Transcript
Speaker: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: I'm your host Jennifer Muldowney aka The Glam Reaper.
Speaker: On today's episode we are talking all things Taylor Swift.
Speaker: That's all I'm going to say.
Speaker: Let's take it away.
Speaker: Josh and Scott from Titan Titan Titan Titanics.
Speaker: I was about to say from Titan Caskets.
Speaker: Welcome to the Glam Reaper podcast.
Speaker: Please introduce yourselves.
Speaker: I'm Scott Ginsberg.
Speaker: I live in Boston, Massachusetts.
Speaker: I'm the CEO of Titan.
Speaker: Excellent.
Speaker: And I'm Josh.
Speaker: I live out in Seattle along with my wife and our third co-founder Liz.
Speaker: And yeah, together we're Titan.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: So I had to almost check that.
Speaker: So don't laugh.
Speaker: But a little fun story about Jen.
Speaker: We do laugh a lot on this podcast is so tight.
Speaker: And I'm glad I said that right.
Speaker: Just to be sure, because when I was younger, I was on a golf course and I was selling tight list golf balls.
Speaker: But I pronounced some titlist golf.
Speaker: Needless to say, they were very popular and I sold quite a lot.
Speaker: But I had no clue.
Speaker: Now, I've never heard of anybody calling Titan Titten, but still, I am in America where they say things very differently to Ireland.
Speaker: So I'm glad to get that right.
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: No different.
Speaker: Tell us, so you're, Scott, you're in Boston and you're in Seattle.
Speaker: So, but you guys, now is Titan Caskets all over or is it based in Seattle or?
Speaker: So we're based in Boston.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And we have five warehouses throughout the country.
Speaker: And we distribute from those locations.
Speaker: And Josh is in Seattle, so he's there also.
Speaker: So we do a lot of this back and forth on a daily basis.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And tell me and tell me this.
Speaker: What is so different about Titan caskets in comparison?
Speaker: And by the way, just for my UK and Irish listeners who regularly we call them coffins.
Speaker: Now, I know a coffin shape and a casket shape are different, but
Speaker: Something I had to learn coming over here is that a casket is more freely used here terminology.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: So what makes us different is that your question?
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, what makes us different is that.
Speaker: You can go to a funeral home today and purchase a casket, purchase all your funeral services.
Speaker: You'll pay a lot of money for that.
Speaker: And you'll go to that funeral home, have the same six or eight, 10 caskets tops that's been there for the last 20 years.
Speaker: And with us,
Speaker: You can get a thousand different models and styles and colors and customize it.
Speaker: And the reason why we can do that, one, we're 50% less expensive than the funeral home.
Speaker: And there's a federal law here in the States known as the Funeral Rule that was passed in the 80s that gives the consumer the right to purchase a casket and have it sent to the funeral home of your choice.
Speaker: So the law is called a funeral rule.
Speaker: And because of that, that enables us to sell caskets all throughout the country and save consumers 50% or more.
Speaker: And they can customize it if they want something unique and different, a different way to honor their loved one that you can't get at a funeral home in the comfort of your living room.
Speaker: You can relax, order the casket, and under no pressure.
Speaker: And you'll get it within a day or two.
Speaker: Well, I have a few questions, obviously.
Speaker: First of all, if I want a bright pink glittery casket, I can have one.
Speaker: You can.
Speaker: You can have a purple casket with red interior if you want.
Speaker: Very cool.
Speaker: Now, question, and maybe Josh, I'll ask you this.
Speaker: What about sizing?
Speaker: I'm from Ireland, as we are all aware, accent or otherwise.
Speaker: We're not massively, it's more of a rarity there that there'd be differences in sizes.
Speaker: Here in the US, it's more of a issue.
Speaker: And in terms of sizes, both in height, width, everything.
Speaker: And so tell me how can I'm sitting at home and ordering it from my laptop or my phone?
Speaker: How can I be sure that I get the right one to the funeral?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a good question.
Speaker: And when we work on every day, I mean, one thing that it is different about us is because we're online.
Speaker: and have limited showroom space.
Speaker: We have multiple sizes of oversize all the way up to 44 inches wide in any color you could want, which is something that's very difficult to procure in most of the country.
Speaker: And so that's where we work with both funeral homes and the public to really personalize those oversize for those oversized clients.
Speaker: The typical measurement is that the widest part of your body.
Speaker: So you can self-measure either elbow to elbow or shoulder to shoulder.
Speaker: But in most cases, in nearly every case, we want the funeral director involved or somebody, a funeral professional who's working with a family can do an in-person measurement because it does take some expertise to do that.
Speaker: You do not want that to go wrong.
Speaker: You don't want the gasket to show up and for the fit not to be right.
Speaker: Yeah, believe it or not, I've actually witnessed that where knees have had to be sort of propped up a little bit in order to, you know, it doesn't happen that or at least I've never heard of it happening.
Speaker: Maybe there are stories out there of what maybe the public might assume is that limbs get taken off in order to make it fit.
Speaker: I mean, there is some crazy stories out there now.
Speaker: So you work with both funeral homes and the public.
Speaker: So for me, I'm not a licensed funeral director.
Speaker: I'm a memorial planner and a celebrant.
Speaker: And so if I have a family that comes to me tomorrow, wants to do a memorial, but they need a casket, I could go directly to you guys.
Speaker: I could send the family to you guys.
Speaker: But you do work with funeral homes as well.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: We offer, you know, we have retail prices on the site, but we also offer wholesale rates both to funeral homes, but just as often funeral professionals like yourself.
Speaker: There's lots of people in the community working with families who can make them aware of Titan and we offer wholesale rates for that group.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And a buyer or a client, I guess you didn't expect to have had some notoriety recently.
Speaker: Fill us in on that, Josh or Scott, whichever.
Speaker: I don't know who who's the bigger fan, maybe.
Speaker: Um, I'm happy to tell the story, but you know, if you go to a search engine and type in casket, you'll, you'll find us where we're really prominent online.
Speaker: So we often sell into movies and film and productions because that's, there'll be a, a, a stage hand or, you know, a person on set who finds us that way.
Speaker: And that's what happened here.
Speaker: Some, somebody placed an order over the summer.
Speaker: They told us for a, um, a prominent music production.
Speaker: Um, and so we shipped a copper casket out, not knowing what would happen next.
Speaker: Um, a few months go by, um, one day and it was the day after we were in front of the federal trade commission, arguing for a modernization of the funeral role.
Speaker: It was the next day.
Speaker: So we were all coming down from that.
Speaker: Um, one of our employees woke up very early cause we're always here and she's a big Swifty and she saw the video and she didn't, it was a hundred percent sure it was us, but she sent it out to the group.
Speaker: And Liz, who I mentioned, who had made the sale, reached out the production company and they said, Yep, that's you.
Speaker: It's me.
Speaker: About an hour later, her Swifties online had posted that here are all the things in this music video and here's the casket that was in it.
Speaker: And that's from Titan.
Speaker: And so we jumped right on that.
Speaker: And over the next few days, we got just a ton of press.
Speaker: And what was, you know, to us most excited, like, obviously it's a thrill to see one of the more famous, well-liked people on the planet climb out of the casket.
Speaker: But what got us really excited was all the articles and all the conversation was really about what we stand for is that families have rights, they have options.
Speaker: And, you know, tens of thousands of people became aware of that over the course of days.
Speaker: So whether...
Speaker: There's no way she knew this, but by choosing that casket, she really helped push our mission forward.
Speaker: She helped really shed a spotlight on what we do, essentially.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that's exactly it.
Speaker: And it's funny.
Speaker: I'm not a fan, but one of my best friends is a massive, massive fan.
Speaker: And so we always, you know, we go back and forth and we have our arguments about that.
Speaker: And she's just she's just not for me.
Speaker: She just drives me nuts a bit.
Speaker: However, I will give her I would shake her.
Speaker: You people like to be like, oh, you shake her hand.
Speaker: You're so gracious.
Speaker: But I absolutely shake her hand.
Speaker: I buy her a pint and I would say, listen,
Speaker: Taylor, fair play to you, because shining any sort of contemporary star, popular star like her shining a light on what we as a community do is incredible.
Speaker: And I don't think they realize, and as you kind of said,
Speaker: She wouldn't have realized all that she did for you guys.
Speaker: But it was also for me, it was not just for you.
Speaker: It was amazing, obviously, to see any startup.
Speaker: You know, for me, I'm, you know, massive support of any startup and trying to bring change into a very antiquated industry.
Speaker: to see, you know, you on the in the spotlight for a while and all that.
Speaker: But it's also about starting those conversations around the dinner table.
Speaker: And, you know, she's got so many young and teenage fans.
Speaker: And, you know, we just did an episode with the British president of the National Association of Funeral Directors, and he's trying to put forward an act on child bereavement as part of the curriculum over there.
Speaker: But it's, you know,
Speaker: the casket being in her video and all of a sudden all this publicity around it and around the video and there's always publicity around her brings those topics to the fore and allows
Speaker: people start talking about it and kind of like, well, would you be buried or cremated or what would your casket look like?
Speaker: And it can sound like almost a menial conversation, like it's a bit, you know, well, how is that really starting the conversation?
Speaker: It is.
Speaker: It's starting at just it plants little seeds that all of a sudden.
Speaker: If something happens to somebody, well, remember that time she said she wanted to be cremated, so now at least we know that or whatever it might be.
Speaker: It's these little conversations.
Speaker: So fair play, Taylor.
Speaker: I'll shake.
Speaker: Yeah, that's what our brand is all, you know, we're out here trying to make these conversations normal and OK to have because we know we know how beneficial that is.
Speaker: We talk to families every day who they come into the process informed and knowing the wishes of their loved one, you know, whether they buy from us or not.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: That's not what it's about.
Speaker: They just have they have better outcomes, more memorable goodbyes and just feel better about the process.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, pre-planning is a massive, massive thing we stand for in my company.
Speaker: I think it's so important, even if you just decide burial or cremation or one of the latest alkaline, you know, all the different varieties that are out now.
Speaker: But even if you just say burial or cremation, mom, which one?
Speaker: It's something so small as that.
Speaker: My mom probably give me a box.
Speaker: No, my poor parents have been they've been killed off so many times on my podcast.
Speaker: They're like, really?
Speaker: What happened to us?
Speaker: No, it's it's really, really such an important conversation to have.
Speaker: And so can I ask how the two of you and Liz, your third partner, how how did the three of you get into this or how did you for this threesome?
Speaker: Yeah, sure.
Speaker: I've been in the casket industry for over 20 years.
Speaker: I've been manufacturing, distributing, and in 2016, I started Titan Caskets, saw that there was a need.
Speaker: Selling online, I've been selling on Amazon for a while, and I went to Columbia Business School, so hasn't Josh, and I reached out to him.
Speaker: And he was working Amazon in Seattle.
Speaker: So I flew out to Josh and met him a few times.
Speaker: And we had lunch.
Speaker: We had a little napkin.
Speaker: We drew some sketches of his thoughts and what we were thinking about.
Speaker: And after that, we're off to the races, essentially.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It all starts with a napkin.
Speaker: That's what a lot of ideas start on.
Speaker: And he still has it over his right shoulder somewhere there, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's in a pile.
Speaker: It's in a pile.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: And so what is it just caskets specifically?
Speaker: Are we looking to venture into others?
Speaker: I mean, Josh, I can see an urn behind you and I think there's one behind you, Scott.
Speaker: I'm not sure.
Speaker: You never know with sort of the zooms and the fake back records.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: But yeah, what's the product line?
Speaker: Is it going to be considered?
Speaker: Well, the goal is ultimately to be the digital solution for funerals.
Speaker: But yeah, urns, pre-planning, you know, it's got expanded to other categories.
Speaker: Oh, very cool.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And Liz is the third partner.
Speaker: How did she factor into everything?
Speaker: Josh.
Speaker: So we're married.
Speaker: So, you know, early on...
Speaker: She's downstairs.
Speaker: She's doing a car pickup or school pickup with our three kids.
Speaker: We also have a casket downstairs.
Speaker: But when we, you know, Scott and I met in 20, shortly after he started the business in 2018, but I was at Amazon.
Speaker: And so I was providing counsel and advice, but I had another job.
Speaker: Liz, we traveled and then she was out of the workforce for several years after being an attorney.
Speaker: We were having kids and she was looking, she had done some e-commerce work on the side.
Speaker: And when we were talking about this idea over dinner, she was like, hey, that sounds really interesting.
Speaker: And so for a while before I got involved in the business, it was Liz and Scott who were growing it from Amazon.
Speaker: And so she runs all of our operations, all of our customer service.
Speaker: And so if you read the reviews on our site,
Speaker: that not there's plenty that mention her by name, but the rest sort of mention her by spirit because she runs that team and it's such a big part of what we do.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Well, you're only ever as good as as your your worst team members, they say.
Speaker: So, you know, you've got to keep everybody in, especially in in this sort of industry.
Speaker: It can be disheartening.
Speaker: You know, when you're having a bad day, things can seem worse.
Speaker: And, you know, life is is short.
Speaker: You start to see that and
Speaker: I'm sure you've probably had your fair amount of smaller coffin or casket requests and stuff where that can hit home.
Speaker: I know we've just done a couple of memorials recently, just suicides and young people.
Speaker: And it's just, yeah, it can really get in on you if you let it.
Speaker: But that's why I think it's so important for everybody to be around each other and be more of a community.
Speaker: Um, and sometimes it's not always like that.
Speaker: So, um, so what is the wildest request you've ever gotten?
Speaker: Wildest, um, I've made, let's see, a, someone bought a casket to make a electric go-kart.
Speaker: That's one of them.
Speaker: He put an engine in it and wheels and another person made a cooler.
Speaker: And with wheels also, so he can pull it behind his motorcycle.
Speaker: Another person made a grill out of one.
Speaker: So he wanted to use that, you know, put his charcoal and cook his ribs and whatnot.
Speaker: What else, Josh?
Speaker: We just made one for AMC's show, Interview with a Vampire.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, that's it.
Speaker: They submitted a custom design, which we built, and it sold within about an hour and a half.
Speaker: And we shipped it to a customer outside Philadelphia.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So like the movie set ones, you'll create it, but then they let you sell it off as well.
Speaker: So normally, no, normally we ship two movies to productions.
Speaker: I use it in the film.
Speaker: This was one they didn't use in the production.
Speaker: They used it as a, they had a sort of a night market, you know, as part of the promotion of the show that they were offering vampire-ish items.
Speaker: And so they just created this unique design.
Speaker: And then we, you know, which we can do, we build it for them and ship right away.
Speaker: That's very cool because when I did my book launch back, I'm starting to show my age, 10 years ago now, I kind of had a pseudo funeral.
Speaker: That was what I wanted the book launch to be.
Speaker: So I had hired the basement of a nightclub and I was this close to having a casket or coffin there present.
Speaker: But I decided against it.
Speaker: Well, more my mother decided against it.
Speaker: for me.
Speaker: She was a little too she was like, this is already enough.
Speaker: You know, because I had sort of my eulogy.
Speaker: I had some videos that I would want played.
Speaker: I had songs.
Speaker: I had the drink and the food.
Speaker: I mean, essentially what I'm about with in a memorial.
Speaker: But yeah, the only thing that was missing was a casket because I even wanted sort of the drinks to be served on it.
Speaker: I mean, I had all these ideas.
Speaker: I got poo-pooed by the Irish Mammy.
Speaker: That was that.
Speaker: The next book.
Speaker: I actually have written book.
Speaker: I'm on book three at the moment.
Speaker: So I think that this one could be could be a good one to have a casket at.
Speaker: But it is it's good to know that you you do these as props as well as obviously real life to be honest, because I know a lot of people obviously and being in New York, there's a film industry here, but I know a lot of people who whether it's fashion or film and stuff, it's interesting to know that these things are used.
Speaker: other than for your final resting place, you know?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, all the time.
Speaker: Certainly.
Speaker: It shouldn't be a product people are scared of, right?
Speaker: It's again about normalizing conversations.
Speaker: So Scott, a few, you know, in December brought one to the Gizmodo headquarters in New York and they did like a review of it just like you would do a normal, you know, iPhone.
Speaker: And so, you know, you use those just like we did with Taylor Swift, use those pop culture moments when it's okay to talk about this topic.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Try and insert yourself in the conversation.
Speaker: And just really try to create awareness.
Speaker: That's the key.
Speaker: You know, people know it's out there.
Speaker: We create awareness.
Speaker: And then we try to just educate.
Speaker: And that's the key.
Speaker: Because the person doesn't know in the states that they have that right to purchase a cask and send it to any funeral home.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And it's like the customizing of I mean, I've I work with both funeral homes, a bit similar to yourselves and private clients.
Speaker: And, you know, we've we've had canoe caskets, you know, there's there's people want different things and they want specific things.
Speaker: And like that, there is a fear.
Speaker: I know when I very, very first started my concept back in Ireland, there was I wanted a photo of there was a casket, a coffin again, back to standing, you know, propped up.
Speaker: And I wanted a photo of me in it.
Speaker: I was like, this is brilliant.
Speaker: This will, you know, make the news tomorrow and everything.
Speaker: I could not get one person to take a photo of me in it.
Speaker: Absolutely refused because they felt that I was I was dead if they were
Speaker: If I got into the casket, I was dead.
Speaker: It's so superstitious in Ireland.
Speaker: We are.
Speaker: But it's people have this fear of it.
Speaker: I mean, I think even in the Kardashians, didn't Kris Jenner, she hopped into a casket, tried one out.
Speaker: Remember?
Speaker: I don't know if you saw that.
Speaker: No, we'll look it up after.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Afterwards.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: No Kardashians.
Speaker: We have no Kardashians.
Speaker: You reach the limit of our very interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, no, it's it's it's definitely a fascinating thing.
Speaker: And and, you know, it's not all just goths and it's not all just sort of people of a certain.
Speaker: interest that are fascinated with it which i think i think that's why well when i got nicknamed the glam reaper in the media which still cracks me up because i'm no more glamorous than the man of the moon but anyway um i got nicknamed that because i think people were just shocked they're kind of like wait she smiles and she laughs and she's so positive that she you know i put up a picture of me on my instagram with um i think it's what's his name lurch from the adults family and then just
Speaker: It couldn't be more.
Speaker: But it's what persona is.
Speaker: You know, people don't know.
Speaker: I joke about it.
Speaker: Well, I joke, but kind of not really about a glittery pink coffin.
Speaker: But it's what people want, you know.
Speaker: There's some incredible casket designers in the UK.
Speaker: I know that started personalizing, you know, with like that race cars and dairy milk, chocolate covers and all sorts of things.
Speaker: Do you do, can I ask, do you do environmentally friendly versions of your caskets or what's your environment?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: We have a cardboard casket.
Speaker: We have solid wood with no metal in it.
Speaker: So we do have an environmentally, it will also have a wicker casket.
Speaker: Okay, very cool.
Speaker: Because that's hugely important and I think it's only going to go from strength to strength as people become more environmentally friendly and as these options like the composting, the natural organic reduction and alkaline hydrolysis just keep getting more and more traction.
Speaker: Very interesting.
Speaker: Well, guys, it was a pleasure having you on.
Speaker: Thank you so much for entertaining us with these stories and just bringing the idea of the casket slash coffin, whoever you're listening from, to the fore.
Speaker: And if there's any Swifties out there, they'll know what we're talking about.
Speaker: If you're not, look up Taylor's latest.
Speaker: Oh, my God.
Speaker: The anti-hero video.
Speaker: It's probably not even her latest video, is it?
Speaker: No, it was it was the first one from her latest album, Midnight's.
Speaker: She came in.
Speaker: The top ten songs on Spotify.
Speaker: It had all ten at one point.
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, she's a machine.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: Fair play to her.
Speaker: Well, thanks a million guys.
Speaker: And we'll leave all the links and everything below.
Speaker: And we'll watch this space.
Speaker: It sounds like you're just going from strength to strength.
Speaker: That was a nice episode with the two boys, Scott and Josh, talking all things Taylor Swift.
Speaker: I hope you enjoyed that episode and maybe it opened your mind to what casket you would like or coffin, depending on what part of the planet you're listening to us from.
Speaker: So maybe let us know.
Speaker: Glam Reaper podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: That's Glam Reaper podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: And we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker: Bye bye.
Speaker: Amen.
