the parks. And that's the certification ⁓ that you can stand behind to basically say, this company has done their due diligence, ⁓ this is a real product. It's gone through proper testing. It's not any sort of counterfeit, which is a new issue that we've been dealing with recently. Some counterfeiting that is not tested, not certified is a hazard to bears. ⁓ You asked about Yosemite a bit. ⁓ So Yosemite is really unique in that they manage their own list and they do not look to the IGBC as the certifying body. ⁓ speaker-0: Interesting. speaker-1: Their reasons are multifaceted. One, ⁓ black bears and grizzly bears ultimately are different. ⁓ While they have perhaps more similarities than differences, grizzly bears often approach things with kind of their physical size and their brute force. Meanwhile, black bears ⁓ approach things with a lot more nuance. They'll really check it out. They'll nibble here, nibble there. ⁓ And often I'd think they're bit more focused and targeted than grizzly bears. ⁓ And so that's one component. The other component is that there's unfortunately a little bit of ugly history around the assembly testing program. And ⁓ one of the other product manufacturers ⁓ sued with that, with the certification process. It went to the ninth circuit court of appeals, Yosemite national park won, but it effectively created a regulatory gridlock. so even if you made a product out of tank armor is what I often will say, you and you made it super thick and out of three inch steel or whatever, at this time, it would not be added to the Yosemite list. It's not a measure of the product's bare resistance. It's a measure of ⁓ were you on the list before 2015 or not. And ⁓ so of course, you know, we look forward to the day when somehow that may change in the future and we'd love to see the BV1 on that list. But at this time, that list, ⁓ you know, remains in place and we respect that fully encouraging customers to go, you know, try to carry this behind Rangers back. We fully believe that this would stand up to any bear in the Assembly National Park and we're confident. ⁓ but we have full respect of the land managers, their authority and decision making. speaker-0: I didn't hear that until Holly told me that. And I was like, man, because every time I go into the park, I'm like, hey, I have a can. Because they ask me, right? They don't ask me, was it a can that's regulated before whatever, you know, the date? And when she told me, I was like, ⁓ my gosh, now I had to double check because, you know, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get a random fine. And I'm hoping that they would understand that, hey, like my ignorance a little bit in it for a lot of people. but also being educated on it, I think is huge. It's interesting that you're talking about the imposters and stuff like that. I know in every industry there's people that copy ideas or they also, there's a lot of stuff you buy online that's not certified and it says it has certifications, because anybody can Photoshop a... label on anything and say they have a number or whatever and most like I'm trying to get my son right now a one of those electric bikes and he wants this one brand that all of his friends are getting and one it's cost of fortune I'm like buddy I can't buy that and secondly it's like a class three vehicle so I was like okay well in our state you have to be 15 plus in order to even ride it and then you would have to all these other things and so speaker-1: Yeah speaker-0: Your friends are technically, because they're 13, they're... speaker-1: They're not technically supposed to be this thing. Those bikes were scary, Craig. I've been zipping around in my neighborhood. worry about GBI's on those kids. I mean, it's... speaker-0: something else. It's why I mean, they're flying and the ones that they have go 4550 miles an hour. I told my son I was like, Hey, listen, it's regulated to 20, I think 28 miles per hour, depending on where you where you are in Georgia or whatever. I'm fine with getting you that because one I don't want to get fined. ⁓ Because I'm the parent and I'm ultimately responsible. But then a lot of it is we're just not educated as consumers. You see an ad online for a bike and the kids all want this new trendy bike. The parents go out and buy it thinking it's just a bicycle with an electric motor but they don't understand the nuances behind the actual laws and stuff. And the laws are trying to keep up with technology a lot of times but that's whole other story. you have ⁓ those things. So it's interesting that you're having ⁓ people who are unregulated creating. bare canisters so they're really not caring about the animals I would think too because they probably didn't have done any of the testing they just think it's gonna work. speaker-1: Yeah, this is a brand new brand new issue for us and we're still ⁓ learning how to how to deal with it. And we're learning a lot from other brands. We've been touching base with other companies who've been through this and, you know, approaching it on every front through, you know, Amazon channels, legal channels, et cetera. But basically, yeah, there's companies, you know, they're they're based in China that are, you know, strictly looking for profit. They don't care at all about user safety or the health and well-being affairs. speaker-0: that. speaker-1: ⁓ and they just see, you know, a skew that's doing well on, on Amazon and see an opportunity to, ⁓ to make a quick buck. ⁓ and I mean, you know, and they vest still quite a bit into the tooling to, make a plastic part like this. they've, you know, they're, they're trying to, ⁓ sell a bear canister, but there's no IGBC certification. You know, if you go to the official list on IGBC, ⁓ their website, you know, you're not going to find. this, this knockoff product listed. speaker-0: Yeah. So I guess my next question is just kind of pivoting from what we've been talking about, like the development process of it, going into the sales of the new canister. Since you already make such a good can, right? What are the hurdles that you've found maybe marketing to people that already have a can? I mean, obviously the great part about it is the flexibility of the can, right? Is that Okay, maybe I have the can before, but now I can get this one and it can serve multiple purposes. But do you find like, ⁓ no, so now we have to, you of course there's lots of people who still need Bearcans, right? But what are the marketing things that you've kind of done or hurdles that you've kind of seen in marketing a new product to previous people who still love your product overall? speaker-1: That's a great question, Craig. And I think, you know, we approach it really honestly. You know, we want to communicate the features, benefits of this product. We don't want to oversell it in any way. You know, we don't want to, you know, force that product down the throat of anyone who needs it. Like if you have your bear vault and you love it and enjoy it, great. Like I'm not going to tell you, you have to buy this new bear canister. Of course, I'm very happy if you want to increase, you know, your fleet of bare canisters in the garage, but we build products to last. Our products, a general rough estimate of lifespan is 10 years of heavy use. Quite often it's longer. ⁓ And so if you have a canister that's working great, that's awesome. if that's working for you and it fits your needs, but if this is a canister that, if the new canister is something that you feel good about carrying, if you're excited about that it's lighter, that it takes up less space in your pack, that it's easy to open in the morning, that you get additional options for how you divide your food, organize your food, if that gets you excited, if that makes it feel like it's not a burden to carry a bear canister, but rather this is something that compliments and accentuates your backpacking experience, then by all means, please purchase a BV-1. And I think that just kind of comes down to if I could encapsulate our marketing style in a word, it's joyful. Bear canisters often can get, like a lot of bear products in the world of bear spray, bear safety, bear training, bear canisters, is often a fear message, which is a pretty easy message when it comes to bears, and it's kind of this, who's gonna make it out of the woods, you or the bear? And the part of you, Kerry, matters, revival. That's, mean, if that's the message you want to go with, sure. But the data says that, know, human-bare conflicts, bear attacks are actually pretty uncommon. And, you know, instead we can approach it from this joyful perspective and say, how wonderful is it that we can go into the back country? How wonderful it is that we have products like this that give you the opportunity to travel light and free, but also do your part to keep the ecosystem, you know, healthy. ⁓ And so I think that that joy comes through in all of the marketing materials we've created around the BV1. you know, early signals would say that people are really resonating with that. You know, we can hardly keep these things on the shelves. you know, both veteran users that have had, you know, bare canisters for ages and, maybe have all of our other sizes are, you know, eager to get a can like this. And also, as you said, there are people that are ⁓ you know, heading out into the backcountry for the first time. you know, every year, know, it's backing is a, is a, is a activity that has a certain amount of churn people are coming in and out of the activity that creates new opportunities to, sell bare canisters, um, to folks heading out there. We've also really focused in the last few years on communicating to folks that are backpacking outside of the areas where a canister is strictly required. Um, So I think, you know, we maybe had a misconception for many years, the vast majority of our customers were using canisters in places where you were legally required to use a canister. And it was a small fraction of people that were using canisters, ⁓ just kind of out of the goodness of their heart, wanting to have that peace of mind and protect the ecosystem. And, you know, we've collected a lot of user data since then and learned that, ⁓ actually quite a few folks are... not in areas that require canisters and they are doing this just because they feel that it makes their trip better. And so, you know, we've shifted marketing a bit since then to communicate to that audience a little bit better and have the message be a little bit less of a focus on, when you're in Yosemite and Yosemite tells you, the government tells you, you have to carry this, changing that message a bit. speaker-0: Well, that's good too, because I found like I was one of those people that I would only take it when I legally was required to. And then eventually I was like, I was like, okay, let me take it one to keep the like the little microbears out, you know, and stuff like that. Because again, I had that, on Sahale, I had ⁓ the critters get into my stuff. And secondly, I was just like, okay, I want to be able to come back out here. and enjoy the space and not create a mess for everybody else. Because man, when critters get into your stuff, I mean, they don't just like nibble on it a bit. They drag crap all over the place. And then a lot of times you can't find half of that stuff. And then there's tin foil over here and there's this over here and all that stuff. it really helps, I think, the environment too. I've been reading a lot of posts lately about people not giving out their locations. especially a lot of like social media influencers saying like, hey, I'm not going to give this out because, ⁓ and they're gatekeeping it because they want to protect the environment. And I'm like, well, if we protect the environment, maybe they wouldn't gatekeep these locations so much so we could go to these really neat places that I'm like, hey, I've sent messages to people, hey, can you share this location? And they won't, either they won't message me back or they'll say, well, I want to protect the environment. I totally get it. But I'm like, I really want to go. Yep. ⁓ speaker-1: And if we can be good stewards of it, you want your son to be able to backpack their ⁓ experience, a bear in a healthy, natural context. And you want the bear experience to be the best part of your trip, not the worst part of your trip. And especially with bears, mean, when you think about kind of the whole gambit of leave no trace, right? there is, when you think about your principles, all of them are important. but few have as lasting of an impact as a human-bear conflict or respecting wildlife. If you walk off trail, you poop on the trail, those things have a real impact, but after a season, after the rains come and go, that may have less of an impact. With a bear, a bear can live for 25, 30 years. Once a bear accesses human food, It doesn't forget that. Bears have this amazing memory. Their brains are coded. It was called spatiotemporal memory. They think about where and when they found food. And their brains and their biology are entirely designed around this. I could go on and on about how bears evolved this way. But once they access human food, the same reasons we pack this food, it's calorically dense and rich. Think how much grass you have to eat as a bear to equal a Snickers bar, right? And so once a bear has accessed human food from one person's responsibility, right, you came into that bear's home for one night, your quick backpacking trip, and now everyone who comes into that area for years to come, and that bear may have cubs and teach those cubs the same behaviors, now everyone else's experience is changed because of one person's responsibility. And ultimately, the saying, fed bear is a dead bear is 100 % true. data puts it at around 2,000 bears a year in the states here are euthanized for human-bear conflict. That's a huge impact to our ecosystems. ⁓ And with a little bit of user responsibility, we can bring those numbers down and bears can be the best part of our trips, not the worst. speaker-0: Yeah, that's great info. So my question just randomly was like, are bears similar to, you know, like a squirrel will bury his nuts and then know exactly where they are like the next year. it similar thought? Like they just remember once they've done it once, they just know for forever? speaker-1: Exactly. Bears, some bears do have a little bit of like a caching behavior, kind of like you saying. Most bears don't act kind of on a caching basis. But as far as the spacial temporal memory, that's exactly how it works. So if a bear found huckleberries on a particular hillside at a particular time of year, they're going to come back to that same hillside the next year and look for those same huckleberries. And they have an incredible memory in that regard. And the exact same thing goes. If they find human food in a campsite, they're going to come back to that exact same campsite ⁓ again and again. Also, if they learn how to access human food, for instance, take Desolation Wilderness outside of Tahoe. There basically was a generation of bears out there that quickly realized how to pull down food hangs. Once a bear knows how to pull down a food hang, it's really good at doing it. The rangers in that area were estimating that about speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: 10 food hangs a night were being pulled down in desolation wilderness. And it reached this crisis level where they said, we have to bring in these bear canisters. And it's very much a reactive approach to state, this is kind of a crisis. We need to enforce the bear canisters. ⁓ But the bears, ⁓ when they're amazing memory, they're like, we know exactly where these food hangs are. We where the campsites are. We know where the trees are. I think bears' intelligence is often underestimated. They are wonderful creatures that are very smart. They're not just kind of these dopey forest Bruins, you know, bumbling around like in the, in the cartoons perhaps. speaker-0: Yeah. There's this comedian, he's always said, I think it's Brian Regan. has this funny thing he talks about ⁓ where we always get like, where people are like, man, dolphins are just as smart as humans, right? Or, you know, beavers are just as smart and they're like, they build their dams. it's like, you're like, I'm not downplaying animals. ⁓ They're, they're smartness and their memories and stuff like that. But like, they build ⁓ a sticks and muds Hoover dam. It's like, speaker-1: Well, they still haven't figured out the varicanus, Jason. We've managed to outsmart them with our products, but when the beavers start building Hoover Dam, we'll be afraid of the bears with our canister. speaker-0: That's awesome. Well, I mean, thank you for all the information. I guess just the one last question I have about y'all in the industry is, you know, as a business being in the business for a long time versus some people we have on have been in the business for only a year or so, where do you think the company sits? Like if you were a trailhead, if you were a trail, what trail part of the trail would you be? Would you guys be in the middle of the trail or you're kind of like coming to the end or you still got a lot going, that kind of thing? speaker-1: That's a great question. I think ⁓ it's a long trail with bear canisters. Bear canister technology is here to stay. The regulatory trend is only towards more canisters. Land managers really believe in the use of hard sided bear canisters to protect wildlife. And I think that is something that will continue to progress forwards. ⁓ so, wall canisters may take different shapes and sizes and there may be innovations in material science ⁓ that enable different geometries and shapes and sizes and ⁓ locking mechanisms. think bare canisters are something that are going to become an even more core piece of backpacking. For Bare Vault specifically, I think we are kind of in a sense, with your metaphor, we're coming out of tree line and there's a big, beautiful mountain pass there that we're starting to climb towards, which is the BV1, right? And we've just emerged out of trail. tree line in the forest and put this canister out in front of the world. And people are getting excited about it just like you do ⁓ as you begin to climb into the alpine towards that mountain pass. I think that's kind of the plateau we're heading up onto. ⁓ And we're really excited for this new generation of bear canisters and would invite everyone to join us in that and check out the BV1. speaker-0: That's cool. Also, guess I'll do one more question. ⁓ Is there any advice for people who are in the industry, maybe it's the marketing side of things, if they have their business, like one really good piece of advice you could give to someone in their journey in the outdoor space. speaker-1: Yo, that's really good. think something that's been really valuable for us at Barefall is working with the numbers have shifted over the years of what's considered a micro influencer, a small influencer and whatever, but working with influencers around the 10,000 follower space has been extremely effective for us over the years. As a smaller brand with ⁓ without a giant marketing budget, we're able to develop relationships and partnerships with folks around that size ⁓ and often get some wonderful content ⁓ in partnership with folks ⁓ at an affordable rate. Folks are eager to build their portfolio. This is not in any way to take advantage of folks, ⁓ but say, look, here is kind of a budget approach, but often You know, this is at a time when folks around 10,000 followers in a way, maybe they haven't sold out yet, you know, and they're not, their audience sees them as extremely ⁓ authentic and, ⁓ you know, they are really reaching their niche. And then also, you know, you have a friend in the space. And so, you know, maybe next year, you know, they have a couple reels that really blow up and suddenly they have. 70,000 followers instead of 10,000 followers. And now you have a relationship ⁓ with these folks that often can pay dividends ⁓ down the road ⁓ once you kind of build these relationships. So we've ⁓ had a ton of success focusing on folks around ⁓ that 10,000 mark. And so that's my little ⁓ marketing nugget of wisdom of something that's worked well for us. speaker-0: I just really like the fact that you're not just looking at, because people think a lot of times, hey, you're working with micro influencers, companies are trying to take advantage of them. you're, think in that kind of a barter, old school kind of a barter system is it needs to be fair for both people, right? And if you're making it fair for everybody, it's going to be a great relationship. And then you can continue, like you said, to grow that relationship as they grow. It's good for you as well, because you have that authentic connection with them. It wasn't just a speaker-1: Exactly. speaker-0: Hey, you have a million followers, I'm gonna pay you a zillion dollars just so you can market this product for me. It's hey, if you like this product, that's great, let's work together. If not, ⁓ then part ways or not even work together with that. speaker-1: And I think that authenticity is huge and just, you we've developed so many wonderful relationships and, know, it's just so targeted, especially, you know, we have a product that is exclusively for backcountry use. You know, there's a lot of brands out there that, you know, maybe their core line is for backpacking, but they also offer, you know, product for front country campers and whatnot. And so when you're thinking about advertising channels, you know, if you can, you know, hone in on maybe camping, that's good enough, you know, but for Bare Vault, it has to be backpacking, you know? They can't be camping, it can't be hiking, it has to be backpacking. And working with smaller influencers that are targeted into those niches allows us to kind of have that scaffold level precision and reach a really authentic audience and build those relationships, which has been just so wonderful for us. And we've honestly created so many friendships out of that too. We see this folks at places like Trail Days and whatnot and it's often this great kind of reunion of like, ⁓ my gosh, you know, you were the first brand we worked with and see where at now and it's been really, really fun. speaker-0: Yeah. No, that's really neat. And I need to think about that. you know, with your product being, you know, pretty niche in that, like, it's not a very broad, a lot of people will try to come up with a product that's very, very, very, very, very broad. So you can, you know, nail a whole bunch of different demographics versus yours is very small. So marketing that is a lot more key than, than most people. Right. So that's a good, you know, you're out there and you're creating a product and you're listening like and you're creating some of this really small, really have to watch specifically how you market it. You can't just go very broad with it. You've got to target your audience very well. The great thing about technology, even using AI a lot, is you can do a lot more deep research into what your demographic is, or even AI thoughts on what you didn't even think about could be your demographic or the people that you're trying to reach out to. So that's cool. Awesome. Okay. ⁓ So Grant, I'm going to just go straight into it. ⁓ before we go into it, guess, if people are looking for Verivault, I already know where we can find Verivault, but if people are looking for it, where can we find you all? speaker-1: Share it on our website, bearvault.com. That's the best place to get information. We also have a dealer map. We're in quite a few doors across the country and that's a great place to find a bear vault can. speaker-0: Okay, perfect. All right, so I'm just gonna go ask you a couple few questions just to kind of get to know you a little bit. So without further ado, first question, and this is always my favorite again, is your favorite national park. speaker-1: Granted. speaker-0: Really? Okay. I've never been. I've never been. It's awesome. Sounds amazing. speaker-1: Honestly, I think my favorite places are probably outside the national parks. You lose the crowds. I'm a big fan of wilderness areas like the Frank Church wilderness area growing up or the Sawtooths. I think the best places are probably outside the national parks. If I had to pick a national park, I'd probably go with the Tetons. speaker-0: Awesome. All right. Now next thing is solo hike or crew mission. speaker-1: Normally it's my wife and I, ⁓ but I love a good solo backpacking trip. speaker-0: Yeah. So this is a question since you backpack with your wife. It's funny how my wife will tell me this. She just said this the other day. She was like, you need to go shower. And I was like, it's funny how you'll camp with me for a week of no showers and you won't say a thing, but I will literally have showered in the morning. And then in the afternoon, she'd be like, you need to go take a shower. I'm like, I don't know how that works in my mind. so yeah. All right, coffee or electrolyte drinks on the trail. speaker-1: ⁓ I'm definitely more of an electrolyte drink fan. Coffee is such a diuretic. speaker-0: Yes. All right, one word that your team would use to best describe you. speaker-1: Passionate, energetic, yeah. speaker-0: ⁓ What is the worst trail snack you've ever tried? speaker-1: oof I think like it's any good bar, but when it gets like frozen, know, like, know when like a cliff bar turns to like a rock at about like 20 degrees Fahrenheit, like any trail stack can be awful. And that's honestly like the flip side of that question is I'm a huge fan of those pro bar meals, because they don't really freeze. They stay malleable even in cold temperatures. And that, you know, that might be more backcountry skiing than backpacking depending on the season, but. Probar meals are one of my favorites because they don't freeze. So even like Bobo's bars, ⁓ Cliff bars, any sort of classic energy bar or protein bar, man, they turn to rocks as soon as they freeze. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, I'm always throwing them in. I'm like, OK, I want a snack. All right, let me throw it like somewhere where I know there's a little bit of heat. Yes. So I can like instead of just breaking a tooth on the trail. All right. So what's your favorite your favorite trail snack? speaker-1: That's a good question ⁓ I mean, I'm a sucker for candy. My dentist would probably hate me saying that, but I love some nerds gummy clusters and Sour Patch Kids. I love that instant empty calorie sugar. speaker-0: It's funny, I feel like for this podcast, I need to get a sponsor and it needs to be NerdsGummyClusters because we talk about that so much on this show that it makes me laugh every time someone says my favorite trail snack is NerdsGummyClusters. All right, the biggest splurge that you guys have had for your business financially. speaker-1: Blurge. Hmm. That's interesting. Well, we're pretty thrifty, but I haven't, I actually haven't set it up yet. So maybe, maybe this is a, but sitting in the lobby of our, of our office today, I'm going to set up, we have a brand new tent that we're going to roll out at trail days and rather than go with your traditional kind of, you know, metal pole, like standard out tent. That's really hard to travel with. You got a fancy inflatable tent and it's a 10 by 10 tent that you blow it up. and it's kind of similar materials with like a paddle board. ⁓ We're really excited about it, but I haven't tested it yet. So ⁓ come say hi at Trail Days and see if I'm still excited about our new tent. speaker-0: those people don't realize how much a looks like a simple trade show tent or a type of display can actually be. Because I've I've done photo shoots for, for the marketing stuff that I've done here in Atlanta for like McDonald's and Georgia Pacific for their trade show booths and everything. And then when I was shooting for the trade show booth company and everything else, I looked at the price of it I was like, Oh my gosh, I In my mind, I was like, I could build this for so much. I get it. Why? And it's got to be portable and all that stuff. But I'm like, I can't believe how much it costs. That's a quick setup too, I'm sure. Right? Inflate and go. speaker-1: Exactly, and the nice thing is that it can fit in a checked bag under 50 pounds on the airplane. don't have to mail it ahead of you or send it by mail or any of those things. And that's the reason we went with this tent. speaker-0: That's cool. Everybody's listening. That's a great hack if you're doing a trade show. Find something that you can check because the minute you guys start shipping stuff, it costs a fortune. All right. What's one app that you can't live without for work? speaker-1: for work? Google Drive? No, but, ⁓ that's a great question. ⁓ I don't think we're super fancy when it comes to apps. mean, we're pretty basic. Suite, Adobe Suite for creative. We use probably more Gemini in the office than ChatChu. I'd say we're a pretty simple bunch. speaker-0: Okay. And last question, what's one outdoor skill that you still kind of suck at? speaker-1: Ooh, you know, something new that I tried recently just for the fun of it, because I'm very much an ultra light backpacker. earlier this spring, I got together with some really good friends and we went out into a really remote area for the night and tried some like traditional kind of bushcraft survival type skills. it was a riot and we were trying to build shelters with downfall and. You know, all the kind of classic, like woodsy, kind of manly man bushcraft stuff. I was not great at it, but we had a ton of fun. And it reminded me that, you know, often friends that I have that are not outdoors, you see, ⁓ Grant, you must be so good. Like if the apocalypse ever comes, I want to go with you. You're going to survive. And I'm like, I spend a lot of time outdoors, I pack all my calories in my bear can and, you know, really, really specialized equipment. ⁓ I don't know if I'm all that great when it comes to rugged wilderness survival. speaker-0: Yeah, that's good. I think that's a great point. really, ⁓ some people and I'm included in that of I could probably get by a little bit, but all my friends think I'm the most outdoor person. I'm like, listen, I've got a really nice ultra light tent and bags and quilts and stuff like that. I'm boozing it out in the in the wilderness, know? Yeah. Just lighter than most. That's all. So. Well, awesome, Grant. Thank you again so much for being on and everybody. Thank you so much for listening. ⁓ We can't wait for the next episode and I can't wait to use my bare vault ⁓ PV1 on the trail and XNA the other stuff for my next trip. So Grant, thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you in person. Thanks, Greg.