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#433 15 minute time tracker and critical task lists
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Topics:
- Foam update
- Rachel Whiteread art exhibit
- 15 minute trackers
- Mailcall from Abom79
- Buying a paving company
- Water filtration
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Transcript
Introduction and Communication Efficiency
00:00:00
johngrimsmo
Good morning and welcome to the Business of Machining episode 433. My name is John Grimsmo.
00:00:06
John
And my name is John Saunders.
00:00:08
johngrimsmo
And this is the, your weekly dose of manufacturing where two business owners kind of touch base and see what's going on. And, you know, we don't always, we're close friends, but we don't always chat throughout the week. So this is our chance to like, you know, catch up.
00:00:18
John
It's a funny point. You and will, I don't know, like maybe once a quarter we'll end up with like a good side conversation, but like it's really this conversation.
00:00:29
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly. This is our touch base.
00:00:30
John
and Right.
00:00:30
johngrimsmo
Like, I don't need to talk to you throughout the week because I get you on Friday, on Wednesdays. Like.
00:00:35
John
We batch it, we batch it up.
00:00:37
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:00:38
John
Yeah, but that's funny. I guess I'm, well, and part of me knows in a subconscious way, ah and I respect you subconsciously for this, but I know if I need you and I DM you, like, or WhatsApp you, you're not usually quick to respond in a way that I think is great because it means you're just, you're being a surgeon or doing your own thing. At least that's what assume.
00:00:57
johngrimsmo
Yeah, certainly not minutes, but hopefully hours I'd say i I can get back, especially like, like WhatsApp is very direct.
00:00:57
John
Hmm.
00:01:01
John
Hmm.
00:01:03
johngrimsmo
DMs are like days or weeks.
00:01:05
John
But what's that? But like, if I DM, I don't Lawrence or Dennis, I bet you they respond in 30 seconds, almost any point in time.
00:01:11
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:01:12
John
That's not you, which is which is good.
00:01:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:16
John
Yeah.
00:01:16
johngrimsmo
um
Project Updates and Foam Experimentation
00:01:18
johngrimsmo
Okay. So I got a couple of things this week. I'll give you a little foam update. Um, Norseman blades in heat treat a 15 minute tracker.
00:01:27
johngrimsmo
And um let's touch base again on our paving company idea.
00:01:32
John
Ha ha ha. i like Are we going to start building roads, Yeah.
00:01:34
johngrimsmo
yes
00:01:37
johngrimsmo
No, ah anything you got lined up for today?
00:01:41
John
um Musical chairs with CNC machines, ah water systems like ah RODI, water quality, um quick update on Home Assistant, a book called Dive of Zero.
00:01:51
John
And I have two, theyre not really gift, but well, one's gift box, one is not, but two boxes of things to mention. And that's right.
00:01:59
johngrimsmo
right, let's jump right in.
00:02:00
John
Yeah. Foamy, foam me.
00:02:03
johngrimsmo
Foamy. So I've had a week to play. I got in last week. I bought the the wrong foam, the rigid foam. And then I bought the flexible foam and I got that.
00:02:09
John
That's right.
00:02:12
johngrimsmo
Started playing with it. um And initial result was just like in a red solo cup, you know, mix of two parts, let it foam up um to kind of see because I got four different densities.
00:02:21
John
Okay.
00:02:23
johngrimsmo
I got four pounds per cubic foot, 10 and 15 pounds per cubic foot of like the hardness of it pretty much.
00:02:30
John
Okay.
00:02:30
johngrimsmo
when When it expands, it should weigh a cubic foot should weigh 4, 10, or 15 pounds.
00:02:35
John
Oh wow.
00:02:36
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:02:37
John
15 pounds on cube of foot is dense.
00:02:38
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:02:40
John
Interesting.
00:02:41
johngrimsmo
And so I played with the 4-pound, and I ended up 3D printing a mold, like a negative two-part cavity system, where the inner air is what I want, is my foam insert.
00:02:52
John
Yeah.
00:02:52
johngrimsmo
um And it's like a temporary stopgap. Eventually, i want to have layers with a silicone liner on the inside. um
00:02:59
John
Yeah.
00:03:00
johngrimsmo
because the foam doesn't stick to the silicone and it's just better. But i was like, what is the quick and dirty, like easiest thing for me to do? Let me just print two halves and fill it with foam. And there's little vent holes on the top so that the excess gas can come out.
00:03:13
johngrimsmo
And you kind of size those vent holes to create some back pressure inside the inside the mold.
00:03:19
John
Okay.
00:03:19
johngrimsmo
So you can literally overstuff the mold. You can run a bunch of math and you can be like, it's supposed to expand 13 times, but I'm going to compress it.
00:03:27
John
Yeah.
00:03:28
johngrimsmo
So it only expands like eight times. And then it's stiffer than normal. So ended up doing 200% compression. um And it takes, to it cures roughly in like, like it reacts and within 20 minutes, but then it takes about two hours before you want to demold it.
00:03:46
John
Mm-hmm.
00:03:47
johngrimsmo
um So once I demolded it and I used mold release on the inside, um i got a very interesting result. It's like, i must not have mixed it super well, or maybe I messed up my ratios ever so slightly because it's a little like weird and streaky.
00:04:01
johngrimsmo
And I used three drops of red colorant. I bought a whole pack of all the different colorants. I'm like, how much do I need? don't know. So I've got three drops in and it's like a light red and still kind of streaky.
00:04:13
johngrimsmo
like okay, so I need more.
00:04:14
John
Oh, ah okay.
00:04:14
johngrimsmo
I need more, more red than that. That's fine. Um, And the density is interesting. It's got this weird skin on the outside that feels kind of chunky and that it's soft and squishy on the inside.
00:04:23
John
Mm-hmm.
00:04:26
johngrimsmo
And where the vent holes are at the top, it's actually very dense because as it expanded in the cavity and it is raised up, um the holes at the top end up getting plugged with foam.
00:04:40
John
Sure.
00:04:40
johngrimsmo
And then the rest kind of expands within itself and not much comes out the holes because they're already kind of plugging.
00:04:46
John
the ports are self-terminating or whatever.
00:04:48
johngrimsmo
exactly so either you need to make the ports a lot bigger or just deal with whatever's happening kind of thing um and so i pull it out and i'm like well that looks interesting like it looks like the thing but if you look at it objectively you're like kind of looks like garbage um what is the next step what did i get the mixture wrong is the temperature wrong like the more i learn about it um the more variables there are but once you control all these variables
00:04:53
John
no
00:05:03
John
Yeah.
00:05:14
johngrimsmo
it gets better and better and better. And so the past few days have sort of had all these, you know, mental emotions of like, is it worth continuing doing this? Do I just scrap the whole project?
00:05:24
John
Right.
00:05:24
johngrimsmo
Am I, am I so early in the project that that would be stupid? Like
Production Methods and Scaling Challenges
00:05:28
johngrimsmo
good things take time. Is it worth putting a lot of time into this, like dozens and dozens of hours into this foam that doesn't make us any money directly?
00:05:39
johngrimsmo
um
00:05:39
John
Does it make the beer taste better?
00:05:40
johngrimsmo
Exactly. it's It's more of an experience thing and a protect the product thing, obviously, and reduce some costs or or shift time labor costs from our current method to this method.
00:05:49
John
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:52
johngrimsmo
Take it in house reliability. like There's a lot of pluses and minuses, but it might make the beer taste better, but it doesn't make the beer worth more.
00:06:02
John
Pardon me for being an argumentative tone about this. I don't think it makes the beer taste better because your phone cases right now rock.
00:06:09
johngrimsmo
Sure, but okay, so internally the process, i want to change it.
00:06:14
John
yeah Okay. Can you remind me? Is it because the or why? Yeah.
00:06:21
johngrimsmo
there's a lot of waste with the current way we're making it, whether we waste it or the foam manufacturer may waste it.
00:06:25
John
yeah
00:06:27
johngrimsmo
And I just had this theory of like, why don't we just mold it in that shape with like zero waste or like almost no waste and no, no machining, no water jet, no skiving, like slicing it, no laminating.
00:06:32
John
right yeah
00:06:37
John
yeah
00:06:38
johngrimsmo
And we're having a lot of thickness issues and we're having a lot of machining issues. And like, so anyway, so I'm experimenting this path. And so I get this one mold and I'm like not happy with it, but it's also it's also like you look it and you're like, I mean, you're almost there. Like keep going, fix this, fix this, fix the holes, fix the voids, manage bubble control, all that stuff.
00:06:59
johngrimsmo
So then I tried the 10 pound density, which was harder.
00:07:03
John
Yep.
00:07:03
johngrimsmo
and um And I used, for the same volume, I used 20 drops of black. And I'm like, well, let's make this like real dark, let's see. And it is pitch black, like tar black, which is pretty cool.
00:07:15
John
Sweet.
00:07:16
johngrimsmo
And it it feels like rubber. Like it is a completely different type of foam than the four pound. And it's like squishy and soft, like um like a mouse pad kind of thing, but a one inch thick mouse pad.
00:07:32
johngrimsmo
I don't know.
00:07:32
John
make Grimstone Knife Mouse Pad product, I love it.
00:07:35
johngrimsmo
Yeah, exactly.
00:07:35
John
I love where this is going, yeah.
00:07:37
johngrimsmo
And so it's like a totally different result. And it looks way better, but still has some bubbles and voids and technical things that is literally just process control. I think I got the mixture way better.
00:07:48
johngrimsmo
I think I got the stirring, the colorant, like everything's getting better and better better. And I'm still in a cheap 3D printed mold. This is not proper net shape kind of like, like the shape is great, but it does.
00:07:57
John
Oh, yay yeah, yeah. Does it look like this shape though? Like,
00:08:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, it is the shape.
00:08:01
John
Okay.
00:08:02
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:08:02
John
Yeah. Okay. That's cool. That's awesome.
00:08:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's like getting there. And, uh, so anyway, I'm kind of at this weird state where like I'm wasting a lot of time on this, but also it's kind of fun. And also I feel like I'm really getting closer to a proper result.
00:08:15
johngrimsmo
That is a scalable process.
00:08:19
johngrimsmo
So I'm getting there.
00:08:19
John
the Awesome. I mean...
00:08:21
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:08:22
John
100 points for like the whole fun thing. I think it's always, always remind myself to be willing to kill it if you just, if you need to kill it you know what i mean? Like no harm, no foul, but just not whatever.
00:08:30
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:08:31
John
And then it's also, think I used to sort of say um to folks more so when it would be like there this sort of a project or endeavor would be their main product. And that product may even be their sole means of of living in their business, right?
00:08:46
John
Like I want to quit my day job to pursue this one single product. It was kind of like, okay, Most people will, mean just looking at the numbers, most people will fail for lack of volume of sales or lack of profitability on a single product.
00:09:00
John
But the flip side is also like, what if it takes off? Do you want to make 1,000 of these? um Is that sustainable? Do you want to think about
Packaging and Perceived Value
00:09:08
John
the the chemicals, the the the molds, the disposition or safety around making 1,000, 5,000 of these?
00:09:16
John
I have no idea what that takes on the smooth on side.
00:09:18
johngrimsmo
No, exactly. Exactly. I mean, I think Smoodon can absolutely um supply the amount that we need, which is which is not.
00:09:24
John
Oh yeah.
00:09:25
johngrimsmo
And then, yeah, do we want to make, you know, we're definitely new to over a thousand a month, probably, or a year, sorry, um probably several thousand a year of these.
00:09:32
John
Okay. Yeah, right.
00:09:33
johngrimsmo
And do we want to do that? And and is that scalable beyond that for the next many years? Say we keep keep growing, we we want more.
00:09:38
John
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:40
johngrimsmo
I don't i don't know. But for now, I think think I got a good plan.
00:09:42
John
Yeah.
00:09:45
John
The thing that bothers me too is, and this frustrates me as an entrepreneur is like, especially around packaging, but just in general, anything like we did this with ERPs. We didn't like the ERP software out there.
00:09:55
John
We wrote our own only to talk to ERP companies and never looked back. But like when you buy like a high end, I'm thinking like Trijicon or like, you know
00:10:04
johngrimsmo
What's the truth of God?
00:10:05
John
ah rifle scope, like manufacturer.
00:10:06
johngrimsmo
Hmm.
00:10:07
John
They have different, they like red dots and thermals and stuff. Like some of these are high hundreds. Some of them are in the thousands or multiple thousands of dollars. Like they have bespoke foam, stuff like to them that's not machined.
00:10:21
John
It's done well. Like, I don't know, and I'm not, forgive me, I don't mean to say like, you should figure that out, but like, I wish I knew like who to talk to because there's companies that do this full time that would like probably laugh at some of the things, the ways you and I do things.
00:10:23
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No, it's good.
00:10:35
John
It's also what makes us us, like we've gotten there by doing it this way.
00:10:36
johngrimsmo
Exactly.
00:10:38
John
um
00:10:38
johngrimsmo
But to your point, you're talking about a very high value, both perceived value and real value item that is packaged and presented very well.
00:10:47
John
Yeah, exactly.
00:10:47
johngrimsmo
And that is the market I'm playing with. like
00:10:49
John
Yeah.
00:10:50
johngrimsmo
I keep telling you know the people around me and I keep telling ChatGPD, I'm like, this needs to look expensive. like it needs It can't have voids.
00:10:56
John
Yeah.
00:10:57
johngrimsmo
It can't have bubbles. It it just needs to look right.
00:11:00
John
But even John, like I bought a pickleball racket on Amazon two weeks ago. Um, and it was a hundred dollars marked down to 45 for some sale.
00:11:11
John
And it showed up in it. You'd think this thing was $600. Like it was in a box. It was like one of those rigid, uh, well packaged boxes with like a hinge and you open it up and it was the pickleball paddle was in this foam case with these like, congratulations. You're now stepping your game up.
00:11:27
John
I mean, like let's not get, this is a $40 pickleball racket. Like everybody calm down here. Um, and part of me was ticked off because I'm like, we've we've definitely had some stressors around like Modvice packaging.
00:11:38
John
I'm like, I just paid $45 retail for a pickleball racket that like, if I had to go order 500 of these boxes that are printed with the foam and the inserts, I'm thinking about probably 20 bucks a per box, like per packaging.
00:11:42
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:11:51
johngrimsmo
yeah exactly yeah i mean economy is a scale based on the country you're in but it's part but still it's the attention to detail and the choice like they could have put it in a ziploc bag and you'd have been like sweet my pickleball racket's here but you know
00:11:52
John
ah Um, like what am I missing here? Um,
00:11:57
John
are you Yes, touche.
00:12:06
John
Yeah. But it worked, it was actually like, I like kind of gave my, William but also likes to play and I kind of gave him a hard time like, William, you gotta come see. Like, I just went i went big on my new pickleball. It was was not 45 bucks, but he looks at it. And the same thing, he's like, oh my God, you think this thing's like a Rolex?
00:12:23
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:12:23
John
um So I give you a lot of credit on the full Grimso aspect of like, hey, you make people like think, woo, yeah.
00:12:27
johngrimsmo
Thank you.
00:12:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. It needs to match, you know, everything needs to be equally awesome.
00:12:36
John
Do you, are you degassing it?
00:12:39
johngrimsmo
I'm not cause it's foam and you kind of want the gas.
00:12:42
John
Oh, that's so funny.
00:12:43
johngrimsmo
All right.
00:12:45
John
I think about the vacuum pumps on the, we, cause definitely cast a few smooth on things in my days.
00:12:45
johngrimsmo
I know it's so weird.
00:12:50
John
And you always think about like, it's kind of like in the old days of like 3d printing or it's like, there's three things that can go wrong.
00:12:53
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:12:56
John
Bed leveling, bed leveling and bed leveling.
00:12:57
johngrimsmo
Yep. ye
00:12:58
John
It's like the smooth on stuff. It's like, you're not degassing. Hmm.
00:13:02
johngrimsmo
However, with the way I'm currently stirring the batch in a in a solo cup with a wooden spatula, I'm fluffing it. I'm putting bubbles in it. Maybe I'm putting some big bubbles that are causing problems in my finish. maybe i'm So I've got some more automatic ways to mix that is going to control that significantly, but I'm not ready to invest the time and a little bit of money in building that solution yet.
00:13:21
John
Got it.
00:13:26
John
Yeah.
00:13:26
johngrimsmo
So I'm taking this you know step by step by step. But yeah. I do think it will continue to get better and better and better and it's kind of exciting.
00:13:34
John
I wonder if there are those um swizzle swizzle stick mixers on like ah like Maker World that you can 3D print.
00:13:42
johngrimsmo
the It's called a Static Mixer where it mixes part A and part B. yeah Oh yeah, i've been but I've been deep down this rabbit hole.
00:13:46
John
God bless you, static.
00:13:49
johngrimsmo
um Yes. And the real trick is to use a static miser mixer with a dynamic mixer where it's got a little blender at the end or something like that.
00:14:00
John
Like active versus passive, like there's an actual propeller.
00:14:03
johngrimsmo
like little yeah propeller that is motorized um that further blends it. So that's kind of what I have in mind here. um I've used the static mixer a little bit and even smooth on is like for the foam, you don't really want to use the static mixer. It doesn't mix it well enough.
00:14:18
johngrimsmo
You want to agitate a little bit.
00:14:19
John
Really?
00:14:20
johngrimsmo
You want to add a little bit of bubbles maybe. um The foam wants, it's like different than silicone.
00:14:25
John
Okay. Okay. Okay.
00:14:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. But i I'm still kind of, you know, determined to to find a really cool semi-automated solution here. So I'm getting there.
00:14:35
John
um I want to come back to the mixers, but two things to that came to mind. Number one, Send Cut Send is doing foam now. um And I don't know if there is, I don't know being Canada makes them less appealing to you, but I tell you, Send Cut Send is like rocking our world these days in a good way of like lots of things.
00:14:51
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:14:53
John
And um we, it's so funny. It's like sometimes
Technical Aspects of Foam Mixing
00:14:58
John
I just am so blind to so to the ease of solutions it's like oh they did this for sheet metals like i want this metal bracket made and bent and powder coated and like you don't want to you can't call a local fab shop to do like hey will you make one of these senkacen owns that world and tim paul from now from toolpath was even like hey i needed some some aluminum parts like machined as blanks to do it he's like i could buy the machine because they're doing machining now i could buy the
00:15:24
John
three pieces or whatever it was, six pieces from SendCut Send pre-machined for what i wanted cheaper than I could just buy the aluminum material, like normally. um And foam, it's like, we've really had some stressors around foam.
00:15:37
John
We've had some inconsistent, smaller vendors. We've had some pricing weirdnesses from bigger vendors and just like the stressors of it. It's also not our bread and butter. It's like, we don't necessarily know the lingo and who's the players.
00:15:46
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:15:48
John
And um it's like, oh, SendCut Send's offering foam. Oh, we upload our thing and we get pricing. Oh, this is like, Like, God bless you. This is great. um The other thing, which is super random, is there's an artist named Rachel White Reed.
00:16:05
John
And if you ever have the chance to like see her or look her up, um I don't know she's a big deal anymore, but maybe 10 or 15 years ago, she was making a splash. um Had a big exhibit at MoMA in New York. And her whole thing are is doing like life-size exhibits of negative space.
00:16:24
John
And so like she would cast a whole room or a whole object. And look, for a lot of people that don't care about art or don't want to get it, I'm not going to sit here and prolestatize it on you, but very impactful and very curious to see like, how do you, like the office that I'm in right now, i have a desk, I have a couch, I have a three d printer. her Her cast would be like of the office and then it would be like the negative space around it.
00:16:48
johngrimsmo
of the air, so it would be a huge block.
00:16:49
John
And it's, kind of Kind of, but like the way she does it obviously is not just like a dumb, like, oh, I took the block.
00:16:55
johngrimsmo
ah that
00:16:56
John
Like you kind of have to see it to appreciate it.
00:16:58
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:16:58
John
But um knowing that your artistic side and even Clara's and then like casting and all that, it's just like a, it's just a very curious thing.
00:17:06
johngrimsmo
then
00:17:07
John
I like.
00:17:08
johngrimsmo
it Well, it is weird making the mold that is a negative of this the part, and you're like, if this looks weird. This doesn't look right.
00:17:14
John
yeah Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. ah Speaking of art, I'm gearing up to do another of my DIY Donald Judd sculptures um that I've made quite a few of over the years. um And I think I'm going to do this one out of quarter inch aluminum panels. It is um it's about 12 by 12 and 40 inches long on the wall.
00:17:42
John
And has to look perfect. Like the, you need to stroke the aluminum with like set the, set the grain with like sandpaper. So it has that homogenous
00:17:50
johngrimsmo
yeah
Time Management and Personal Growth
00:17:52
John
grain to it.
00:17:53
John
Um, edges all have to be sharp and crisp. And I, but instead of screwing it together, which is how Judd had been made by a company in Switzerland. um And I don't think I want to screw them together because putting like M4 screws on the ends of quarter inch or six millimeter aluminum is, if you're off by like 7 thou, it's, I could, i guess maybe I should, because I'm probably gonna end up machining the edges anyways.
00:18:23
John
um Well, what got me, I was dusting off an old video we did where we use Loctite 8, I believe it was 8008 with the static mixer. And that's like green goopy stuff that glues aluminum together.
00:18:36
John
And we used to glue aluminum blocks together, let them cure, and then you could machine them and you can you can you can see the part line if you know where to look for it, but not not really.
00:18:40
johngrimsmo
No way.
00:18:44
johngrimsmo
Yeah?
00:18:45
John
It's pretty awesome.
00:18:46
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:18:47
John
Yeah. So part of me thought, Oh, I'll make, I'll make 3d printed alignment jigs and then just use that glue and like glue this thing together. And, um, that would be pretty, I still like this idea.
00:18:56
johngrimsmo
Oh.
00:19:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah, a bit of a next level, like, let me experiment. Let me learn something new. Let me ah see if I can do this.
00:19:05
John
yeah
00:19:05
johngrimsmo
I have an idea, you know.
00:19:07
John
Yeah.
00:19:07
johngrimsmo
i respect that.
00:19:07
John
Yeah.
00:19:08
johngrimsmo
That's fine. it's It's a side project.
00:19:09
John
yeah
00:19:10
johngrimsmo
Do whatever you want.
00:19:11
John
yeah Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:20
johngrimsmo
All right. So on the foam topic, this is interesting. um After our podcast last week, I got an email from an old friend who I haven't talked to a lot of years, business business owner, kind of successful guy.
00:19:32
johngrimsmo
And he he knew about my business eight years ago.
00:19:38
John
OK.
00:19:39
johngrimsmo
And he's kind of followed it, but we haven't talked. And then he kind of knows about it now, we've been talking again. So he has this like point in time of like, before we hired anybody, and then now um we have 11 employees.
00:19:44
John
Mm-hmm.
00:19:51
johngrimsmo
um and he suggested he's like john if you want to grow your company your time is insanely valuable and you need to make sure that the the tasks you're doing are you know kind of equally proportional to the growth you want from the company um your time needs to be insanely valuable and the things you do need to reflect that value now i'm always going to push back and be like well i like having fun but There's a real truth to this.
00:20:20
johngrimsmo
And so he suggested something which I've heard in in other contexts in different ways. But he said, um take out one of your notebooks and write down every 15 minute block throughout the day and write down what you did that day.
00:20:33
johngrimsmo
This is not a forward looking planner. This is ah an observational study of what happened in every 15 minute chunk of the day.
00:20:38
John
Yeah.
00:20:40
johngrimsmo
And I've tried it with forward planners. I'm like, today I'm going to do this between three and four. And it never, it always breaks. This is literally just in 15 minute chunks. What did I do that 15 minutes or how many 15 minute chunks in a row did I work on Norseman hard milling or foam or something like that?
00:20:58
johngrimsmo
And so I've been tracking this for the past week. I'll show you a little video.
00:21:00
John
Oh, look at you. oh my God.
00:21:02
johngrimsmo
Yeah. And it's literally, um i found it was easier to go 8.15 to 8.30, 8.30 to 8.45, 8.45 to 9. That way there's no um question if when you write 9, is it up until 9 or is it 9 to 9.15?
00:21:17
johngrimsmo
So i'm I'm writing each block. um Literally from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. And it's it's work, but I'm actually incredibly enjoying the process.
00:21:27
John
No, I'm just saying.
00:21:27
johngrimsmo
And the reflection afterwards, I'm of seeing how many chunks in a row I can actually work on a project before getting either pulled away to something else or I have to go or pick up the kids or whatever.
00:21:39
johngrimsmo
And then even I'm writing like chat with Meg, chat with Meg or at work, you know, talk with Gabe, talk with Gabe, talk talk with Gabe.
00:21:44
John
ah
00:21:47
johngrimsmo
I talked with one of my guys for 45 minutes. It was all important. It's it it's like has to get done. But on one hand, I took him away from his job for 45 minutes and I spent 45 minutes of my time and we're having these discussions about technical issues.
00:21:57
John
Yeah.
00:21:59
johngrimsmo
Has to get done. but i I could not have ended that conversation and known it took me 45 minutes. And like, naturally I'd have been like, Oh yeah, we chatted for a little bit.
00:22:07
John
Yeah.
00:22:09
johngrimsmo
It's like, no, that was, that was almost an hour. Like, so it's that visibility that I'm giving myself, whether I could keep doing this forever or not, I'm finding it super helpful.
00:22:11
John
Sure.
00:22:19
johngrimsmo
um For example, I've, I've been on the same phone, Samsung S9 for the past seven years. And I'm like,
00:22:25
John
Holy cow.
00:22:26
johngrimsmo
Yeah. like, it's time to get a new phone. So this all happened in the past week and I've been tracking the time I spend researching the phone, looking at different phone plans, looking at different phone cases.
00:22:35
John
Yep.
00:22:36
johngrimsmo
You know, I'm doing the that John technique of like, I'm just going to, I got to wrap my head around this. got figure out what phone do I want? Do i want to stick with Samsung? Do I want whatever? Go to the mall, get the phone, install all the things. and And so I've spent nine and a half hours on this phone project over the past week.
00:22:52
johngrimsmo
And I have that track now. And it's like kind of interesting. I'm like, that sounds like a lot of time, but it's also just what it took.
00:23:03
johngrimsmo
So e that's my 15 minute tracker idea.
00:23:05
John
new Do you, do you,
00:23:12
John
you're happy you, I don't know. um um I'm kind of pushing back here.
00:23:15
johngrimsmo
That's okay. where where
00:23:16
John
Cause I've known you.
00:23:17
johngrimsmo
Let me finish the theory.
00:23:19
John
Yeah.
00:23:20
johngrimsmo
For very specific projects, like like foam, how much time have I put into this foam project? There is value in knowing that. And I've always been completely allergic to the idea of tracking my time.
00:23:32
John
Okay.
00:23:32
johngrimsmo
which is probably wrong from a business sense, but like, I can't, I can't do it.
00:23:35
John
yeah
00:23:36
johngrimsmo
I can do this. I can actually accomplish this. And in 15 minute chunks, I can see, like, I can look at a couple days ago and I can be like, Oh, i worked on foam for, you know, give or take two hours straight from 10 PM to midnight.
00:23:49
johngrimsmo
Um, and, if If I really wanted to take to the next level, I could attach a dollar value to that time, whether it's my actual dollar value or a perceived dollar value, like John should be worth so much per for the company and his time should be used efficiently, whatever.
00:23:57
John
yeah sure
00:24:07
johngrimsmo
um It does give me that visibility to know, wow, I really wasted 40 hours of my past two weeks on foam only to scrap it or something. I don't know.
00:24:18
johngrimsmo
So i'm i'm I'm running the experiment and I'm enjoying a lot of it. So let me hear your pushback.
00:24:26
John
I don't think it's necessarily pushback because I um give you a ton of risk ah give you a ton of respect for doing it.
00:24:29
johngrimsmo
Just perspective.
00:24:32
John
I just think, you know, that's been a like a continuing theme with you and me over the years is like I have no disillusions in ah in a great way, but in a stubborn way. i'm I'm never going to change you.
00:24:43
John
and i When I say me, I mean both John Tonner's as your friend, but also just like anybody. Like John grinsville john Grimsville is John Grimsville.
00:24:47
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:50
John
Good luck. Like,
00:24:51
johngrimsmo
for
00:24:51
John
You know, people can can add nuggets of sway to this and like influence, but like ah you're not the kind of guy who's going to be like, oh yeah, somebody really said I should stop pursuing side projects.
00:25:01
John
Like whatever.
00:25:02
johngrimsmo
Right.
00:25:03
John
Maybe you have changed your threshold or respect or acknowledgement of like making sure we're not going down a three-week project to build a whatever.
00:25:11
johngrimsmo
And i I think this process is allowing me to see that objectively.
00:25:18
John
yeah That's what I guess I wonder is will that... Will it? And I, in some respects, almost, What don't want you to do is lie to yourself or be disillusioned.
00:25:28
John
Like you're all of a sudden going to change yourself. Like there's an aspect of this of just like, like what do I want out of life or what do i want out of this business or my role?
00:25:34
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yep.
00:25:35
John
Because like, you know, you can do the whole, like my time is worth a hundred dollars or, you know, Mike being like my boy time is worth $250 an hour. It's like, well, I spent 10 hours on this mold project. um No one's paying me 2,500 bucks.
00:25:47
John
So like, it's just me saying that, like it doesn't mean anything.
00:25:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:50
John
It's just like end of conversation.
00:25:50
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:25:53
John
um
00:25:54
johngrimsmo
I think the other thing is this has given me the accountability of and the visibility of what I did that day, like in a very total observation thing. Um, and I could be like, for better worse, wow, I wasted that whole day on nothing important.
00:26:04
John
Yeah.
00:26:11
johngrimsmo
Um, and what I'm finding is because I'm now accountable for myself and this schedule or this schedule, this tracker, um,
00:26:18
John
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:20
johngrimsmo
Every next thing I work on, it's like, okay, i wrapped up that, what's next? It's really getting me to like, make sure it's relatively important or super fun. That's okay too.
00:26:30
John
Yeah, sure.
00:26:30
johngrimsmo
but But not just like floating around, you know, talking to people, play with a machine that doesn't matter anymore. Like, you know, like, it it's actually focused me quite a bit to be like nope these are the three things that absolutely critically have to get done and i've tried all kinds of methods in the past to like you know to-do lists and trackers and daily things and all that stuff and it's gonna hit everybody differently and you really gotta find the one that works for you and just maximize it um yeah yeah
00:26:46
John
yeah
00:27:01
John
yeah Amen to that. Like, that's what's funny. Cause like, this seems like the, this seems like ultra strict, ultra disciplined and you're not, you're like, uh, I do what i want and make it work and blah, blah, blah. And so like,
00:27:13
johngrimsmo
That's why this being a tracker, not a planner, i'm ah I'm observing what my natural tendencies are with the slight focus of accountability of like, no, no, I should really be doing this today.
00:27:15
John
interesting.
00:27:22
John
Kind a, yeah.
00:27:24
johngrimsmo
Okay, I feel good. I spent three hours on this project because I had to get done. And then I also spent three hours on foam because I want that to get done. I'm okay with that day, you know?
00:27:34
John
Well, and that's ultimately the other kind of question, which you don't owe anybody an answer on, certainly me, but like you're doing this as if you need to change. Who says you need to change, Sean?
00:27:45
John
Like, is this, what problem are you solving?
00:27:48
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I want to grow. I want to make sure that I focus myself in the right directions because I'm very, i float around, I do whatever I want sometimes, and that's not always the right answer.
00:27:52
John
Yeah.
00:27:57
johngrimsmo
And I don't always see that. And yeah, so i'm I'm playing and I definitely, the change I want is growth.
00:28:00
John
yeah
00:28:05
johngrimsmo
I like, like personal development. I want to be better, stronger, faster, smarter, and in the right ways. Um,
Balancing Personal and Business Priorities
00:28:16
John
yes I agree, I think, and I've had some kind of like offline conversations with peers and and frankly myself that are interesting. And they relate to the fact that, you know, you and I aren't 20 anymore. We're 42.
00:28:32
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:28:32
John
And, um, I, I enjoy having problems to solve. I enjoy being relevant.
00:28:39
johngrimsmo
Me too.
00:28:40
John
I enjoy, frankly, if I'm being honest, I enjoy being important. Um, and. i never in a way that's the like, kind of like,
00:28:52
John
oh, don't get involved with that guy on a project because like he needs like, like, it's not like that. It's just more like, uh, look, anyone who's listening to this podcast probably has similar-ish tendencies of like they like to work, they like to apply themselves, they like to get better.
00:29:04
johngrimsmo
Absolutely.
00:29:05
John
I've also, I've also really been more okay at recognizing like, hey, ah a lot of the guys in the shop know more about Fusion than I do these days. It's one reason why I don't do the YouTube anymore and I'm not an industry expert and I'm okay with that.
00:29:17
John
It got me to where I need to be and, um,
00:29:17
johngrimsmo
well
00:29:20
John
Even applying, sorry, I'm steering this to to myself, which not quite the point, but like I,
00:29:24
johngrimsmo
That's good. Yeah.
00:29:30
John
most of now what I do at Saunders isn't even, isn't even involved in the day to day. Like it's just not, yeah.
00:29:39
johngrimsmo
same Yeah,
00:29:40
John
Well, but like, okay. Yeah.
00:29:49
John
So, keep being you. I don't know. Let's keep the conversation going. Sorry.
00:29:55
johngrimsmo
yeah absolutely. yeah Let's see where it goes. Let's see if I keep it up for weeks or years or whatever. but um yeah I mean, over the years, I've definitely tried many different things that I've kept up for months or even years of of tracking various things.
00:30:07
John
Yeah.
00:30:08
johngrimsmo
I'm going to show you my... this.
00:30:13
John
ah Maybe a long time ago.
00:30:16
johngrimsmo
ah Okay.
00:30:16
John
Kind of rings a bell.
00:30:17
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I've been doing this for about six months, basically tracking my daily habits, my my sleep, when I went to sleep, when I woke up and how much sleep I got.
00:30:20
John
Ooh.
00:30:25
johngrimsmo
A section for cool things that happened today. And then just kind of a quick checkbox for, you know, um did I work out?
00:30:28
John
no
00:30:32
johngrimsmo
How long did I work out for? What do I weigh? Did I have breakfast? Did I compliment somebody? Was I a technician? Did I work on business development?
00:30:38
John
o
00:30:39
johngrimsmo
Did I work on marketing? Did I work late? Did I go for a night walk? And then some fun things. Did I work on watchmaking? Did I work on my interferometer? Did I work on foam? Kind of things like that. So it's like like a snapshot of a two-week period um using the Grimsmall pocketbooks.
00:30:58
John
I love that, John. So you don't that every day. That gets logged.
00:31:00
johngrimsmo
I do this every day.
00:31:02
John
You do. Okay.
00:31:03
johngrimsmo
This, what I showed you, is a two-week snapshot.
00:31:06
John
I see. I see. there There's part of me that is being driven nuts, the fact that that's not digitized, but that's also...
00:31:12
johngrimsmo
Yeah. No, I, I have become so analog with this kind of stuff.
00:31:13
John
but
00:31:16
johngrimsmo
I don't want anything to do with my phone when I'm tracking these things.
00:31:20
John
No, totally agree. i just... I'm about to be a hypocrite. Part of me wants to be able to process that data via computer stuff.
00:31:29
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:31:30
John
But then part of me also is like, wait minute here, like, what are you logging stuff for? Like don't collect data for the sake of data. Same thing with your time study stuff. Like what do what are you trying to do?
00:31:40
John
Well, you are trying to grow, grow some knives.
00:31:41
johngrimsmo
Yeah, for sure.
00:31:43
John
Are trying to grow revenue? Are you trying to grow profitability? trying to grow productivity? Are you trying to just say, Hey John, I need to be better about not letting myself spend 50, 60 hours on something that gets deep sixed.
00:31:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah, all of the above exactly. um but But but being more focused and purposeful with which of those 10 items are you actually going for, you know, which are the one of the two or three of what you just said are like, truly important.
00:31:58
John
Yeah.
00:32:10
John
Yeah.
00:32:10
johngrimsmo
I can say I want everything but like, you can't have everything.
00:32:12
John
Sure. Right. Right.
00:32:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:32:15
John
No, I love the I love the journalistic side of that the journaling aspect of it.
00:32:19
johngrimsmo
Yep. Mm hmm.
00:32:20
John
um I do it monthly um around. My life works great that way. i have a I have a ah sheet that tracks the monthly stuff I need to do. It then also has quarterly, biannual and annual stuff.
00:32:34
johngrimsmo
Okay.
00:32:35
John
And a lot of that is more like tax, business, state stuff, personal stuff. It tracks like I keep a list of all of the various like identifications and like concealed carry permits or or so passports or car registrations.
00:32:49
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:32:51
John
And it's just like, then it's like not in my head. I don't have to worry.
00:32:53
johngrimsmo
That's really good.
00:32:54
John
knowing that like I need to renew my kids passport in three years like that dates there. I check that list once a month and then I'm just not worrying about it. It works. I'm very pleased with that.
00:33:03
johngrimsmo
And do you do you naturally check that once a month?
00:33:03
John
um so
00:33:05
johngrimsmo
You're like, oh, it's the first. to check my list. Or do you have a calendar reminder?
00:33:09
John
So i I have a calendar reminder that says, hey, process month end stuff. And the month end stuff includes everything from Saunders sales tax to some personal stuff and um stuff that relates to month end, like whatever.
00:33:25
John
<unk> it works great and it also ties into the whole like there's a personal side of it or like hey are you being the person you want to be is this um although the reason i wanted to bring that up was because i have found the process oriented side of processing those tasks of like hey closing out the books for the month or reconciliations is i'm very good at that and i actually enjoy that that is a very different
00:33:33
johngrimsmo
Mm-hmm.
00:33:50
John
person or very different John than the person who's willing to be reflective. And so what I wanted to do, I've actually asked ChatGPT this a few times, i haven't found a good solution. I'll figure it out or whatever is that I want a random like email thing.
00:34:07
John
Like I want to be notified in a random, at a random point in time, like, Hey, this email here inbox, you need to just turn your monitor off and spend 15 minutes looking at these things. Um, cause I'm in that task mode at the end of the month.
00:34:19
John
I'm in go, go, but I can't stop and think. Uh, and it has to just be random. Like if I put it a calendar reminder, it just doesn't work for me anyway. Yeah.
00:34:31
johngrimsmo
has but if it's random can you truly detach and get it done
00:34:36
John
I don't know. That's my design for some reason.
00:34:37
johngrimsmo
yeah Yeah, I mean, either in in the moment or you can just leave the email unread for hours or days until you're like, okay, now's the time to do that thing, you know?
00:34:39
John
Um,
00:34:47
John
What I don't, yeah, I clearly don't have the the answer, but I know it doesn't work. What doesn't work is if I tell them, like if i have a calendar reminder that says at 7.30 a.m., m you need to do this. It's just like, eh, being told to do it, it's like,
00:35:00
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:01
John
um i don't know. I need to figure something out on that.
00:35:05
johngrimsmo
Yeah, I mean, yeah, at 7.30, stop everything and reflect on life. like
00:35:09
John
Yeah.
00:35:09
johngrimsmo
that's
00:35:09
John
yeah
00:35:10
johngrimsmo
That's tricky. I mean, what I've done is going on my night walks, it is my chance to, you know, no phone, no internet, no nothing. I'm just out for a walk for 30 minutes.
00:35:17
John
Yeah.
00:35:19
johngrimsmo
Claire's at the park swinging. She's doing her own thing. She's got her music in, and that's her chance to reflect, and she naturally wants to do that.
00:35:25
John
Yeah.
00:35:25
johngrimsmo
So I take her to the park, and we I mean, she's almost 16, and she still goes and swings for 45 minutes.
00:35:30
John
That's awesome. That's all awesome.
00:35:31
johngrimsmo
it's It's amazing.
00:35:31
John
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:35:32
johngrimsmo
mean, she loves the quiet time, just... just listen to her music and then get to think and plan. And she said she wrote like write stories or draws pictures in her head kind of thing. And I walk around the neighborhood and I process business thing, full ideas, next thing. It's just time to myself to process and do it every day. It's amazing.
00:35:52
John
That's, I think you, I think you're, i think you've got the, that figured out. And maybe that's what I need to do. Cause it's like the whole, like, literally you can't start doing yoga. Like you warm up.
00:36:04
John
I don't know if you ever do yoga, but I did it.
00:36:05
johngrimsmo
No.
00:36:07
John
Oh, it's, it's great. i love it. um
00:36:09
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:36:10
John
I don't do it. I did it years ago. I just did it again last week for the first time randomly. And I'm like, no, I should do this again.
00:36:14
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:16
John
Also because at the end of a yoga class is a great time to pick up
00:36:16
johngrimsmo
Good. Okay.
00:36:21
John
your journal come back to this and and then like then you can you're being that right mindset the phone's still in the truck like you don't need to worry about it life will go on if you don't check your messages like ah um that's
00:36:22
johngrimsmo
so okay
00:36:35
John
I'm glad we're having this conversation. seat That's probably actually better than trying to figure out. Part of me, like the Grimso Saunders part of me became obsessed with like, I want to figure out a way to write. Like the best thing I could come up with, like you saw create your own mail server via chat GPT on a Linux box. And then it creates some randomness thing that can create a reminder. Like, why does it have to be so hard to just send yourself a random reminder?
00:36:55
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:36:55
John
Yeah.
00:36:59
John
Well, can I change the conversation?
00:37:01
johngrimsmo
Please, yeah.
00:37:02
John
Two boxes sitting for me here today when I came into the office. And one is pretty fun. I got to give a shout and a thank you to Mr. Adam Booth. He, Adam Booth, um yeah sent me one of his machined and anodized drill indexes.
00:37:12
johngrimsmo
Nice. Nice.
00:37:17
John
And I can't imagine anyone who's listening doesn't know who Adam is, but he's been really excited to... um to start his own first product launch, use his machines, you know, kind of apply his trade, show this off.
00:37:30
John
And just seeing his enthusiasm is kind of fun. And I had the chance to swing by his shop when we were in Florida for vacation earlier this year and saw some of the prototypes. And he's really proud of it. And he includes, i believe, i he sent this one to us on the house, but I believe when you buy these, they include a nice drill index. And Adam was like one of those like, hey, buy quality tools. And um yeah, just want to give a shout out and thank you to Adam for that.
00:37:55
johngrimsmo
Good.
00:37:56
John
The other box that I had is my pack of
00:38:02
John
Grim's Mo Saga notebooks, notepads. I had somebody here.
00:38:02
johngrimsmo
Nice.
00:38:06
johngrimsmo
This episode of the Business of Machining brought to you by...
00:38:09
John
Bought to Grinz and I. So you gave me some, to be totally fair, I don't know what I did with them. i used one, but i don't you gave me more than one, I don't know that where I put them.
00:38:17
John
And like, no, this is exactly what I want. I want something that I can just jot down willy nilly on. And so I logged on your website, bought pack, and they just showed up. So I'm looking forward to using these.
00:38:17
johngrimsmo
yep
00:38:27
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Good. i'm glad I'm glad you do. um Quick clarification on that. I know you you texted me later and you're like, have they shipped yet? Because I ordered them like a week ago.
00:38:37
johngrimsmo
So with this whole shipping customs and all that stuff, um customs broker and things like that, it's become basically too expensive for us to ship small items.
00:38:47
John
Yeah, I thought about that.
00:38:47
johngrimsmo
it's kind of It's kind of silly. um So for the present second in time, we're kind of choosing not to ship anything under like 50 bucks.
00:38:58
johngrimsmo
um
00:38:59
John
Yeah, right.
00:38:59
johngrimsmo
you know If you buy a big product, you can get as many small things as you want. But yeah, so I don't feel good about that solution at all because I want to be able to support our customers with more notebooks, more inks, more t-shirts, more things like that.
00:39:11
johngrimsmo
um So we're we're playing with other things, but
00:39:15
John
You could, i don't know if it feels very full Grimsoe-Doo-E, but um you could use a 3PL. It actually could work great for this stuff, John.
00:39:25
johngrimsmo
third party something which is basically how you got yours I um buddy and buddy and Buffalo still had a bunch yeah
00:39:27
John
Yeah, so um you would... but Yes. Shout out shout out to Tuck. No. So we did this when, to be honest, it was when strike marks started to fall apart.
00:39:41
johngrimsmo
okay
00:39:41
John
My partner and I were arguing and fighting about responsibilities and who was making how much money or like, wasn't about the money, but it was more about like who was doing what. And I was machining these things. I was ship i packaging them up. i was shipping them every day.
00:39:54
John
And i was,
Shipping Solutions and Business Insights
00:39:55
John
you know, we weren't paying ourselves, so to speak. I was like, man, I'm doing a lot of work here, blah, blah, blah. And so this was 15 years ago. We found a third-party logistics provider of which there are plethora of options.
00:40:08
John
And you could, obviously it doesn't work for your knives because they're more custom and unique, like you could ship even sagas or certainly this type of stuff. You could ship 5,000 of them to a US 3PL to handle the customs once.
00:40:19
johngrimsmo
Yeah, once.
00:40:20
John
And then they will ship these things for you for, you know, low fee. I mean, it costs money, but not that much.
00:40:26
johngrimsmo
Maybe it is worth looking into um because I was talking with our team and I was like, remind me what is the totality of all these little items? Like, tell tell me the list.
00:40:35
John
Yeah.
00:40:37
johngrimsmo
And it's basically ink replacements, pocketbooks, t-shirts, hoodies, and various little extra screw packs or double thumb stud or things like that, which are more smaller and bespoke.
00:40:46
John
Yeah.
00:40:50
johngrimsmo
And there's not a lot of things.
00:40:50
John
Yeah.
00:40:53
John
Yeah.
00:40:53
johngrimsmo
three
00:40:54
John
but There's downsides to 3PLs for sure of cost and hassle, but on the flip side, it's also kind of reminds me of the whole like Jiffy Lube franchise, like to use one, it forces you to have your stuff together.
00:41:05
John
Like you need to have SKUs, you have inventory, you need to have replenishment queue quantities.
00:41:06
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:10
John
um And, you know, that was good for us at the time to go through that and be forced. You can't just like get an order and be like, okay, i need to like put this thing together. It's 10, like you got to have, um,
00:41:20
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:41:23
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:41:23
John
But it'd be easy easy with stuff like this.
00:41:25
johngrimsmo
ah One thought that did actually occur to me, and I don't know if this is worth pursuing or not, but our buddy, ah Andrew Henry from Henry Holsters has definitely gotten a local shipping down pat and he's become a fulfillment center for his own connections.
00:41:38
John
Yeah, you should talk to him because I believe he has a like products and services side business of offering both manufacturing, but also assembly and fulfillment.
00:41:44
johngrimsmo
hello
00:41:48
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:41:48
John
I know he does because he's doing it work at the Modus guys.
00:41:50
johngrimsmo
Exactly. Exactly.
00:41:52
John
Okay, there you go.
00:41:53
johngrimsmo
So yeah, maybe. I'm so
00:41:58
John
Yep.
00:42:02
John
What else?
00:42:03
johngrimsmo
doing good on time. Okay, real quick. I was thinking about our our invented theory of buying a paving company.
00:42:11
John
ah Yeah.
00:42:12
johngrimsmo
and And the the way you've always mentioned it is like, if we buy a paving company, i don't want to know anything about paving. I would be you know the owner and hire managers and hire pavers and all that stuff.
00:42:25
johngrimsmo
And I was thinking about that and I was like, even if I was in that top role and just ran the company, I would still want to know how roads are paved. I would want to know as much as I could about how technically roads are paved.
00:42:36
johngrimsmo
That's like what my default nature would want to do. I couldn't just be this, you know, faceless CEO that's like, oh, manager will handle everything.
00:42:43
John
Sure.
00:42:45
johngrimsmo
Now, I wouldn't want to operate the equipment. Like, I don't want to be the guy on the boots on the floor, like doing the thing. But I would want to know as much as I could about it. That's just who I am. You know, what do think?
00:42:59
John
Yeah. Yeah. um
00:43:03
johngrimsmo
Especially with a technical business, like road paving is fairly tech. It can be technical. I don't know
00:43:08
John
Oh no, 100%. It's like, what's the grade and quality of the asphalt and what are the were reporting standards?
00:43:11
johngrimsmo
You got to know what you're doing.
00:43:13
John
Who are we bidding for? What are our... Yeah, absolutely. But I think the difference would be like, in the scenario that this is envisioned in my head is like, okay, you purchased this company, you come into it, you have a team of managers in place, et cetera, versus you and I that started the equivalent of like, hey, I bought a used paver on Craigslist and I was doing golf cart golf cart path repairs and built it up built it up myself where I was the guy, you know, I was going to the asphalt yard and picking it up, ah the mill or whatever and like testing it myself.
00:43:36
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:43:45
John
And and then you, you know, you just are, are plagued by your own sweat, equity and labor of having built it up from nothing that is cool, but also burdens you.
00:43:56
johngrimsmo
that's an interesting distinction that i didn't think about is is buying an established company say they're looking to sell but still operate
Mergers, Acquisitions, and Water Systems
00:44:04
johngrimsmo
I didn't use that as a variable in my thought process, um but that might change things.
00:44:10
johngrimsmo
If you bought an established company that already knew what they were doing, I would obviously want to acknowledge what they're doing and like have them teach me and wrap my head around it, but I might not go nearly as deep as if you and I hadd said, we're going to start a paving company.
00:44:17
John
Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:21
John
Exactly.
00:44:23
johngrimsmo
We're going to hire professional pavers who've done this for 20 years. We're going to do this. I don't know. It's interesting.
00:44:30
John
Well, think about Kern now that Kern's an American company, it's like, okay, um you know, yes, there's probably deep resources, Amatek, I think like deep resources and in different silos of manufacturing and engineering that they have.
00:44:38
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:44:43
John
And maybe there's some consolidation of that sort of tribalish, I mean, there's a super, super technical stuff across many different fronts and that's a huge asset and and so forth on the flip side, like,
00:44:54
John
Like they're not going to sit there and step in and be like, Hey, we need to understand every like current is an operating company that has its own standalone ability to operate, et etc cetera, et cetera.
00:45:00
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:45:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. Yeah. Let them cook kind of thing. Hmm.
00:45:07
John
Yeah.
00:45:10
John
Yeah. I always, the the cynical part of me always laughs and kind of harkens back to my first job at a college of, of working as an investment banker of like, okay, there's all these BS sales pitches from bankers or from law firms or from, from stock market guys about like, oh, we need to do this merger. You know, the sum of the parts, these synergies and we can combine things and cross sell and all that.
00:45:33
John
And, you know, seven out of ten go horribly wrong and like they don't mix the culture and there's problems and over-promised expectations and cost-cutting fail well it's all these reasons they so often fail and then all of a sudden it's like no we can extract more value by severing off these businesses allowing them to flourish on their own and there's such a like it's one reason why i like so glad i chose to not spend my life in that world it's like it's so bs-y around like no like It's just, you know they sell it both ways.
00:46:02
John
Yeah.
00:46:03
johngrimsmo
Yeah. yeah so um
00:46:03
John
ah Yeah. Yeah. yeah Let's here as you see. What else do we have enough time to go through Norseman Blade Heat Tree?
00:46:18
John
We will save it.
00:46:20
johngrimsmo
Let's save it for next week.
00:46:21
John
Okay. I got on my list.
00:46:22
johngrimsmo
it's not ah It's not a big one, but yeah, I might know more next week, actually.
00:46:22
John
Okay. Good.
00:46:26
johngrimsmo
it So that'll be good.
00:46:26
John
okay good
00:46:30
John
um
00:46:30
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:31
John
I had a couple more things I added that I'm going to save as well.
00:46:33
johngrimsmo
Go for it.
00:46:34
John
No, no, it's fine. Well, this one is quick. I'll throw it out there now so we don't let it linger. um I'm still trying to figure out what to do with our water system. We finally had a ah but a professional water company, not a big deal.
00:46:45
John
It's like Colligan or um like there's franchises these in every probably city in the country.
00:46:46
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:46:51
John
And... and yeah it kind of s sinks. It's like the only two options are really RO or DI. Our RO would be fed off of water that has approximately 250 million, 250 parts per million total dissolved solids. that's,
00:47:08
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:47:09
John
ah total dissolved solid
00:47:11
johngrimsmo
Ours is like 150, so that's not much worse.
00:47:11
John
and that's Yeah, it's a little high, but it's like not crazy.
00:47:15
johngrimsmo
Yep.
00:47:15
John
and But it depends on what those... You could get a softener, but it's going to be the same TDS. It's just going to swap out certain ah ah of the... Certain dissolved solids for others. um So it doesn't actually change the TDS. It's easier on your ah RO filters, which is nice.
00:47:33
John
And I don't have a problem with ah RO, except that I don't necessarily want to be in the business of storing water in perpetuity because of the risk of um biological growth. And so I wanted to look at DI. They're going to get back to me on a DI.
00:47:46
John
system um exchange quote, which the nice thing about DI is you maintain your water pressure from the city or from your water source. So you don't need to store it because it just flows through the DI and then through the PEX lines in our shop to the machines.
00:47:59
johngrimsmo
no ro at all because a lot of times it's both diro
00:48:01
John
No RO at all. Yeah. And DI water is cool. ah ye I think the way to say that is that a lot of our RO systems have a DI add-on, but true...
00:48:12
johngrimsmo
yeah oh interesting
00:48:15
John
DI, like I've seen this in other bigger shops, like you just have two or more tanks and that are DI and um it produces perfect water, like end of conversation. The caveat is, number one, it's not cheap.
00:48:26
John
And number two, if you don't exchange the tank out, it quickly starts creating salt water in your system, which is like really bad.
00:48:31
johngrimsmo
Wow. Yeah.
00:48:32
John
um But the other point worth sharing is QualiChem, with whom I've been having a lot of conversations, they're sort of saying like, hey, the whole like you need to do your initial fill with with, uh, imperfect water that has some minerals to help the coolant emulsify. They're like, not true.
00:48:48
John
Like you can start from day one with like lab grade DI water, perfectly fine, even better to do that.
00:48:49
johngrimsmo
Very interesting.
00:48:55
John
Like do not whatever. Um, because some of the other options sink. Like I don't necessarily want to put it a software for our whole facility and then get salt delivered every month and have picking up bags of salt filling. It's kind of a pain in the butt.
00:49:07
johngrimsmo
the
00:49:07
John
Um, but need to figure something out. So keep everybody posted.
00:49:11
johngrimsmo
Interesting.
00:49:12
John
Yeah.
00:49:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, a while ago I went on a whole deep dive into ion exchange resins, which is what a DI system does. like
00:49:19
John
Yeah.
00:49:19
johngrimsmo
Like how they work. They're literally exchanging you know the ion of iron or whatever, and they're they're they're giving off an oxygen atom or whatever, and it's exchanging.
00:49:24
John
Trading. yeah her
00:49:31
johngrimsmo
It's really cool. And then you can actually reverse the function by soaking the ion exchange resins in ah in a specific acid, which will reverse...
00:49:31
John
Yes. Yeah.
00:49:39
johngrimsmo
the reaction and will drop out the solid and now you have and and will leach the ass from the acid and make a a new ion exchange present like it's pretty cool
00:49:41
John
Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:50
John
And I quickly looked into that. Like there is no DIY solution of like, Hey, I want to buy the tanks and like, just kind of recharge the DI beads on my own.
00:50:01
John
Like not like you gotta have the professionals do this.
00:50:01
johngrimsmo
right yep
00:50:04
John
um I don't know DI water swap out is going to be couple hundred bucks a month or it's going to be like 1500 month.
00:50:11
johngrimsmo
Yeah, big deal.
00:50:11
John
um the other thing I don't hate about r RO though is it has a huge waste bypass. Like you're, you waste two to three gallons for every gallon of water you make or more even.
00:50:16
johngrimsmo
Yeah,
00:50:21
John
So that, that's,
00:50:22
johngrimsmo
isn't it like 90% sometimes or something? Or, don't know.
00:50:25
John
you sweet You can adjust it. And part what I'm thinking, because we don't need perfect water. I mean, it's not bad, but we just don't need it. So it's like, wait a minute here. If we're filling RO into an IBC tote and it's dripping in, what I might consider doing is a separate straight tap drip line where I can adjust the ratio of drippy drips so that we're blending it in, which means the RO system will shut off way earlier because the tank fills up, which means we're in effect making our own blended water without having to create so much RO waste.
00:50:44
johngrimsmo
oh
00:50:55
johngrimsmo
Got it. If you're okay with a higher PPM final product.
00:50:56
John
Make sense?
00:50:59
John
Yeah, which which we are. like
00:51:01
johngrimsmo
Yeah.
00:51:01
John
you What you don't want to do is take 250 ppm tt TDS and keep keep topping off that way forever. But if you get it to like 75, I'm pretty sure that's going to be fine.
00:51:13
johngrimsmo
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe that's the 90 I'm thinking of. It'll remove 90%. So if you add 250 times 90% is whatever that is, you know, 25 or something.
00:51:24
John
Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:25
johngrimsmo
yeah
00:51:27
John
Cool.
00:51:28
johngrimsmo
Cool.
00:51:30
John
See you next week.
00:51:31
johngrimsmo
All right. All right. See you next week, buddy.
00:51:33
John
All right. Sounds good. Take care.
00:51:34
johngrimsmo
Bye.