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Business of Machining - Episode 57
267 Plays8 years ago
The podcast flashback last week sent the John’s into a whirlwind of comments about what they were up to around Christmas time. It’s amazing how much changes in just a few months!
Is there a monetary value to time?
“There are two limitations in life, time and money” - Saunders
As it turns out, time-related stress doesn’t just stress you out, but also your wallet!
So, would spending the money to move to a much bigger shop be worth it for Grimsmo?
Check out Grimsmo’s latest video on their reconnaissance mission to see a potential new shop.
How to Scale Business: Fire Yourself
Here’s some news; Saunders got bored! So...he’s probably successfully fired himself! And it feels so good to know they have the systems in place to make workers autonomous. The next question is what will he do next?
In Grimsmo’s corner, Angelo seems to be autonomous on the lathe! Next step: Set up a system and process for business expansion.
“Machining is not a spectator sport” - Grimsmo
But the two John’s are going to keep making videos about it anyway. Keep an eye out for Post Processor videos on Saunders channel! It’s amazing how quickly you can go from “I don’t know”, to “let me teach YOU how to do that”.
Grimsmo’s putting it write out in the open...he’s developing a Grimsmo PEN! But will it take 3.14x the amount of desired time to make it to market? Who knows, at least he’ll share as much as he can about the process on the way.
Keep an ear out for an episode where the John’s talk about leadership/management styles.
See you next week, mate! Saunders is headed to Australia, but he’s sticking to the Business of Machining Schedule.
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Transcript
Introduction and a Hospital Story
00:00:00
Speaker
Good morning, folks. Welcome to the business of machining episode 56. My name is John Saunders. And my name is John Grimsmo. Good morning. Good morning. So this is awesome. I canceled last week's podcast for what is like the best coincidence ever, which was my brother-in-law and his wife live in Freeport, Maine.
00:00:25
Speaker
And I was there in Freeport or Portland to film a factory tour of Helical and Harvey Tool, which is in Gorham, but it's all right around the Portland area. And I was supposed to meet up with him, I think it was Tuesday night, and he texted me and said, you know, we got to cancel. Sorry. And that night, their daughter was born.
00:00:52
Speaker
Nice. So the next morning, of course, I wasn't going to impose, but he he actually shot me a text and said, Hey, if you're up for it, we'd be happy to have you over here at
Balancing Time and Money
00:01:01
Speaker
the hospital. So in what was kind of a joke that it was inappropriate because, you know, I'm just the whatever the uncle, but I ended up being the first visitor to the hospital. I brought everybody I brought coffee and Dunkin Donuts sandwiches. So that that's a trade off for being the first guest, I guess. And absolutely.
00:01:20
Speaker
It was super cool, but I was only in Portland for like four hours that morning and I thought, you know what? I hate to say this, but I'd like to take the chance to say hi to them and congratulations. So sorry for canceling the podcast. But we got to use our burner, our backup. Which was funny to get all the messages and stuff because it was like Christmas and apparently I said, apparently I said a lathe on fire. I don't really remember that. Exactly.
00:01:44
Speaker
It was only two months ago that we did that, but yeah. But I have no concept of, I mean, that was an eternity to go to me. Yeah, absolutely. Isn't that crazy to think about? So much, so much happens and so much time goes by that, like, I think about that sometimes how
00:02:03
Speaker
active you and I are now compared to five years ago, 10 years ago, especially in my life. You know, I've always done stuff, but I've never done as much in such a daily short amount of time. You know, I get home at the end of the day and my wife was like, how was your day? And sometimes I don't say much, but sometimes I get right into it. I'm like, holy crap, I did a lot today. Wow.
00:02:24
Speaker
I tell you, I love that phrase that there are two limitations in life, time and money. And for most entrepreneurs, they think money is the limitation at first. And don't get me wrong, money continues to be a limitation, partly because I also don't like borrowing money. But I'll tell you, the one that stresses most people out on a daily or hourly basis is time management.
00:02:46
Speaker
Absolutely. I think at first money is the, especially in my life, money was the only thing and I used to think of time as free. I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted more or less. I had zero money. But now I'm totally flipping that around going, I have to consciously
00:03:07
Speaker
know what I'm doing, working on. And money is, I mean, it's not more spendable, but it's easier to, yeah. You have the ability to generate cash, which is phenomenal. Exactly, right? You don't have the ability to say, I need two more hours today, especially when it's not even just the brute force attitude of, I'm going to power through it. It's the things like, yesterday, I went to my kid's parent-teacher conference. I don't want to skip. I did too. No way.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, yesterday. Yeah. And the day before for the other kid.
Children's Behavior: Home vs. School
00:03:38
Speaker
That's hilarious. What I don't I thought it was a little bit weird because I feel like we live in a society where people continue to go soft and nurture in a bad way. I think that there's a lot to be said for some amount of some amount of strife, some amount of stress, some amount of struggle in life to build character and build force you into to strengthen independence.
00:04:04
Speaker
I'm going to, I was kind of like, I'm going to a PTO or whatever parent teacher conference for my four year old. Um, but it was good. I can meet, get to meet the teachers and I obviously do care about it. It was part of it. It was endearing and educational. So it was, it was fun. Yup. Yup. Absolutely. And, uh, like my son is, uh, just turned five and, um,
00:04:25
Speaker
He's a bit of a different person at school. His best self comes out at school. At home, he's himself. But at school, he's honest, better behavior. He's very focused, very attentive. And it's just good to hear from the teachers. They love him. They're like, he is hilarious. That's awesome. That's funny. I love it. Yeah, he said what he wants to be when he grows up is John, like his dad. That's adorable. That's awesome.
00:04:53
Speaker
How was your week since I didn't
Business Expansion Considerations
00:04:55
Speaker
talk to you? Yeah, well, we haven't talked in two weeks. I feel like we don't know each other anymore. I know. Last night, I had Clara, who's eight, on Fusion for about an hour. I actually had her attention. It was awesome. That's insane. That's awesome. She sketched a heart in Fusion. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Because I told her, like, anything you can draw on paper, we can draw as a design for a pattern.
00:05:21
Speaker
And she's like, OK, I got the perfect thing. Give me a paper. And then she drew a heart and then another heart upside down next to it. And she's like, I want this on a pen. OK, let's do it. So how did you did you just do a sketch? Yeah, sketch and then wrapped it around.
00:05:34
Speaker
Awesome. That's sick. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet. And she applied colors, which is something I never do in fusion, like appearances. Um, so she's like, okay, I want this black and I want this copper. No, no gold. And it was, it was so cool to see like, right. Never before has an eight year old asked for a 64 bit computer for Christmas. Yup. Love it. That's really cool. How would you like what's going on with the business last week?
00:06:03
Speaker
Last week, everything, man. So, okay. Lots of big news, small news. I mean, big news is Eric and I went and looked at a new shop just kind of for fun. And then it, I mean, there's no decisions or anything like that, but
00:06:22
Speaker
It was one of those, I need to go check it out because I drive by it every day and it's super close to home and I know it's good and all this stuff. Anyway. The one you mentioned, I think. Yeah, OK. It's like walking distance. Yeah, basically. OK. Yeah. And so we checked it out. And man, it's amazing. It's just so big. It's 11,000 square feet. That's huge. Yeah. Yeah. Your place is 10-ish, right?
00:06:52
Speaker
Yeah, seven shop, three office, or approximately. Right, right, yeah. And this has quite a bit of office too. Probably, it's laid out very similar to yours, except instead of two shops, it's one open shop. Got it. Will the landlord demise it? No, it's sort of...
00:07:12
Speaker
It was already split up a little bit. So we can cut one of the offices out. So it might get it down to 10-ish. Has it been vacant for a while? Five months.
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, look, you'll have to see, but I don't know what your industrial market is like. But if I recall, that's a little bit of an odd location for that property, meaning it may not be what a lot of companies are looking for. So you may be, I mean, you may be able to go to the landlord and say, I mean, you just never know.
00:07:45
Speaker
But don't be scared about being creative or proposing something and just being honest and saying, hey, we would absolutely take down 5,000. And honestly, we'll probably grow. And to flip it around, we've done that deal before, my old company, where you just say, look, we can't lease this property. I'd rather find a tenant that's in there. Having properties vacant is a bad thing for insurance, for maintenance, for optics. So you'd be surprised. Yeah.
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah, we filmed a little tour of the place, which we're going to throw up on YouTube just because it was really fun to walk around and daydream. Right. Seriously, if it was 6,000 square feet, I'd sign for it right now. Right. But then I wonder at the end of the day, is the extra rent for the extra space that we don't necessarily need
00:08:34
Speaker
At the end of the day, is that going to put us out of business or is it just a little bit more money going out the door for future growth? I don't know. I don't think you need that much space. I agree.
00:08:46
Speaker
It's just so nice. I mean, look, we I don't need I mean, my building made sense for I think obvious reasons. But, you know, we if we didn't do the training program, that would reduce the office needs. And the reality is we could consolidate. Let's say we're in seventy five hundred right now. I bet you we could move that down to twenty five hundred super tight, maybe three thousand and still function.
00:09:13
Speaker
And I'm not saying do go crazy, but I wouldn't stretch. I mean, you're in a market that has a lot of industrial space overall. So I wouldn't double. I mean, it depends on what the numbers look like and how expensive it is. And where we want this company to go. Like we talked a lot about that over the past week between my wife and Eric and everybody.
00:09:36
Speaker
Depends on how big we want to get, how big we could get. If we want that, if we want to stay small. I mean, we're doing OK in this location, but to grow any amount from here would benefit highly from more space. There's just a lot of thoughts in our head, a lot of decisions to be made.
00:09:55
Speaker
Big shops are not good. It legit takes me time to walk back to the tumbling machine or you could crank out, oh my gosh, Sean, you could do ... I'll put it this way. You could go to 3,000 or 4,000 square feet and if you keep doing as well as you're doing for a year or two, then you could go buy a 20,000 square foot building and do whatever the heck you wanted with it.
00:10:18
Speaker
I wouldn't over commit. Yeah. And that's, that's one of my concerns. Um, yeah, I don't know. Again, have you gotten, do you have any idea what they're asking for it? Uh, yeah. I mean, I know what, uh, what it's going for. And it's, I mean, the shop is 10 times bigger than here and the rent is not 10 times more, but it's not far from it either.
00:10:40
Speaker
Okay, right. Go walk through, go find a 3,000 to 5,000 square foot space and see what it feels like. Yeah, we've got a buddy close by, I think, who's in 4,000 square feet with a few CNC machines. So we got to go stop by there in a couple of days
Improving Team Dynamics
00:11:04
Speaker
here. Yeah, perfect. Corporate. You got some stuff made from him.
00:11:08
Speaker
Oh, awesome. Yeah, sure. Yep. Yeah. So he's got a nice little place. But but yeah, so I mean, there's a lot a lot going for it. If like I said, if it was half the size, I'd be all over it at the current size. It's it's big, but I don't know.
00:11:26
Speaker
I could still see us being in there. It's just a lot of money. That's literally the only downside. A lot of money, more space than we need currently, for sure. What was it like for you guys to move from 1,000 square feet to 10,000? All your stuff going the corner kind of thing?
00:11:43
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, it was just me and Jared back then. And I didn't have any vertical machining centers. I had, oh my gosh, I had 1,100 Tormach. I had two 440s because we had just started the training program.
00:11:59
Speaker
a couple little lays. I mean, we were literally in a thousand square feet and it was weird. It was literally like taking your equipment out into a giant field and just popping it around. I mean, I didn't use my office for the first 18 months. I remember. Yeah. And it's not even, it's not that it's not good, but
00:12:24
Speaker
I really say this tough. I mean, you and I, there's lots of shops and businesses out there. Everything seems to be going great in the world right now, which is a great thing, but like people are growing, people are expanding. That's great. It's tough because real estate is sticky. I mean, you've got to commit to leases, you've got to move equipment and capital and like Helical is out of space. So they're building an addition. This other shop that we got to tour, but not film at really cool shop with all
00:12:54
Speaker
All aerospace stuff, all stuff that's involved with legit U.S. defense, like specific projects for things that go up in the air and but don't have people in them. Lots of anyways, they're there. They grew from 10 to 40 to 60 and then they're doing another edition or maybe it was 10 to 40. Now they're doing an addition to 60. All D.M.G. shops. They had a bunch of D.M.U. 50s horizontal. It was cool. Yeah, it was cool.
00:13:26
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Go find, yeah, go through core print space. I think that's for sure. Yep. Where I feel like I would grant leniency is the convenience of proximity. That's worth so much. Worth so much.
00:13:44
Speaker
Right. But you're to quote, well, to use the phrase again, lifestyle creep, the fact that you're even thinking about going double what you even wanted is the fact that you guys are doing well. But don't don't let that cloud your decisions. Stay hungry. Yep. Well, although part of the hunger is for growth, not just in size, but in capability and capacity to write. I don't know.
00:14:13
Speaker
in a 4,000 square foot shop, you could have aggression. I mean, or more. Holy cow. Yep. How's, uh, how's Angelo? How's Linda wheels? What's. Yeah. Angelo's been here for five weeks now, four or five weeks. Um, things are going awesome. Uh, we've just
Scaling Operations and Machining Challenges
00:14:33
Speaker
been cranking out parts. We did, uh, what did we do?
00:14:40
Speaker
So many little projects. I can't even think of any right now. He's like fully autonomous on the lathe and the mill now, setting up parts, running parts. It's fantastic. Sometimes I kind of walk around going, what should I do next? Because everything's running. Like everything I normally do is busy.
00:15:01
Speaker
So I'm curious, what is the dynamics? Does he just come in and go to work? Do you guys talk a lot? I mean, obviously, you talk socially and so forth. But what's that like if I were to fly on the wall? Sure. Him and I do a lot of strategic planning for either current work or future work, future product development, improvements around the shop, organization. We bought a new tool cart the other day. So he
00:15:25
Speaker
picked it out and put it together and started organizing all my crap into it. And he's like, this is where stuff goes. And I'm like, oh, it doesn't just pile up in the corner. OK, that makes sense. I like this guy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, he's very meticulous and very good. And I'd like to see, like we all know this, but I'd like to see him work with Eric more. I think Eric needs to open up and share his work more so that his side of the operation speeds up a lot faster.
00:15:55
Speaker
Interesting. So not so much because of the skill set of grinding and finishing, but more from a process engineer standpoint. Yep. Well, and sharing the work, like Eric is kind of protective of his craft and he will soon become a bottleneck because he's the only one that can finish knives.
00:16:15
Speaker
Wait, so is Angelo going to start doing some of that too? I'd like to see it if he has the time, yeah. Interesting. I go back a lot. I've done nothing with this other than think, but I go back to Jay Pearson's concept of everybody in the shop majors and minors in something. So this idea of obviously Angelo's major would be machining, Mrs. Minor process engineering or lean improvements, I don't know, or shipping or grinding, I don't know.
00:16:44
Speaker
Or did you? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Well, he's a knife maker as well, as a hobby slash small business. He's made a lot of knives. Angelo is? Yep. Yep. Oh, OK. I didn't know that. Totally one of his passions. So he has the skill to sharpen, grind, polish, anodize, things like that. He has the eye, the attention to detail, all this stuff. So something I need to ask Eric today that I forgot to ask him yesterday was,
00:17:12
Speaker
Is the majority of your day comprised of Eric only skill or is it just time, just work? You know, like Eric has a full time job, but is a lot of it just time consuming, running the tumbler, finding parts inside the tumbler, anodizing, cleaning, deep worry, like the bulk of the work. I'm trying to think if we wanted to scale the business, split Eric up into so many people.
00:17:36
Speaker
If he had just spitting out a number, if he had three people working for him that did 80% of the work, and then Eric can do the high skilled sharpening final assembly, things like that, that's how you scale that operation. Right now, Eric is doing everything. He's just stepping up from technician to manager. Exactly, right? It's like me operating the machines versus running the business.
00:18:00
Speaker
I don't think, look, I don't know, I'm far from perfect information here, but I would think Angelo's too valuable. He's too skilled as a machinist, he's too valuable to your world, and he's got that whole ability to have tooling and process engineering, which is so critical to your growth. I would think, and here's the thing too, let's say when you get a third person who's gonna train, let's say Angelo becomes Eric's helper.
00:18:28
Speaker
When you get a third person, who's going to train that person, Eric or Angelo? I would think Eric. And also to what you just said about the nature of the work, I would think you could get, and again, we have an internship program here. It's been such a win because these companies around here aren't willing to hire people under a certain age, sometimes 21, sometimes older.
00:18:52
Speaker
Wow. And that's frustrating because kids can't get chances to see what work is like. So we have brought in, geez, three or four over the last year and a half, and they're 16 years old sometimes, and it gives them a chance to get real work. We absolutely pay them. I don't believe in unpaid internships, but yeah, it's not the same rate that you have to pay a full-time employer, skilled labor type person.
00:19:17
Speaker
And now the downside is that it isn't necessarily someone who's going to be around forever and the hours aren't always there consistently. But if anything, that has a side benefit of helping Eric learn how to teach, helping Eric franchise his own little segment of what he does. Yep.
00:19:36
Speaker
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I guess one of my hopes is that him teaching Angelo, who's close and now a friend and, you know, is a process engineer in his own right. As Eric teaches them, Angelo can process engineer the process because that's something Eric is not an expert at teaching. I want to see Angelo's take on
00:19:57
Speaker
how to list this out, how to do anodizing. It's a two-way street, like plus and plus, right? Not only getting the extra work done capacity-wise, but planning for the next guy to have a process sheet. Like when I went to Jay's shop and I'm like, wow, I could do this. Like this job right here, I just pick up this sheet, I do it, I follow it. Isn't it phenomenal?
00:20:22
Speaker
I was joking. I could start filling orders at Jay's shop with probably a good 12, 15 minutes of tips and tricks on training. If I go back, if I can, I'd like to spend a day at his shop just to be a part of the culture, meet everybody, work. Just put me to work. I'll make something. I'll assemble back magic, the unit thingies.
00:20:48
Speaker
You filmed there, right? I did, yeah. And the video is 90% done. Aaron showed it to me yesterday, so that'll go up. But you take for granted what you just said about Jay. Other people say about you. Likewise. Do you know how many people would make a significant effort to figure out a way to just sit in your shop silent for eight hours? Yeah.
00:21:12
Speaker
Um, so that's what, um, and it said humbly, I think the same thing for us. So I think that's, um, something we want to think about. How do we do that in a manner that's scalable and fair? Um, uh, we, we actually have literally had some people say, uh, with dollar signs attached, they just want to come like audit. And I'm just like, no, it's just it. No. But, um, we did our first YouTube live yesterday. I saw about that. Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
And we had, well, we've done a couple before, but they were really like casual, like the machine was coming. This was more deliberate. So, and there's so much, live is not easy.
00:21:53
Speaker
Relatively complicated software right now. It's getting better You got to be on a hard even having a hardwired internet versus Wi-Fi in the shop. Even when we have good Wi-Fi Anyway, it went well, we had a hiccup with software screen recording stuff Well, we switched over to a different platform within five minutes or so and it went pretty well The next step is looking at and I saw a when we did our mhub tour. I saw like a live
00:22:21
Speaker
YouTube live rig with cameras, but like, John, it looks crazy. Like they had these DSLRs mounted on rail systems that were hard plugged into power and hard plugged into like an HDMI or something that then went to a video board that then went out. So that equipment looks expensive. It's actually not quite as expensive as I thought maybe, but it's not what you and I do for filming, which is grab our camera, grab our GoPro and just kind of film and edit later. Yep. Wow.
00:22:53
Speaker
But I'm not against that. I'm not against going live for an hour and showing, making a part, or what we do in the shop. So we'll see. Yeah, there's almost more reality to it, more realisticness. Because you're going to fumble, and you're going to make a mistake, and you're going to... I've been telling myself for years, and I tell people this too, machining is not a spectator sport.
00:23:21
Speaker
You
Balancing Perfectionism with Project Completion
00:23:22
Speaker
know what I mean? We get in touch because we can edit it to look cool. But man, it is slow and time consuming and like hundreds of hours in CAD, which is not fun to watch unless you need to learn, right? Even just like I love standing in front of a machine and watching it cut. But most people get bored like, oh, that's cool.
00:23:46
Speaker
But it's funny you say that because we really try not to edit our videos to make them disingenuous. In fact, I know we absolutely don't, but nevertheless, they get edited for time and brevity and quality. But there's something strange where like I don't necessarily want to watch a recorded video of a part being made for like 40 minutes, but if it were alive, I guess it's the like uncertainty of is it going to something going to happen or what's next? Like I feel like I would be much more. Like the Rocky Blanche, you know?
00:24:16
Speaker
If you did a two hour video live of just like a Norseman part, I would probably watch. But a 30 minute video with just machining clips of the Norseman, I'd probably still watch. Yeah.
00:24:30
Speaker
So much time goes into setup, like poking numbers at the control for 10 minutes. A couple weeks ago, I was working on this engraving macro that counts up. I think I mentioned that before. And just for fun, we had Erin standing here filming most of it while I was figuring this out. And she was getting bored just because it's
00:24:53
Speaker
you know, five, 10, 20, 50 minutes of just me going, nope, not that one. Try this. No, no, not that one. Just just hang on. Just, you know, it's not a spectator sport, but it's I love it still.
00:25:05
Speaker
But we're not watching the controller, we're watching you. Yeah, that's a good point. You're absorbed in it. You are like, I was writing some code. Oh, we've got like two really good post processor videos coming up where we got the machine to move to specific locations on specific events. And it's awesome because it's like that combination of programming with machine and automation and code and hacking. And it was,
00:25:31
Speaker
To some people, they will dislike it and probably won't be the craziest video on YouTube, but I was just on cloud nine. I was like, this is awesome. And I'm not supposed to do it. I've never had a class on post processors, but you like just, it's that process of like, okay, well, I know it's calling a G30. Where it calls a G30, I want it to do something else. So you go in, you figure out what triggered that G30. You found that loop, that condition, and then you start replacing it and just build it up, you figure it out.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yep, yep, it's programming in the practical applicable way that you and I just love to do. Yeah, like I never thought of myself as a programmer, you know, I did a lot of website work, so I kind of I could poke my way through HTML, but
00:26:15
Speaker
G code and macros and a little bit of post processor stuff. It's just like this solves my problem and it's super fun and I can figure it out and I can wrap my head around it. And I mean, just in the past month, I've probably spent many, many, many hours just absorbing macro functionalities and applying it to what I'm working on.
00:26:38
Speaker
It's so funny. So we had a guy on the NYCCNC forum, which is pro only, but on the forum. And he was like, hey, I need the machine to do this. And I had just filmed a video with something similar but different, like different enough to where I was like, ah,
00:26:55
Speaker
So, this is literally what happened in my head. He posted that and I wrote back this response being like, we've got a video coming out in a few weeks that should help you start to learn that. And then I was like, well, that stinks because it's out, not out for two weeks, few weeks for this guy. And the reality is it's not what he asked for. It's close and it's a big start. But I was like, I wonder how you could do what he did. Like, just as kind of like,
00:27:17
Speaker
Well, no, it's not that I got sucked in. It's like, can I do it? Could he do it? How hard would it be? Is it going to be unexpected? You know, it's like, is it going to take 3.14 times longer than we all thought? And I have a thing about that that I want to get back to at the end, but it's okay. Keep going.
00:27:32
Speaker
So, so I was like, it was a Sunday or something, and I was just in a great mood just hanging out. And I was like, you know what? Let's take a look at this. And I actually got it done in like an hour, which is which is good time. Great time. Of course. And then I filmed, including filming a video on it. And then I sent back an unedited version of the video to that guy along with the modified post processor just to get him going. But it was so funny because within a span of like 90 minutes, I went from
00:28:01
Speaker
I wonder, I don't know, and I could we to basically like professing and sharing how to do it. And you forget what it's like. Remember when you first got a Renishaw probe and you're like, Oh my gosh, I have no idea. Yeah. And now you're now you're like owning it with these custom codes. Yeah, it's a tool in your toolbox. And if you don't use it, you're silly, you know, it's like,
00:28:24
Speaker
When you first get it, you're like, oh, I hope I don't crash it. I'll just do the basic one, just the Z-probe. And we'll start there. And then years later, you work up to it. Yeah, that's awesome. And you are now smarter for the experience because you could possibly use that tool, that whatever you just learned in the future, right? Or apply it somewhere else or whatever.
00:28:45
Speaker
And that's the thing with the confidence that I care about. Absolutely. And you need these examples, these these proven tasks to gain that confidence, like in the macro book that I have, you know, he gives examples, but the example is not what you're going to use it for. It's to trigger you to be like, oh, I could use that for this thing. And then and then you have the formula and you apply it
00:29:08
Speaker
like that. That is today's Wednesday widget is the ARSC door, the our store, which is less about the specifics of somebody replicating that door, but rather being like, wait a minute here. If I had a time of flight sensor on the machine, I could trigger it to do this, which would let me automate a Chuck or a parts catcher, like, you know, whatever. But that's that's the obviously the recipe is the cool part. Yes.
00:29:33
Speaker
Okay. What's your, what's your pie story? So I, okay. I am developing a pen, which I've wanted to make for a long time. I've wanted to make pens. I wanted to make flashlights. Uh, I have the realization a few weeks ago going, you know, I am going to make a flashlight and as much as I want to, a pen's going to be easier technically.
00:29:52
Speaker
to bring to market and make and prototype and stuff. So I'm like, okay, let's jump the pen to the front of the line, because I'm really excited for that. So anyway, I've been designing this pen, and I kind of give my wife a little timeline. I'm like, by the end of March, I want to have
00:30:07
Speaker
I wanna have it sellable. And she's like, she kind of brought me down to earth and she's like, 3.14, like your rule of pie. So that means like by the summer, I'm like, no, I don't agree. You might be right, but I don't agree. So I'm like, I wonder if the rule of pie needs to die in my head and so that I can actually be more effective. You know what I mean? As much as I love to dive in and take as much time as it needs to do stuff.
Small Victories in Entrepreneurship
00:30:33
Speaker
So I don't know.
00:30:35
Speaker
I don't have a good answer for that. You know who you are. I mean, I guess structure your business and life around your own successes and weaknesses. I mean, your weakness is that you are too perfect, but you know that. So it's no longer a weakness because you now have a business with Angela, with cash flow, with knives. So who cares?
00:30:57
Speaker
Yeah, if I can devote the time it needs to do this, which will generate more revenue for the business without decreasing revenue currently, it's a win-win. And that's my plan. So it's like, once you know your weaknesses, they're no longer controlling you. They're no longer a weakness.
00:31:13
Speaker
And you can work around them, hopefully. The frustration is, I think, the flip side, which is that, you know, I've heard you talk about the flashlight. So it's kind of you. There is an energy and an excitement around that which will sort of dwindle if it took you two years to bring it to work. Right. The reality is, there's probably still plenty of demand and excitement out there. But there is something to be said for kind of some of the marketing pizzazz of of of.
00:31:41
Speaker
executing soon enough to capture that enthusiasm.
00:31:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. And that's the other thing I struggle with, is I'm working on these bigger long-term projects, but I'm not sharing any of it, which I subconsciously see as a problem. Consciously, I don't want to take the time to do it. I don't want to share my design yet. I'm nervous. All these dumb things that kind of go against who I say I am. Because in my head, I'm like, oh, we share everything.
00:32:12
Speaker
We do know but that's that's different. It is different now. I think it was like that in the beginning when I could share everything and now I kind of feel like I can't for some reason I can't quite put my finger on it. No, no, no, because you know, nobody wants a verbal diarrhea of every thought that goes through your head.
00:32:30
Speaker
a billion ideas and thoughts. I don't think you're becoming closed-minded or manipulative or secretive by not... If in two years you're... I mean, I think it's very clear. I mean, I wholly heartily expect that Grinsville Knives will have
00:32:47
Speaker
continue to have to the Norseman and the Rask and I expect a flashlight and a pen out like really just a flashlight. I didn't really know about the pen. And then I assume, and you've never told me this, but I assume there'll be a third knife and I assume that maybe some other EDC type thing or cool product, but I don't
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And that's the growth of the company. Thinking about it like that, the Norseman and the Ras can hold their production. And if we can add things on top of that, we're increasing revenue several fold. And I think about this, and I plan it all out, and I look forward, and I think about that shop, and I think about five-axis machines. And it's all a constant stream of information in my head, which I love to think about.
00:33:33
Speaker
But at some point, you got to kind of make decisions and move forward, not just think because otherwise your rule of pi turns into a rule of pi pi pi to the pi power.
00:33:48
Speaker
The blip about the pen and then also that idea of the confidence and just the feeling of energy you get by doing something as silly and a little as modifying a post processor reminds me of a thing I wanted to mention today, which is just how important it is, especially when you're new to entrepreneurship or new to business of what I call small victories.
00:34:11
Speaker
We actually did an article on this on the NYC CNC website, but it is just something you cannot replicate. The confidence you gain, the experience you gain by tackling something that's a little bit smaller in scope, but do it well. Whether it's a simple product where you machine it or you even have it machined and then you market it, you put up on a website, you fulfill it.
00:34:32
Speaker
You ship it. You start building those systems. It's not even about whether you use all of those in the long run. It's about your ability to execute on that in the confidence you gain by doing that. I can't emphasize that enough.
Delegation and Leadership in Business
00:34:45
Speaker
Absolutely. And I challenge myself often and hard, even with small daily tasks. And I'd like to think that at least once a day, I pump both fists up in the air and I'm like, yes, I got it. I figured it out. I got it.
00:34:58
Speaker
Even if nobody's looking, and then I kind of look around, I'll be like, OK, nobody saw that. But when you're that excited to get it, to figure it out, whether it's a silly little macro that like, I wonder if this is going to work. Yes, it worked. Yep.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yes, awesome. So I had a weird, a weird day yesterday, which is, so today's Wednesday. On Friday, I go to Sydney, Australia with my wife for, I don't know, two weeks, a combination vacation, and we're also doing a couple, like a meet and greet and some other little business stuff, but- So jealous. It is, thank you. I am,
00:35:40
Speaker
I'm super excited. I don't feel like I'm going. I still feel like it's a long time away, which is kind of weird because it's a big trip. Like I would almost there's almost pressure to make sure we do it right because it's like it's kind of one of those trips of a lifetime thing. Yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
So it was a great timing, totally coincidental, but you remember back in January, I was like, I need to fire myself this year. I need to quit that. I want to be like Jay Pearson's operations or strive for that, where there's less stress, there's clear responsibilities, there's clear tasks. And I think it was tough for us because
00:36:17
Speaker
you know, we do training, we do products, we do the videos, and that stuff makes it difficult unless you do them all with big enough scale. It makes it hard to, like, it's very difficult to have somebody else ship orders if you only have, if you only sell a certain product once every week or two because it just, you don't get in the flow of it. Yeah, there's so much variety.
00:36:38
Speaker
Anyways, combination of product sales are going well. We have the team and structures and processes in place. And then this trip kind of forced me about a month ago to start thinking about, okay, I need to make sure we've got the videos teed up and we've got the process in place and shipping and all that. And this all culminated in yesterday when I got bored.
00:37:03
Speaker
And it was, and I kid you not, I all of a sudden leaned back in my chair and I just, this image of when I moved with a U-Haul truck from New York to the farm shop, it just, that just came back to me. And I kid you not, I had this feeling like that segment of my life was just bookended. Like the last four years have been just one,
00:37:31
Speaker
I don't know what the word is, but one event. Thank you, a chapter. What's a series of chapters, like a section of a book, like a quarter of a book. There's a phrase for that. I don't know. But yeah. And it was this insane feeling where I was like, I've reached this. And I hate to use the word milestone because I don't know that I'm like that. I am proud of it. But it's more just like, oh my gosh.
00:37:58
Speaker
I wanted to do stuff. I had that hunger. I had that passion. I will do stuff, but I was like, and that's actually why we ended up doing the YouTube live yesterday was because I got scared of being bored. I was like, you know, and some of it said, I don't want to start some projects right now because I'm leaving. Of course. Anyway, I was just like, this is crazy.
00:38:23
Speaker
Part of me feels guilty because I don't aspire to be somebody who's not involved in all of the day-to-day. But on the flip side, you can't do it. A business is not a scaled business. If you don't want to be a solopreneur, you can't act like one. In other words, if you're a one-man job shop and you love doing that and that's your long-term goal, fine. But if you want to grow,
00:38:44
Speaker
And I don't even mean grow to crazy levels, but grow beyond one or two employees. You've got to be willing to, and I hate the word delegate because it gets overused, but you've got to put those systems and processes in place. You're absolutely right. And I was telling you before the podcast started, I had a
00:39:02
Speaker
smaller, similar revelation this morning that we are no longer a small business. I don't want us to be a small business. In my head, I still think of us as a small business, but I want to scale and just exactly like you said, you phrased it beautifully. I want to at least set up the systems in place to be able to scale if everything else works out. If we can supply the demand, if we can hire the people, if we can have the space, the machine, like just the ability to have it set up in that way.
00:39:31
Speaker
is exactly what I want. And you sort of, not question yourself often, but you wonder what do I really want? How do I want this business to look in the future in one year, three year, five year? And I need to see, yeah.
00:39:48
Speaker
It's a weird feeling because there was an element of loneliness to it as well because I think we all derive a lot of self-identity out of our skills and our passion. And when that direct skill or that direct labor or talent is not needed for some period of time, whether it's a four hours, eight hours, or two weeks, it does feel a little bit strange.
00:40:15
Speaker
But I remember vividly reading when I started to use Fusion 360. This is kind of a weird story. But when I started to use Fusion 360, I remember not knowing much about Autodesk. And I remember reading about Autodesk. And I remember looking up the CEO, who I had no idea who he was.
00:40:33
Speaker
And it's actually kind of an interesting story because it's been a little bit of a tumultuous past where he started, Carl Bass started a company. He's no longer the CEO, by the way, but he started a company. That company got bought by Autodesk. That's how he came into Autodesk. And then he was effectively, I don't want to misstate the story, but I believe pushed out by a prominent Silicon Valley person who became the CEO or something else. And
00:40:57
Speaker
Ultimately, there was some sort of a pushback from within the company. I think it's on Wikipedia. The phrase was, we need Carl Bass's software development skills. I don't think it was his ability to run C++ code. I think it was his ability to make critical decisions about
00:41:20
Speaker
the business, the software, the strategy. And I don't know Carl. I actually do know Carl. I don't think it was. You know what I mean? I know exactly what it means.
00:41:30
Speaker
It's like I think about that for a second. It's still a leadership role. Exactly. Whatever. Yep. Some people will call it the secret sauce. You have your own secret sauce that creates Saunders Machine Works. I have what's required to create Grimsman Ives. I can't give this to somebody tomorrow and be like, yeah, you run it.
00:41:53
Speaker
Exactly. And it's a leadership role. And leadership is something I struggle with. I'm an introverted, quiet person. I don't know how to drive people. I was never an athlete, so I never had coaches who yelled at me because they love me kind of thing. I love you, John. I don't know how to. Oh, yeah, I've got you. You're the coach. You can tell it to me straight, right? I don't have that otherwise in my life, though.
00:42:16
Speaker
But if I asked Angelo or Aaron or Eric, I don't think they would say you're introverted because you're not introverted to them. Right. Yep. But I struggle with how to how to lead them, how to inspire them, how to get them to push themselves to be better and not, you know, I don't want to be go, go, go, go. Recently, I heard some stories about some terribly run companies from the employees of those companies. And it's like, oh, my gosh.
00:42:46
Speaker
And then I've also talked to that particular boss directly. And he thinks he's right. And the employees think he's insane. And it's just really funny, the dynamic. I'm a conscious person. I don't ever want to be perceived as
00:43:02
Speaker
all the bad words, arrogant, egotistical, money driven, et cetera, et cetera. I want to build a proper company that is good to their employees, makes excellent products, good to their customers, you know, all these great stuff. And we have the ability to do that.
00:43:19
Speaker
It goes back to how to win friends and influence people with Dale Carnegie. The key thing I think that people gloss over on anecdotes like that is that all of those examples of bad companies and bad managers, nobody sought that outcome. Everybody, it got there for a reason. And to understand that and to avoid it, you've got to be willing to look at that reason and figure out why. Because aside from actual clinical psychopaths, people don't actually tend to want to be
00:43:48
Speaker
bad people. Certain people are narcissistic, certain people are egotistic, certain people want friendship and conflict avoidance over making the right decisions. There are all those sub reasons, but you've got to be able to think about those and process that before you just say, oh, well, this company is a terrible culture because it's a terrible company and that's all there is to it. No, there's more to it.
00:44:16
Speaker
Yeah, not everybody sees every side. That's interesting. It's interesting too that you say that because Julie emailed me and she said, could you actually talk on the business of machining about management styles? It's not something that I've
00:44:34
Speaker
deliberately thought about. I think I have deliberate styles, but let's put that on kind of our list this year to think about that. I think it's a pretty appropriate topic as our business changed.
Impact and Reputation in the Industry
00:44:48
Speaker
I want us both to get as good as possible at leadership and management, obviously, because we are driving this train here and conducting, and we got to be the best.
00:45:03
Speaker
Hey, can I kind of sort of end with a request or a share? So we talked, I think, two or three podcasts ago about kind of like long-term goals in life and what do we want? I figured mine out. Nice. And I figured it out in the sense that I absolutely love it if it comes true genuinely. So what I'm about to say is not meant to be a request to do this to anybody, but
00:45:28
Speaker
Well, my goal is to have enough impact and influence on a broad scale group of people such that somebody makes a Wikipedia page about me.
00:45:44
Speaker
Nice. Seriously, that's it. It's funny because as a younger adult, I had thought you hear about these executives and these people that end up having books written about them, but that's not me. Frankly, I don't want to say too high of a hurdle, but I like what I do. I don't care if what I do is not as big as it. Again, I know we could go to a million subs on YouTube if I made stupid, silly videos of machining fruits more. Yes, that one's not me.
00:46:14
Speaker
But I do think that's a reasonable and attainable goal. And I think that would mean a lot to me, validation of what you do.
00:46:25
Speaker
That's, that's a noble, a noble goal. And it's not hard to accomplish because you are creating insane impact and value in the world.
Future Plans and Podcast Wrap-up
00:46:35
Speaker
I get emails from people all the time that mention you. It's crazy. Like you and I are just sitting here in our shops, kind of doing our thing. Just normal. Just normal. Just another day. Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:48
Speaker
I was watching the Netflix documentary on the Eagles, which was a phenomenal show about the band. And the bassist, who's a chill dude, was like, he's like, I'm just a normal dude. Like, I did the dishes before you guys got here. Yep. I think I mentioned that before, but anyway. What's going on this week? This week, production, production. We are, I'm learning a lot about threads. And that's been interesting. Oh. About thread classes, thread fits.
00:47:18
Speaker
hole diameters, thread engagement, pitch angles, things like that. Bought some thread plug gauges and now I know we're making good threads and ordered some custom thread gauges and I'm feeling a lot more confident because when you make the male and the female threads, you just make them to fit unless you have a way to properly measure them.
00:47:40
Speaker
So why would one need a custom thread gauge? The pivots that we use have a weird non-standard thread. It's a 664, which is like an ultra fine pitch thread, which doesn't. Yeah. So it's like standard. It's just not, it's just not off the shelf.
00:47:55
Speaker
Yeah, got it. OK, got it. I was thinking like you need a weird depth or a weird way of getting the tool in there. But it's just the size that's not in stock. Yeah, so that and just making lots and lots of knives. February was slowish in numbers out the door. I'm not super proud of how February went. But January was killer, and March is going to be killer. Awesome. Awesome. Very cool.
00:48:23
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. You wrap it up.
00:48:28
Speaker
Wrapping up, yeah. I've got some fun projects to work on today. Once I get back from this trip, my run rate is through March, April, May, summer. So many awesome projects. Our goal is to get some really good technical or smaller scale Wednesday widgets filmed and done. And then we want to work on some bigger projects that take a lot longer to do and mix those in, which is my goal six months ago, but now we're finally getting around to doing that.
00:48:57
Speaker
All right. Awesome. Thanks, bud. That's good. We'll have yourself. I'll see you next week. Awesome day. Have fun in Australia. We are going to try to... Our plan, it's like a 16-hour time difference, but our plan is to do this podcast from Australia, folks. So pending any complications, we'll be here next week. I expect a thick accent. Pick it up quickly. Thanks, bud. I'll see you. Bye. Crush it. You too.