The Present and Future of Vapor Trail & Stokerized with current CEO and President, Rory O’loughlin

In this episode, Ricky and Hollywood have a chat with current CEO and President of Vapor Trail, Inc., Rory O’loughlin. Ricky gives a quick recap on the history of Vapor Trail and clarifies a few missed details from episode 1. Rory begins by discussing the details surrounding the acquisition of Vapor Trail and how quickly things began to take shape. The guys dive into the effects that the Covid 19 Pandemic had on production and the rapid growth that included and new inventory management system, the acquisition of Stokerized Stabilizers, securing a bigger and better manufacturing facility as well as the opening of the Vapor Trail Pro Shop. 

Rory throws out an industry disrupting easter egg regarding a new product for the Stokerized Stabilizer lineup, and be sure to listen all the way through as there is an exclusive offer for The Range Podcast listeners.

[00:00:00] Are we allowed to talk about our new baby that we possibly could be coming out here shortly? This could be the launch of it, but we can always, throw some Easter eggs out. We can always, but yeah, I think we should, we just won't go into hyper detail, just a little bit. But so basically we are coming out with a, I would say an industry disruptor a little bit for I'm not gonna say the name of it, but welcome to the Range podcast.

I'm Ricky Bruley. And with me as Jake Hollywood Iverson, join us at the Archery Range where we'll tell stories from the hunt, discuss technical bow shooting tactics and gear, and pick the brains of some of the most successful people to ever shoot a bow, whether you're about to shoot that X for the win, or send an arrow at a trophy buck.

This podcast is for you.

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery makers of the Best [00:01:00] Bowl strings money can buy. Originators of limb driven arrow rests technology and innovators of stoker eyes, stabilizer systems. All right everybody, welcome to the Range. I'm Ricky Brewery here with Jake Hollywood Iverson.

What is up y'all? Hey, thank y'all for joining us for episode two, the Present and Future of Vapor Traill Archery and Silk Eye Stabilizers. Joining us today in the range is Rory Lin, president and c e o. What's going on man? How are you Doing great. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. Awesome. Yeah, man.

How was how was the weekend? Would you do anything fun? Yeah. Four year old daughter had her her birthday. Got to go to Dave and Buster's and blast some zombies with a machine gun. It was her first time I thought she was gonna be running outta the game crying. She was like into it.

That's awesome. She was like another round dad. Another round. She's all for shooting. Oh yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. No nightmares. Yeah, that might be, I'm pretty sure follow up. If she does, she'll have a machine gun in her hands. Yeah. So it's [00:02:00] perfect then. Sweet dude. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I spent the weekend helping while I was here for the FOI shoot.

Of course, for the first half. Hollywood was here for the whole day, the whole half. Yeah got the joys of the whole thing. I was bummed that I couldn't be here the whole day, but then I spent all of Sunday helping my buddy put ripped carpeting up in his basement and put new flooring in.

So separating back some memories. Super sore. How about say that's a good workout? Oh man. My knees, dude. My, even my toe is weird. A year ago. A lot of dead. We were doing that here, right? Yeah. So that's right. We were drywalling and we'll get into that some more. So I'm excited about that, but, all right.

Cool. We just wanted to do a quick recap from episode one touch on a few details that we missed out on. There were some things we talked about that maybe some of our listeners wanted some more details on. So I'm just gonna jump right into it. Feel free to jump in you guys anytime if you have a comment or anything you wanna say.

And again, I'm gonna be reading this verbatim just so I don't miss anything. I apologize if I [00:03:00] start to sound too robotic. But so in the beginning, Jared, he started Jared Fonde started Vapor Trail in his basement in 1993 as a target shooter. He began to build his own bolstering so he had more control over his equipment.

Steve made a really interesting comment too, about how. Back then, strings stretched so much and they actually wanted them to stretch. And then they later come to find out that, okay, that's not such a good thing, especially for target shooters. And then I was listening to that episode with Cameron Haynes and Wayne Endicott, and they were talking about how it was so bad that you get to the point where you got your bow tuned and then you wouldn't wanna shoot it again for, until like you Absolutely.

Until kill shot, basically. Oh my gosh. Wow. Because it would, it was that bad. I was like, I was just shocked by that. So that was cool. By 2000 things really start to take off with a big contract from Botec. Jared's brother Steve gets on board and VT is officially incorporated. Going back to the previous episode, we talked about a gentleman by the name of Paul Gotk, and that's we missed a part of that where Paul [00:04:00] met Jared and then, so he had a connection with Botec.

So Paul Gossie had that connection. That's where that that's where that all took place and how that all happened. Vtx bolstering material is born and was the first of its kind with its proprietary combination of DMA and vectran fibers. So what they, what he did was, it was basically just different dens playing around with different combinations of, percentages of those two materials.

And then came up with a with a, it's a little thicker per strand, so we run a 16 strand string as opposed to your typical like 22, 24, whether you're using 4 52 or whatever you're using. So those are a little more details I wanted to get on that. What's the benefits of that through testing and all of that?

He found that it held up better in bearing weather conditions. So one example that he told me about is when he would go to tournaments down south and you're, in the winter, right? So you're up here shooting in the cold and then you go down there and you're, you're in the heat and then [00:05:00] everything would move and everybody would be on the range reciting in, making adjustments, all that kind of stuff.

And with the vtx, he just, he never had to do that. That's awesome. Very rarely did he have to really make too many moves. His peep would still become a back straight the way that he wanted it and everything. So that's what they found as it held up better in varying weather conditions. Nice. So moving on VT moves into their first facility in 2003.

Small office space with remote building stations all over the state. Steve was saying that they, he had, they had cousins, family members all over the place building cuz they had so much that they had to do. They'd drive all the way up to the Iron Range, which is four or five hours away to pick up Tide or laid out strings.

Bring 'em back down here and then they'd get 'em served up on the machines down here. And then Jared and Vince's, limb driven technology in 2005 and the limb driver, arrow Rust was born 2006. I started working for Vapor Traill as a part-time bow string builder. Later then became their graphic designer, moved on to become the boling manager, [00:06:00] then production manager.

And now creative director and special operations about Sake Manager, special ops. Can't forget that part. Ops, it's a very important role. I come walking in with night vision goggles on almost. It's that level of expertise needed that's for sure. For some of the stuff you, you got working on, yeah. I appreciate that. Where are we at here? 2007 operation moves to a 3000 square foot facility down the road. I had been, say saying 2,500, but I guess it's 3000. So just wanted to throw that tidbit in there. 2011, Jared Seyer comes on as general manager plays a critical role in the development of the brand with his good looks and superb beard.

He, it's just crazy. It's so perfect all the time. Yeah. But he's gotta keep it all prim and proper now with his new job. So 2014, the legend, Jared Fonde passes and we continue to push forward despite a huge loss to the archery industry. In 2016, John Becker, former Olympic Ski jumping medalist, joins the team as sales and marketing [00:07:00] director, adding further growth to the business with his genuine and kindhearted nature.

He is now our director of Operations January, 2020. Rory and his brother Patrick acquire Vapor Trail. So that brings us kinda up to speed to the, basically the end of the conversation we had with Steve. So we just want to go back a bit. Talk about when this process first started of you acquiring Vapor Trail and And just see, get your thoughts on that, how it felt, what it was like, the whole process.

Yeah. As you guys know, I'm from the north Texas area. That's where I met my wife. She was a nurse at Parkland Hospital, which is the same one JFK was brought to after he was assassinated. And we anyway, we're volunteering at a dog rescue and that's how we met. So we're obviously things worked out.

We had a kid, it was the first year of having our daughter and she wanted to move back to family. And as you guys know, it's a small world. My, my wife is from Ham Lake, Minnesota. Yep. Which [00:08:00] happens to be where vapor Trail was stationed for over a decade. And was where it was when we purchased it.

So just a small world in the sense that my wife and vapor trailer from the same city and I live there too. Yeah. Oh, there you go. Yeah. It's, that's why it's a special place in my heart. Yeah, I was doing commercial finance in North Texas and was not gonna start all over again. So I was like, you know what?

I've been entrepreneurial most of my life. That's the reason I worked with entrepreneurs. I loved it. Oh geez. I think the very first like entrepreneurial, like Pat on the back I got was when I was in Boy Scouts we had a popcorn raising competition. And I remember I was like, you know what I'm gonna win this thing.

And so I asked my dad to help me. He was, I think it was like a Sunday. And he was like, sure, hop in the truck. So hop in the truck. He brings a six pack [00:09:00] with him. Because it's Texas and, I'm older and it's totally legal at that time period where you can just drink and drive around, which he took me from neighbor to neighbor and this, horse, country, neighborhood.

And he was listening to the Texas Rangers the whole time drinking beer. And he would send me to the front porch and we would I would just sell popcorn. Yeah. I got a sweet popcorn hat. Yeah. For all of your work. Yeah. For doing most of the sales. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to, to pack. Pack 2 62 den six.

There you go. Yeah. If you're still out there. There you go. So anyway, that's awesome. I didn't know you're a boy scout. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Long time. So anyway I, always was entrepreneurial, worked with entrepreneurs and I was like, you know what, it's time to, own my own business.

And so when we moved to Ham Lake, obviously I, I met Steve and we were talking back and forth about, vapor Trail and how he was A little bit [00:10:00] burned out. I think not to go into too many details, but I think the passing of Jared had a lot to do with it. Yeah. Definitely a rough time for him and his family, and I think he was ready to let Varel go and the hands of someone else that was passionate and dedicated to keeping the brand alive and making sure that that flame continues. Yeah. Hopefully I bring somewhat of that to Vapor Trail. Yeah. Honestly I have to thank you for keeping us on. Because all the offers they had on the table where they were just like, they just wanted to come in, move the operation, get rid of everybody.

Just fresh, clean slate, all that kind of stuff, yeah. Vulture style. Yeah. They're coming in to dismantle. Yeah. Yep. You came in trusting us blindly, and I and I'm sure there's some of that had to do with, just, Steve maybe to, talking to you about how important we were to the business, but at the same time, still I, so I thank you for that, for still being here.

Yeah, absolutely. Here we are talking. Yeah. In a podcast. So wouldn't have seen that coming. But super grateful [00:11:00] and feel blessed to be here still. Yeah. Me as well know, this is great family that we've all built here and the culture's amazing, glad to be a part of it.

So when you were like, the details about how it all came about, like were How did you find out that Steve was selling it, or how did you get connected with what I call the Steve's, Steve Bondi and Steve Weiss. Steve Weiss. Yeah. Just like they have real estate agents or brokers.

For real estate. They have 'em for businesses. Yeah. And so I was in touch with one that was national. Okay. He was on the buy side, which, I would be technically a buyer. And so he had a handful of companies in the M S P area. And he's going, we're going down the list. And he goes, this is archery one.

I don't know if you'd be interested in my eyes lit up. I'm saying what? I'd have done the same. Yeah. Me being a bow hunter since I was a kid, I was all of a sudden super jazzed about the opportunity. And honestly it was so weird during the process cuz the whole time this course is too good to be true.

It's not gonna work out. Something's gonna happen. These things fall apart at [00:12:00] all times. It's I was like that all the way up to the closing table. And then I was like, wow, it really happened. This is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It was a, it was a wild day.

It was a Friday and we're all just getting ready to, I think it was like two o'clock or something and we usually would leave at three. So we're just like getting ready, getting cleaned up two, two days after New The new year too. Yeah. It's January 3rd. Third, yeah. Yeah. So we're, it was a Friday, right?

Yeah. January 3rd, 2020. Yeah. So it's just like, All of a sudden Steve's Hey you, let's go. We're leaving now. What? Okay. So me and Ears and Johnny pile into his truck and drive down to the, was it a holiday in express? Yeah, I think the new one. Really fancy right there behind where Gander Mountain used to be.

And. And meanwhile, this whole time, we're all just kinda sounds like a backdoor deal going on back. Yeah. It's oh man, we're going into this. Mine was the bar across the street for the record. And then we just closed like that morning and they, yes, Steve, the Steves were running late, getting you guys there.

And so I was just [00:13:00] remember I was like, man these guys, I have no clue what they're gonna think of me as their new boss. And so I'm like, just sitting there drinking a few Jamesons just to relax to Yeah. Get to know you guys. Yeah. I have to admit too, when, so when we finally get into this little conference room, right?

And I'm just like, man, I don't know. I could go either way. I don't know. I might be losing my job right now, or I have no idea. No clue. It's just, and then so then they break it to us, what's going on? And so I'm expecting a suit. Oh, yeah. Like a guy in his fifties, private equity nerd.

Yeah. Silver Fox, groomed really well. And and then you walk in badass leather jacket, I'm like, okay, jeans wearing a baseball cap. So I'm like all right. And this is okay. We'll see how this goes and everything. And yeah, the conversation went well and I don't know.

I it was honestly a huge relief. Okay. Because I just didn't know. I was like, What's gonna happen here? I, because you said once you left the finance world, that [00:14:00] was it with the suit and tie, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, I threw 'em all out. I think I have, I think a total of two. One for weddings and one for funerals.

This is yeah, there we go. Yeah. Hopefully I use 'em, huh? For the first one's. Not the latter. Right Now you can relax with those blue collar boys. Yeah, no, it was good. I was just again just like, all right, this is going, this is gonna be cool. Let's see how, and still a little guarded, but, you just, of course.

Yeah. It's like from Texas, it's a, it's almost a, it is a little bit of a different world there than it is up here, so then it's just like, all right, we'll see how this goes. But so I just wanted to ask your first impression on the Steves what did you. Steve and I, as in Fonde we, we were pin pals back and forth.

If I had questions, I'd give him a call or shoot him emails, stuff like that. And I actually just met him for the first time when I was coming up to do some bow hunting in Wisconsin. In November with my father-in-law. And they're rifle hunters.

I've always been the lonely bow hunter [00:15:00] during rifle season in Wisconsin. What the hell am I thinking, man? But anyway, it's, it's a private land and it's a, over a couple hundred acres. So it's a invite. It's a new place to hunt. I was doing that for six years before.

I met Steve. I was at, I'd always come up. That was the cool thing about my wife, having a really cool father-in-law. That was the way we bonded, yeah. So anyway yeah, we sat down at a bar and had a few guinnesses and we, finally got to really know each other.

Just, not just business, but on a personal level too. So it was pretty cool. And, I was like, all right, man. We got a month and a half to go. You have any reservations? He's no, you're a bow hunter. You're a nice guy. We're good. We're doing this. I was like, okay, great.

Nine man. That's cool. That's awesome. So everybody's got, had the opportunity to meet Steve Fonde. But as far as I have a good story about Steve Weiss and he was tech, he was technically like a consultant or, yeah. I don't know what the [00:16:00] technical term would be. Yeah. Or his title or role in the go-getter.

The, but the business talker. I had met him long before I met him right when I moved to Minneapolis. And I just so happened to, when I moved here I went on apartments.com and I found a place to stay, a room to stay. With a gentleman by the name of John Patchin. Really nice guy. Cool dude.

I, I think he's an electronics engineer or something like that. I can't remember. But, so Steve was really good buddies with him. Steve Weiss was, yeah. And so I'm just like sitting in my house or sitting in my room, and just kicking it. I don't, doing whatever. And all of a sudden he shows up. So he was friends with John and he's yeah.

So I heard you I heard you have a Desert Eagle. 50 Cal and I d I had won one at the Safari Club International Banquet that year. And so I was like, yeah. He was like, can I see it? And I was like, yeah, sure, why not? So I had a little handgun safe and I pulled it out and just made make sure the chamber was clear and everything, and I handed it off to him and it was really, he was just like, [00:17:00] whoa, this is sweet.

Just like watching him just pop the mag and jam it in. And he was just like, this thing is so cool. And so that was like the first time I ever met him. Then he just hung out in my doorway and we just sat there and talked about guns for an hour. Yeah. And then years later, right?

I'm, so I start I knew that there was like a relationship there because I had a Vapor Traill sticker on my bow case. And when John Patch and my, the guy who owned the house was helping me move my stuff in, he goes, oh dude. Do you know those guys? He goes, do you know Fonds Fond? And I'm like, Fonds, who's that?

And I hadn't met Steve and Jared yet. I knew about Vapor trial, but I hadn't met them yet. Yeah. So then he was like they own, Jared, Steve Fonde, they own, and I think that was the nickname he had for them or something like that. I've never heard anybody else call him that. But, so that, that's the story.

And then just crazy to think that however many years later, 14 years later, whatever it is that he was gonna be a part of that transaction is wild. Yeah. I think consultant's the right term for him, because he was, Behind the HR documents too, of [00:18:00] Vapor Trail and what he helped on the 401K plan.

And so he's always had his hand and a few of the inner workings of Vapor Trail behind the scenes. And every time, like I had a, like a very detailed business question or regarded the finances or anything like that to Fai Fannie be like, yeah, you need to talk to the other Steve. Okay.

Yep. I'll give him a shout. Yep. Yeah, he helped me start my 401k too, nice. Alright. So moving on. Things start to move really fast, right? Yeah. So I'm gonna lay out the situation here for everybody. You buy the company we're already in the process of starting to develop a new arrow rest.

We've got one that we just finished up. Covid hits. Yeah. Gen seven X just came out. Yeah. And we were working on. Another one, which I can't say the name yet. Yep. Cuz it's three years, three and a half years in the making now. Yeah. Yep. And then sales go through the roof. Cuz of COVID hits and sales just go crazy.

And then my [00:19:00] daughter's gonna be born, so I take three months off, that was in August, so that was a little bit later. And then one year in the opportunity to acquire Stoker Eyes comes along. So it's just like, all these things are happening like really fast. And and not to mention the, in the craziness of Covid too.

Yeah. It's just all of a sudden we're like really slow, cuz it just crept in from China, in December. And, I think the official shutdowns were in March. March and then, so we had a solid month. I think it was, 30 days stay home or two weeks, whatever it was.

Yeah. And I just remember like it was being crickets during that time period. And then we all returned back to work, and then all of a sudden just the phones explode, just fire. And then boom, we're on the defensive, yeah. All we're trying to do is keep up and keep our customers happy, our dealers happy.

It was it was a. Awesome challenge. It was super fun. Definitely don't wanna do it again because definitely don't want to get, three weeks behind on, on strings, yeah. Which, we've come a long way, now we're back to our three day [00:20:00] guarantee and we have the production capacity and all the equipment put in place and people to make that happen.

Yeah. And so for the folks that don't know, we used we, we had a three day guarantee in the past, and it was really a big part of our success. And for as many years as I've been here, we'd never, I don't think we'd ever gone beyond two days. May, maybe we'd get two and a half.

But we'd always do whatever we had to do to make sure that the, that everything got done. Yeah. And it, but it was within reason. Yeah. And when that year hit, it was just there we who, no one was up to speed. No one could ship in three days. I was just gonna, it was six months for some, yeah.

Of our competitors are other, archery manufacturers. Yeah. I was just gonna circle back and say internally, taking a step back. After Rory acquired the company, that's when roles had changed. And so Rick was no longer postering manager. And I'm just gonna fight for myself here.

But yeah, that was my first year [00:21:00] of managing the bolstering department. I got vetted for the job. And I remember that same thing. We were, we actually went in, when he, when Rory acquired this from Steve, there was no inventory. So during all of this, we're doing an inventory change to a whole new system where we have all of our beans counted and.

Then all of a sudden everything shuts down. Yeah, no, and let me just jump in there cuz you think about all the different color combinations of bow strings, whether it's 4 52 x or vtx. And then go to the arrows department, you have 14 different, color rubber cages, and then Yeah.

All the parts that go into that. Some are universal, some aren't. So it's just, I remember the first week I was in Vapor Trail and I sent an email to ears and I was like, so what inventory management system do you have in place here? He goes, it's all in my head. And I was just like, whoa.

Doesn't pass the bus test. No. I've, I always bring up the bus test. Bus test means if you get ran over, guess what? We're screwed. Yeah. Who's gonna replace? So [00:22:00] it's gotta be, it's gotta be an open box. Everyone's gotta know inventory, not just one person in their head. Yeah.

And then I just remember when those crickets came. I had a feeling I was just like, I think we're gonna get screwed. Like we're gonna get slammed real hard. Yeah. Like real quick. Cause then they started talking about the government free money. I'm like, oh boy. And then it just lit on fire. And like what Rick was saying, we never went past two and a half, maybe three days tops is what we were ever at.

And God would we get to of, but July. And we hit 10 days. Oh yeah. It was a terrible look for ourselves and all. While we're doing this, we're implementing a new inventory management system. Yeah. Yeah. In our entire business that went live June one, I think. Yeah. We don't have to say the name of it, but it's the same inventory management system that NASA uses for their asset tracking.

I'm not saying we're rocket scientists here, but we still use the same software as rocket scientist. Okay. So it, it makes it it makes everything make sense. Yeah. As far as like inventory in and out parts and product out, all the [00:23:00] different color options, everything. You showed up the worst possible time, but the best possible time.

Amazing sales, but also terribly far behind. We were just busting at the seams with a string like orders. Everyone needs a string apparently in 2020. And then Rick Gsen has his kid. And just to pilot on, cause I was using Rick as My mentor, and now he's gone for a couple weeks anyway, and then, oh my gosh.

It was just, first year was just insane. It was blazing. Yeah. You guys did good despite the challenges, right? I come back and there's a whole, like almost a whole new crew, people I've never even met. Yeah. 10 or, something like that. I just remember the learning curve with, yeah.

That inventory management system was insane. And sitting in those meetings and even times where we're talking to The tech reps or whoever it was we were talking to on the phone. We like, we were stumping them. They're like, that's interesting. I don't know how we would do that. Yeah. We were basically stretching the capabilities of the software to the furthest extent.

Yeah. Yeah. [00:24:00] With as many just options that we have and all that kind of stuff. But it ended up working out and so we're much better off for it. No doubt about that. Cause you definitely can't rely on someone's, just someone's, especially now, like it's so much more complicated than it was then. Oh my gosh.

Yeah. Stoker eyes, stabilizers acquired them in 2021. Yeah. It was February of 21. Is when we Yeah. Flew out there. So I think it started, it actually, it started in 20, we reached out during the hunting season of 20 cause we wanted to collaborate on an actual stabilizer with Stok eyes.

So we reached out to Stok Rise and we got in touch with Kyle Stokes and Sean Lutz, and we wanted to collaborate with a stabilizer. And they responded with, Hey, what do you think about acquiring us? And so all of a sudden, interest has peaked. And so we're definitely, all of a sudden can't do it during busy season, where it's just okay, yes, totally [00:25:00] interested.

Let's continue this in February where we are, we can actually take a breather and let's do it. The new year, 2021 comes around, call up Kyle. Hey, man. So we're serious about this if you are. We want to fly out to Pennsylvania. We're gonna get a 30 foot U-Haul truck. And we're gonna bring a video recorder and we're gonna go through Stoker Bootcamp and hang out with you guys for a solid week and record everything.

Yeah. And so that's what we did. It was me and Hollywood and Kyle and Marin at the time. And I was jealous. I was really jealous you were gone otherwise, you would've been there. I know. But hey, you were doing God's work. Come on. You had a beautiful daughter. Yeah, dude, I'll never take that.

I'll never regret that time. Got to spend time with her. Yeah. That's awesome. I remember cuz it was the first conversation that, you know After he came back and you're like, Hey, so how's it going? I was like, really good. We bought Stok Rice. And you're just like, what? It's yeah, man. We did. Yeah. Yeah.

Because, [00:26:00] you can't talk about those things until they're done. Except for, of course, the people that are working on getting it done. Yeah. We spent a very good time with Kyle Stokes and Sean Lutz and we'd go out to eat with them at night and get up early in the morning and learn the ways of Stok rise.

Yeah. I think Rick was almost lucky to miss out that was a, that trip was brutal. Yeah, it was. It wasn't just, butterflies and rainbows, from the get go or planes delayed flying to a blizzard. And we like all shared a hotel room with three guys and I would, we'd get back to the room after having a few drinks and dinner and I'd be like, All right.

We gotta start on the inventory manager. Yeah, let's go. We have to, get going on this. So we probably averaged three, four hours. Yeah. We were up till one, two in the morning every night doing, entering inventory, getting everything set. And then, because here comes another business about seven Yep.

Or six, whatever it was. And here comes another business that has a billion color combinations and options. Yeah. And we're just like, wow. Good thing we just invested all this money in this [00:27:00] inventory management system, cuz we were gonna be able to roll them up just nicely. Which we did.

It just ended up being a lot bigger tasks than we imagined. Yeah. As far as putting it in place. And then, it worked out great. Everyone was happy and we got the Stoker eyes trailer that we have in our warehouse. That came along with the acquisition. We got all their equipment marketing equipment.

Of course we had, over. A hundred grand in inventory to bring back Yeah. In the 30 foot U-Haul truck. And then the trailer is behind the 30 foot U-Haul truck. And and we're driving back, we're driving back during February where it's a complete like white out blizzard, another snowstorm.

You're like cruising along the South shores of all the Great Lakes, where like some of the harshest weather can be in the winter. Yeah, we were actually in the Appalachian Mountains for a little bit. Yeah. And I think like the whole week we had probably accumulation of 15 hours of sleep and then we're like driving back in a whiteout snowstorm [00:28:00] and we'd left at 6:00 PM and so we're like, we're just gonna drive through the night, we'll get there.

And yeah, the Appalachian Mountains was brutal with the snowstorm and Kyle and wood are like rolling down a window because there's ice like stuck to our windshield wipers and the ice would just move up and down and I couldn't see anything. It was like, guys, are we on the road? I don't know.

Cause we're just, it's a windy bend in the Appalachian Mountains and finally I'm like nodding this is not safe. We totally got to find a hotel room, get three to four hours like we have been every night for the last four or five nights. And that's what we did. It was a nice, it was a coz you're pretty much delirious by the time you were trying to check in.

It was the funniest thing, watching him trying to function. Any sort of payment processing. Yeah, I was at the point of hallucinations for sure. It's amazing. Yeah, that was, and again, that was the most solid, I think three to four hours I've ever Oh God is beautiful. It's beautiful. I think that it is so mesmerized.

I was mesmerized by how Kyle just jumped [00:29:00] outta bed when the alarm went off. I was like, he's ready to go. It's just like he popped out and he was like fully ready to go. But yeah. And then what? We made it home on a Sunday. Cause we left that. Yeah. Yeah. Did we leave on a Friday night? Yeah, we did Friday night and then, Yeah.

Is that right? Yeah. Then no, we would've had to go get back on Saturday then, didn't we? It was a really late Saturday then. Yeah. Then Sunday we had the whole crew at Vapor Trail. Yeah. It's in the morning. It's right another night where we got three to four hours, zero hours of sleep. Yeah. We just unload it now.

Yeah. Then we unloaded it and set it up and yeah. We were already at 3000 square feet space that was fully busting at the seams, and so we just made it worse. Yeah. And but we found the space somehow, when you can't build out, you build up. So that's what we did. We build a bunch of mezzanines, little look like Ewok villages.

Yeah. That's exactly what they look like too. After hearing that story, I'm not really jealous anymore that I didn't get to go. Of course. [00:30:00] No I know you had a little thing in there. We might have forgotten a big point in that trip. Back about one hour out of leaving there. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't you have a little bit of a mishap with the trailer or something?

Yeah, we might have been rolling down the highway before we hit the Appalachian Mountains and all of a sudden there's no cars passing us. We're like, what is going on? This is after we're, this Friday night I should be busy on the highway Friday night. Yeah. And all of a sudden there's a.

Trucker, a brave trucker that pulled up to the side of us and he's like waving us down with this, window down. And I'm like what is he saying? And I rolled down my window, the snow's starting to come. He goes, your trailer? Your trailer. And then I look back and I just see sparks flying.

I just like, oh shit. We totally had a blowout with the trailer. And it's a 30 foot, U-haul truck. And then there are stroker eyes trailer. So it's just I can't see the trailer. Yeah. But when you're on one wheel and it's going to the side, with sparks flying, all of a sudden you get advance of it.

I'm like, oh. So then [00:31:00] there's what, like a shoulder that's probably six feet, just wide enough for us. Yeah. Oh, barely fit. And then there's these semis just whizzing by. I was gonna say, now you gotta flying by. And every time a semi went by, we did this. Oh yeah. And we're just like I can't even get out and look at it, man.

This is insane. And finally call 9 1 1. And we're like, yeah, this is not safe. We're. In the middle of a highway with hardly any shoulder and then some angel trucker. Oh, that's right. The tow truck guy showed up. Yeah. And he had two brand new wheels for us and they matched our vehicle and he straight up just changed him right there in the spot.

The good Lord intervenes. Yeah. I mean we were on the side of the road though for what, two hours? Three hours I think. Oh yeah. I think police were basically like good luck. We'll radio out and whatever. And then, we also found out Pennsylvania, everything apparently closes at 6:00 PM on a Friday.

It's like maybe seven or eight. Yeah. And everything was closed on top of that. COVID was still going on. True. Yeah. And so you remember when we touched down from the [00:32:00] airport and we got there? Oh yeah. They still had mask mandates. It's mask Central. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's tough. We were stranded.

For a good amount of time. Wow. But we made her back. Yeah. It's a good story. Nothing comes easy, nothing good comes easy. No, nothing get that. No. And just, and Kyle and Stokes and Sean lots were awesome and we're still good friends. As he still buys stabilizers from us.

Yeah. He definitely is a good teacher cuz we have continued the quality and durability of his product. Yeah. Yeah. We've always wanted to maintain the integrity that, that they put into the company. So we thrive on that. Absolutely. Stoker eyes, get it moved in, I come off a leave I'm like, wow, I, where are you guys gonna put this stuff?

It's there. You guys made it work, but man, it was, everything was super tight and now we're trying to build more machines. And we're literally, the only space we had left was the bathroom. To put a jig in. Yeah. Which obviously we couldn't do that. So you began the [00:33:00] process of looking for a new facility, so Yeah.

Yeah. Walk us through that. What were you, what was your thought? Were you initially right away thinking, Hey I think we should have a range and all of that? Or was it, or did it just come out of necessity or the opportunity? It was totally necessity cuz you know, you're limited for production by your space.

Yeah. So I knew that if we were gonna keep growing, that we needed the space to grow into. And so that was the number one factor. And after we got stoker, I settled in and, got, wheels turning and things were 100% smooth. I was like John, I'm gonna be gone a while cuz I gotta find this new home.

And so yeah, I just, kept driving around the area looking at, I started out looking at equestrian centers cause it has all this acreage, and they had this huge barn and that's H V A C and I couldn't get the zoning because even though it had tactiles were okay.

I was like tactile strings, like we can, or tactiles, excuse [00:34:00] me. Yeah. We could totally do this. Maybe we'll make it work. But none of the cities that I was talking to would let it fly cuz I was like, oh, we could do an outdoor 3D shoot. Yeah. And of course and so it just seemed really cool to me at the time.

And then I wised up and I was like, man, dude, we're stuck six months out of the year here in Minnesota. I was like, we need to build an indoor haven. For people that don't want to freeze their buns off and still shoot archery, right? And so that's why I was like, we're gonna do a large warehouse and we're gonna, we're gonna build a wall, a great wall, and it's gonna separate the manufacturing from the indoor range.

And so that's what we did. And we got, a little bit of a retail front up, up front here. Definitely boutique feel. We have, we sell amazing strings here, arrow Rest, the stabilizers. Don't know if you guys heard of them. The boutique. Yeah. And then obviously boutique, all the other products that we 100% believe in and can vouch for.

Cause we've used them in the field. [00:35:00] Obviously we carry those as well. Yeah. And we've built a lot of relationships over the years and so that was a major source for, the decisions that we made as far as which products we were gonna bring in and which ones we were gonna carry. So I remember when we first came into the building, And we were looking around and Roy's okay, this is my vision.

We want to do this, we want to do that. He's we're gonna rip this wall out and then we're gonna build this wall. And I was like, looking at it. And I'm like, that's 20 feet tall. And it was what? 140 feet long? Yes, sir. And I was like, who's gonna build that? And he looks at me in Hollywood. He's you guys are.

I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I was happy to find out that you eventually did get a crew to do it, but we did the rest. So that was, yeah. And the things that Take the longest labor wise, sometimes it's your best interest to pay for that. Yeah. But the things that are specialized and, or, you know, us three can do on [00:36:00] a, what is it, Wednesdays and Thursday as you guys came, I gotta say.

So we did a great job. We did an amazing job. We had our I had my general contractor onesies and you guys had your onesies and yeah we swung a lot of sledgehammers get rage against the machine going, oh yeah. That was, we, me and Hollywood are like strategically trying to take walls down and so that it's for easy cleanup and we're like maintaining pretty good.

And then Rory just come in with a sledgehammer and he was just like, All right. I need to blow off some steam guys. I just went to town, man. There was whole wallet come down, down one swing. We took out like what, eight offices? Yeah, four on the four in that. Yeah. You guys did, I think you and Lauren did all these ones.

This was all cleaned up I think by the time he was just carpet involved. Yeah. But then we did the other side of the building and yeah, that was fun. That was cool. Really that out. Yeah. And just to give everyone that is not aware, but our building was an old machine shop for. 25 years. Yeah. And [00:37:00] so it was a little dirty and so it was our job to clean it up.

And we did put a lot of elbow grease in this thing. And it shows, this place is immaculate now. Big props to Megan cuz she was doing, she did a ton. Yeah, she did. Yeah, she was here. I'm very blessed to have her as our commercial painter. Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say she painted like every inch in this building, I think all 25,000 square feet of it.

Yeah. Thankfully. Cuz I don't like painting and I hate especially hate drywall now. Yeah. Oh man. You just disliked it a little bit now. You hate it. By the end of it. I was like an expert. I'm like, man, maybe I should. Maybe I don't need to work at Maple Patrol anymore. I'll just become a drywall guy. But yeah, that'd be fine.

Yeah. There were certain spots, sorry I left on purpose cuz you were so good at it. I was like, oh, he'll get that. I'll move on to the next thing. I see. I still see I walk around, I'm like, oh man, I see the flaws. But anyway, every week it, it's up. It was just daunting. Just like walking in [00:38:00] here just now do we, what do we have to do?

Like this is never gonna end. And we had a set date of when this needed to be done. Oh yeah. Yeah. Just give you a timeframe. So we closed in October. Yeah. It was mid-October. Yeah. The seller did not actually get out of the property until it was the day after Christmas. I remember that was the first day I finally got to walk in here with no one.

I was like, wow, this place is huge. It's awesome. Yes. And I had that scary feeling of you got a lot of shit to do, boy. And I was like, okay I'm ready. And yeah. And then. I want to say it started immediately for me after that and I remember talking to my wife, I was like, yes, you're not gonna see me for a while.

Yeah, pretty much gonna move up there. So yeah. So seven days a week, probably, seven to seven. That's what it felt like. And that was for almost seven months. Yeah. Yeah. 7 77 Spring is here. And Turkey hunting is in full swing. Successfully killing a Turkey with a bow is extremely challenging.

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Where's Rory? Where's Rory? And I hear, I thought you were taking like day flights down to Cancun or something, partying and having a good time. But Ma Thai is on a rooftop somewhere. Yeah. With Steve. Yeah. Bull Steve's right? Yeah. No, but [00:40:00] yeah, we put a lot of work in and more so you, cuz Hollywood and I think it was, yeah, it was just Thursday started just one day a week.

Wednesdays I think. And then it was, yeah, just ramped up really quick to pretty much all the time. Yeah. It did actually. Yeah. But we, amazing. Cause I remember sitting in there when we were ripping up that carpet. And Andy. I didn't think we'd get the carpet ripped up in time for the op, for the grand opening, but he was asking me, he's so you think it's gonna be open by June one?

I'm like, or what's it, June? June 22nd. June 22nd was the, somewhere in there. I think it's June 17th was our first soft opening. Soft, yeah. July 22nd I think was the grand. Yep, that's right. So anyway, whatever the date was, and I was like, oof. I don't know, man. I'm like, You got a lot of stuff to do.

No. And you pulled it off. I it's all about having the right resources too. And not only that, like the proper connections. Yeah. Like the city of Noka was awesome to deal with. They were super cool. We did everything by the book far as the permits, everything. Yeah. And then after that, it's just okay, you gotta [00:41:00] have the right professionals and you gotta get it done correctly and you gotta do it for the right price, otherwise you're, gonna go broke trying to build up an amazing building, it's just a cool collaboration of family and friends and us all coming together to make it work. That was the coolest part about it, if you ask me. Yeah. Is what we all did in a short amount of time. And now what we get to enjoy on a daily basis. And the National Park theme, like throughout was brilliant.

Yeah. And then we had, I, was it a college class national park theme made our sign. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. They made our sign our yeah, A class marque that's out front. Yeah, it was out in, they're from Wisconsin. Yeah. A high school. That was really a cool thing that, we got to do.

And again, just with, having Sasquatch in the in the pro shop and just all of that, just the theme is just, it was brilliant. I was like that's cool. And all the signage that kind of goes along with, it's really cool. It made it easy to do since all that signage actually exists out there for other campgrounds.

It was just, I was like, that's the feel we [00:42:00] want, yeah. Yeah. And I, and yeah, it worked out awesome. I remember like just coming in here again and just like hearing some of those people doubting, just there's no way cuz it, we had to move. June 1st, June 2nd. Yeah. Out of the, to lake building.

Yeah. Ever. And everyone's it's not gonna happen. I'm like, no, Rory. You don't know Rory, then. Yeah. It's going to happen. Like he's not gonna take no. So props to you. You push that lever pretty harsh. And it works out. And we spent 17 hour, 18 hour days. Yeah.

We were here. Most of us did. Yeah. And I think that you have a kid so well that Friday we weren't supposed to start moving till I think it was 2:00 PM and then Comcast business totally screwed up and they like shut our phones line off at eight in the morning. Oh, that's right. Yeah. And we're just like, screw it, we're moving now.

Yep. Yep. And then we just, we started moving early and we just kept going till Sunday night. Yeah. Three days straight. I remember on the rooftop on Sunday sharing a beer with you guys. Yeah. Saying, oh my gosh, that was a long effing weekend. Yeah. [00:43:00] That was a whole nother deal too, because then Lance was, Kind of being I won't say the word, but, and then it's you gotta take this wall out and do this and put that railing back up.

And then well, and then we wanted to utilize like some of the old lumber, cuz we repurposed a lot of that. Even the lumber that we ripped out in all those walls we repurposed for some of the string building machines. And we still have a ton of it sitting back there that I'm sure we'll use for something eventually.

But that was, that building was such a mess when we were in the process moving things. Cuz it was just like, we had to move stuff from this side of the building to that side of the building so we could get this over there and then move it back over. And it was this, but just with the number of people that we had and, everybody just kept moving, yeah. And if they weren't moving, it's then just move outta my way, or go home. I think it's 12 hours straight for almost every single person. For three days. Yep. Most people. Yeah. And we had some guys come back just for, to help out. It was it worked. [00:44:00] It was perfect. Yeah. And then whiskey and beers on the roof after.

Yep. That's the best way to celebrate a goodwill job done. Yeah. Johnny got like the most amazing photo of me, like standing there with my arms up and the sun's going down on the other side of me. Oh, I do. I'll put that picture up so people can see it, but Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was just a, just when the job was done, it was like, I can't believe we pulled that off.

Yeah. I just can't. I just, it was awesome. It was really cool. And it's, and it just, going back through the shop too, I take a lot of pride in everything that we did. Because we, we did a lot of work. Oh, tons. And it just miraculous how we were all able to make it work and get everybody together and well oiled machine.

Honestly. And now we have the production capacity. To, get things done in a in a three day period. As far as like us having all the proper machines, we need all the right number of guys. And then not only that, we actually get to work in a cool environment, which that helps a lot.

Yeah. It's nice to [00:45:00] not work in a sweat factory with packed, packed in like sardines. You're literally talking air temperature Cool environment. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, it's pretty cool. Guys get to go shoot their bow for lunch. But yeah. Yeah. Previously it was not air conditioned. Yeah. And now I still get complaints cuz Yeah.

It's a little chilly in here. It's you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Just put a sweatshirt on, it'll be fine. Yeah. Even when you bought the company, we had some, we had done some things to. Keep it a little cooler in there. But before that, it was just whatever the air temperature was, is what we were working in.

And there was some days where it'd be, 90 degrees up there, easy and all that humidity and everything rises up. So you're up there working in literally just like your underwear and sweating. Yeah. And that's what we did. That's just, it was just part of the job. And for the guys that have built strings, if they're listening to this, they know you can't run a fan on yourself.

Yeah. When you're building a string. Yeah. You cannot do it because you have flame open. It's just gonna ruin your strings. Yeah. But it's tough. [00:46:00] It's unfortunate too, at the same time that we didn't have better conditions because, We would've been so much more productive, because I don't care who you are. I can sit here and talk about Oh, how we were, so much, so amazing. Cuz we could work in the heat. It slowed you down. Oh, for sure. Big time. And so we eventually got to a point where it's man, we gotta do something about this. We had guys dropping like flies, couldn't keep 'em busy, couldn't keep 'em on because they just get too exhausted, and so yeah. Beautiful facility to work in now. Super efficient. We've got everything very strategically located so everything flows well. So yeah, we are poised to do well in the bolstering department this year. We're already doing really good to start. And it's only gonna get better from here on out.

So that three day guarantee, everybody's probably been seeing us. Pushing that. Yeah. Bringing it back. That's what we're doing is just bringing it back, to it. Now that Covid is over and we're in our new facility where we have the capacity, so we are back to old times.[00:47:00] The pro shop, what's, how are we doing in the pro shop?

What's, as far as like memberships doing really well. Yeah. I was gonna say all eyes are on me. Yeah. You are the gm. Yeah. So I do help run the pro shop more like I do run the pro shop. Yep. Yeah. So we have 24 7 access now with this big building and yeah, we've got quite a few members that sign up for that.

And we haven't hit the triple digits yet, but tell 'em the cool thing about that. What's that? Our 24 7 access? Yeah. What they're getting. So a 24 hour access, I'll go. It. I'll chime in. Yeah. All the platinum members, when you sign up, you get a card swipe. Yeah. And so you get that.

And so the member door obviously has the card swipe, you swipe it and you come on in anytime you want 24 hours, seven days a week and you got a 40 yard indoor range. Fully heated, fully air conditioned with a sink Coke machine. You got some stacks. I gonna say stack. You got a couch. There's an Amazon fire tv if you want to Netflix it out.[00:48:00]

Yeah. Then first date night, go right there. Yeah. Netflix and Chill. Yeah. We have a great group of guys though. The members here, we already created that core, which is awesome and like Rick and I touched on it on the last podcast, that's where. We had that sort of thing years ago when I was first getting into the archery, the 24 7 club.

And Rory won't let us have a pizza maker, but he says something about insurance has something to do with that. But burning the building or something, I dunno. I know every time I'd walk in there I'd smell pizza. Yeah. I don't want that. It'd be great. But yeah, the fire hazard is far too large. Cokes are great, but yeah, yeah, we have a great community already.

Built up and a great group of customers and guys that are more like friends almost at this point. Great to just have, build that community and be able to BS with them, but, and no longer is weather a factor in whether you get to go shoot or not. Yeah. You can tune out to 40 yards, with no variables.

Other than yourself. So that's the great part of it. And [00:49:00] yeah, the pro shop comes with a techno hunt. Remember you installing that with the techno hunt guy as well? Having that other tunnel, I don't, I think that kind of came as a surprise a little bit. I think that was the.

People didn't know about. I don't think I plans even I knew for a tunnel. And then you're like, yeah, we got techno hunt coming in. So yeah. We've got techno hunt open for public and whatnot. Which is at 20 yards. And like we have another line for kids at 10. Yep. Exactly. And yeah, so that's going well.

There's definitely some learning curves with software with that thing, but Yeah. It's pretty sweet. And then you can hunt elk indoors now, right? Yeah, exactly. And also in a air conditioned, non rainy environment. Yeah. Or heated environment too. Yeah. And the cool thing I like about techno hunt is you get to use your entire setup.

A li all you do is take off your field points and put on the blunt tips. Yep. And you don't have to change anything, just go and shoot the line. My favorite thing is the bugs. Bugs. I like to shoot the bugs. No. Yeah. Yeah, [00:50:00] man. Really, it helps the accuracy. Shooting a smaller being. Aim small. Ms.

Small, right? There you go. Yeah. There you go. These things fire me up. But at the same time too, like it, like you said, with anything that's like technological, sometimes it doesn't register correctly, but either way it's still, it's so fun. Get a couple buddies, it's a blast.

Yeah, that's a blast. Yeah. Beating up a target and all that kind of stuff. Saves life with the blocks out there. But yeah, I mean we had that date for moving here and then did our soft open mid-June and then that's when everything really came alive was like, okay. July 22nd I think is when we were gonna do it.

The big grand opening and yeah. Man, that was cool. That was insane. I remember driving here, we had over 200 people. You guys telling me how many people were there. I was like, yeah. Wow. I'm just like, like it. This is awesome. It happened. Definitely. Definitely. Taco free tacos I think helped free tacos.

Yeah. I didn't even get one for the, I got the last one. They were tasty. You're welcome. All of a sudden I see 'em driving off. I'm like, no. [00:51:00] Yeah, he did such a good job. I'm a big fan of tacos. He was out there for three hours. How'd you not get a taco? I, man, I was, we had so many people. Yeah. And then, and I probably spent more time in the back, like touring with people and shooting the shit and everything. The private tours. Yeah. So that was a, and it, the day just flew by, yeah. It didn't have anything to do with the keg in the back. Oh, yeah. Keg. What? There was, I might have had a few. Yeah. But yeah, that was a cool day.

And I actually I think we were hanging mounts on the wall the day before, weren't we? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And it was just like we couldn't decide where they were gonna go, so I'm like, we're just gonna hang 'em up and then we can adjust 'em later. And I know, I think you guys went home and then I actually changed them.

Yeah. The soft opening we did that. Yeah. It had to be because I know there was a lot of stuff that changed in that first month. That's right. Like we, we just threw band-Aids. And just threw it up for June. Soft open to be ready. Yeah. And I think you and I were here close. That's [00:52:00] why that's, you always do a soft opening, right?

Yeah. Yeah. For any other business owners out there in your, have a retail location, always do a soft opening. Yeah. Yeah. That was smart Work. Some kinks out. Cause boy we're there. We, it was the best decision we ever made. Yeah. It just made, you know what it did, it made the grand opening that much more fun.

Yeah. Because we had our shit straight by then. Yeah. Everything was functioning. I knew how to work a POS system, which I didn't know anything about until the day we opened on the soft opens. Yeah. It was good practice and yeah, it was smooth. It was smooth. So the pro shop, we got a full service pro shop.

We got. Certified bow technicians. Yeah. So all three, you're looking at 'em, we, we've been doing it for a long time, Al already up to that point, but then, so we went to the George Chapman. We were just basement banded. So sorry to interrupt. What is the George Chapman School of Archery?

Archery. Archery, yeah. Something like that. You could tell me. It's the School of Excellence and I might say yes, but I think it's School of Archery with with Steve Vanille, [00:53:00] like New York's State Champion 25 times. Yeah. I'm just making that up. I don't know, but he's really well known out there. Big with pse. Buddies with all the head honchos up there. We were, when that whole like new acquisition was going on and everything, we kept hitting him up. Steve, what's going on? Come on buddy. Give us a, give us something. He wouldn't give us anything. Yeah. Yeah. He was, but he was very very quiet on that one.

I'm surprising we didn't break him. I know. And he's such a cool dude. Like we, so the three of us fly out to New York right. For this. And we got paired up with another pro shop that's out in that area. Dan and his dad from Hunt Works. Hunt right here. Hunt Works. Yeah. Hunt Works. Couple other really cool guys.

They're dealers of ours now, so they sell our bow strings and our arrow rests and that was fun. That was a blast. Steak dinners every night. That was nice. Yeah. Breakfast with Steve. Oh yeah. Every morning. Oh yeah. Don't forget that. What was it like seven 30 in the morning? Seven in the morning.

His bottomless cup [00:54:00] of coffee. Yeah, man he, I think he drank like 10 a day. Yeah. And it was, and it was caffeine free. Yeah. No, I wonder It was actually decaf. He could do 10 a day decaf. Yeah. Otherwise a little heart would be Yeah. Like a hum bird. Yeah. A little bit. He's getting up there in age and I'm like, this dude's slugging down coffee.

I don't mean, how is he still got it, but then we figured it out. Yeah. No, that was a cool time we had to spend with him. Yeah. And and great education, right? Like I know that we already knew a lot, but just having any kind of refresher like that and you get to learn other ways to do things too.

That's what's really cool. Yep. Yep. And we taught him how to set up limb drivers cuz he didn't teach 'em at that time. He basically just taught cable driven. Yeah. So then we added limb driven technology to his curriculum. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. You. It's a forever friend, I'd say.

No, we see him at ATA show and just say, Hey, what's up man? And tell him that Matthews is better. He loves that. Aw, if he, if you ever meet Steve Vanay, I'll just tell him Matthews better. So he loves the bustier chops, man. [00:55:00] I know he loves the bust your chops, but he's a great sport.

He had a lot of funny things to say about Matthews and he put us in touch with our pro shop equipment too. Yeah. That is where we learned about what is it, ATTC, archery, tooling Company, I believe is what they call it. Amazing presses and drops. All their tools are just awesome and had no idea about 'em until, yeah.

We got there and then it was like, whoa, these are nice. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a cool addition there that we have, that a lot of other pro shops maybe don't. And what else? So we talked about the techno hunt. We talked about the range. What about, so product launches since you jumped on board so far in your tenure?

We've released the pro vx. The new Prov, which is the prov with the pro VX cage. On it. And then of course, gen integrate and integrate X. So we'll start with the pro vx and the prov. You know what fascinated me [00:56:00] about the prov was just the almost like cult following is like such a classic in the archery industry and bulletproof design.

And, the, I know you, you probably said this is our biggest problem is that our products are too well built so they don't buy another one. They last too long. They last too long product for life. Yeah. Yeah. And it's hard to make something better that's already that good. But I know that, just like your Apple iPhone or you drive a Chevy Silverado, you, you want a newer addition.

You, there's a little bit newer technology out there that you can tweak and make it a little bit cooler, right? And so that's all we did. We just, instead of the aluminum 60 61 cage which holds up great, but, maybe people want a slimmer design. Maybe you want the carbon cage with the rubber over mold for increased quietness.

And then what about micro adjustment wind and elevation? Yep. So I [00:57:00] just, for all those people out there that love the prov model, I just wanted to give them something a little bit cooler. Yeah. And a little bit more streamlined, slim. And so that's what we did. And it was pretty cool at the time because, That was mid 2021.

I think it was June, 2021 we launched that. And so that was when the IMS was gaining some traction, and so like our Gen seven seven X were not fitting on a lot of the Matthews and so the pro VX did. Yeah. And so that helped out a lot, far as fitment issues. And we developed the Matthews specific bracket for that, which was a whole different design that we, that you'd never seen in the industry, that was very innovative. Yep. And we fully, we patented that patented that bracket. And yeah, that is pretty cool. I don't want to go in too much detail cuz it's hard to visualize in your mind, but you can check it out on our website. The pro VX Matthews bracket, you should be able to see it.

And then, so the prov [00:58:00] new addition was basically just, we now have an opportunity for customers to pick out a color with the carbon cage and rubber over mal. So again if you don't want the black 6 0 61 aluminum, you can now match your setup which is custom colors. And then that brings us to what the Gen eight, eight x.

Yep. So that was a long time coming. The eight we'll call it the 88 X series. We talked to Q 80 D and I think it was 2020. We asked him, he was like, Hey can we get a license agreement? No. And then called him 21, Hey, can we get a license agreement? No. Finally 22, we got one. Yeah. At least we got the nod that we're going to get one.

So we immediately started, scrambling and we wanted to build it on our more popular seven, seven x series. And so that's what we did in obviously now fits on the integrated mounting system and now it's our bestselling air rest. [00:59:00] It's really taken off. As the eight is our standard model where, you can you don't have windage and our, excuse me, micro adjustment for wind or elevation.

And then you don't have a bottom limb attachment as well. Option where the eight x has all those things. Yep. And that I would say is the. The benefit of is that being streamlined to fit on the Matthews V three X and phase four? It was actually built around that model, so that's why it looks so damn good on there.

Yeah. And then, go ahead. No, go. Oh, I was gonna say we also have a bot tech version. Yeah. Because their cable guard is super thin, but in the way where our windage when you go over, we had to make our own bracket, which fits perfectly now for the bot tech series the newer bot tech models with the integrate.

And then we're in the process of looking at the PSE mock 34 coming out, the version. And that we [01:00:00] have I don't wanna give too much, but. We definitely have some other arrow rest in the pipeline that we're working on. Yeah. One you might see this year for sure. That'll be sweet. Just I'll leave it at that.

Oh, for sure. So let's talk about the some of the design innovations that you've brought to the table too. So with the with the pro vx, you had the inspiration for going with a Tron theme. And when he had at first presented it to me, I was like retro kind of eighties thing.

And I was like start putting it together. And then once it was done, it was like, wow, this looks really cool. Like this is really gonna stand out on the shelf. And just, get people's attention to looking at it and then going, oh, this is, and then moving forward now to the gen integrate.

Again, just being a, we're zals, right? So we like grew up in the eighties, we're like mid between gen X and [01:01:00] millennials and, but just the gi as boys we grew up on GI Joe, right? Everything. Yeah. And so Rory is I got an idea. What do you think? And I was just like, GI Joe, that's, cuz GI eight gen Integr and then gen Integrate It just the way that it all came together, I'm just like, it's man, this is perfect. This is brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, that's when I came to you and I go, Rick, when I open up this arrow rest, I want it to feel like a GI Joe. Yeah. Cause there's that nostalgia of opening, ripping open a new GI Joe that you just convinced your mom to buy you when you're at the grocery store and you you might have just thrown it in the basket.

Yeah, that I just remember, like when I was a kid, that was probably my most exciting part of growing up in the days, is just, having my GI Joe characters. Yeah. And then of course blowing 'em up later on when you get older. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then, so I remember some of the inspiration that you sent me, some of the old packaging and stuff, [01:02:00] and I was looking at all the old characters and all the names and started thinking about, that was like the next question.

It was like, okay, so who's gonna be like our GI Joe on the cover of the packaging? And it was like should Rory be on there? Should I be on there? We talked about putting Spencer on there. Yeah. And then it's hey, we have these partners. And we had just started a sponsorship with Jason, Matt Singer that year.

And then it was like, that's perfect. And then we've had and he's been, for the record, he's been shooting our stuff for a really long time. Yeah. But we finally just made it official. And cuz it's just that's what we want, I don't Yeah. He's our real life vapor trail action hero.

So Yeah. It's only right that we make him a figure. Exactly. And I, and that's what we always have strived for, is we want people to shoot our stuff because they like it, not cuz we're writing them a check. Yeah. And and then we had already had a long standing relationship with Steve Ecklund at the Edge tv and so it was just, it was [01:03:00] really cool having the conversations with those guys cuz I started out the conversation by saying, how would you like to be a real American hero?

And Steve Ecklin being Canadian. Yeah. But he was like, yeah. Oh he was so super excited and he, even Steve said that, he used to work in marketing. He was just like, this is great. And Jason was like, man, I'm super excited. I can't wait to see what you do, how, how you come up with what what you're planning on doing.

And it, it all just came together really nicely. Yeah. And it got a lot of attention at the ATA show. People would see the little tent we had in the aisle, even though it made all the ATA people mad because we gotta walk around it. Yeah. Yeah. Seemed okay. But that's what I was like, man, just let's get it out there.

Let people see it, and they would stop on a dime and come in the booth and take a look at stuff. And we had our phase four up with the looking sexy on it. Yeah. Yeah. So that was really cool. It was really awesome when I was like posting it out there and stuff. And then, Jason and Steve were sharing it and we sent them.

Even though they [01:04:00] both shoot prime and can't mount 'em on their bows right now yet we sent them each one, so that they could put it in their trophy room. And speaking of 'em, still waiting for them to give a little post of, whatever they built or however they're having it displayed, Steve was like, oh, I'm gonna build a shadow box for it and put it up on the wall.

So we'll see. See what's awesome. He ended awesome up doing with it. Awesome. But so that was really cool. It was a, putting together, being afforded the time now to like actually put together a decent launch video, make some really cool teaser to get people jazzed up about it.

And I have to say that is part of the success, but mostly just the functionality and the fact that now it's like, You have this awesome platform that you can fit onto the integrating mount mounting system and you can get it on a Matthews cuz so many of those Matthews guys were just like, man, I just, I really wish I could shoot this, but and the pro VX was referring to the seven, seven X fans right? Yeah. That wanted it on their [01:05:00] Matthews Yeah. So that was the main momentum behind the eight eight x series is Right. And the pro making it happen. And the pro vx was, it was an option, but so many guys want full capture.

They wanna have the full capture cage. Yep. And once that came out, people were super excited about it and they flew. Yeah. They flew. Now we have something that fits everything. If it's got the IMS for the most part with, bot tech needing their bracket, a couple bows needing their own.

But yeah, if it's everything, it makes us relevant to the ims and we're one of. Three companies that have that actual IMS mount that we are aware of. Yes, I'll say it that way. Yeah. But yeah, I wanna say it's Pure Tree Grip that Yep. Yep. The only other ones that have the integrated Yeah. There's Link system besides Q D obviously.

So the rip cord, and then they have a, they have an Octane one Octa. Yeah. Yep. Those are the only two other we've seen yet. Yeah. But yeah, it puts us right back on the map, it's an awesome rest, being able to fit. And you're right man, it looks sleek. It looks so nice.

Especially [01:06:00] on the Matthews, but anything else I'd say too, even on the, that pse Fortis is looking pretty nice. Especially in purple, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And then are we allowed to talk about our new baby that we possibly be coming out here shortly? You're the owner. You tell me bud.

Sometimes you're allowed to kick me in the shins. This could be the, this could be the The launch of it, but we can always, throw some Easter eggs out. We can always, but yeah, I think we should. I there is, I already threw one out a little bit on the outdoor podcast with Dave and Tim at the outdoor podcast.

Just won't go into hyper detail, just a little bit. But so basically we are coming out with a, I would say an industry disruptor a little bit for quick disconnect. I'm not gonna say the name of it, my, my biggest complaint about quick disconnects is they're not that quick.

You still have to unscrew them. And before you, take 'em out of the actual whether it's a circular dovetail or what And it still is a pain in the butt. Not [01:07:00] only that, your logo's always cattywampus, and then if you like to run an SS one or as stasis like an offset bracket.

Offset bracket. Yeah. Beasting your causing what the counter slide. So if you do any of that the biggest complaint is your angle is never the same. Index. Same. Yeah. So your rotational degree of your angles is something that you're always messing with when you're traveling to A to B as far as, packing away your bow in your bag and then breaking it out, getting ready to go on or go shoot.

And we've now come up with a solution where it fixes all those things where we, it is a simple lever. And it comes, there's no twisting involved. Your logo will always be straight. And if you run a counter slide or SS one or as stasis that again, your rotational angle will always be there.

My biggest, love for it is the fact that it disconnects so quickly. Yeah. Yeah. It's an actual quick, it's beautiful. It really is. It's something that has been needed [01:08:00] for quite some time because the old quick disconnect that we had, although it worked, I can't tell you how many times I was out in the field.

And it's dark, you're gonna go Turkey hunting, or you're gonna go bow hunting or something like that, and you're trying to thread that bolt that lever in, and then you've got the weight of the stabilizer preventing you from, indexing it properly and screw and it was just, you're fighting with it and then dropping it, and now you gotta.

Get on your hands and knees in the dark and then so it was just, it was not convenient. Yeah. And this thing is just yep. One, it's off thumb lever and it's off, and it's the tolerances are all very tight. There's no slop, there's no movement in it. I didn't, when we're shooting it, there's no movement at all.

It's solid, it's tight and it's patented. That's the best part. Yeah. Just a little fun part. This weekend at the 3D shoot, I literally threw my bow just on the ground and Caitlin, Luke were just laughing at me like, what the hell? Who is this guy? If my stuff can't hold up to it, I [01:09:00] don't want it when I'm hours from being helped.

Yeah. And granted, it's just a, quick disconnect. Didn't budge. Nothing did. Yeah. At all. But I'm just like, so many guys are so light on their equipment, but it's like, what if you do fall? I did in North Dakota, I fell, slammed my bone into the rocks and yeah, luckily it was fine.

But I'm like, okay, I want everything to be solid. Yeah. And that thing doesn't move. It's, or when you got your boat attached to your pack and you're just, crawling through trees and stuff Yeah. Trudging through. It's better. Hold up. If it doesn't hold up, I don't want it. Yeah. Yeah. Get outta here.

It's nice. I'm excited. Yeah. I, I'm super excited. And then even we're in our like r and d phase. We've got a number of people that have it on their bows for Turkey season, and we just hope that we can have someone get some success that way we can get some really good shots of it.

And then we're gonna get boom, right into the right, into the marketing side of things. Again, I'm gonna have the joys of filming and editing and doing all that. Yeah. And putting together some really [01:10:00] cool content. Yeah. And even better than what I've done before. Now I have the help of Damon Wolf from Wolf Media.

And so he's a very talented individual. Takes some great photos, great video, and yeah, we're gonna be putting together some really cool stuff. Yeah. Maybe we should come up with another theme for this one. Yeah. Some Barbie maybe. Wait, I'm talking. No, these no. You I'm, man, the gears are turning right now in my head.

I'm trying to think what else is there. We already said it once, but we don't want to give too much away. Has to do with mustaches. Yeah. It I was also thinking like maybe some MacGyvers kind of thing too. Oh my gosh. You know what I mean? Going back to the eighties or whatever, but, so yeah. So we got that going. That's part of the future. Yeah. And that'll be coming good say this fall. Yeah. Maybe sooner. Maybe sooner. I don't know. But it's always good to be. Stay on the safe side and just try not to make any empty promises. But that's how things go with this, with machining and anodizing and, it's a process that R phase is, and making [01:11:00] sure your product is rock solid, right?

Yeah. R and d phase is the most critical. So what else do we got going on for for Vapor Trail Stoker eyes coming up in the future that we can talk about? We've got a lot of irons in the fire. We'd be in trouble if we didn't have ideas constantly a brewing, but we had a, I would say a pretty successful league season here at the shop, for our first run at it. And, we hope to grow it. We had a couple of really fun shoots and we've got some good feedback from a lot of people and some really good ideas for what we wanna do next year.

We're gonna step it up and do some fun stuff. Maybe have some shoot downs under the lights instead of, do some cool stuff like that. Get some, put some pressure on some guys, yeah. Get the heart pumping a little bit while they're trying to win some money. I'm very excited about this podcast actually.

Yeah. We had some really cool stuff coming up. We got some guys that are Turkey hunting professionals, whitetail, elk, [01:12:00] and then, maybe some that might have had a mishap with, a bear attack. Yeah, some that'd be good. One exciting content coming out. And I feel like there's nothing cooler than when you really like a brand.

That brand opens up a door where you can go down the rabbit hole with them. You get to see, a little behind the scenes what's going on the people that are involved methods process, and just the ideologies of the company. And I feel like this really gives us the opportunity to share that now with our customers and dealers.

And hopefully they can be a part of it too. Yeah, absolutely. And I remember, we had discussed this a, a few years back about having a podcast, and it was like, oh yeah, that'd be a good idea. And then it just, so many things were coming at us so quick that it just, we, it wasn't an afterthought and then, and it wasn't even really on the radar until, at ATA and then, I had somebody approach me about doing a podcast with them.

And then again, just some marketing challenges that we knew we were gonna run into this [01:13:00] upcoming year. And so it was like, this is the perfect time to pivot and do that. And then, and still knowing there's so many people out there that have never heard of us. We're going into our 30th year of business and there's still so many people that don't know about us.

It's so what do we, how do we get on the map, and do some things to really brand, create some brand awareness, right? And so that's really where a lot of this came up. And, just doing as many podcasts as I could to knock off the cobwebs and talk, having conversations about what equipment we need and all that kind of stuff.

And then I approached Hollywood. I was like, what do you think about doing a podcast? And he was just like, I'm in, it was like, not even a whatever. I'm like, cool. All right let's, and it just, the whole process has been a lot of fun and having these conversations is really cool.

And I'm, I can't wait to get into the weeds with some of these other guys that we are gonna have coming up on the podcast. A lot of experts in the field when it comes to all, everything that you said. Elk, deer, Turkey, just bow hunting, archery, target, [01:14:00] archery in general, all that kind of stuff.

And just looking forward to bringing back that at the range feel. We're just here to shoot our bows and hang out and have a good time and, blow off some steam and whatever else. And unfortunately we can't, Cook a pizza, but we can order one. You can order one.

Yeah. There we go. On that day, in that day and age now, where we can do that. So yeah, I thank you for saying that cuz that is, that, that's a, gonna be a huge part of what we're doing this upcoming year and just look forward to seeing all the people that choose to follow along and ask questions and all that kind of stuff, and I think that, for people that listen and follow us they'll be more educated and they'll be able to track where we're at as far as new products coming out. Is as far as where we're headed as a company as well. And we talk about not just Vapor Trail, we talk about.

All new things in the industry. It's just a good way to stay up to speed. [01:15:00] Yeah. Yeah. So what about all that aside, what about what about this upcoming year as far as hunts? You got anything planned or just vacations or? No, I'm out at all. I, typical whitetail, yeah.

I'm a old school Texan bow hunter. It's that and hog hunting. Yeah. I'll be doing that and come September of course. And then whitetail. Yeah. With my father-in-law, probably Wisconsin coming September, August with the hundred foot tree. Stand with the a hundred foot tree stand.

Yeah. I've it'd be really hard to take a sniper shot from there. It's that tall. Yeah. You're better off just 20, 30 feet up in your normal tree stand. That one's a little too high. Tell us more about the a hundred foot. It's not really a tree stand, but it's like a, it's a house a built a hundred feet up dude, it has an elevator, it has a shower, a bathtub, a kitchen.

Yeah. No, I'm just like, oh yeah. And they're almost done with it. And I've been like telling my father-in-law's Hey, so after this is done, like you're gonna watch the [01:16:00] kids. So my wife and I can have date night maybe up there one. That'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. You used to walk out there and it feels the old school like fire towers.

Yeah. In the middle of the forest. Yeah. It's like that. Yeah. All you used to look out and there, that's what I envision is a horizon of trees, man. It's just so gorgeous out there. That's amazing. Yeah, and not to mention that, you can see a few lakes too. You can see deer walk in there and you're, so when you're a hundred feet up, they can't smell you, I promise.

Yeah, it's great for nature watching too. So it's good. It makes me wanna say what in the Airbnb is going on up there? Yes. There you go. That's actually, yeah. A smart idea. Sounds like what? He's pieing off for a good amount of money. Yeah. I'm waiting to get invited to go out west, so that's, whenever I get the invite makes you feel any better.

I got all my points and I got my first year of not drawing for a big horn sheep in Colorado, so Yeah. Yeah. I got a few years for that, got it. Yeah, we're gonna find out about North Dakota here in a couple of days, so that'll be cool to see how that goes. Cuz if me and you and [01:17:00] Damon and Griffin draw, man, we're gonna go slide that deer.

We're gonna go make a movie. That'll be sweet. Not that kind of movie. Yeah. Oh, a deer hunting movie. Or maybe just a running around in the hills and watching Sunset's movie. Who knows? We'll see how it goes. But I have a feeling that's one deer is gonna die. Yeah. Oh, for sure. But that's contingent upon all of us drawing, but who knows?

We'll see what happens with that. If I don't draw that tag, hopefully I draw a bear tag here in Minnesota and I'll go and suffer up in the boundary waters again for the week. I'll just do my OTC tag. Do some public land maybe. There you go for that. But North Dakota, you're talking no for bear. Oh yeah.

Cause I've got another six years. I gotta wait. So That's right. I do like your bear tag story. That was really good. When we were at ata, you told the guys we were out to eat with. That was hilarious. Oh, the I think it's osg, the, are you talking about up in the boundary waters? Yeah. Oh, which part of, oh, me getting [01:18:00] stuck there.

Yeah. Are you getting dying stuck there. Oh, sorry. The whole thing. It's an adventure. It's not funny. It's all about the adventure, man. I'm just kidding. No, it's just so forthy, dude. Yeah, no, it was exciting. It was I think you should tell it now. Honestly, it was dangerous. But maybe, we'll I think we'll save it for a different episode because we're getting okay.

Stretching for time. But I do want to have that conversation because I, we've talked about it on a couple other episodes, but we definitely do need to dive into the weeds with that. Cuz that was a that was a cool haun and it was very difficult and it's something that I I'm almost like I'm cool if I don't draw the North Dakota tag because I do look forward to getting up there again right away.

I'm nervous about having a gap here and then it fading away and not wanting to do it. I got the drive to do it now but who knows? We'll see. I'll be happy either way. What else do you have as far as so you did, I'm running for birds right now, but are you talking for applications that are out?

Yeah. Yeah. I did Colorado and then I'm just gonna do points in Montana and then. Maybe in Wyoming, but she's fair, bit [01:19:00] expensive and they don't like non-res, so yeah. Then North Dakota, one of the guys here going back to us, having a community, gave me a small invite down to Nebraska and then another one this last weekend to South Dakota.

Cool. As long as he's got the yes from the right people for South Dakota. So I might apply for South Dakota as well. What it's not might I will, but there's two different tags you can get for that otherwise. So South Dakota, otherwise Nebraska, those two are up in the air, but I'm also looking for a house, so need to save some money somewhere.

You don't want to stay in, in your suv. Yeah, exactly. It'd be nice to move out. Yeah. I got a lot, the whole bear hunting thing, whatever, especially in the boundary waters can shove it. So yeah, that's, get a couple under your belt first before you go try to do that.

Yeah. I'll leave it to you experienced, experienced old men. If your goal is to kill a bear, don't go to the boundary waters because it's probably not gonna happen. [01:20:00] Seriously, it's, but I had planned on going up there anyways to do some just fish and just get away, and then it's I may as well apply for a bear tag.

I'm probably not gonna get it. And then I got it, but then I didn't have the access permit and that, so you wanna talk about things getting complicated, as far as applying for stuff in other states, that's one that's I, something that would be good to educate people on, but at the same time, nobody wants to do it.

So it's easy to get a tag. There's no, you don't have to have points like you're Yes. Say get it your first year, wasn't it? Yeah. One and done. Yep. Nice. Wow. That's why I didn't think I'd get it. I figured it'd take two at least. Cuz you're looking at up in those quota areas you're we're getting up into five, six years now, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Just shocked that I got it. It would've been cool to bring up, bring a bear home, but yeah. This year, yeah, we'll see, and that's something that we should do too, now that you're a Minnesota resident, getting up and when things start getting a little more streamlined and established here with the new building and all that kind of stuff.[01:21:00]

The problem is you gotta. You gotta be out baiting like almost every weekend in August. I already told Wood, I was like, look man, you take me to one of these hunts out west or in the area. I was like it's a company trip, man. It's paid for. What are you waiting for? Yeah, come on. Now. The points are a different story.

All right. Elk is research. I know. It is development Montana. Yeah. If you want to, it's 1200 bucks for your combo day. Yeah. Oof. She's tough. Oh, I'll get out there one of these days. Yeah. Or we could do Idaho. You can do that kind of a little bit. It's 600 bucks, but now you can't get a tag.

I guess it's like almost impossible. Tough. Get a tag and then you're driving for. 20 hours. Oh, I can't remember how long it took for us to get out there, but it was 18 to 20 hours, I think. Oh, thanks. And of course we drive straight through, you can't make a stop along the way. Just gotta get there.

Yeah. Get back. Yeah. That's the way I roll too. I was gonna say, that's Rory. Yeah. Yeah. [01:22:00] I stopped once on the way to Texas. All gas, no breaks just to pee. Or not even, you're probably peeing in a Gatorade bottle or something. Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. Dumping it out the window. I only do it when I roll solo though.

Yeah, that's common. I haven't seen that. Common courtesy. And then, yeah I gotta get more diesel in my truck. Come gosh. Yeah. Kansas City where you stop. Halfway point. Like what? Isn't it like a third of the drive All Texas? I mean it. I stay you're on the north side.

I stay in work Dallas with a friend the first night I get there. Yeah. And then we go get our humble abode, our 1983 RV that we fixed up. Oh. And then we drive it out to West Texas to our family land. All right. Yeah. So that means we're gonna have to do a home and a way then, you get invited out west and of course you gotta go down to Texas.

That's how it works, man. Or Africa. Yeah. Or Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Waved on the road for me. Yeah, I don't know. I'm, it's a toss up for me about Africa, I don't know.[01:23:00] It's a trade off. I would, I'd like to go there just specifically to hunt those species that are there. But the style of hunting isn't quite Yeah. It's too much up my alley. Holding your hand kind of deal. Yeah. I don't know. Just sitting there waiting for 'em to come into, a water hole or whatever, waiting for your cows to come home. Yeah. Basically. Yeah. And you're more about the stalk.

I get it. And no judgment by any means. No. On anybody. This is not, I, I get it. And ob like with Whitetails, it's, it's a similar thing. But I just, I don't know. Teach Throne, man. We, I like to chase stuff. We've got our interconnections now. Yeah, north Africa. Oh yeah, we got a few, so we got a few Still, it doesn't make it cheap.

No, because I know if I go, I'm gonna kill everything because I probably only want to do it once, so I'm just gonna Oh, a hundred percent everything I can. Yeah. And now you got, now you've got all those animals you gotta get back all the taxidermy on and stuff. So go for broke, dude. It's the only way he can go, right?

Yeah, exactly. Someday.[01:24:00] Roy, thanks for hanging out at the Range man. We plan to have you on some future episodes with some upcoming product launches, that kind of thing. So yeah, really appreciate you coming on and taking time outta your day, coming up from Cancun for your day to Absolutely.

No, I appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me on. Pretty exciting stuff here and yeah, looking forward to future episodes, man. Thanks again for being here. Absolutely. So if anyone has any questions, suggestions, or has any interest in being a guest on the Range podcast, you can reach out to me on Instagram, Ricky dot Bruley 80, or shoot me a message through our Vapor Traill, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube channels.

You can also find us at the Range Podcast on all major platforms. And where can folks find you at Hollywood? If they have any questions Instagram is Jake IV three.

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