Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The 4 P's of Business with Jeremiah Jones
160 Plays14 days ago
A seeming Master of Most Trades, Jeremiah Jones, founder of Sew Lab, joins us in studio to talk, among other things, rebuilding domestic manufacturing (in Baltimore and beyond), building cameras, learning to sew, working gigs to fund adventures, old Toyota vans, raves, starting a brand out of a tiny apartment, riding 400 miles a week on a bike in New York, pulling influence from history, Permaculture, developing a personal way of problem solving, and much, much more.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Jeremiah Jones
00:00:02
Conor Fowler
Welcome everyone. I'm Connor Fowler.
00:00:06
matt
And I'm Matt Smith.
00:00:08
Conor Fowler
And you're listening to Apocalypse Duds. Here we are in studio with a mystery person ah from Baltimore who I have known for quite some time.
00:00:20
Conor Fowler
ah Our next guest has kind of been in the whole, much as a clothing scene exists in Baltimore, has been present.
00:00:32
Conor Fowler
as far as i have known, right and as much as I have been a member of the clothing scene in Baltimore. So ah welcome, Jeremiah Jones.
Managing Orders and Training
00:00:41
Conor Fowler
Hello, ah founder of SewLab, super truck owner, among many other things, amazing photographer.
00:00:51
matt
Yeah, we're definitely going to have to talk about your truck at some point.
00:00:51
Jeremiah
odd
00:00:54
Jeremiah
Okay. Yeah, we can definitely talk about that. Thank you guys for having me.
00:00:57
matt
Yep.
00:00:57
Jeremiah
It's ah it's an honor.
00:00:58
matt
Yeah, man.
00:00:59
Jeremiah
I really do enjoy this podcast.
00:01:01
matt
Oh, thank you so much.
00:01:02
Conor Fowler
And he really he really was listening to me because before the show, i said, you have big shoes to fill because of Mordecai Rubinstein. And he said, I was just listening to that episode, which is great guest behavior.
00:01:13
matt
Yeah.
00:01:15
matt
Yeah.
Growing Up in Baltimore
00:01:16
matt
how's How's your day going, Jeremiah? Yeah.
00:01:18
Jeremiah
Not bad. It's been a busy one. Lots of running around orders to deliver. And, you know, I got two new trainees on the shop floor. So doing bunch of hands on work with them.
00:01:30
matt
Oh, fuck yeah.
00:01:31
Jeremiah
Yeah, so it's ah it's good. I just I just walked in the door a few minutes ago. and i'm in my house right now.
00:01:39
matt
Nice. And so Connor said you're you're in Baltimore. Are you originally from there?
00:01:44
Jeremiah
Yeah, I grew up in the county, ah you know, like, but the county and the city are pretty well attached. When you grow up there, like my prom was in Inner Harbor.
00:01:51
matt
Yeah.
00:01:55
Jeremiah
Every date I went on in high school is pretty much in the Inner Harbor. So, yeah, you know, I grew up around here. My grandmother lived in Baltimore. and Yeah, so
Pride in Baltimore Accent
00:02:07
Jeremiah
it's my hometown.
00:02:07
Conor Fowler
We say it, you say it, which there is a distinction because I say Baltimore because I am not from here.
00:02:08
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:02:16
Jeremiah
Yeah, it became a point of pride after I left when I when I moved in. new I was in Colorado for a while. I lived in New York for a while, too. And New York was very my that's my daughter getting home from school.
00:02:32
Jeremiah
um Very.
00:02:34
Conor Fowler
Nice.
00:02:34
Jeremiah
um ah Yeah. Sorry, where was I? I just got distracted.
00:02:42
matt
Oh, you were saying you're in New York for a while.
00:02:42
Jeremiah
um
00:02:44
Conor Fowler
New American, Colorado.
00:02:46
Jeremiah
oh right new york colorado and we were talking about damn the train wanders fast um when when doors slam
00:02:55
Conor Fowler
No, no, we were talking we were talking about whether yeah we were talking about whether or not you're from Baltimore. And you said that you're from the county.
00:03:01
Jeremiah
oh oh god yeah yeah yeah baltimore yeah when i got to new york you know you know people ask you where you're from and and uh
00:03:02
Conor Fowler
And then you said that it's a point of pride that you say Baltimore. ah
00:03:11
Conor Fowler
Of course.
00:03:12
Jeremiah
you know so the the accent shines you don't realize you have one until you move away from home
00:03:18
matt
Yeah, totally.
00:03:18
Conor Fowler
It's awesome. Yeah, because I like really detested it um and a lot of other like sort of working class white accents when I was like an idiot teenager. But now I'm like, holy shit, that like developed organically.
Learning to Sew from Necessity
00:03:34
matt
Yeah.
00:03:34
Jeremiah
oh yeah absolutely
00:03:36
matt
I did the same thing with my southern accent.
00:03:37
Conor Fowler
Right, right. right right
00:03:39
matt
Like, I made a very, like, specific choice when I was in, like, sixth or seventh grade.
00:03:39
Jeremiah
yeah
00:03:44
matt
I was like, I don't want to sound like a hick. And you know, didn't really take that on. But then when I moved to New York, it actually kind of came out a little bit. And like, I've spent time all over the country and like with people, you know, I was in bands touring and like we toured with bunch people from like Syracuse and Texas and like I would pick up things.
00:04:01
Conor Fowler
you
00:04:05
matt
But yeah, it definitely comes out way more now and I appreciate it way more now.
00:04:11
Jeremiah
Yeah, I did learn how to pick up ah like the New York accent.
00:04:15
matt
Yeah, totally.
00:04:17
Jeremiah
you kind of you have to You have to adapt when you go places sometimes.
00:04:21
matt
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So what?
00:04:23
Jeremiah
So it's okay to say but Baltimore, Connor. You can you can say it.
00:04:27
Conor Fowler
yeah yeah well i think new york is kind of a hostile place um and baltimore does not have that at all it's like if you wait it doesn't really matter where you are from ah unless you're from the county
00:04:31
Jeremiah
Oh, for sure.
00:04:42
Conor Fowler
but
00:04:43
Jeremiah
Right, unless you're from the county. Yeah, there are there is some weird county city
00:04:52
Jeremiah
tension. I've been trying to wrap my head around that. it's I don't know. It boils down to how this city is being run ultimately, I think.
00:05:03
Conor Fowler
Yeah, and it's a race thing. It's like a money thing. It's ah people have I have read sort of longer pieces about like combining the city and the county, um which would make an enormous tax base.
00:05:21
Conor Fowler
But there's not a lot of there's not a lot of interest in that idea in the county.
00:05:22
Jeremiah
Yeah, but
00:05:27
Jeremiah
yeah, i I mean, I get that. But at the same time, they're two kind of symbiotic organisms that need each other. I think that that's, you know, as as our economy and our our world economics have changed, it's a little bit different.
00:05:35
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:05:44
Jeremiah
Like nowadays we can um uh you know get whatever we want from wherever we want but 100 years ago you know things had to come from someplace close someplace you know domestic local short shipping distances
00:06:03
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:06:03
Jeremiah
so
00:06:04
Conor Fowler
No. um So that's a good segue into this question. What started off clothing for you? I mean, have you always cared about clothes?
00:06:16
Conor Fowler
Have you always wanted to be making clothes?
00:06:18
Jeremiah
Oh, this goes back a long way.
Early Career and Fashion Influence
00:06:21
Jeremiah
So I've done ah i've done a lot of things over the years, of many years.
00:06:21
Conor Fowler
Excellent. Excellent.
00:06:27
Jeremiah
I've a lot of different careers. I've worked in kitchens. i've ah I was an EMT for a while, as first responder.
00:06:35
Conor Fowler
That's right. Hmm.
00:06:37
Jeremiah
um ah You know, I've tried a lot of different things. And one thing that's always traveled with me is ah the...
00:06:47
Jeremiah
modification of equipment and you know so it was kind of out of necessity that sewing became part of my um uh uh toolkit so i you know my my mom actually taught me how to sew very early first by hand and then later she taught me how to use her treadle machine um so it started out
00:06:50
Conor Fowler
he
00:07:08
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:07:11
Conor Fowler
what is what is that What is that?
00:07:12
Jeremiah
so okay so a treadle machine want you know 1800s uh sewing machine has no electricity going to it you have uh a pedal uh in the framework below the machine that has a big flywheel on the side and then a leather belt that connects it to the sewing machine head and before there was industrial and home machines there was just sewing machines and these were them so it was in a factory or a house it was the same thing
00:07:13
Conor Fowler
What does that
00:07:39
Conor Fowler
Wow. Wow. Yeah.
00:07:42
Jeremiah
Now it's very different.
00:07:43
Conor Fowler
wow
00:07:44
Jeremiah
Um, but yeah, so you got pedal it yourself. So, um, it's just one big pedal and I put one foot at the top and one foot at the bottom, and then you kind of get it reciprocating and you have ah extreme control with that. Cause you can stop sewing just by stopping your feet.
00:08:02
Jeremiah
Um, so, but it, you know, the trade off is it's a bit slower. Um, but anyway, my, that was the first machine I learned how to sew on. Um, And I was making little things. At the time, my mom worked at a massage table company. She was head of the graphic design department. And she would bring the vinyl scraps home from work. And I would just get to play infinitely, endlessly, and make stuff for my friends.
00:08:29
Jeremiah
I was really big into rock climbing back then. So i was making lots of chalk bags and ah selling them to buddies.
00:08:34
Conor Fowler
Okay. And that's good because that's like sort of like, I assume is like an easy little thing to make, right?
00:08:41
Jeremiah
You would think so. um
00:08:43
Conor Fowler
or no because I guess because it's circular it's
00:08:47
Jeremiah
Yeah, cylinders are are kind of ah getting ah a cap on a cylinder with a sewing machine is kind of ah a bit of a game if you don't know what you're doing. So, um you know, but that's where, you know, that's where my education started um in terms of getting into
Adventurous Rock Climbing Trip
00:09:04
Jeremiah
sewing. um at this point in my life, thrift stores were my go-to for fashion. I was a skateboarder. I was a rock climber. You know, I was pretty much just living in vintage clothes all the time with a few like ratted out skateboard t-shirts and sweatshirts to top it off.
00:09:23
Jeremiah
And, um, uh, so, um
00:09:27
Conor Fowler
Which people pay money for that shit, really.
00:09:29
Jeremiah
Oh, I know God, if I had my t-shirt collection from back then, I, I'd be so rich.
00:09:31
matt
Dude.
00:09:34
Jeremiah
Well, no, i
00:09:34
matt
I think about the same thing, and I had a cousin that would give me his old decks, and I'm talking like, you know, 80s and early 90s, like Powell Peralta shit, and I'm like, had I not thrown those fucking away at some point, but it you know, God.
00:09:35
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:09:44
Jeremiah
Oh yeah. Yep.
00:09:48
Jeremiah
Bright.
00:09:51
Jeremiah
Yeah. Uh, yeah. And you know, the things our parents do after we leave, you know, well, where did that go?
00:09:56
matt
Right, right.
00:09:57
Jeremiah
Oh, I gave that to a neighbor kid years ago.
00:10:01
matt
Yeah, there's a box of t-shirts that disappeared 20 years ago or so, and I'm like, ah none of us know where what happened to them.
00:10:01
Jeremiah
oh
00:10:07
matt
I'm just like...
00:10:08
Jeremiah
that was $4,000 mom.
00:10:11
matt
Oh, God, yeah.
00:10:11
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:10:12
Jeremiah
that That didn't happen to me, but that happened to a friend of mine a long time ago. He he used to race for PowerLight and all of his stuff was in the garage and she just gave it all away.
00:10:23
matt
Oh, no. Oh,
00:10:25
Jeremiah
Yeah. That was like it was his whole career, his whole racing career, junior BMX racing career.
00:10:28
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:10:31
matt
Yeah, i I think all of us have horror stories like that.
00:10:31
Jeremiah
Oh,
00:10:34
matt
Like, if you're all us you're of a certain age, it's happened to you.
00:10:34
Jeremiah
oh yeah. Absolutely.
00:10:37
Jeremiah
Absolutely. Absolutely. So, all right, so what was it? Back on the education, the sewing train, the fashion fashion express here. So um I went, um after high school, I was, again, really into rock climbing for for context. I would went out west. I um saved up some money over the summer working for my dad.
00:11:06
Jeremiah
Uh, bought a one way plane ticket to El Paso, Texas.
00:11:07
Conor Fowler
so
00:11:09
Jeremiah
And then I, um, went to, a took a cab 30 miles out into the desert. They dropped me off at a state park and I lived in the state park and around it for like three months in the desert,
Move to Boulder and Sewing Skills
00:11:24
Jeremiah
making a whole new batch of friends.
00:11:24
Conor Fowler
ah
00:11:27
Jeremiah
And like, this is my first time really on my own.
00:11:28
matt
Holy shit.
00:11:30
Jeremiah
I'm like 19 years old and like, uh, just living in a tent in the desert. I have like a job. ended up getting a job at this little, um i it was called Pete's or Pedro's depending on who you were.
00:11:48
Jeremiah
how well you knew him. So there's old Mexican guy and his wife and they had this little, it used to be a gas station, but there's no more pumps there.
00:11:50
Conor Fowler
Right. yeah
00:11:56
Jeremiah
So it's just a convenience store. And what they do is they sell beer and food to rock climbers and park goers all year round. And then they ah camp, they let you camp for like two bucks a night.
00:12:11
matt
Oh, whoa.
00:12:11
Jeremiah
So
00:12:11
matt
woe
00:12:12
Jeremiah
yeah so you know this is again end of the uh this is like 97 98 um uh so um i'm working for him for tips and food and uh free camping um uh
00:12:30
Conor Fowler
I don't think you could get that kind of deal now.
00:12:32
Jeremiah
Oh, no way. No, this was, this was a dream job too. If I could do this right now, I would, man. I would would sweep his floor every day. The food was so good to date. Best Mexican food I've ever had.
00:12:44
matt
Oh yeah, it's it's otherworldly.
00:12:45
Jeremiah
Like it was, you know, it was home cooking. It was mom making it every day. And I ate so good and I could, I was burning calories like crazy at that time. So I could just, I like, and the food never stopped. She just keeps feeding me. And,
00:13:03
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:13:03
Jeremiah
So this
Industrial Sewing and Design Exposure
00:13:04
Jeremiah
was like um an amazing time in my life. i was really free to kind of like explore and do whatever I wanted. was first time out of the nest and just on my own, you know.
00:13:15
Jeremiah
So um I ended up meeting some people from Colorado that I got along with and they're like, you should come to Boulder and check it out. It's a cool town, a lot of rock climbing. You'll like it. and and so I road trip up to Boulder with them and I'm like, Oh, this is a cool town. I, um, end up buying a van there with, uh, some of the money that I had saved up, uh, old Toyota van.
00:13:40
Jeremiah
Um, you'll see there's a theme here. um
00:13:44
Conor Fowler
right
00:13:45
Jeremiah
old Toyota van. I put a bed in the back and, you know, futon and I made a little camp kitchen set up and a like a bucket sink. And I would go to climbing areas and just live in that thing. And so while I was in Boulder, I walked in, I went right down the street from my friend's house staying at. There's a shopping center and in the shopping center right next to Neptune's Mountaineering, which is like a legendary outdoor store there.
00:14:13
Jeremiah
uh, it was a shop called Boulder mountain repair. And, um I went in talked to Neptune and they're like, yeah, you should go talk to Boulder, talk to Ron at Boulder mountain repair. So I went in there and, uh, I had this really terrible, ah vinyl, uh, messenger bag that I had made out of the massage table vinyl that my mom had given me as all cotton thread.
00:14:34
Jeremiah
So none of the seams were very strong.
00:14:35
Conor Fowler
Wow. Right, right.
00:14:37
Jeremiah
um and he looked at that and kind of shook his head and he's like, yeah, I'll give you a job.
00:14:38
Conor Fowler
Huh.
00:14:44
Jeremiah
but wouldn't, and wouldn't agree to teach me to sew yet. So I worked there for like maybe a month, maybe six weeks before he decided he would agree, agree to teach me to sew.
00:14:56
Jeremiah
I was trimming thread all day, every day, setting grommets and rivets and cutting ah Velcro. And I was, I was a little shop rat.
00:15:05
matt
you
00:15:07
Jeremiah
i was just running around getting coffee around the corner for everyone. And like, So I was the gopher, um which, you know, i I put in my time.
00:15:17
Jeremiah
And once he realized I had put in my time, he was like, all right, I'll teach you how to sew, but it'll be off the clock.
00:15:18
Conor Fowler
you
00:15:23
Jeremiah
I was like, all right, whatever it takes. So I clock out at night, I'd sit down, he would show me a few things while he was working on his projects. And then, you know, night after night after night, that would happen until I was helping with projects in the evenings.
00:15:40
Jeremiah
And then, eventually I'm sewing on. So we, we did a ah mix of repair and, um, uh, production work. So there was a backpack company that we were working for.
00:15:52
matt
Amen.
00:15:52
Jeremiah
There was a, chalk bag company, a climbing company that we were making chalk bags for. And then there was another company that we were doing some like midline assembly stuff for, uh, the clothing company,
00:16:05
Jeremiah
ah company that I i don't know. i hope there's somebody out there that knows this brand. it was called Verve and it was ah created by this guy named Christian Griffith.
00:16:17
Jeremiah
If you can find any images of this stuff, he was about 20 years ahead of his time. The cuts, like this guy was so far out there on like on his his cuts and he was making climbing stuff and yoga pants like
00:16:25
matt
Oh, whoa.
00:16:36
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:16:37
Jeremiah
Before it was cool.
00:16:37
Conor Fowler
Which if you're making yoga pants in that like late nineties, you're definitely ahead of the curve.
00:16:42
Jeremiah
Oh, yeah. And this guy was wild, wild. He lived later. i ended up getting ah another apartment. I lived in Boulder for a few for like four years. I ended up living.
00:16:53
Jeremiah
I moved like right around the corner from him. So I'd bump into him all the time and got to know him pretty well. But he would like I'd see him at the coffee shop and he's wearing his yoga pants or yoga shorts that he made.
00:16:59
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Influences on Design Philosophy
00:17:06
Jeremiah
that are underwear and that's all he's wearing he's got no shirt on he's just wearing the smallest pair of what you could call yoga shorts possible uh and a pair of flip-flops and then a little crossbody that he made um and ah like his but anyway his pieces were outrageous he was an amazing designer and we did a lot of work for him too um But, uh, so that was kind of the start of my introduction into industrial clothing or industrial sewing.
00:17:39
Jeremiah
And then that that point was when clothing really started to hit for me. Um, I started get into like, God forbid I say this, I was going to raves.
00:17:50
Jeremiah
Oh, um,
00:17:53
Conor Fowler
Wow. Well, the rave scene in Baltimore was ah very big, right?
00:17:59
Jeremiah
Well, i this was in Colorado. So I don't i don't know.
00:18:01
Conor Fowler
Oh, true. Yeah.
00:18:03
Jeremiah
i don't i didn't have the the fortune of going through that.
00:18:07
Conor Fowler
There's like club Club Orpheus and like those type of places.
00:18:12
Jeremiah
Yeah, these were like huge field raves and stuff like that. And and I got to...
00:18:16
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:18:17
matt
Maybe this is just like my perception of mountaineering and outdoors people, but I would not associate raves with that crowd. Yeah.
00:18:26
Jeremiah
Oh, uh...
00:18:26
Conor Fowler
Oh, it just depends. I would say it's a spectrum.
00:18:29
Jeremiah
It is. It's definitely a spectrum. And, you know, despite the outdoor ah image that Colorado presents,
00:18:41
Jeremiah
when you get into Denver, it's, it's like, any other gritty city, right?
00:18:46
matt
Oh yeah, totally.
00:18:47
Jeremiah
There is, there is, you know, it's, it's all clubs and there are people there that don't like even look at the mountains. They're just like, I don't even go over there.
00:18:54
matt
Right, right.
00:18:56
Jeremiah
I just, I was born in the city. This is where I live. This is what I do. This is my circle.
00:19:02
matt
Right.
00:19:02
Jeremiah
Um, and they just travel in the same pattern. So,
00:19:05
matt
Also, i don't i don't want to hijack this anymore, but I'm looking at ah the Verve website and looking at the the his the About Us page.
00:19:06
Jeremiah
ah
00:19:11
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:19:12
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:19:15
matt
And this this dude reminds me of Bodhi, Patrick Swayze's character from Point Break.
00:19:21
Jeremiah
Oh, I mean, not far off You throw a little bit of a femininity into that mix and it, that would be spot on. Yeah.
00:19:30
matt
Nice. Yeah, he looks fucking gnarly, though. Like, you can
00:19:34
Jeremiah
Oh, yeah. And then ah insane climber dude was so strong. Like just,
00:19:39
matt
Right,
00:19:41
Jeremiah
Like he had arm, his, you know, an appendix is ah the length of your reach versus your height.
00:19:50
matt
right.
00:19:50
Jeremiah
So ah zero a zero appendix, like I'm five, eight.
00:19:50
matt
right
00:19:53
Jeremiah
I, if I had a zero appendix, my reach tip to tip would be five, eight. He had like a plus two or plus three appendix, like,
00:20:02
matt
Holy me shit.
00:20:03
Jeremiah
Yeah, like, so just reaching stuff, like, he just passed stuff that I need, you know, I have to take two moves, three moves to get through, and he's just doing it in one.
00:20:13
Jeremiah
So, right anyway, ah yeah.
00:20:14
Conor Fowler
Wow. We've talked about rock climbing on this program before, actually. ah Our guest, Peter Totley, um was talking about the origin of rock climbing, like in the Ivy League, right?
00:20:27
Conor Fowler
Not precisely, but like them rock climbing in khakis, basically, at the at the start, like there was no performance gear.
00:20:28
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:20:32
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. No, I listened to that.
00:20:36
Conor Fowler
Yeah, that's so tough that's so tickling. Yeah.
00:20:39
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. Uh, no. And that's, that's really true. I, I, uh, you know, we'll, I'm sure we'll get into the more fashion questions later, but you know, you'll see, that's where I pull a lot of my influence from is, is from history, uh, you know, ah boy scouts and mountaineering.
00:20:42
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:20:57
Jeremiah
And, you know, when I was a kid, i my, um, grandfather gave me a crate of mountaineering magazines from the forties and fifties, like black and white printing, like, you know, talking about attempts on Everest failing and like, so, and the, you know, so in my mind, I'm just looking at the pictures.
00:21:08
matt
Oh, whoa.
00:21:20
Jeremiah
I'm a very visual, uh, uh, person, you know, the pictures just illustrated a whole, you know, a whole thing to me. So, ah You military stuff of course you see that in a lot of my current work which is hard to and you don't see so much of it at the moment on our feed but for for a specific reason you'll get into that later
Founding SewLab and Career Journey
00:21:48
Jeremiah
I imagine.
00:21:48
matt
Gotcha. Gotcha.
00:21:50
Jeremiah
So
00:21:51
matt
So can you give us kind of a brief history of so bad?
00:21:56
Jeremiah
yeah so ah all right so Solab is kind of um all right so so lab was founded in 2011 um but before that we started our business with our bike brand called holdfast um so back in the uh early 2000s 2008 2007 it started we incorporated
00:22:12
Conor Fowler
Mm hmm.
00:22:14
matt
Okay.
00:22:25
Jeremiah
um it is strapped that hold your foot to a bike pedal this is how every entrepreneur stumbles into being a business owner.
00:22:37
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:22:37
Jeremiah
ah you know i I had my sewing machine, it was my side hustle. I dragged that industrial machine into every walk-up apartment I had in New York City. It was a both an anchor and a life raft at the same time.
00:22:54
Jeremiah
So, you know, I had that thing running. if If I was in the photo industry, I was photo assisting and shooting portraits and stuff in in New York while I was there.
00:23:05
Jeremiah
But my sewing machine.
00:23:06
Conor Fowler
Interesting. Yeah, I want to talk about that too just as a note.
00:23:08
Jeremiah
yeah Yeah, absolutely. So, ah you know, side hustle was like fixing photo equipment for friends, camera bags, making new things for people. There was like I lived in brook like at the time I was living in park slope and there's a small polstery shop up the road and they needed someone to make pillows.
00:23:28
Jeremiah
So i was picking up fabric from her and going back and making pillows for 25 bucks a piece.
00:23:30
Conor Fowler
Dude, it's so crazy having skills.
00:23:34
Jeremiah
It was, you know, it was a hustle. It was in New York, man. I, did you know, half the time I was there, I didn't pay taxes cause I couldn't afford it. And I had to like save every frigging receipt so I could write it off after I left and make it up later.
00:23:46
Conor Fowler
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:48
Jeremiah
So it, you know,
00:23:48
Conor Fowler
I've never lived in New York. I mean, it's like, I don't, I don't have the skills. I could be a teacher, but like, it just would be, yeah it would be so much.
00:23:55
matt
It's a lot.
00:23:57
Conor Fowler
It's so much you have to like, because not only is your job challenging, your life is challenging.
00:24:04
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. But there's also things in New York that are so much easier. Like, for example, I can eat cheaper in New York than I can. I think in any city and bal Baltimore included, like I can eat cheaper in New York than I can in Baltimore any day of the week.
00:24:13
matt
Oh, 100%. Yep.
00:24:16
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:24:19
matt
I'm sure prices have gone up like since I lived there. i mean I've been back a little over 10 years now, but like you know get a ah buck 50 bagel with cream cheese and a $2 iced coffee at the bodega and you're like, cool, all right.
00:24:19
Jeremiah
And eat and,
00:24:32
Jeremiah
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then, you know, there's like Chinatown, there's a couple of dumpling spots you can get.
00:24:38
matt
Oh, Vanessa's, I miss it all the time.
00:24:41
Jeremiah
Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you can get a whole plate of dumplings for three bucks. And, you know, and then a scallion pancake, like that fills up a whole fridge, bigger than the plate for three dollars.
00:24:53
Jeremiah
And then you have like for me back then, that was like lunch and dinner.
00:24:54
matt
Yep.
00:24:54
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:24:58
Jeremiah
we were I was golden. So. i I do miss that. I don't miss the energy of that city. I just miss the people and the food, you know, and and some of the stores, I will admit, like having 24 hour access to just about anything you want is pretty incredible.
00:25:07
matt
totally
00:25:17
Jeremiah
And on an international scale at that, like you need people.
00:25:21
matt
right Yeah, i would I was in Bushwick, like kind of the ass end of Bushwick ah before it started blowing up. And we had a 24-hour organic grocery store with a sandwich counter.
00:25:34
Jeremiah
Oh, ah ah ah Bogart?
00:25:36
Conor Fowler
Yeah, that's funny.
00:25:38
matt
It wasn't Bogart. I lived off of jeff the Jefferson stop.
00:25:42
Jeremiah
The Jefferson stop. I lived off the Bogart stop. um ah Just, let's see, i left there.
00:25:50
Conor Fowler
you
00:25:54
Jeremiah
Okay, so I moved out of Bushwick. We moved to Red Hook in 2006, want to say. six i want to say
00:26:02
matt
Okay, gotcha. Yeah, you were you were there long before I was.
00:26:05
Jeremiah
Yeah, but I know the neighborhood really well. And um yeah, there wasn't much past Bogart back then.
00:26:12
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:26:12
Jeremiah
um
00:26:13
matt
Yeah.
00:26:13
Jeremiah
There was just a few business starting. And I went back there maybe two years ago, three years ago, and I i could not believe. like And like Williamsburg, I understand. Downtown Brooklyn, I understand. like I've expected those things to change and grow. And you kind of saw it my peripheral. But Like, getting out into deep Bushwick, like, that, seeing that explode the way it did was really eye-opening.
00:26:42
Jeremiah
That was pretty wild.
00:26:42
matt
Yeah, i I think the last time I went back was 2016 maybe. Like I met a friend for a drink out there or something when I was in town for work and I was just like, this is ridiculous.
00:26:55
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:26:56
Conor Fowler
yeah i don't Yeah, I don't want to pay i don't want to pay i don't want to pay for
00:26:56
Jeremiah
I could never afford it at this point.
00:26:58
matt
No.
00:27:01
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:02
matt
but My room was $750 a month, including utilities, so I got very lucky somehow.
00:27:03
Conor Fowler
it's not worth the
00:27:08
Jeremiah
Yeah, our last apartment in Red Hook was ah right next to the projects. It was 600 square foot railroad that we started Holdfast in, by the way.
00:27:19
Jeremiah
I had two sewing machines and a computer in my walkthrough closet.
00:27:24
matt
Oh, nice. Right.
00:27:25
Jeremiah
It was $1,200 a month and we were the supers, so we were getting a discount because I was sweeping the hallways and taking the trash out every week. um
00:27:33
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:27:34
Jeremiah
It was such a dump. Oh my God.
00:27:36
Conor Fowler
That's hardcore, man.
00:27:36
matt
Right. but
00:27:38
Conor Fowler
That's like, yeah, that's like adult shit.
00:27:43
Jeremiah
Yeah, it was like, okay, we're doing this, but we're doing this to get out of here.
00:27:47
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:27:47
Jeremiah
Like, this is our last apartment in New York. We're leaving. We're we're we're going somewhere else. So... um
00:27:55
matt
I do think that New York kind of makes you become an adult. Like it if you're not from there and you move there, it kind of like teaches you how to like be a person in a lot of ways.
00:28:05
Jeremiah
Yeah, if it doesn't chew you up and spit you ah back out first, yeah, you...
00:28:09
matt
Right, right. Yeah. If you can make it work, like the first six months I feel like are the hardest. And then you're like, okay, I understand this.
00:28:15
Jeremiah
yeah yeah if you can find your click it
00:28:19
matt
Yeah, yeah. Like, take, like, the walking in general for me was, like, I would get home, you know, from from work every day and just be exhausted from, like, and my job wasn't even difficult.
00:28:26
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:28:29
matt
I worked in a fucking clothing store, so.
00:28:31
Jeremiah
right oh the bike that made new york accessible on so many levels that changed
00:28:38
matt
Oh, I'm sure.
00:28:39
Jeremiah
When I finally found a good bike and started riding regularly, that just changed my life. And that kind of what snowballed into hold fast and, ah help build our business.
00:28:52
Jeremiah
I was like, you know, I had that sewing machine in my closet. was making stuff for people. and like, I'm going to make a brand. I always wanted a brand. I'm going to make a a bag brand, right? I'm going to make messenger bags.
00:29:03
matt
Thank
00:29:04
Jeremiah
Cause I'm this cool messenger kid.
00:29:05
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:29:06
Jeremiah
um
00:29:06
matt
you.
00:29:07
Jeremiah
so, I'm like working on bags. There's a ah shop up there that we were working with. We were making, i was making one-off bags for them and selling them. And then yeah I'm like, you know, I've like,
00:29:26
Jeremiah
I'm riding every day. I'm i ah ah buying bike parts a lot. I'm replacing these metal cages that go on the front of your pedal and the skinny leather strap.
00:29:39
Jeremiah
And I was like, okay, I'm going to buy good leather straps because I break them all the time. They're 80 bucks a pair, 120 bucks a pair, right?
00:29:46
matt
right
00:29:46
Jeremiah
And they're like leather laminated with some sort of fiber core in the middle so that they're stronger and they don't stretch and they last longer. I was breaking them like i was going three, four pair a year or something like that because I was riding a lot.
00:30:02
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:30:02
Jeremiah
I mean, I was clocking on some weeks like 300 and 400 miles a week.
00:30:07
matt
Wow. Were you writing fixed gear, or single speed kind of stuff?
00:30:11
Jeremiah
So fixed gear and geared bikes. So i had I had some geared bikes and I would go out and do long rides out into Jersey and
00:30:14
matt
Okay. Gotcha.
00:30:22
Jeremiah
uh, and do laps in the parks. And, um, I, you know, so, uh, and then, and then fixed gear pretty much, uh, was my daily ride everywhere.
00:30:25
matt
Right, right.
00:30:33
Jeremiah
Um, so that's why I was like destroying those straps all the time. Cause I'm putting a lot of pressure on them.
Developing Holdfast Brand
00:30:39
Jeremiah
There's no brakes. So breaking force is coming from me putting resistance on the straps and on the pedals to stop the back wheel from spinning, ah through the chain.
00:30:45
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:30:49
Jeremiah
And, um, So that's destroying those straps quicker than normal. You know, and those things were designed in like the early 1800s, maybe even earlier than that, let's say the 1700s. It's like a very, very old patent.
00:31:08
Jeremiah
The. The. okay the it was kind of the impetus for creating the strap. So i you know, I gotta to be able to come up with something better than this.
00:31:22
Jeremiah
Cause it got to, and you know, I think there's going to be better pedals for this as well.
00:31:24
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:31:27
Jeremiah
So I just kind of started putting my mind to it and, um, I don't do a lot of planning. I don't do a lot of drawing. I don't do a lot of, um, uh,
00:31:39
Jeremiah
anything i just start i just jump in and i start cutting and measuring and sewing and kind of putting stuff together and then if i get stuck i get into the complicated stuff i start to work out and sketches and render stuff and take more accurate measurements but this was kind of a very organic process and kind of
00:31:54
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:32:03
Jeremiah
my
00:32:06
Jeremiah
At this point, I'm kind of on my way to developing my personal approach to problem solving for this kind of work, right? Like this is how you break down something into steps to engineer it into something that's manufacturable.
00:32:24
Jeremiah
And that's, excuse me, that's like, that's the real challenge because nobody knows how to manufacture anything anymore. And that was me too.
00:32:32
Jeremiah
I didn't, I had some idea, right? I told you about my career in Colorado, which was up four years between two shops and two different mentors ah that really, you know, like was a start.
00:32:32
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:32:49
Jeremiah
Like I knew how to operate a machine really well. I knew how to work on the machine pretty well enough to like time it and keep my machine running without having to take it to a mechanic for the years that I lived in New York.
00:33:01
Jeremiah
um But, you know, ah
00:33:07
Jeremiah
i didn't really have a firm understanding of how to bring a product to market. um i am terrible at digital integration.
00:33:18
Jeremiah
I'm very much an analog person.
00:33:19
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:33:20
Jeremiah
i learned how to do this work with pencil, paper, and scissors. and um And that kind of, you can't build a website with those things. So,
00:33:30
matt
Right.
00:33:31
Jeremiah
Um, you know, I need, I need people that help with that. We had a business partner for a while. We ended up buying them out a few years into it, but, um, you know, it, that was, uh, the beginning of our learning process.
00:33:46
Jeremiah
It started with me making the first probably one or 200 in my little walkthrough closet.
00:33:51
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:33:54
Jeremiah
And they were very simple and very crude, And hardware didn't always match and, you know, it was based on what we could get and, ah you know, the limitations of the garment district in New York at the time. um the the Granted, there are great materials and notion spots. It's nowhere near what it used to be.
00:34:13
Jeremiah
um And the industry in general is nowhere where it used to be. So. ah There's a lot of problem solving. We ended up finding a manufacturer through a friend that happened to be in Red Hook, so right around the corner from my apartment. um And ah they made ah parachutes.
00:34:34
Jeremiah
um A company called, yeah, Ater Aerospace.
00:34:35
matt
Oh, shit.
00:34:38
Jeremiah
And this is such a wild concept for me. I'm trying not to divulge or try not to drift too much here. But the, they're,
00:34:49
Jeremiah
they, I don't know, they were in business a long time when we got involved with them. Their whole, they hadn't sold a thing yet, right?
00:34:56
Conor Fowler
you.
00:34:58
Jeremiah
They're going after one contract the whole time. So they just have a board of directors that are just dumping money into this year after year after year, keeping the doors open while they ah pursue, ah you know, these heavy government contracts to make these giant parachutes to drop you know, tanks and heavy equipment on a nickel in the middle of anywhere on the, on the planet, like with, you know, with such incredible accuracy.
00:35:27
matt
Right.
00:35:28
Conor Fowler
Hmm.
00:35:31
Jeremiah
So they're building the computer systems, but they're also building the air foils themselves. So they're, you know, it's not just your regular canopy shoot. It's like an airfoil, forget what they're called.
00:35:45
Jeremiah
but and, rare uh ram air so uh it's the ones that are more like a giant um uh wing right and they have cavities cavities that fill up with air as as it moves through the air and that actually creates the airfoil itself that's giving them the lift so
00:35:57
Conor Fowler
Oh, sure. Yeah.
00:36:06
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:36:09
Jeremiah
um Anyway, they had an incredible selection of equipment and skilled ah machine operators. And ah we worked out a deal where I could go in and sit down with their team for eight hours at a time for, I to say it $1,500 a day. so I'd rent the whole shop for a day, and we did white um with the money that we made from the first round of straps that i made we ordered a bunch of material we got it in i rented the shop for two days we went through all of their equipment and came up with a design that utilized their equipment um to make and we started making the straps through them and we they did all the sewing and production and we would do the final assembly and packaging in-house so uh
00:37:06
Jeremiah
that was going really smooth and uh you know built the bank account up really fast we started getting orders immediately for shops um and then uh japan found out pretty quickly and that blew up so our first orders to japan were like 800 units at a time and we were like i was putting them together watching movies in my living room um you know ah we I shipped my TV remote to Japan in a box of straps.
00:37:38
Jeremiah
We still don't know where. like I'm sure W is sitting on their shelf right now like, the hell is this? like Why'd they send us this? like
00:37:47
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:37:48
Jeremiah
Yeah, the TV wrote remote disappeared that day, right?
00:37:49
Conor Fowler
What an artifact.
Rebuilding Baltimore's Textile Industry
00:37:52
Jeremiah
So, um so that was kind of the birth of our our company. um And then in that time, like was saying before, that Red Hook apartment was garbage, and we needed to get out of there.
00:38:03
Jeremiah
And at the time, my wife and I were just engaged, we're talking about getting married, and i was starting a family, and we wanted to be close to my family.
00:38:08
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:38:12
Jeremiah
And we're like, well, let's Let's check out Baltimore. Baltimore's got a rich sewing history. like London Fog was there. like There's got to be like some other sewing companies.
00:38:23
Jeremiah
There should be mechanics and stuff. Let's build out our manufacturing in Baltimore. Just copy what they have at this place up here that's doing our work and then dive into it down there and start hiring from the labor pool that should exist there.
00:38:40
Jeremiah
um Guess what? All that left, gone, right? Like mass exodus, less like the last big major operation left in the mid-90s, like 95, 96.
00:38:45
matt
Right, right.
00:38:57
Jeremiah
It was a London fog, shut down the last factory here.
00:39:01
Conor Fowler
Do you know Daniel Cohn?
00:39:01
Jeremiah
So yeah, yeah, do dr Dr.
00:39:04
Conor Fowler
You do? Okay, I thought so.
00:39:06
Jeremiah
Dan.
00:39:07
Conor Fowler
Yeah, dude, because I was trying to make shirts like a while ago, like 10 years ago. And we talked to Daniel, ko but I was just going to say, i mean, he is operating in Baltimore, um making doctor's coats, doctor's jackets.
00:39:13
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:39:19
Jeremiah
Yeah, Essex. Well, ah he sold his company, so he's no longer and another company bought him and they may have even dissolved the entire operation that was here.
00:39:24
Conor Fowler
Oh.
00:39:35
Conor Fowler
Jesus.
00:39:36
matt
Damn.
00:39:37
Jeremiah
yeah Yeah, we are in.
00:39:38
Conor Fowler
It was interesting.
00:39:41
Jeremiah
Go ahead. Yeah.
00:39:43
Conor Fowler
um was just gonna say it was interesting. Like this guy who was a doctor himself thought all of these lab coats are terrible. And so he just bought a factory and started making them in Baltimore with like old sewing machines.
00:39:58
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you ever got to go through the factory, but it was, it was really cool.
00:40:04
Conor Fowler
I did.
00:40:04
Jeremiah
I got, did he, did he take you in the basement?
00:40:05
Conor Fowler
Yeah. Yeah. I toured the factory. It amazing.
00:40:09
Jeremiah
Did he take you in the basement?
00:40:10
Conor Fowler
where they had all of the yeah, where they had all the old like historical stuff.
00:40:16
Jeremiah
Yes, that was my favorite room. And like, I hope he calls me if they're ever cleaning that out. Cause there's so much stuff in there. I'd rescue he has all the original tooling for all the old patterns before it was a lab coat, uh, factory.
00:40:36
Jeremiah
So we're talking when it, when it made, when they made casual shirts and stuff like that, they have all the collar tooling for die cutting collars and all the sizes.
00:40:36
matt
Oh, whoa.
00:40:37
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:40:46
Jeremiah
i want to, I want to, I want all the patterns. I want all the, like, if there's a way to rescue that, um, I want to do it because it was pretty, uh, pretty remarkable,
00:40:58
Jeremiah
and and so much of that stuff just gets lost. Like there's a, there's a, a generational gap from, of knowledge from the last, you know, 40, 50 years of progressive, progressive offshoring of our light manufacturing and sewn goods.
00:41:15
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:41:18
Jeremiah
It's, it's like, not only has it like done us a disservice on a, you know, ah you know, on a, public level of just like what it's done to our cities, but the gap in knowledge that it's left for us to get back to where we were even remotely close.
00:41:39
Jeremiah
And I know it'll never be where it was. There will be a resurgence. There has to be, but it's never going to be where it was. And I guarantee you most of the money is going to be in technology.
00:41:45
matt
Yeah, yeah.
00:41:48
Jeremiah
It's not going to be in manual labor. So like if if the zone trades comes back in in heavy swing, it's going to be from a technological standpoint where where we're seeing
00:41:56
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:42:01
Jeremiah
crazy equipment getting made that will, you know, cut and sew a shirt for you, which, you know, automated sewing is here, but it is, it is still in its infancy.
00:42:13
Jeremiah
Like it is, it's, it still takes a machine operator, a skilled person to change the bobbin, to look at everything, to see that it's going right, to pull out the seconds.
00:42:13
matt
yeah yeah
00:42:17
matt
Thank you.
00:42:24
Jeremiah
And, you know, so it's, it's, it's a ways away, but, um you know, I think,
00:42:29
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:42:31
Jeremiah
The problem is we're not looking at it on a holistic level. We're not taking a... We're we're not seeing the forest for the trees, as they say.
00:42:43
matt
Right, right. I think about um when I worked in like high-end menswear, you know I would see factories and like Hurtling Trousers in Brooklyn was one of my favorites to go to. i was yeah Julie Hurtling, rest in peace, was just a gem of a dude and he'd been in the game for you know almost 80 years when he passed away.
00:42:57
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:43:03
matt
and like Contrasting their pattern cutter doing it by hand with Southwick using a CAD machine was like just next level.
00:43:14
matt
um yeah It was so accurate. And it was at that point, you know, still kind of like new ish and evolving technology. But like, you're totally correct. There's, there's been so many leaps and bounds since like all of the shit went south in the US.
00:43:29
matt
And yeah, I don't I don't know what it looks like if it if it even came back like 20% of what it once was.
00:43:32
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:43:38
Jeremiah
There are machines that are produced overseas that aren't even programmed really in English. Like the the control panels don't have an English setting, but because they've never had a reason to export it here.
00:43:47
matt
Wow. Yeah.
00:43:51
matt
Yeah, yeah, totally.
00:43:53
Jeremiah
ah i So the second place I worked at in Colorado, the second sewing job, I worked on a machine called a Mauser and it was really complicated machine it basically was like two sewing machines brought together and in the weirdest and most complex way uh it's called an off arm um so back then these were super rare at the time there were three of them in the country and there was one guy that worked on it he lived in california and you'd have to fly him in and put him up in a hotel to work on your machine
00:44:27
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:44:29
Jeremiah
ah The machine had like a big head that came towards you and dropped down. And then I had an ah arm that tapered and got smaller. And the sewing happened on this side. So you had that thing like right up against your chest and you're looking around it. So you could take a sleeve, a flat piece of neoprene and wrap it around at the needles and sew the sleeve off the machine. And what it would do is it laid down a strip of elastic over the gap between uh the two pieces of neoprene right over the top and it would put four needles through it and so four needles through all all the layers and so on the other side you have this nice flat finished seam covered in elastic very tight it's going to stretch and move with the neoprene so you know and yeah so
00:45:21
Jeremiah
And that was, you know, 98, 99, something like that. Like I'm sure there's more of that technology has been coming into the country since then. And, you know, as knitwear and stuff has grown, but it's in such a small quantity and the demand for anything really new, you know, hasn't really pushed enough to get like the technology here.
00:45:32
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:45:48
Jeremiah
So, you know,
00:45:48
matt
Right, right. And i I think this is a big part of why companies like Patagonia and other outdoors brands that make things, Arcteryx, you know, i'm not I'm not as into newer shit as I am the vintage, like, outdoor stuff, but that's that's one reason why they basically can't make mean most things here, because we just don't have the tech.
00:46:10
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. And, and ah you know, I would take that a step further. It's not just the tech, it's supporting industry.
00:46:17
matt
Yeah, that that also, yes.
00:46:17
Jeremiah
Right. So, ah you know, labor pools are dwindling. You know, finding skills is near impossible. We had to make our own training program and fund it through the city and collaborate with a OpenWorks and Made in Baltimore to get any sort of leverage to make something happen here.
00:46:39
Jeremiah
So.
00:46:39
matt
Right.
00:46:39
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:46:40
Jeremiah
Yeah,
00:46:40
Conor Fowler
And you would figure that they would just be like, Not like beating down your door, but like we want stuff to be made in Baltimore. Everyone has been screaming it for a decade at least.
00:46:53
Jeremiah
yeah no, im I mean, again, this city was built on canvas. In the late eighteen hundreds this was the largest canvas manufacturer on the planet, suppli supplied by the Jones Falls and the Gwynne Falls, which, Connor, you probably drive or walk by every day.
00:47:02
matt
Wow.
00:47:10
Jeremiah
um these you know uh you know and there are dark sides to this like the environmental impact of all that manufacturing definitely took a toll on the waterways and uh and the uh bay but uh and the harbor but you know again this was you know every clipper ship on the globe at the time was had canvas on it from baltimore and it was milled here and then sewn here
00:47:11
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
Baltimore's Manufacturing Struggles
00:47:38
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:47:39
Jeremiah
If you're in, if you're driving south on 83 through Center City on the right.
00:47:44
Conor Fowler
Which they call the Jones Falls Expressway because it goes along the Jones Falls.
00:47:47
Jeremiah
Yet.
00:47:50
Jeremiah
Yep. ah Right over the right over it. And in parts.
00:47:53
Conor Fowler
it's It's wild, really.
00:47:55
Jeremiah
There's this beautiful old building. Now it's called the Meadow Mill building. It's in a floodplain of the Jones Falls, which is terrible engineering. But, you know, they needed it close to the water because the whole thing ran off a water wheel.
00:48:06
Conor Fowler
This
00:48:07
matt
Right.
00:48:08
Jeremiah
um So there's a mill race right next to it. It's a cool building. It was our first location, incidentally, here in in Baltimore. So that was built by the Clipper Company, and they made it exclusively for their sail making. And I believe this was just the sewing factory.
00:48:25
Jeremiah
I think it has like five or six floors. um
00:48:30
Conor Fowler
this huge building
00:48:30
Jeremiah
The huge building. Second and third floors have... walnut inlays in the yellow pine floors that are the pattern pieces to the sails.
00:48:43
Jeremiah
So you would unroll the canvas on the floor and with your shears, follow your your pattern laid out in the floor.
00:48:43
Conor Fowler
Wow.
00:48:52
Jeremiah
So it's wild, right?
00:48:53
Conor Fowler
That's amazing.
00:48:54
matt
That's ridiculous.
00:48:56
Jeremiah
So now it's all broken up with walls and offices.
00:48:56
matt
Yeah.
00:48:58
Conor Fowler
And that sort of combination, right? Well, it is, it is just offices now, but it's that kind of thing I think that is so sorely missing. It's like a combination of, it's like thoughtful engineering.
00:49:12
Conor Fowler
You know, it's like you're going to have to be cutting the canvas up, but we can at least make it easy for you and like comfortable, basically.
00:49:20
Jeremiah
It's always going to be shaped like this, so why not put it in from the ground up?
00:49:23
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:49:28
Conor Fowler
Yeah, that's amazing.
00:49:28
Jeremiah
So.
00:49:28
Conor Fowler
i haven't been I haven't been up there. I don't know if i've I've been like down in the like food court area of the building.
00:49:35
Jeremiah
Right, right. it was a cool building It was a cool building to be there because of the history, but the corporation that owns and operates that is just big, big business.
00:49:47
Jeremiah
And yeah.
00:49:48
Conor Fowler
Oh yeah, they're pieces of shit.
00:49:48
matt
Yeah, these are the worst, like, my least favorite types of establishments.
00:49:53
matt
Like, we have one here...
00:49:53
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:49:53
Jeremiah
um Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:49:55
Conor Fowler
The hipster for the court? Mm-mm. Mm-mm.
00:49:58
matt
Yeah, like there's ah there's a complex here called Pond City Market, which is my the bane of my fucking existence.
00:49:58
Jeremiah
Yeah.
00:50:05
matt
But the building originally was one of the like... i don't know the exact history, but it was a very old Sears Robux. And like ah they have like placards and stuff that tell the history about like...
00:50:16
Conor Fowler
You're knowledgeable.
00:50:21
matt
you know Oh, in 1944, you could buy a mule here. And it's like, that's so much cool that's so much cooler than the bougiest restaurants on the fucking planet.
00:50:32
Jeremiah
Yeah. yeah Yeah. i Yeah. That made me dig. That really made me like start to look at the history. um I ended up...
00:50:42
Conor Fowler
you very knowledgeable
00:50:44
Jeremiah
i Well... Thank you. i i ask a lot of questions and, you know, I and right now I'm spending a lot of time talking to people like local nonprofits, um city city offices, things like this.
00:51:04
Jeremiah
We're trying to push the needle here. We're trying to like illustrate that, you know, one, this is our history. Two, this is one of the most powerful tools in your toolbox that you are neglecting, right?
00:51:17
Jeremiah
And and it's it's very myopic for our city to not be looking at manufacturing and specifically light manufacturing as the leverage to ah rebuilding our neighborhoods organically, right?
00:51:30
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
00:51:37
matt
Right.
00:51:38
Jeremiah
Without forced gentrification, without, um you know, this is empowerment to everyone.
00:51:44
matt
Yeah. Without a bougie food hall.
00:51:48
Jeremiah
I mean, no, we can have that. There's room for that.
00:51:48
Conor Fowler
I have long said there is, well, so like Under Armour.
00:51:53
Conor Fowler
For example, right, the the group the quote unquote the quote unquote great Maryland slash Baltimore company ah founded by Kevin Plank.
00:51:55
Jeremiah
Oh, boy, here we go.
00:52:04
Conor Fowler
So they talked for years and years about producing goods in Baltimore. And they, for a time, had more money than God and could have done it and did not ever do it.
00:52:19
Jeremiah
Oh my God.
00:52:19
Conor Fowler
So...
00:52:20
Jeremiah
Well, am, I thank you for opening up this can of worms. Cause this is going to be fun. Um, all right. So yeah, Under Armour. Cool. Uh, look at all that leverage, right?
00:52:31
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:52:32
Jeremiah
Like our, our city council, our, uh, you know, our governor at the time, the mayor, everyone was looking at, uh, at Under Armour.
00:52:42
Jeremiah
They're like, yeah, look at this leverage. We can make a lot of jobs. There's going to be all these jobs that we can make. And,
00:52:48
matt
Right.
00:52:49
Jeremiah
ah So, okay, cool. They come in, they get that, what it, a $900 million TIF from the federal government to match funds for the reconstruction of Sparrows Point.
00:53:02
Jeremiah
um Okay, awesome. That's, wow, way to move the needle. Cool. So, all right, they come in, they start setting up shop, right? Like, okay, ah we need people to sew.
00:53:16
Jeremiah
pool who where let's dip into the labor pool well who has the labor pool like me and five other shops maybe right so and they're like oh look yeah you want some shoes you want ah some new you can't wear nikes here so we're going to give you some new shoes ah we're going to give you some sweet new like mock turtlenecks and a new bag and some gloves this winter and a laptop like
00:53:40
Conor Fowler
What are zips? Right. Right.
00:53:44
Jeremiah
Oh, gosh, I've never had benefits like this. And I get health insurance. Amazing. Cool.
00:53:50
Conor Fowler
right
00:53:51
Jeremiah
Like, I'm losing managers and bleeding managers and bleeding like, you know, any skilled operator that, you know, ah feels like they're like knows their self worth like, okay, so awesome.
00:54:07
Jeremiah
They, they go do that. All of us small businesses are left there.
00:54:09
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:54:10
Jeremiah
Like, uh, what do we do now? Right. So I'm stepping down from running my business back to operating my business. So now, you know, and, and this is a trend, this, if you're an entrepreneur, you know, this, this is going to ebb and flow throughout the lifespan of your business.
00:54:28
Jeremiah
Um, but you know, we're, we had to absorb that. Like all the small businesses here that lost employees in that time, um had to absorb that hit, right, and and create more labor labor, more skilled labor in the labor pool.
00:54:45
Jeremiah
So, you know, and I will also say that they came in like, okay, we want to support local businesses and we want to support Black-owned businesses.
00:54:45
Conor Fowler
yeah
00:54:57
Jeremiah
Like, great. Great. Cool. So what are some black-owned businesses? let's Let's swoop in and like see what we can do. All ah all right. So one small business, and I don't want to name names because i love that you know ah I'm good friends with one of the guys. like They had a cool bag company. I was making bags for them for a while. They were really, really handsome, and these guys were really good at selling them, right? Like just –
00:55:29
Jeremiah
too good at selling them. um And ah so we had a good relationship, but it got rocky at the end because they couldn't pay their bills, but they needed more product.
00:55:34
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:55:39
Jeremiah
And like my hands were tied to because I'm a small business and I don't have credit out the ass to pay for this shit. Like I got to pay my employees and I got to pay, you know, for materials. And, you know, I hang all that out on the front a lot of times in a job thinking that we're going to get it back on the backend. So if you don't pay your bills, I'm kind of hosed and this is early years for our business. So that's like, that's a tough time, right? So going three weeks without getting paid is hard enough. Going three months, six months without getting paid is near impossible.
00:56:15
Jeremiah
So, um but you know, we, you know I'm, I'm willing to work those things out. Right. I recognize that they're small businesses too. And we got to do that.
00:56:25
matt
Bye.
00:56:25
Jeremiah
Anyway, under armor is like, Hey, we got you.
00:56:28
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:56:29
Jeremiah
Let's like, we're going to support you. Here's, I don't know. They gave him like $50,000 and a space in one of their facilities that they opened, uh, next to the foundry.
00:56:33
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
00:56:39
Jeremiah
And, um, which was another failure of theirs. Uh, the So, ah you know, long story short, basically, they gave them enough rope to hang themselves with in terms of finance.
00:56:53
Conor Fowler
Right.
00:56:54
Jeremiah
They gave them no guidance or leadership on how to leverage that money or use that money to, like, actually insulate their business. They gave them no consultation on how to stand up their own manufacturing, which they were really, really trying to do.
00:57:08
Jeremiah
i And ultimately, Under Armour's engagement, like, was... like big business cutthroat. So like, you know, one day Kevin walks in with a check in his pocket he's like, Hey, um, this isn't working.
00:57:19
matt
Wow.
00:57:19
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
00:57:22
Jeremiah
Uh, I got a check here for $50,000. I'll give it to you right now, but you got fire everyone right now. Like, yeah, how, like, this isn't holistic.
00:57:30
matt
wow
00:57:36
Jeremiah
This isn't like, I get that you have to make hard decisions, but how about like, coaching them through that to that point, giving them like attaching a consultant to them that will help guide them through the process of, you know, improving their bottom line, which is really what it was all about for them.
00:57:49
matt
Right.
00:57:53
Jeremiah
So,
00:57:53
Conor Fowler
Thank
00:57:54
Jeremiah
so And this is not the only business this happened to. their Under Armour's engagement with a training program I'm good friends with, the people that run it they you know they set that up.
00:58:08
Jeremiah
ah like They tried to back that. or They did back that for a while. slowed down the development of his own building so that they could put it in their building. They committed to multiple um cohorts of trainees. And then on the second cohort,
00:58:25
Jeremiah
A week before it ended, they they said, no okay, we no we're done. We're not going to do this anymore. and We're not taking any more of your trainees. like Andy Cook from Made in Baltimore, good friend of ours, had to scramble and put together a job fair to find these kids' jobs because they were expecting to get hired by Under Armour right out the gate.
00:58:47
matt
Right. Right.
00:58:48
Jeremiah
So Ruggs getting...
00:58:49
Conor Fowler
Kevin Plank is an early Trump supporter, an early vocal Trump supporter.........................
Sustainable Business Practices
00:58:53
Jeremiah
Oh yeah. And it goes without saying, I mean, that thing's a boys club through and through every woman that I know worked there left, um, with just like, you know, illustrating just the worst feeling of being there.
00:59:09
matt
Right.
00:59:09
Jeremiah
Like the culture of the space, which really comes from the top down, was, was, was just frat boy all the way through and through.
00:59:15
Conor Fowler
surely no
00:59:20
Jeremiah
And, um, and it just, It's hard to excel in those situations. I know I wouldn't do well in it.
00:59:28
matt
Fuck that.
00:59:28
Jeremiah
Couldn't imagine being a woman in that situation. So, you know, yeah. So i you know, I think Under Armour had an opportunity and just really just killed it, drove it into the dirt. I think they could have done that much better. And like, if you look at where they're at now,
00:59:50
Jeremiah
Like it's done. It's over for them, I think.
00:59:53
matt
Right.
00:59:55
Jeremiah
Like,
00:59:55
Conor Fowler
Yeah, they don't have they never made a single decent looking thing. So that's their problem.
00:59:59
Jeremiah
now no, no.
01:00:00
Conor Fowler
My aunt was their IP attorney and she got fired.
01:00:00
Jeremiah
and Yeah. yeah Yeah. it's it's just It's just sad because, you know, they came in, they hired all these people. i think they ran the sewing program here for like three years.
01:00:17
Jeremiah
and then let everyone go overnight. And then, ah you know, all these people are coming back looking for jobs at old places and ah no one can afford them because they're, you know, they've been trumped up by Under Armour and they're expecting a bigger salary.
01:00:28
Conor Fowler
right
01:00:33
Jeremiah
You're going to have to leave the city. You're going to have to go to New York or, you know, South Carolina, North Carolina to...
01:00:40
matt
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, man. I don't know if they're going to pay all that much more down South. Like Gitman ah moved their factory to Tennessee few years ago and like,
01:00:51
matt
You know, it's basically because Pennsylvania is a union state and they had to pay, you know, had to pay union prices for labor.
01:00:54
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:58
matt
And here, like...
01:00:58
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:01:00
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:01:00
matt
there's There's one of the oldest denim factories in the in the country in my like up the road from my hometown. like My grandpa, or my great-grandfather, was like the the head of the dairy back in the 30s and 40s there.
01:01:15
matt
And yeah, like i don't I don't know how much they pay now, when...
01:01:15
Jeremiah
Oh, wow.
01:01:20
matt
when You know, when I was a kid, like a lot of my family worked there. My grand, my one of my grandfathers worked there for like 35 years.
01:01:26
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:01:28
matt
But, you know, like the minimum wage here is still $7.25 essentially. So I can't even imagine how, like how much less it would be if this place, you know, existed in a union part of the country.
01:01:42
Jeremiah
Yeah, I. So, you know, that's kind of the big the big question, you know, like I'm all for unionizing this, but it would make any manufacturing, any soft goods unapproachable in terms of price like.
01:01:57
matt
Right. Totally.
01:02:00
Jeremiah
ah oh yeah.
01:02:00
matt
Well, I mean, you're you're also, you don't sound like you're exploiting your labor force. You know, like you're you're not a huge company. Like you can you can pay, you know, a living wage to a point, but but also like your employees are very happy with it.
01:02:15
matt
It's, it's I don't know, the like I'm a huge union supporter, obviously. I think we all are. But, you know, there's there's definitely a difference between you and fucking Under Armour.
01:02:22
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:02:26
Jeremiah
Yeah. So, and, you know, I, we, we do, we take, it we take good care of our employees. Um, and I, you know, what we can't do in terms of, uh, like say traditional benefits, I can't pay for healthcare, care ah just the margins are too slim for what we do and we're not at the scale where it's economical.
01:02:49
Conor Fowler
Sure. You're a job creator.
01:02:53
matt
Right.
01:02:53
Jeremiah
um But, you know, like i'm I'm, a lot of my employees are young people, right? And I, you know, I've, I've hired over ah last time I counted, it's, it's somewhere over 50 people in the last 17 years, 18 years.
01:03:11
matt
Right.
01:03:12
Jeremiah
ah yeah and
01:03:14
Conor Fowler
you job creator
01:03:15
Jeremiah
Yeah, it's and it's pretty cool. You know, all those people started careers in my shop and went on to do other, you know, a lot of them are doing stuff like ones at J.Crew, ones at Nike right now.
01:03:28
matt
right
01:03:29
Conor Fowler
One of them works for Ralph.
01:03:29
Jeremiah
Like, Ralph, yeah, exactly. So, like, that's that's pretty pretty cool. I feel pretty honored. to be the first step on those people's, you know, like ladders of to success and, you know,
01:03:46
matt
And it was really cool to to hear you like before we started the actual interview to say that you were training a couple of new people like that's that's dope.
01:03:49
Conor Fowler
you.
01:03:54
Jeremiah
yeah, it's, I mean, it's an all ongoing process. It's like always evolving. And we, I mentioned a little bit, we ran, with made in Baltimore and, uh,
01:04:05
Jeremiah
OpenWorks, which is a local makerspace and made a Baltimore as a local manufacturing advocacy program, which um started in the mayor's office of ah sustainability and then was later moved out of that to the BDC, which is Baltimore Development Corp., which I have a whole nother gripe list with.
01:04:25
Conor Fowler
Yeah, they're... Yeah.
01:04:28
Jeremiah
ah
01:04:30
Jeremiah
Fishing for minnows with a big net.
01:04:30
Conor Fowler
It's a city.
01:04:30
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
01:04:32
Jeremiah
It's...
01:04:33
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
01:04:34
Jeremiah
as So frustrating, man, trying to pull levers in this city to make anything happen. You know,
01:04:41
matt
Baltimore and Atlanta seem very synonymous with each other because it's the same kind of shit here.
01:04:47
Jeremiah
I believe it. It's, we're kind of at the bottom of the iron belt here. And I think you're in that too. You know, a lot of the manufacturing practices have that survived were of this archaic operational structure, you know, and,
01:04:54
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
01:05:04
matt
Right, right.
01:05:08
Jeremiah
sew lab is really different um i was i wanted to take this call there but i unfortunately logistically couldn't do it but you know i've got 3 000 square feet with probably 30 or 40 sewing machines in it and cut tables and hot cutting equipment and fabric cutting equipment rolls and rolls and rolls and rolls of fabric and materials and um that's uh you know ah um yeah connor have you been to our shop
01:05:37
Conor Fowler
I have, yeah, the one down by ah the old.
01:05:43
Jeremiah
Oh, by mill number one.
01:05:45
Conor Fowler
Yeah.
01:05:46
Jeremiah
but the um
01:05:47
Conor Fowler
I guess you moved. Oh,
01:05:49
Jeremiah
Yeah, we moved. We're down on Preston Street now, Midtown. Y'all have to come by again and see it.
01:05:52
Conor Fowler
okay. Yeah, I will.
01:05:54
Jeremiah
it's
01:05:55
matt
Dude, Connor, go buy, film some video and take some photos, man.
01:05:55
Jeremiah
um
01:05:59
Conor Fowler
Yeah, definitely.
01:06:00
Jeremiah
Please, please, please. I'd love for you to see it. It's ah you know it's it's a messy operation, but it's you know it's it's an operation.
01:06:04
Conor Fowler
Yeah, I would love to.
01:06:09
Jeremiah
It's always, always changing. You never know what's on the table.
01:06:13
matt
I mean, I'm looking at, I'm also looking at your your website and have been kind of periodically throughout the interview and like the shit's sick and it's incredibly well-priced.
01:06:21
Conor Fowler
you
01:06:26
Jeremiah
Thanks. we're you know we're a lot of it is because we it can be direct, because we're making it and when there's no middleman, right?
01:06:31
matt
Right, right.
01:06:34
Jeremiah
um
01:06:34
matt
Yeah.
01:06:35
Jeremiah
ah And we do a lot of like white label, like any of our tote bags, you can basically get rebranded with your colors, your logos, your artwork, whatever.
01:06:44
Conor Fowler
you
01:06:47
matt
Right.
01:06:49
Jeremiah
so you know But we're we're trying to be competitive because, you know i mean, Let's face it, our main competitor right now is is overseas in it in just about any direction.
01:06:59
matt
Of course.
Economic Impact of Local Manufacturing
01:07:02
Jeremiah
And, you know, ah granted, my materials are much different, but when a company searching for a promotional tote bag and they come across mine and they come across the one that's made overseas, mine's $12 and they're ah the competitor is like $3.
01:07:11
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:07:24
Jeremiah
three dollars
01:07:25
matt
Right, right.
01:07:26
Jeremiah
And you can't see the difference online. They look the same.
01:07:29
matt
No, no, totally, totally.
01:07:31
Jeremiah
When you feel them, you're going to feel the difference. And when you like compare them, you will see the difference in terms of construction and quality. But, you know, how do we how do we educate our consumers? How do we like this is hidden value, right? Like where?
01:07:50
Jeremiah
Every dollar that you spend in your own city that recirculates back into your community goes so much further than every dollar that you spend that goes overseas.
01:07:52
Conor Fowler
right
01:07:59
Jeremiah
Who's buying, like, who in China is buying from us? Like, what are they buying from us?
01:08:05
matt
Right.
01:08:05
matt
A quarter percent.
01:08:05
Jeremiah
Does that dollar come back here?
01:08:07
Jeremiah
No. Does that dollar going to India come back here? No. Like, i like if you spend a dollar here in Baltimore on something that was made here in Baltimore, whether it's food or clothing or product that matriculates through the economy and goes back to you, to your family, to, and only makes your, your community stronger.
01:08:33
Jeremiah
Right.
01:08:33
matt
percent
01:08:34
Jeremiah
But like, yeah, can like, so, you know, like we've been talking about Baltimore and how it's like, that's current state, like you look at, you know, I'm sure a lot of folks have seen the wire.
01:08:34
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:08:50
Jeremiah
um You know, that was shot here. Those are real places. That is a legitimate thing here in this city. and It's not all like that. It's not all that hard.
01:09:00
Jeremiah
It's not all that brutal.
01:09:02
Conor Fowler
yeah yeah
01:09:02
Jeremiah
But my point is, when you look at those block after block after block neighborhoods that have burned out real homes, boarded up, as far as you can see,
01:09:14
Jeremiah
I guarantee you the center of that neighborhood, the center of that detritus where all those empty blocks of buildings are, there's a factory that died first.
01:09:23
matt
Right.
01:09:24
Jeremiah
And that was like the beating heart of that community that circulated money through every business that was there from the dry cleaner, the diner, the hardware store, the post office, like every business that was in that neighborhood that supported them came from, yeah, all of them.
01:09:37
Conor Fowler
Taylor.
01:09:42
matt
right right
01:09:43
Jeremiah
Right? so So now we have these neighborhoods that are just like deserts. There's nothing there. And, you know, there's occasionally like a Chinese food spot or a convenience store or a liquor store.
01:09:58
Conor Fowler
definitely a liquor store.
01:09:59
Jeremiah
Yeah, yeah. um You know, and or a church or a speakeasy or whatever.
01:10:02
Conor Fowler
church.
01:10:06
Jeremiah
Like, um you know, my i I want our local government to recognize the fact that, like again, light manufacturing is the strongest tool you have. For every job you create in light manufacturing, that creates three to five jobs in supporting industry.
01:10:25
Jeremiah
And that's not just like the distributors that you're buying materials from. That's the people in the neighborhood that that impacts, right? So that's more than tech. That's more more than food service. That's more than any other industry on the planet.
01:10:41
Jeremiah
right? So why are we not using this and all the vacant buildings that we have here to rebuild and invest, micro invest in the, the companies and people that are here already trying to do this stuff, right?
01:10:51
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:10:58
matt
Right.
01:10:58
Jeremiah
Like I'm, I make the analogy, I, I, I look at permaculture as kind of a format ah to kind of, reimagine how this city works right like we have all these little native species plants but they're stunted in their growth because they can't break through that glass ceiling to get to a larger more sustainable platform which by the way is 10 000 square feet with 25 employees that is the level of sustainability for manufacturing anything below that to about
01:11:23
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:11:35
Jeremiah
mom and pop level where you're working out of your garage or your spare bedroom is not sustainable for anyone you're spread too thin or you have too many people and you're spread too thick where you're spending too much money to operate so you know these shortcomings really like micro loans micro investments and let's like be honest, risky investments have to have to be made.
01:12:02
Conor Fowler
you
01:12:05
Jeremiah
And right. and And in a large, broad scale, we can't like invest in, we can't dump a bunch of hope and money into a company like Under Armour and expect them to come in and create 200 jobs in three years.
01:12:19
matt
Right.
01:12:19
Jeremiah
That's just not realistic. It's a double-edged sword. They can do just as much damage ah as they can progress. So,
01:12:28
matt
Right. Right. And they're also a massive corporation.
01:12:29
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:12:30
matt
They want a certain profit margin, which is not possible.
01:12:33
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:12:37
Jeremiah
They have a single bottom line, right? and And I think that that's really myopic and ultimately won't won't serve you for very long.
01:12:39
matt
Yeah.
01:12:48
Jeremiah
If you're judging all of your decisions on one metric, money, money like
01:12:53
matt
Right.
01:12:55
Jeremiah
i So this is what I teach a lot of.
01:12:56
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:12:58
Jeremiah
ah We do some consulting for small businesses and I have the training programs and I mentor ah people that are starting businesses. This is what I tell them.
01:13:10
Jeremiah
i have um four bottom lines, the four P's. It's people, product, process and profit. All of those have to align in order for us to be successful.
01:13:24
Jeremiah
So when I'm weighing a new customer, like whether they're going to fit with our system, they have to fit all that.
01:13:30
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:13:31
Jeremiah
Can I make it? Is it going to piss off my employees? Like, is it going to be so complicated that they're just going to be mad at me? Like, I don't want that, right? Is it going to give us a profit?
01:13:42
Jeremiah
Um, you know, and they, so they all kind of, they're all tangled together. or They're all connected, right? So we can't really untangle those things without having some sort of effect on the other, on the other, uh, variable.
01:13:56
Jeremiah
So, you know, I, you know, we really have to think about it holistically from a, you know, again, going back to,
01:14:00
Conor Fowler
you
01:14:08
Jeremiah
permaculture like we need to create like a greenhouse where we can take and collect all of these little um you know small native species companies native companies and put them in the same space where they can share resources uh where they can they have access to things where we can bridge the gap between your basement and your 10,000 square feet and 25 employees.
01:14:26
matt
Right.
01:14:35
Jeremiah
We can give you something to stand on there, right? The city has assets and resources to do this. They just have to put it all in one place. and may And make it a priority and real and recognize that the the leverage we have here, if we're investing in these little businesses, and people that are from here, right?
01:14:45
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:14:54
Jeremiah
They have a built-in market. It's not a giant company that has, you know, global, you know, recognition and has to keep up with all that stuff. You're making like...
01:15:05
Jeremiah
a thousand small bets. And I guarantee you of those thousand small bets, more of them are gonna pay off than that one big bet over the longterm, right?
01:15:17
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
01:15:17
Jeremiah
Like that.
01:15:19
matt
It's almost like ah collectivism is the answer to most fucking problems that we have these days.
01:15:25
Jeremiah
Go figure.
01:15:26
matt
Yeah, go figure. Who would have fucking known that human beings are fucking herd animals and we need the herd?
01:15:35
Jeremiah
We do. We do.
Holdfast's Success vs Local Governance
01:15:37
matt
ah
01:15:37
Jeremiah
Absolutely.
01:15:38
matt
So um I did have a question. do you still do Holdfast?
01:15:43
Jeremiah
ah Yeah, Hold Fast is alive and well. We just got an order from Japan for another $200. And, you know, now we're...
01:15:51
matt
I was just looking at that website also. And that like, i'm I'm not a bike.
01:15:54
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:15:55
matt
Well, I'm kind of a bike person, but ah the bags are fucking sick.
01:16:01
Jeremiah
Oh, thanks. We've got new ones coming soon. i So, uh, we started a whole, I started a whole bag line for, uh, for hold fast. It was going to be wax canvas and kind of bespoke. And, um, we're, I'm like, i don't know, a month or two away from getting ready to launch it. We're going to take pictures and stuff. I have all the samples made.
01:16:26
Jeremiah
And then one of my old customers, a company called Vela orange, which makes beautiful bike components, bikes and accessories. Um,
01:16:34
matt
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:16:34
Jeremiah
Also a local company. They're here in Maryland and Glen Burnie.
01:16:38
matt
Oh, shit, I didn't realize that.
01:16:38
Jeremiah
um Yeah, i I didn't realize that when we first, like, we we did some work for them, like, 15 years ago. And before that, I knew them as a company, but I didn't recognize them as a Maryland-based company. I just knew them as, like, a a U.S.-based bicycle, like, very specific niche bicycle company.
01:17:03
Jeremiah
like randonne, uh, you know, French style, like, uh, backpack, bike packing style stuff. So, um, and, uh, so I, they got in touch with us all those years ago and i was like, Oh my God, they're in Maryland. That's crazy. They were in Annapolis at the time. And, um, so we started working for them, made some cool stuff. And then, um,
01:17:27
Jeremiah
Fast forward, I don't know, they moved away from the bags that we were making because they found a vendor that was already making a bag and they would just buy it with their that label on it and sell it to like that. And ah so ah fast forward, some of the employees bought the company from the original owner and founder and have just taken it in a whole new direction and it has just become like,
01:17:56
Jeremiah
I like that really blossomed into those whole new brands. So they came to me again and they're like, Hey, we want, you know, we want to build this, you know, a line of bags. We want it to be kind of bespoke. We're thinking wax canvas, natural materials, maybe some leather accents and things like that. And I was like, you mean like these? And like, he's like, yeah, that's exactly, we'll take that, that, and that. So, um, long story short, had to, um,
01:18:25
Jeremiah
we just transitioned that all over to their product line. And now I'm starting a whole new product line of bags for hold fast to launch in the spring.
01:18:35
matt
Oh, fuck yeah.
01:18:35
Jeremiah
So
01:18:35
matt
Fuck yeah. I will definitely keep up. ah i'm a i'm a I'm a bag whore, if I'm being honest.
01:18:40
Conor Fowler
I
01:18:41
matt
Like, I can't have Tubanae.
01:18:44
Jeremiah
cool. Well, I got you.
01:18:46
matt
Good sick.
01:18:46
Jeremiah
a
01:18:48
matt
Dude, Jeremiah, I think we could talk all day, but ah I think Conor...
01:18:52
Jeremiah
Oh, we haven't even talked about the truck or the cameras.
01:18:54
matt
um Yeah, well, I'm about to i'm about to ask. well we'll have to do a part We'll have to do a part two that focuses on not Sovab and your endless fight to build shit in Baltimore.
01:18:58
Jeremiah
yeah Yeah, you put me on a soapbox.
01:19:08
matt
But this was...
01:19:09
Conor Fowler
Your other many skills.
01:19:10
Jeremiah
I can go. Sorry about that.
01:19:11
matt
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah no no you're a you're a fucking renaissance man. Yeah.
01:19:16
Conor Fowler
No, it was amazing to hear that because I have never really heard it articulated by someone who didn't have a bad interest. You know what I mean? Like I've heard the mayor talk about it. I've heard people in the fucking city council talk about it, but like they are not assuming best intentions.
01:19:36
Jeremiah
How do I get like leverage there? It's like, and again, like, I don't know, not to, not to dive into politics too much, but like,
01:19:41
Conor Fowler
Yeah. Definitely.
01:19:45
matt
No, no. I mean, this whole thing has been political in like a real world type of way.
Challenges in Business Investment
01:19:51
Jeremiah
yeah, I feel like our local government, Baltimore city specifically is a puppet show. I don't think,
01:19:58
Conor Fowler
definitely
01:19:59
Jeremiah
The mayor has much control. I think there's a bunch of white dudes sitting at a table in suits telling him what to say. And I think city council, they all have their own objectives too.
01:20:10
Jeremiah
And and I just don't, it's hard to get anything done here. And you know no one everyone's ah adverse, like risk adverse.
01:20:21
Jeremiah
Like no one wants to take risk. you know The BDC is like, oh yeah, you're you know they've been telling me for 10 years You're primed for something big.
01:20:28
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:20:29
Jeremiah
You're going to blow up. But we can't invest in you right now. You're just too small.
01:20:36
Jeremiah
Dude.
01:20:37
matt
How the fuck you blow up if they if you don't have investment and like or capital yourself to do it?
01:20:37
Jeremiah
Like...
01:20:43
matt
like
01:20:45
Jeremiah
We need to cut some new grooves. I'm on a record with one groove here, man. Like...
01:20:48
matt
Right, right. Great analogy.
01:20:50
Jeremiah
Help me out.
01:20:50
matt
Great analogy.
01:20:52
Jeremiah
Like, help me out here. Like, we... So you... You are the the institution that is set up by the city, right, to help small businesses nurture and grow to become big businesses within your city, right?
01:20:57
Conor Fowler
you.
01:21:10
Jeremiah
Well, hi, I'm a small business. I intend to be here a long time. i intend to grow. I intend to make manufacturing jobs, which is the largest job multiplier on the planet. What do you got? What can we do? Oh, well, you know you're primed for something big, but we you're just too small right now. so we need and We can't be looking at balance sheets. We've got to be looking at talent.
01:21:32
matt
Right.
01:21:33
Jeremiah
We've got to be looking at motivation and drive.
01:21:33
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm.
01:21:36
Jeremiah
like How hard does this person work? right Show me that, and I'll put money behind that.
01:21:42
matt
Right, right.
01:21:42
Jeremiah
right that's That's what we need to look at. like A balance sheet isn't what is gonna isn't what's going to change the day. like that That person's like personal motivation, spirit, and drive is what's going to change and like move the bar.
01:21:59
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:22:00
matt
And I mean, maybe I'm just, you know, a common person, but you've been in business in some sort of way since 2000 fucking eight. That's almost 18 years.
01:22:09
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:22:10
matt
Like that is a sign that it's worth an investment.
01:22:11
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:22:15
matt
If you're, if you're a person with three brain cells to run together,
01:22:16
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:22:20
Jeremiah
Right. I mean, it's you know, we've talked to banks, we've talked to, you know, we've had a few banks that are like, yeah, we can give you this because, you know, we recognize that you're a small business and I'm really grateful for that. There's a locally owned and black owned bank here in Baltimore called Harbor Bank.
01:22:43
Jeremiah
They are a great institution and they really went out of their way. And I'm not, you know, like I don't look like a minority business and I don't necessarily identify as one, but I am mixed race, but you can't tell by looking at me.
01:22:57
Jeremiah
So whatever, right? Like he went out of his way to support our small business when I know his objective is investing in black owned.
01:23:03
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:23:06
Jeremiah
And like, so he saw something in us, right? And and we we still have that line of credit that we run most of our operation out of.
01:23:09
matt
Right, right. Totally, totally.
01:23:14
Jeremiah
And it's, it's a great thing, but that's one, one institution that took a chance. Right. And we haven't dropped the ball and, you know, hats off to them and a lot of respect to them. And I want, I hope there's other companies out there. There's other like nonprofits that should be looking at that as an example and be saying like, okay, these guys are taking a risk. We should take a risk too.
01:23:37
Jeremiah
Right. And I'm not saying take a risk on me. Like I'm, we're on our own course and we're, we're like, there are so many businesses behind me right now, right?
01:23:42
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:23:48
Jeremiah
Like small businesses that start up every day in the sewn trades, in the fashion industry that need help, need help
01:23:56
matt
Right.
Manufacturing Space Difficulties
01:23:57
Jeremiah
right now, right?
01:23:57
matt
Oh, totally.
01:23:58
Jeremiah
Need guidance, need finance, need space. Like, Oh my God, space is crazy. Trying to find a space to run a manufacturing business in Baltimore.
01:24:10
Jeremiah
is really hard and if you don't have the means of buying it it's like you're you're looking for the you know a needle in a haystack
01:24:12
Conor Fowler
They're little.
01:24:20
matt
Yeah, yeah. And that also might be the first time I've ever heard anyone say good things about a bank. That's awesome.
01:24:28
Jeremiah
right yeah that's and yeah so there are there are good banks out there there are good you know like
01:24:35
matt
Yeah, totally. Totally.
01:24:37
Jeremiah
they They all have their strings attached, but you know and everyone needs to everyone needs to make their end of it.
01:24:38
Conor Fowler
i don
01:24:45
matt
Yeah. So they it goes to show that they don't always have to be a necessary evil, you know?
01:24:45
Jeremiah
Yeah,
01:24:50
Jeremiah
yeah, yeah. yeah it's it's It's really about risk assessment and how we're looking at that and you know what metrics are they judging us on.
01:24:55
matt
Right.
01:24:55
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:24:59
Jeremiah
and you know You know the US government doesn't even recognize a small business below 50 employees?
01:25:06
matt
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
01:25:07
Jeremiah
Like, you're what am I? I'm nothing at that point.
01:25:11
matt
You're a tiny business.
01:25:12
Jeremiah
Yeah, ive my max, at one point we had 25 employees on the payroll. um
01:25:19
matt
Right.
01:25:19
Jeremiah
And that was pre pre-pandemic and we had ah just come into like some huge jobs and we started like, I'm talking 6,000 units deliverable in three months.
01:25:34
Jeremiah
Um, so we had a team, i was running two shifts, i had people coming in on the weekends to work. Like we were hustling. That was like, that was a wild time.
01:25:44
matt
Right.
01:25:47
Jeremiah
And, you know, well, the pandemic changed everything.
01:25:50
matt
Yeah.
01:25:50
Jeremiah
Um,
01:25:51
matt
And I don't want to give that asshole any credit, but the PPP thing for legitimate reasons, you know, someone of whatever your scale or like a small business, you know, doing like a million dollars a year, like that shows that the the a lot of things are possible.
01:25:53
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:26:09
Jeremiah
Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. PPE, man. that yeah We could have a whole episode on that.
01:26:14
matt
Right, right.
01:26:15
Jeremiah
Like that, that was a crazy time.
01:26:15
matt
Yeah.
01:26:18
Jeremiah
We, we partnered for a
Failed N95 Mask Investment
01:26:20
Jeremiah
while. We were making cloth masks in our shop. And then after ah a while, we like, we started getting calls about N95s, N95s, N95s. So we started explore the process.
01:26:34
Jeremiah
We made so much money from the cloth masks and whatnot at the time um that we were like, all right, let's invest in the equipment to make N95s. Maybe that's our new thing.
01:26:46
matt
Right.
01:26:47
Jeremiah
So we ordered the equipment. It took three or four months to get here from China. set up a whole operation.
01:26:53
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:26:54
Jeremiah
it was us and ah a several other Baltimore-based businesses of equal-ish size. We all went in on it together, bought huge amount of equipment and materials, shipping containers full, um brought it over, set it up, started the whole operation, hired people,
01:27:18
Jeremiah
Did our whole NIOSH approval ah work. We had equipment not just equipment to make the masks, but to test it. The moment, down to the frigging moment, we got just about, we're all but NIOSH approval.
01:27:36
matt
Fuck. Right.
01:27:37
Jeremiah
We were like about to submit the final thing for NIOSH approval. Every single contract disappeared.
01:27:46
matt
fuck
01:27:48
Jeremiah
And we were selling them at that point as KN95s. We could legally sell them as KN95s, which is not a NIOSH approved. Uh, it has the same filtration, but it doesn't have the same approval. doesn't have the NIOSH stamp on it. So, uh, so yeah, every contract we had hot local hospitals lined up. We had food banks, we had like, um, bakeries, like commercial bakeries, uh,
01:28:17
Conor Fowler
you.
01:28:18
Jeremiah
You name it, anything that used a mask in quantity, we were teed up to make them for Baltimore
Pandemic Mask Production Success
01:28:25
Jeremiah
now. Like we were the largest mask making operation during the pandemic in Maryland.
01:28:27
matt
Man.
01:28:32
Jeremiah
End of statement. um
01:28:33
matt
Wow.
01:28:35
Jeremiah
for both cloth and and nia or K&Mask. So we're getting ready to submit the paperwork. Boom, contracts disappear. Our sales team member is like, dude, I don't know what's going on. Everyone's saying three m is back online.
01:28:52
Jeremiah
We don't need you anymore. so And then, ah you know, this happened across the country in every city.
01:28:58
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:29:01
Jeremiah
We were not the only ones. There is a gluttony of mask making equipment on the market right now and use like I can't sell it. It's taking up so much space right now in storage with one of our former partners from that project that we're going to have to pay a dumpster to take it away because I can't sell it.
01:29:21
matt
Jesus Christ.
01:29:23
Jeremiah
I. I hate it. Like I'm going to keep as much as I can. So but it's made on like aluminum extrusions with like generic pneumatic fittings and stuff like that. i'm going to take all that apart and throw it in buckets and hope that I need to make something out of it one day.
01:29:36
Jeremiah
But like, like that was, you know, it that everything that the government did to support that, like in the beginning was great.
01:29:43
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:29:50
Jeremiah
Like all the investment that they made and that,
01:29:51
matt
Yeah, totally.
01:29:53
Jeremiah
killer to pull the plug so abruptly on that and not like have some sort of tapered um i don't know like i don't i I don't know who had the power to you know make those decisions but it could have been done much differently and yeah for the better could have stood up manufacturing across this country
01:30:15
matt
Yeah.
01:30:16
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
Tariffs and Manufacturing Challenges
01:30:20
matt
Yeah. I've said, I've said to people like in my, you know, friends, when we've been talking about this, that like, that scared the shit out of the wealthiest people that own everything.
01:30:20
Jeremiah
like i don't know some sort of
01:30:33
matt
And they were, and like, you know, the Delta CEO, basically like politicians on all sides,
01:30:33
Jeremiah
Yep.
01:30:41
matt
just said, okay, yeah, we're done with this and didn't think about the ramifications for people like you.
01:30:41
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:30:44
Jeremiah
Yeah.
01:30:47
matt
Oh, well, people people in general, you know, they didn't think about like, oh, how is this going to affect all of these things that we have started like trying to prop up and build again?
01:30:59
Jeremiah
Yeah. And you know, Fast forward today and you look at all the tariffs that are going in place that are putting all this stress on who? Oh, all the business owners here in the United States to get all the raw materials from overseas.
01:31:16
Jeremiah
That's not helping. That's not helping any of us. You just made my life a lot harder. You didn't make it any easy easier. or You didn't bring me any more business.
01:31:23
matt
Right.
01:31:24
Jeremiah
ah yeah you're just taxing me and at this point. And like, how is that sustainable? Okay. If you would launch that, but you, you know, you implemented something like the Barry Act that required a larger percentage of products to be made in the United States and verified. And, uh, and then that just started to drive business in our direction. That'd be great.
01:31:48
Jeremiah
Right. Or, uh, some sort of, uh, uh,
01:31:49
matt
Right.
01:31:52
Jeremiah
financial aid to bridge the gap where we that gives us time to do that ourselves um if you're taking extra tariffs like okay funnel it our way funnel it into manufacturing funnel it into small businesses to the people that are primarily primarily buying this stuff
01:31:59
matt
Totally.
01:32:11
matt
Exactly. Ugh. Anyway, to to round things out and lighten it up, guess, at the end, even though this has been fucking great. We gotta say that again.
Unique Fire Truck Purchase
01:32:22
matt
Tell us about that truck. it's It's one of the coolest vehicles i either of us have ever seen.
01:32:24
Jeremiah
Right.
01:32:29
Jeremiah
So I am um'm very lucky. It's a 1994 Hiace. It was Japanese fire truck.
01:32:36
Jeremiah
hiass um it's it was a japanese firet truckck um so Um, it's kind of a weird mix between a van and a truck, a pickup.
01:32:46
Conor Fowler
you
01:32:49
Jeremiah
So the front end of it is a four door van. So like, uh, it kind of looks like a Volkswagen, van. Um, and then the back end of it is a pickup truck with, you know, some framework on it that held ladders and hoses and a pump and all this other stuff. So, um,
01:33:11
Jeremiah
Originally, I was actually looking for like a Volkswagen Synchro or something like that. wanted to build a camper van that could go off road a little bit and get my me and my family into some cool places so we can actually play with some of the stuff that we make like bags and stuff and go camping and whatnot.
01:33:27
Conor Fowler
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:33:28
Jeremiah
had so ah
01:33:32
Jeremiah
had a partner in New York for a little while. And then that was a whole nother episode. We'll have to save that. But, um, uh, I was going up there a lot and I, uh, drive would drive through Walton, New York.
01:33:47
Jeremiah
And there was, um, this guy that had like a little, uh, Japanese import ah business. Um, he's got a car lot up there and it's full of like the little K trucks.
01:33:55
Conor Fowler
you
01:33:58
Jeremiah
And, uh, in recent time, he started to get all these fire trucks in there was land cruiser fire trucks. Nissan fire trucks, little mini K truck fire trucks with all sorts of different kit on the back that did different things.
01:34:12
Jeremiah
Some of them still had the big brass pumps inside that you would hook up to water sources and hydrants and things like that.
01:34:14
Conor Fowler
Thank you.
01:34:19
Jeremiah
Some of them had hoses on them, lights, all that. so So I stopped in one day with a friend and just started talking to him. And turns out he imports them. He sells them at wholesale. Most of this stuff goes to like universities and large.
01:34:37
Jeremiah
uh, large facilities that use like groundskeepings to vehicles and things like that. he sells a lot of the like generic white K trucks, uh, for that. So they're just putting, you know, garden equipment in the back and running around the camp college campus, fixing flower beds and stuff. So, uh, so he's like, yeah, I really liked the fire trucks. So I started of get them in and see what I could sell them for.
01:35:02
Jeremiah
I started looking at the Toyota because I love Toyota vans. I've been also, that was another option, but the four wheel drive Toyota vans from the eighties are ridiculously hard to find.
01:35:13
Jeremiah
And when you find them, they're stupid expensive, like the Volkswagens.
01:35:15
matt
Yeah, yeah. The Delicas are going up there, too.
01:35:20
Jeremiah
Oh yeah, the Delica. So I have a buddy out in Colorado that builds vans, camper vans exclusively. And he used to work with Sprinters, but he sold that business and started importing JDM vans.
01:35:28
Conor Fowler
Thank
01:35:32
Jeremiah
So now he works almost exclusively in Delica. So he was trying to talk me into getting a JDM truck. And I was like, okay. So i was looking at his lot. He had a Nissan and then he had the Toyota and then he had the Land Cruiser. and the Land Cruiser was way out of my price range.
01:35:52
Jeremiah
um And the, ah so the high ace was around like 15 grand, which, you know, for a truck that has ah less than 10,000 miles on it, that's pretty good.
01:36:06
matt
Oh, steel. Yeah.
01:36:09
Jeremiah
Yeah. um So it's diesel, it's a manual, it's four wheel drive, uh, and pretty good four wheel drive too. So like the rear end of that truck's out of like a high, uh, Hilux, uh, or, or any of the Toyota pickups that you see around here, it's the same thing.
01:36:28
Jeremiah
Um, so, uh, I, um I kind of, i fell in love with it. I drove it, took for test drive, um, drove right side drive for the first time. uh, well, kind of the first time, um,
01:36:44
Jeremiah
And that was that was pretty cool experience. It's not fast at all. It is ah very, very slow.
01:36:49
matt
Right?
01:36:51
Jeremiah
Like top speed on that thing downhill with a tailwind is maybe 70.
01:36:56
matt
I was about to ask.
01:36:58
Conor Fowler
Wow.
01:36:58
Jeremiah
Like Yeah. it is slow
01:36:59
Conor Fowler
Yeah, no, that's the key track. goes 50 miles an hour.
01:37:02
matt
Also, ah a question that i I probably ask people that I knew before that that have done right-hand drive, is a manual the same as a left-hand drive?
01:37:02
Jeremiah
yeah
01:37:13
matt
Like, ah the pattern that it goes in?
01:37:17
Jeremiah
Yep, the shifter pattern's the same and the clutch is on the same side as well.
01:37:18
Conor Fowler
And then we gotta go.
01:37:18
matt
Okay.
01:37:21
matt
and to Okay, so so not everything is switched, just the just the wheel.
01:37:21
Jeremiah
So it just slides over. No, it's not, yep, it's not fully mirrored. so
01:37:28
matt
Okay, that seems way less daunting to me now.
01:37:32
Jeremiah
Yeah, it really isn't that bad. i The hardest part is getting used to where your mirrors are.
01:37:37
matt
Okay.
01:37:38
Jeremiah
You're gonna be looking up and right a lot when you should be looking up and left for the center mirror.
01:37:42
matt
Ah, that makes sense. Is is it five speed?
01:37:45
Jeremiah
ah Yeah, five speed.
01:37:46
matt
Okay, cool, cool.
01:37:48
Jeremiah
Five speed, but it's geared ridiculously low for carrying like a heavy load.
01:37:51
matt
Okay. Right, right.
01:37:53
Jeremiah
So again, not very fast, but, um, goes everywhere.
01:37:59
matt
Yeah, yeah.
01:37:59
Jeremiah
I have taken that thing on some crazy adventures, uh, in the last year and a half, two years, or a year and a half that I've had it.
01:38:08
matt
Yeah, yeah.
01:38:09
Jeremiah
Um,
01:38:09
Conor Fowler
We'll have to get into it on a future episode.
01:38:11
matt
Yeah, i we will.
01:38:12
Conor Fowler
I have to go...
01:38:13
Jeremiah
okay.
01:38:14
matt
Okay.
01:38:15
Conor Fowler
I have to go. i apologize.
01:38:17
matt
It's okay.
01:38:17
Conor Fowler
ah
01:38:18
matt
It's been super fun.
01:38:18
Conor Fowler
I'm going to do this. Yeah.
01:38:23
matt
Anyway.
01:38:23
Jeremiah
Well, I really appreciate this guys. This has been a blast.
01:38:27
matt
fuck it Fuck yeah.
01:38:27
Jeremiah
Uh, and I, I think we definitely need to do this
01:38:27
matt
Fuck yeah.
01:38:28
Conor Fowler
Yeah. We'll have to have you on again.
01:38:29
matt
Yeah.
Social Media and Future Teasers
01:38:30
Jeremiah
again.
01:38:30
matt
and And tell people where they can find your brands.
01:38:33
Jeremiah
Yeah. So, uh, if you're on Instagram, you can find, uh, find us at SoLab or at SoLabUSA. our website is, uh, SoLabUSA.com. Uh, we also just launched a new hat brand. Um, We're still working on the marketing marketing materials, but the website is live. And that is portraithat.co.
01:38:58
matt
Awesome.
01:38:58
Jeremiah
um
01:38:59
Conor Fowler
Oh, that's you.
01:38:59
Jeremiah
And then, if yeah, that's me.
01:39:00
Conor Fowler
That's you. i see.
01:39:02
Jeremiah
That's us.
01:39:02
Conor Fowler
i see. i see. Very good.
01:39:04
Jeremiah
And I'll tell you, a next episode, we'll we'll talk about how that happened because it's kind of a crazy story. Yeah.
01:39:11
matt
Oh, hell yeah.
01:39:11
Conor Fowler
yeah for sure. And we got to talk about your photography and stuff.
01:39:13
matt
we're so
01:39:13
Jeremiah
yeah
01:39:15
Conor Fowler
I mean, there's so much to do.
01:39:16
matt
Yeah, we're setting up a great part two.
01:39:17
Conor Fowler
There's so much to cover. Yeah, for sure.
01:39:19
Jeremiah
Absolutely. All right.
01:39:20
matt
All right.
01:39:20
Jeremiah
Just a sneak peek. Those are all the cameras back there. They're just some of them.
01:39:24
Conor Fowler
Wow. Wow, dude.
01:39:26
Jeremiah
Handful of them I made. A lot of them.
01:39:28
Conor Fowler
That's the other thing that he does, he makes cameras.
01:39:31
Jeremiah
Yeah, you know, got to keep the brain working. And it can't always work on Solab. It's got to have its own thing sometimes.
01:39:40
Conor Fowler
Right.
01:39:41
matt
All right, y'all. ah Thanks for listening.
01:39:41
Jeremiah
So...
01:39:43
matt
um We're at Apocalypse Duds on Instagram. Apocalypse Duds at gmail.com. I am Matt Smith at Rebels Rogues.
01:39:52
Conor Fowler
And I am Connor Fowler at Connor Flower.
01:39:55
matt
And we will see you next Wednesday.
01:39:58
Jeremiah
Thanks, guys.
01:39:59
matt
Thanks, Jeremiah.