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Episode 5 Teeco Steve's Journey to being a leader in the Tent Washing Game!
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From owning a tent rental store to now producing some of the best washers on the market. Teeco Steve's Journey is definitely one you will want to listen to!
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Transcript
Introduction to Tico Steve and Influences
00:00:00
Speaker
We are back again. ah got another special guest here today. i think as we're staying on the topic of revolutionizing the industry, you know, we had Ramsey on the other day, which was some great conversation ah with Forsey. We got another great special guest today.
00:00:14
Speaker
But as always, i got my great co-host here, Kyle. How's everyone doing today? Looking forward to today's episode, Nate. I'm excited about our guest. I don't know about you. Well, I think that we're a little late today because Ramsey's pitch was so good on the podcast the other day that Kyle had to do his demo and get lined out.
00:00:33
Speaker
So what'd you think? Yeah, I just left the 4C demo. I like it a lot. It's a matter of convincing someone that it's worth the money. So we'll see how that goes. But it's always worth the money. You just got to take the risk, right? And that's what this industry is. So and I think that's kind of where our next guest here, Tico Steve, is going to kind of tell us a little bit about everything that he's got going on in his world and how he's revolutionized the industry with what he's got and everybody that's willing to take the risk to you know buy his product and what he's about and how that's created a great work-life balance for him as well as everybody else in the industry. So
00:01:08
Speaker
like to introduce Chico, Steve. How you doing, Steve? Good morning, Kyle and Nate. I am doing awesome. Thank you so much for having me on I got to listen to ah my good friend. It's at 4C there, and it's going to be a tough actor follow because I've got a lot of respect for all the work that he's done, the life he's lived, and where his life's going. So...
00:01:28
Speaker
I'm excited to explore that today and continue that conversation on with you guys and just get to know you guys in the industry a whole lot better. So I'm doing great. Thank you. Yeah, great. Yeah, I think that the Ramsey's not even in the older generation, I would say, but, you know just listening to his story and how he's lived.
00:01:43
Speaker
And that's what's cool about this whole podcast and this whole situation is just hearing everybody's story and know I'm only 35 but have been in it for 21 years and it feels like an eternity and we feel like we're part of the old group but this industry will beat you up and spit you out if you let it and I think that you've kind of figured that out Steve and have helped with that so it doesn't happen Yes, very much so. Very much so.
Steve's Journey into Tent Rental
00:02:06
Speaker
I've got a story that I don't know how I ended up, if I would look forward and said, how am I going to be in a tent rental business that was never on my radar growing up, not even close to you know coming out of college and very serendipitously fell into it. But I look back and it was just very much a part of the plan, if you will.
00:02:22
Speaker
And I'm just very grateful that it did fall on my lap. So on that note, yeah. Tell us all about it. Yeah, let's hear how you, because nobody nobody jumps into this and says, I want to be a tank guy. And that's what Kyle and I have talked about other than Kyle. I mean, Kyle's born into it, although he tried to escape it and somehow got sucked back into it. So yeah.
00:02:40
Speaker
Couldn't tell you. Let's hear your story, Steve, and how you got here. Yes. Well, my story, you know I'm going to start all the way back like a childhood, like lay on the couch. Let's talk about childhood because it's all relevant for me. you know i grew up here in St. Louis. I'm a St. Louis boy through and through, still live in the area here.
00:02:55
Speaker
and My mom and dad, they just taught me a work ethic to grind and grind and grind and grind. and They were awesome. They are awesome people. Still around today, very active, love them to death.
00:03:06
Speaker
and They built a very nice life for themselves from nothing. And it was all about doing and grinding and making it happen. You know, they built multiple businesses and were able to provide very well for their family.
00:03:19
Speaker
So that was kind of my background coming into things. And, you know I can remember coming out of high school and i had the opportunity to attend any college that I wanted, but i really had the desire to get out there and make it happen.
00:03:32
Speaker
I really didn't want to go to college, but I went anyway and I promptly flunked out real quick. Yeah. had lot fun, but it took me about a semester to make that happen. And I went out in the work field and I just hammered it.
00:03:43
Speaker
Did really well, but realized, wow, there's going to be a glass ceiling here. I'm not going to make it through there. And I started to bump on that ceiling within about a year. And I can remember coming down off a ladder. I you was installing a heating and air conditioning in an attic. It was 100 degrees outside of glue and insulation on a piece of duct work.
00:03:59
Speaker
I had insulation all over me, glue coming down off that ladder, sweating. I drove straight over to local university, signed up. It was like July 30th. I walked in. I said, what do I got to do? I said, sign up here. Didn't have to go through anything.
00:04:11
Speaker
And cranked out four years of college. And ah right as I was ending up the four years of college, you know life got really fast for me real quick. Because what happened was I met this gal. ah now my wife I know this. I know how this works.
00:04:25
Speaker
It all starts like that, doesn't it? Yep. Always. So needless to say, we had a good time. And about six months later, we found out that we were pregnant. And about six weeks after that, we were married.
00:04:39
Speaker
So in one year, in the true kind of grit fashion, make it happen, get it all done, i graduated college. I found my first real job. I got married. We had a child and I bought a home.
00:04:51
Speaker
So like, you know, what you're trying to tell me is, We should be thanking our wives for why we're on this call together today because it's bringing us together. I know. Remember about your stories. That's what kind of lies. I listen to your stories. I'm like, you know what? I'll own that all day long.
00:05:05
Speaker
Absolutely. He's absolutely my soulmate. I've been married to her for coming up on 33 years. in m Oh, congratulations. There is no way that I would be the person I am today without her. I mean, I would be like in the dirt somewhere. They're our sounding board. They are our punching bag sometimes. and we can kind get everything out. and But they still greet us with open arms. They totally do. And, you know, she did at that point, too. It was it was a tumultuous moment.
00:05:28
Speaker
But we just locked arms and took off. And she just followed. yeah And, you know, i we're doing some work for a local company selling welding supplies and gases and things like that. That was an awesome family-owned company, and they gave me all kinds of opportunities.
00:05:43
Speaker
In a period of about six, seven years, I climbed the ladder very quickly there. up into some upper management stuff. Then I had the itch to go out and do my own thing. I was going to go out and buy a junkyard. I thought I had it all sewn up. I quit my job.
00:05:55
Speaker
About a week later, that whole thing fell through. It was a dream of mine to own a junkyard. Then really wanted to do my own thing still. So i knew I had called on a company here that was building awnings and um renting tents. At that time, that was a thing.
00:06:08
Speaker
hit The awning companies were tent rental companies. And I thought, wow, that'd be really cool to get into. And you guys are shaking your head. You're like, ah yeah I know where you're going, aren't I know where you're going, right? Oh, yeah. Because I thought, you know, you're they're out there in the summertime, they're out there in shorts, in the wintertime, they're not doing a whole lot, but, you know, it sounds cool. and Everything they're is fun and weddings and that kind of thing. So that whole thing drew
Building the Tent Business
00:06:27
Speaker
me in.
00:06:27
Speaker
Everyone from the outside looking in thinks this is such a great business. great business, man. get suntan, work with great people, everybody's happy all the time. And to be fair, it is when it's a summer job or you're in college or if you're in high school and and you want to come out and get a good workout in, you want to get some sun, it's great.
00:06:46
Speaker
But at the end of the day, when you make it a career, it's a totally different ballgame. Oh, it totally is. It totally is. So my wife and I, scoundled up our life savings and we we went down the ARA show. We didn't know a tent from anything. We never put one up in our life.
00:07:00
Speaker
We bought a bunch of tents from the one of the suppliers down there and This was like February and we didn't have any at that time with the yellow pages to get your name out. We had no ad in the yellow pages. Nobody knew us.
00:07:11
Speaker
Where was the ARA show that year? That was in ah New Orleans. Yeah. Okay. you know what year that was? That was about 1997. Yes, we started in 97. Okay. That's crazy. Yeah. You just took a whim and showed up at an ARA show and decided to restart buying tents. Oh, we totally did. So when you were at the show, who who did you go see?
00:07:31
Speaker
What manufacturers did you first go to and what drew you to them? And then was there anybody from this industry that greeted you right away that you kind of clicked with? Oh my gosh, that's a good question because such great memories from that show. I'm going to you the answers in in a little funny story about one vendor in particular who is a very good friend of mine now.
00:07:47
Speaker
But we didn't know any vendors. I mean, i you know that the internet wasn't around at that point. i can go like Google and find out. you know So we just walked in. AOL was just getting mailed to your mailbox? Pretty much. Yeah, that's it. you know So we walked in and so it was like you know speed dating because I was going to go to business. I had money in my pocket and ready to go. We were going to walk out and have bought something.
00:08:07
Speaker
So it was like, learn what this thing's all about and buy something. Right. At the time, you know, Anchor was very, and they're only three hours from me. And my my mom's family, so half my cousins all live there.
00:08:18
Speaker
So I'm very familiar with the town. We visited them and they were very accommodating. It was very obvious that they had, you know, but probably the top quality, one of the top quality products at the time. And they were very informative and sat me down during the middle of the show and educated me in all that.
00:08:32
Speaker
So that was awesome. You know, I went to Eureka at the time and that's where I met Jeff Gefter. He, at the time was was a rep there. and The other company that I remember was Academy.
00:08:43
Speaker
They're no longer around. Yeah. You know. at the end of the day, i ended up buying my order from Academy. Really? Because, and it really, I mean, the end of the day, you you started and you got X amount of money in your pocket.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yep. And like I could get a number of tents, a number of like many more than I could get from Anchor or even at ah Eureka at the time, you know, but I didn't know quality from not quality.
00:09:05
Speaker
Right. What was your initial investment? If you don't mind. I think I had about 60 grand in my pocket. Okay. Okay. So you had some money to go into it. Yeah. I mean, in 1987, that was a decent number. Yeah. Well, I mean, it still is. If like what we talked about the other day, if you're working for a paycheck and you want to make just a hundred and something thousand a year with you and your wife and one other person, or maybe just you and your wife, then you can take 60 grand and go buy some tents like that. So it makes sense.
00:09:29
Speaker
Oh, you totally could. You totally could. That's exactly what we did. You nailed it. You nailed it, Nate. That's exactly what we did, you know, but I'll never forget. That was, I wouldn't do it that same way. Again, we'll put it that way. is just You know, I would definitely the ah pokerton and learn a little bit more what quality meant. In hindsight, I definitely would have learned a little bit more about what it meant for labor costs, variable costs, you know, and buying material based around that product around that, you know, but I didn't learn that lesson in for another the four years.
00:09:54
Speaker
But I'll have to share a funny story with you because Jeff Geppner, if any of you know him. Oh, yeah. Industry veteran. And he doesn't mind telling you exactly what's on his mind. Yep. And he looked at me and he said, son, are you sure you want to be in this business? You need to run.
00:10:08
Speaker
And boy, I tell you what, you don't tell a 20 some odd year old male who's just full of grit and you know a vinegar that. Yep. He pretty much kissed me off at that point.
00:10:20
Speaker
So when he followed up with me a week or two later, I told him, I said, I'm going to make it happen. And I'm going to make this thing happen. I'm not buying your product. you know, I hope Jeff's listening because and I are really good friends today. And we we tell that story every other time we're together.
00:10:33
Speaker
ah love that. You know, and I really wish I would have stopped and had the wherewithal to lose my ego and really ask him what he meant by that. But, you know, i I didn't have the capacity to do that. i didn't have the self-knowledge to do that.
00:10:45
Speaker
And I would have been off to a much better start. I had i asked that one question. yeah that Well, we're going to have to get Jeff on at some point and ask him exactly what he meant by that. Yeah, absolutely. Jeff would be a great guest. He's still in the world, keeps his finger in things, but he's kind of, I would call him semi-retired.
00:11:01
Speaker
You know how it is. Once you get in, you cannot get out of this. No. It's so hard to get out. It's crazy. Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. So you went to the show, you kind of made that connection, you bought a bunch of those tents, and then where'd you go with them?
00:11:14
Speaker
I brought him back and I was working on my dad's barn. It's the Quinto Central story. You guys hear it all the time. You know, I'm writing it on the podcast, knows it. Working out of a barn, I bought a pickup truck. You know, i had a couple of firemen friends and had a couple of days off here and there. and I knew some college kids and off I went.
00:11:28
Speaker
You know, so needless to say, pardon my French, but I just spent the next three years just busting my ass. I mean, we were, we were going, yeah you know, i was, it was all the story, you know, lots of the bravado and get her done and long hours and all that, you know, so, you know, kind of fast forward.
00:11:45
Speaker
Three, three and a half years, you know, we owned a building. i was still married. who had we had three kids by then. So the family was growing. They had a number of trucks, had employees. So, you know, by all accounts on the business side of things, my balance sheet looked awesome. We were cash flowing positive.
00:12:01
Speaker
i was showing some decent profit, you know, so I had broken all the records from a business standpoint at that point. But at that point, you know, a really key thing in my life happened because, man, I can, I tell this story just like it happened yesterday for me. Yeah. I i walked in the house.
00:12:17
Speaker
It was in the middle of the summer and I put a 12 hour day in, and but you know, it was just following a string of other 12 hour days. And at that point, my oldest son, he was about, you know, a little above knee high there.
00:12:28
Speaker
He looked at me and screamed and went over to his mom. And, I knew, i mean, something just shifted inside of me and like I didn't really know what it was, but I can tell you, I wasn't smiling.
00:12:39
Speaker
It hurt. It hurt hard, you know? And I thought something's wrong here and I don't even know what the hell it is, you know? And I thought I walked in that door, but you know, but right before that threshold, feeling really good about having done, provided for that family.
00:12:55
Speaker
And i I made it six more inches in and that whole thing shabbed. I mean, that one key moment, it was like there was somebody speaking to my head, my soul, my heart. And I didn't really hear, understand that message, but I knew something had to change.
00:13:09
Speaker
It just gave me goosebumps. I mean, it was, it was crazy. Yeah. and that really started my journey. That started my journey to where I'm sitting here today. I knew I had to make some changes. and had to start to know my wife a little bit more because at that point, yeah, we were married.
00:13:24
Speaker
I said, obviously, I didn't know my kids because they ran away. you know Yeah. Certainly, I wouldn't spend any time friends. That was a non-starter. Whatever time I was spending, my wife just arranged those gatherings and I showed up.
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah. you know So that just started the journey.
Work-Life Balance and Business Insights
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah. So I think that's one of the biggest things that we try to talk about nowadays is just trying as this next generation comes around. And as you move into this work-life balance talk here,
00:13:49
Speaker
It's so hard to get caught up in it and not separate everything and work too much in the business instead of on the business nowadays. And I think that's where everybody loses themselves is everybody wants so hard to grind and make this a bigger thing and and grow their business. But at the end of the day, we're so hyper-focused on it that we get caught up in working in the business instead of on the business.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then it becomes a struggle of how do you get out now? You know, like Darren Randall said, Houston Tencent Events needs to run as Houston Tencent Events. It doesn't need to run as Darren Randall Events.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yes. And so that's where the struggle is in this industry. And I think that's where you're going with this is the work-life balance that took you to that. Yes. And you nailed it. I mean, Darren's got it exactly right. It can't be Darren's company. Right.
00:14:35
Speaker
Right. And at that point, it was my company. it was Steve's company. You know, my name was up there, even though it didn't say my name, it said the tent event. But if I keeled over dead right then, nobody would know how to run that thing. Right.
00:14:46
Speaker
You know, and it would go on in a week. But the reality was, you know, I had talked to my wife and spent some time talking to some some people that I respected. And I was either going to get out of that business completely or something had to change.
00:14:59
Speaker
So I decided to give a whirl and make something change. I really wasn't sure what had to change. So I made some commitments to my wife to say that, you know what, I'm going to be home at five o'clock. I'm not going to be like leaving the office, which didn't ever meant, you know, leaving office at five means you're not leaving until seven. and Yeah.
00:15:17
Speaker
That is so true. I'm going to be home at five. Yeah. And whatever it takes to make that happen, I'm going to start doing that. And so that was kind of the first line in the sand.
00:15:28
Speaker
So what I did was actually started with my books. And I started just studying my books and my costs and my sales and and trying to understand what what am I going to change here? What do I start? Because it seemed overwhelming.
00:15:42
Speaker
you know Do I buy different equipment? Do i hire different people? Is my culture right? ah Do I processes? What is it? And at that point, I read a book called The E-Myth. A guy I really respected in business, I went to lunch with him and he said, you need to write read a book called The E-Myth.
00:15:58
Speaker
um Michael Gerber. Anybody on this podcast, I would highly recommend that you go on Amazon and buy that book. You can listen to it or read it either way. But if this story is resonating with you, I know Kyle and Nate, you're shaking your head over there. Yes.
00:16:11
Speaker
It's a fable. It talks about a baker doing the same thing, kind of starting from scratch, and then the trials when they hit their head at the same place that I hit. and That story really resonated with me. and What Michael Gerber but promoted at that point was developing processes.
00:16:26
Speaker
So I started looking at that and I said, well, look at my books. What do I got tackle first? What's my biggest thing holding me back? And so I would literally go out in the field and you know my my guy, my crew had go out and set up a tent and I would drive around and I would sneak through the woods and I would just sit there with a stopwatch.
00:16:44
Speaker
I wasn't worried about whether they were working or not. I was just worried. I wanted to know how long it took them to unload the truck. How long it was taking to drive the stake? How long it was taking to lay the tent top out? How was it to lace the tent top? I just started writing everything down.
00:16:54
Speaker
I was sitting the next retreat and just did that. And I kept doing that. And then I would do the same thing with my like loading trucks. I'd sit in my office, but you know i'd I'd look out my window and just they didn't know I'm watching them. I'm just recording stuff. you know And then I'm i'm done. like Every little thing in my business, I'm starting to watch. I'm just recording.
00:17:12
Speaker
And what I found out was, oddly enough, this would have never, ever come across my radar. I found out that washing and keeping tents clean was my biggest roadblock.
00:17:22
Speaker
Because I'd always looked at that like, okay, all I got to do is sit with a stopwatch and time how quickly it takes them to clean it. But what I realized was that's only a small part of the puzzle.
00:17:36
Speaker
Because where i make my money, my revenue comes from the shelf to shelf. There is a clean, dry tent top sitting on the shelf. The phone rings. It gets loaded on a truck, set up, come back in, wash, dried, put back on the shelf.
00:17:50
Speaker
Or if it's clean, put back on the shelf. And the faster that cycle can happen, the more profitable I'll be. but so Right? So what I was doing was i was taking all my profit and buying more tents because I couldn't keep up with the dirty stuff.
00:18:07
Speaker
So when I was doing that for about four weeks out of the year when I was really, really busy. So we stopped getting busy, we'd catch up again. But what I realized was I was taking all my profit, buying more tents for about three or four weeks of the entire year.
00:18:19
Speaker
And know what's funny is I bet a lot of people listening to this are going to be shaking head going, Yeah, that sounds about like what I do. Yeah. And how were you cleaning your tents before? What were you doing? We had a little bitty warehouse. I think we had like a 35 or 4,000 square foot warehouse. So, you know, it would be like, oh, hey, stop cleaning. We'd put them on the floor.
00:18:37
Speaker
We'd better brush out. We start brushing them. Yeah. You know, the floor was dirty, had to put a drop cloth down and during a busy time, you know, the guys wanted to load the truck, but everybody's got to stop and and clean this tent. You know, and that was, right I started looking at the process. I'm realizing, wow, those are remember more costs.
00:18:53
Speaker
When we're busy, we got to stop everything to clean this tent, which means you can't load the trucks. We're doing this after hours and the guys are tired. They're getting crabby because they don't like to do the work. We don't get the tent clean enough. return And we send it to the wedding and the gal calls me at five o'clock on Friday. course.
00:19:08
Speaker
Then I got to send the already tired guys back out to clean the tent, you know? And so it just, it just snowballed so fast. You know, my marketing, all that marketing and advertising I spent to Mrs., you know, high end in the best part of town. Now she's telling all her friends how much I suck.
00:19:25
Speaker
Because, you know, I had a dirty tent. So I started looking at my books. I'm like, holy cow, this is bigger than just sitting there with a scrub brush and and recording that amount of time. You know, I've got to get this so that I can hire anybody, go back there, press the button. these things can come out clean. Yeah. And it's got to be done in a small space and they got to be able to quick.
00:19:45
Speaker
the key of that was quick. It's got to be done fast for my busy time. Boom, boom, boom. You know, so anyway, I get very excited about that moment because as as I relive it, I'm realizing, wow, that that was is a turning point.
00:19:56
Speaker
It was a total turning point. I had no no ambition to be in in the tent washing world. But it's amazing how you took the initiative to walk out there with a stopwatch and figure out where the efficiencies were.
00:20:06
Speaker
And you weren't even a big company at that point. No, it was just a matter of, hey, I've got something going on here and I got figure out what it is. And I am, I just got to figure out the efficiencies. Well, I think that that really was driven by my commitment to my wife.
00:20:19
Speaker
and I'm going to be home at five o'clock, what that meant was I can't be out there swinging the sledgehammer myself. Right. Period. I mean, I'm going to draw the land. It's not just sand, I'm drawing the concrete. If this thing is not going to turn around, i have to stop, you know?
00:20:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's huge that you that you took it upon yourself to recognize that and be able to walk away from that, you know? Yeah. So from there, you kind of, did you just decide to start drawing some stuff up and coming up with the design? Who did you get with?
00:20:47
Speaker
What made you sit on the washing machine of all things? cause Was there another product? Yeah. Yeah, when I'm thinking about cleaning and now I'm thinking, okay, now I've got inefficiencies. First thing I'm thinking is, okay, so if I go by this piece, if I go by this chemical, this mop, you know, I don't, my brain would have never went to a washer.
00:21:05
Speaker
So that was great. So how did you get to that? How did you get to a washing machine?
Innovating the Tent Cleaning Process
00:21:09
Speaker
Well, as you ask the question, probably has to do it by growing up. you know, I wasn't, I never spent any time in sports. I'm a sports idiot to this day, but I raced cars. I built race cars. I built demolition derby cars. I raced motorcycles. I mean, I was a gearhead supreme.
00:21:25
Speaker
I would built all kinds of stuff and so did my brother. So we had that that mechanical background yeah of things. And at the same time, my brother was starting a machine shop and a fabrication shop.
00:21:37
Speaker
So, you know, what I knew was, look, in order to get these tents clean, I can't rely on labor. That's my big problem, period. So I got to mechanize that part so that as a manager, it goes in some sort of a machine, you know, the press of button or some very simple things that comes out cleaned.
00:21:55
Speaker
That's really what my starting point was, some kind of a machine. Right. Cause I was thinking about like, okay you know, at the turn of the century, my great grandmother was washing my clothes on some washboard, yeah you know, and, and and scrubbing them. That's how I'm doing my tops here. You know, like 150 years later, this is crazy.
00:22:12
Speaker
You know, my grandmother had. And what year was this? This was 1999. So you're already revolutionizing. Like you're thinking way ahead, 10, almost 10 years ahead at this point to go to a washing machine like this.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah. And so we'd built our first one in 99, you know, okay but we did it because I guess we we were blessed with the mechanical background. And I literally, I knew what it had to look like. I mean, obviously a big drum, it had to be really, really simple because I really wanted to buy one. I didn't want to build one.
00:22:40
Speaker
And when I went to go buy one at the time, they were like, you know, $175,000 linen company on it that would never use. and had a you know fifty features on that would never use And then I call at that same time, you know, John Crabby, I think it was from Vermont Tent.
00:22:56
Speaker
Yeah. He was washing tents and because he owned a big linen machine. Okay. And he had problems with them. And Anker came out and said, you know, no longer washing a washing machine. I said, well, if I can't mechanize this, I'm out of business.
00:23:07
Speaker
I'm done. it So I called John. I said, well, why is it failing? You know, and he gave me some hints, but he didn't really know. Well, and you wonder if like Anker came out that statement only because they know if you start washing them, you're not going to buy as many.
00:23:19
Speaker
Well, I think maybe later they did, but I don't think at the time they did because when I listened to John's story... He literally shrank a lot of his inventory and he had all anchor stuff, ah you know, so it came out clean, but he was trying to stretch it over framework. At that time it was the West coast frames that really, yeah you know, if you're five inches short, you're not pulling it over, you know?
00:23:40
Speaker
So he ruined a lot of his inventory. And then he also had a pinholes in degradation to the, you know, so they were looking at that say, well, you know, why would we ever get behind that? So you dug in and found out what the issue was then?
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, we built like this prototype and it was, you know, very rigged up thing. And I, what we wanted to know was, okay, how can we destroy a tent? How fast do we got to turn it? What's the temperature? What kind of chemicals are going to destroy it? And so we started just putting tents in there and figuring how to destroy them.
00:24:08
Speaker
Okay. So once we knew how to destroy them, we also knew how to do it safely. Got it. Right. Yep. So that took us a couple months of just kind of, you know, just doing these stupid little experiments. So what was the size of the first machine that you went ahead and built?
00:24:22
Speaker
ah It was the size that the guys at LNA bought first. We called it our, I think the model, we called it a model 2000 to begin with it because it was the year 2000. Yeah. But that way it became known as the model 3000 later. Okay. Wait, that's really what I always thought it was the square footage was the number.
00:24:36
Speaker
Well, the first time I assigned it was the year 2000. two thousand Then very shortly thereafter, I made to square footage because we introduced some different sizes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So Kyle was on the forefront of like, he probably weren't, but Brian was on the forefront of the washing machine right there. No, I wasn't even here when you bought the first one.
00:24:54
Speaker
He really was. There was a handful of kind of pioneers and and in those first number of years, and Brian was one of them, that took ah you know i that took a chance on me. And as the Bryans of the world, the Stanford Tents of the world, Diamettes of the world bought it, you know everybody else started realizing, wow, if they're having success, maybe I should buy it.
00:25:14
Speaker
So why did you pick that size? Why didn't you just go big early? Why did you pick the size that you picked? Because i realize really building it for myself. And at that point I had, but don't know, three or four 60 foot wide tents and I need to be able to wash that 60 by 30 in. Okay. so that's kind of where it was.
00:25:29
Speaker
So the biggest piece of material that fit in that first washer that you built was 60 by 30 in? We could do 3000 square feet of like sidewall on that. Okay. But if I was doing that 60 by 30, that would fit it in by itself.
00:25:39
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. So this is to roughly 2000. You build the first one. You're still running the business, the rental company.
00:25:51
Speaker
You're destroying your tent tops from your rental company in the process. So having to buy more inventory. So I don't know who's winning here. Anchor's loving me now, right?
00:26:03
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Anchor's like, okay, I can get behind this whole washing machine thing. Yeah. No, by the time I was doing it for myself, we had all that figured out. Okay. Okay. So before we ever told anybody we would buy including myself, before I used it, we figured out all that. I mean, literally, that's what we set out to do. The very first thing we did, it took us a a couple months to do, you know, but.
00:26:23
Speaker
So first year of business, how many, how many washers went out the door? Oh, I didn't sell my, but this is where Jeff Geppner comes back in the picture. Okay. Because i I built it for myself. I had no intention of selling it to anybody.
00:26:34
Speaker
you know And at that point, Jeff Geppner was starting at this almost identical time. yeah had found a washing machine for a company called Ellis. They're a huge company across the world. yeah And he asked them if he could retrofit it. It had a bunch of features on it that we would never use.
00:26:49
Speaker
So he got somebody over there to retrofit a handful of them He started selling them. And it's like a bulletproof machine. It's big. In fact, you know we'd actually rebuilt some of those in the last 10 years. soon They load from the top, don't they?
00:27:01
Speaker
They can load from the top or the side because you can rotate that door kind of wherever you want. Yeah. It had a neat feature because you could dump it out. Yeah. The drum was high enough and you could we rotate to the bottom. The smaller pieces would fall out.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yeah. But Jeff walked into my shop one day and called on me. And you know by this time, i was friends with him again. and And i was buying stuff from him, actually.
00:27:23
Speaker
and bought my 60-foot wide tension. That's amazing. He looked at me. he says, hey, you mind if I sell that? I'm like, yeah, whatever. Go ahead. And I was like that flip about it. So like fast forward, two weeks later, he calls me. he says, okay, I got it sold. going down to Louisiana.
00:27:36
Speaker
Then he sold it I'm like, holy shit. up here um your your Your personal machine? Yeah, the one I had. God. So I built a new one. And then he sold a few more. Then I sold a few more.
00:27:48
Speaker
And then what happened was my personal life continued to, like I got better at coming home at five o'clock.
Prioritizing Family and Personal Growth
00:27:55
Speaker
I was making progress because you know not only was I playing with the process of cleaning, but I started playing with what's it look like in the field? How do I get my tents up faster, loaded better and all that?
00:28:05
Speaker
So I was looking at a lot more process, but I came home one day and I realized Man, you know, I'm making progress here, but my kids are growing up faster than I'm making progress. Right.
00:28:16
Speaker
You know, and so the the speed at which I'm doing it is not really working. And it hit me really quickly that, you know what? I could sell these wash machines as long as my I keep my costs down.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah. Right. There was no competitors at that time. and wasn't selling a lot. I think I sold like three that year, you know, but I realized, you know, if I shared an office with my dad, like the back of his office,
00:28:40
Speaker
This is when cell phones were just now becoming accepted. I could carry a cell phone. I end up to be there every day. i could develop an ACT database, which which is like the predecessor to like Salesforce. And I could just start working on that. and And by nature, I'm a salesperson. I'm a marketing and sales guy. That's really where I shine.
00:28:58
Speaker
So I realized that, you know, my brother, I don't to manage up any of the building at all, you know, because I could never really build a manufacturing facility to build free machines here. But my brother's company was taking off. He was building for other people, stuff just like it.
00:29:12
Speaker
So he could build them for me. I had no competitors and had value proposition that was very high. But I knew for sure it was going to be slowly accepted into the industry. because very slow. Just like anything else in this industry.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah. Slow coming in. Innovation is hard in this industry. Yeah. But when it comes in, yeah it clicks. It's it yeah on a roll. So I decided that, you know what? I'm going to change my life goals and I am going to not chase the money, not chase the business growth,
00:29:41
Speaker
And this business will give me enough money to survive it every year. And I can just wake up, you know, on January 1st, my wife and I will talk about it. I'll say, okay, what do we need this year to to raise this family? And I made a commitment to be with my wife and be with my family and be with my friends at a much deeper level at that point, even though I'd started the journey because this grace, this gift was on my plate.
00:30:00
Speaker
I mean, can you imagine you don't have any competitors, you got a value proposition up the ceiling and somebody else to build it. And as soon as everybody who got it, they were they were loving it. you know And they were telling everybody. And you got Gepner pushing it. and i had de pretty Exactly. And and Gepner was you know he was an awesome sales guy.
00:30:16
Speaker
So me and Gepner were pushing. So it was like, I can do this. I'm not going to be rich, but I i don't want to be rich anymore. I don't want to be, it's not no longer like a priority for me right now. These kids are.
00:30:28
Speaker
More money, more problems. But these kids are. And you know, later I heard a little thing on a meme that talked about, you know, when your children, by the time they're 18, as a parent, you would have spent 90% of the amount of time in their whole life that you're going spend with them.
00:30:41
Speaker
And that was right. You know, so here are my kids kind of five, six, seven years old. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, they're going to be gone. And you know, I was doing some work with somebody who was helping me along. And i realized that, you know, I could be rich And I could be living in this big glass, call it the glass castle, you know?
00:31:00
Speaker
And I've watched a lot of guys ahead of me that chase all that stuff. And they had friends, but they only had friends who were willing to be with them when they had the money. see As soon as things turned around, those friends were gone.
00:31:11
Speaker
They had no deep friends because they didn't spend the time in the relationships. Right. You know, I watched people that were built empires and they were retiring and they had nothing to do. They lost their purpose they were dying.
00:31:23
Speaker
mean, that's pretty serious. Yeah. You know, watch people build their empire at a young age only to get divorced. And then they lose half the stuff. So practically speaking, I'm like, why did you build the empire? Because you lost half of it.
00:31:35
Speaker
And you pay a lot of more to the ah to the lawyers. Now you're back to zero. Not all that, but you got into relationships. And then they do it again. and again. it happens again again and again. and again yeah You know, I want to be that person, you know, and I'm let's still criticized to that.
00:31:50
Speaker
But I woke up. it's I don't want to be that person. And I have an opportunity here to not be that person. but I've got a lot of learning ahead of myself. You know, so really the washing machines were just a tool for me to to better my own business, to start looking at it and do going through that process.
00:32:06
Speaker
And I did a great job of building that business. I got rid of that business. It was the dumbest business decision I've ever made in my entire life. It was the best personal decision I ever made. yeah You know, I went to my competitor at the time and I said, Steve and John, you need to buy me. And they laughed.
00:32:21
Speaker
You know, you guys both know him. Steve and John Trabi. John since passed. Two weeks later, I called him back. I said, you didn't hear me, did you? You need to buy me. Two weeks after that, we I sold everything to him. Wow. I just liquidated. What year was this? That was 2001. And how big were you guys at that point? I think we were eight or nine hundred thousand in sales.
00:32:41
Speaker
you know Okay, so that's pretty good at that time. wasn't bad for that time. you know Yeah, yeah. I had cash flow. I have very low fall off of customers. Customers love me. So had I stuck around and my brother and my dad always said, man, why you just take your time to sell a damn business? You would have made a hell lot more.
00:32:57
Speaker
No, this priority was like, this my heart was exploding at that point. You knew what you had to do. You knew what you had to do for the betterment of your family. That's exactly it. And you know i didn't know what I didn't know what that was going to hold, but my wife just held my hand and off we went.
00:33:11
Speaker
That's what I was going to... You reference your wife a lot. So at that time when you're going through this like 99 to 2001 struggle and you're figuring it out and and you get this machine going and you kind of realize that this is a thing, where's she at in this whole thing? where Was she in the industry with you? was she...
00:33:28
Speaker
You know, we tried to get her involved in the the rental business at that point, you know, because the model that I grew up with, my my mom and dad were like, you know, hand in hand. My mom was always a good bookkeeper. She was sharp with the books.
00:33:39
Speaker
My dad was just a good business person, but he didn't necessarily, he knew the books from a gut level. She knew them from the academic level. And so my wife by nature is not a bookkeeper. She's an artist and she's awesome at that.
00:33:51
Speaker
So I tried to make her a bookkeeper that didn't work.
00:33:55
Speaker
She probably felt like a caged animal at that point. Yeah. it It just didn't work. You know, we had the wrong person, the wrong slot. And We had three kids at home. at And to take the time out and and try to find places for them and while she tried to work, it wasn't you anywhere near economical for us.
00:34:12
Speaker
you know So she kind of stepped out of the business. So by at this point, she was firmly entrenched in raising, the her job was to be with those children and to raise our family. you know And at the time, probably wouldn't have said it, but I will absolutely own it now. Raise me, and keep me straight. Keep my head screwed on.
00:34:28
Speaker
Right. didn't realize she was doing that to me at that time, but she definitely was. you know. Okay. She was in the background basically like ah cheering you on through this thing because she knew that she knew at some point that there was an end in sight and that you were working towards an end. Yeah, I think so. And I don't know if I'd call it in hindsight a cheerleader as much as just an unbelievable foundation. Right. You know, and and I'm not sure I acknowledge at the time. i feel a little bad about that. But, you know, when you come home and she's just got the, she's, the kids are calm and she's calm and, and she knows that I need that. I don't even know that.
00:34:59
Speaker
Your kids are calm. They were. That, I need to figure that one out. It was all her, you know, and she's just, I think innately knew what I needed. i needed a calm place and I didn't, not sure I knew, I knew that, you know.
00:35:12
Speaker
Yeah. That's amazing. So 2001, you went all in on on the machine. At that point, did ah how did you come upe with the name? did you Where did you start? where did Now you sold your business off?
00:35:23
Speaker
Because, I mean, how did you just decide that, hey, this is what it's going to be? This is where we're going? Well, i and install ah I sold a few of them already when I was you know in the rental business. Yeah. And I can't remember who i was on the phone with, but one of my you know first like four customers, they said, well, what's the name of the equipment company?
00:35:39
Speaker
I'm like, Uh, uh, well, it's, uh, it's, uh, Tico. So the name of the rental company was 10th event. Okay. And I always about, if I ever started another company, I would never have my name into, you know, want to be able to do whatever I wanted to do. Yeah.
00:35:53
Speaker
I want to name it like Amoco or something like they meant nothing. So Tico is the 10th event equipment company. Oh, see, I never do that. Yeah, so I mean, literally, that was like a 15-second, like, what's the name your company? Uh, Tico.
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, but nowadays, I'm sorry, but your name goes with Tico. mean, whenever you hear Tico, it's followed by Steve. It's Tico Steve. Yeah. So now it's ingrained. And that has, that Tico Steve totally came from Ramsey.
00:36:19
Speaker
Yeah. It totally came from Ramsey. He's, and he named me. ah That's awesome. Yeah. So, okay. You went in, named the company and then who did you get with to then mass produce these machines? It was still my brother. He was manufacturing all the machines. And that was, that was kind of one of the key foundations that I knew I could do because I didn't have to, I trusted the manufacturer.
00:36:39
Speaker
I could come in and make, i knew we were still making changes, you know, and this was going to be, uh, the next 10 or 15 years. We're never going to be selling a lot of them is back for the whole life of the company. We're never, it's, so we're never going to be like Maytag. Yeah.
00:36:51
Speaker
You know, so I need to have, need somebody I trust on the manufacturing side who can keep up with whatever volume I might throw them as I grow.
Marketing and Strategic Growth
00:36:58
Speaker
And most importantly, I got to be able to walk in there and say, you know what, this next one we're going we need to change this because it's, you know, that piece didn't work on the last customer.
00:37:07
Speaker
Right. So, and so do some very quick, but okay you know, ability to change and pivot and change our designs as we went. So year one, full time, 2001, I think we're saying is the year. Do you know how many you sold?
00:37:20
Speaker
think it was like two. Yeah. And were you excited about that or were you like, oh, is this going to work? You know what? I was excited. I mean, you you go back and talk about the gift. So if you take a look at what I had, I had no overhead.
00:37:33
Speaker
had no employees and it was just me. And like, and the goal was to sell two. And by that point, you know, can't remember. I think I, we just sold like Steve Frost, some of the bigger guys. So I knew for sure if I made those guys happy, you know, if you know Steve at all, if he likes something, he talks.
00:37:52
Speaker
And if he doesn't like it. Oh, he talks. Yeah. ah ah But Steve liked it. you know So I knew that, well, gosh, if I only got to sell two and that's going to be enough money to pay for my family.
00:38:04
Speaker
One person tells 10 people. you know Then it'll grow. And that's kind of how it went. was So with the low overhead, you know i can make ah had a price point that people were buying and there was enough margin in there just so I could make a go of it.
00:38:16
Speaker
So yes, it was risky because you're only selling two. But I was getting enough traction. Like I started to gain the confidence. Like, and I had nothing to lose. If it failed, by that point, I owned my own home and i own I own my basic stuff.
00:38:28
Speaker
Yeah. So I'm like, if it fails, what am I out? I just start over and I go for a job somewhere or something. Were you doing door-to-door sales? Like just showing up at rental companies, trying to sell them? No. What was your main strategy?
00:38:40
Speaker
No, it wasn't because like I couldn't even afford to do that. And when started budgeting that out, like if I got on an airplane and spent some time in the territory, i wouldn't have made any money. Yeah. You know, and it didn't line up with my life goal at that time. I wanted to be time with my children.
00:38:54
Speaker
So part of the strategy was this is when technology was kind of hitting, hitting. People were starting to use databases and selling. so I bought, you could buy names of people.
00:39:04
Speaker
So I bought lists and And I called through the list. There was really no good SIC codes for tent rental people. Like I remember there's like about 30,000 names and I had to comb through them to find who were the tent rental. Because at that time it was like awning, tent and awnings, army surplus stores. And some of those guys who read tents did like comb through and find these names.
00:39:25
Speaker
And some of you have been around for a while. Kyle, you probably remember this. Your dad definitely would. I started mailing out the yellow postcards. I mean, and they would get these yellow postcards every fricking month. And then I started, I'd go to the shows and it'd come to me like, are you a yellow postcard guy? I got my whole bathrooms pasted with these things. and and So I just started and then I just, you know, anybody would call me, I would just put in my database and start following up with them and doing some basic sales work.
00:39:50
Speaker
I just managed the database and I did it, I did it, you know, really consistently and did it through direct mail. And then as email came on, we started emailing people, doing the direct mail and it it evolved from there.
00:40:01
Speaker
Okay. What was the first show you went to as Tico Solutions? It would have been the ARA show. Yeah. And then I went to one early master shows. Did you have a booth at the ARA show?
00:40:14
Speaker
We did a little 10 by 10 booth. Yeah. So now we're 2001. Did you, when did you start thinking, Hey, maybe we need to expand this into something bigger. These machines need to grow in size.
00:40:26
Speaker
Did somebody come to you? Did you come up with the idea? Well, that really didn't hit for another 10 or 12 years. Although ah did come up with a different size, probably, don't know, four or five years into it, I started, I came up with two different sizes. So at that point, kind of five, six years in, we had a small, medium, large, you know, but we really didn't gain any traction terms of volume,
00:40:48
Speaker
and Until kind of year 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there, you know. By then, Brian had bought one, you know. i had pretty much, I would say probably 80% of the big players in the country had my machine. And now we were seeing these smaller, medium-sized companies, you know, trying to buy and catch up.
00:41:08
Speaker
So we really didn't start gaining that traction until then. but So from 1 to 10, 2001 to 2010, you were kind of just pushing what you had and what you came up with originally? Yeah. Pretty much. I mean, we made some improvements. We always make an improvement.
00:41:20
Speaker
Okay. But i think at the high level, yes, that's what it was. and Yeah. But I was also very conscious about you know my main goal, and that was being with my family, learning about myself, learning about my marriage.
00:41:32
Speaker
And yeah i spent, you know at that point, when everybody was busy in the summertime, they wouldn't buy from me. I couldn't, no matter how many times I called them, they wouldn't pick up their phone. Right.
00:41:42
Speaker
So it was a little bit of a blessing for me. I've never told the industry this, but you know I took my summers off. Yeah. Your secret's out. And because I had a cell phone, I can literally, if somebody called me, I would answer it no matter where I was.
00:41:55
Speaker
Right. And my kid got trained, like, dad's on the cell phone, shut up and stop. So you were remote before remote was cool. I totally were. Awesome. But you know I realized that I'm not going to push really hard here.
00:42:07
Speaker
because i'm I can get my summers off and I'm with my family and I'm learning about my family and these kids are growing up, you know? And so did your kids kind of see the shift from when, did they really understand and notice when you went from the rental company to the, started selling the washing machine?
00:42:22
Speaker
You know, I, I would say yes, that they noticed eventually, but at that point I would say they didn't, I wouldn't say it was an immediate thing. They saw more of me physically, right? They knew you were at more events and things like that. yeah Well, not even that. I mean i could be i was at home more you know and at their events.
00:42:38
Speaker
Right. But i was I would say they probably didn't really understand it until i started to understand myself. you know Because what was happening was I could physically be there.
00:42:50
Speaker
That's one thing. But being present to somebody is a completely different story. And being present to a child, when you're a hard grinder and all you know is like, I'm going there no matter what consequences are, I'm going to get my goal.
00:43:04
Speaker
Your children don't understand that. So the biggest thing was, yes, I could be home, but my being, my brain was not there. And I had to start opening up and being vulnerable to people around me.
00:43:17
Speaker
you know, to be honest with they got some some help from some professionals at that point because I didn't know where to go, but I knew something had to change. And I'm absolutely proud of it. I'll tell anybody that. It's the best. if anybody doesn't know,
00:43:28
Speaker
It's the best thing you can possibly do. You know, they think it can help you. They give you the tools to start a lock on yourself because I've locked up. Yeah, I could do shit. I could build businesses and we could build washing machines and all that.
00:43:40
Speaker
You know, um I was the biggest of big boys, but the hardest work I'm telling you was right there. And i started to get to know my wife. My wife and I started talking more intimately. i got around some guys who started teaching me how to do with my family, started teaching me about some deeper things in life.
00:43:55
Speaker
And that's when my kids started really noticing. That was your question. When did they notice? They took notice when I could start being with them beyond the physical part. That took me a couple, two or three years to start that journey.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah, and it's amazing the mind shift from being younger, having no kids, and that grind, and just being in that grind phase. And then all sudden, everybody says a kid will change you.
00:44:18
Speaker
And they didn't hit me until we had our kid, our our first kid. And it it was like... oh my gosh, now I need, i my mindset is totally different. Like I love my job. i love what I do.
00:44:29
Speaker
And I will grind every moment possible if my kid doesn't have an activity because I'm not going to miss my kid's activity. I mean, if there is there's, there's something today. I mean, even today i had a huge problem this morning where we were trying to fight some fires and in Nashville and I'm 180 miles away right now.
00:44:46
Speaker
And in my mind, I'm like, I i need to go. I got to go. I got to go. But my daughter has a Valentine's Day party at three o'clock today. And I will not miss that for my daughter because I don't care how young she is. she If she doesn't remember it, but there will be pictures and I don't want to be that dad that's not present.
00:45:04
Speaker
And your daughter should remember that. Yeah, exactly. And so it's it's crazy to shift. So I feel what you're saying on the shift there. And it's, yeah, it's, it's wild how we just, a kid can change your mentality like that and make you see things clearer.
00:45:18
Speaker
And how old are your kids today, Steve? Let's see. We've got 32, 29, and 28. Oh, that's awesome. So you're starting to get into grandkids coming up. We have our first grandchild. She's Vivi. She was born ah about eight months ago. My wife's back in the background. You see that? I heard that. Yep.
00:45:38
Speaker
I love that. I love that. So, okay. Jumping back here. So 2010, we made the shift a little bit. We started getting some bigger machines.
Product Expansion and Collaborations
00:45:45
Speaker
And then all a sudden came this dryer thing that everybody started talking about. Yeah. When did that come about? Well, it came out is everything you do with Chattanooga tent.
00:45:54
Speaker
So Chattanooga Tent had bought Andy at the time was running it. so Andy Nolan. Andy Nolan. And he bought a washing machine from me. And I got to tell you, i love Andy to death and Mike and the spirit of Chattanooga Tent is I just love to be around the energy.
00:46:09
Speaker
I'm down there and he had been running the washing machine for i don't know how long, a year, but six months or something. And we're standing there next to it. He goes, Steve, you know machine is great. It's awesome. At that point, they' were in this little bitty building.
00:46:22
Speaker
And he said, I can't buy the land next to me. I can't go up. I can't, I'm landlocked and I got no way to expand this building. Mind you, we just moved out of that building just a couple of years ago. He said, you created a whole new problem for me. I can wash my tents so fast now and we get them so clean, but I can't dry them.
00:46:39
Speaker
And literally they were washing and drying during the whole thing in like 3,500 square feet. and their ceiling height was, I don't know, it was probably 17 feet tall.
00:46:51
Speaker
You know, now they're doing big stuff, big tents. At that point, they had big pole tents, they had structure stuff and all that. It's just like, so he turns to me says, well, have can you make a dryer? at that point, my brother and i had done some prototyping, just like we did the washing machine. We kind of, you know, did we did a lot of experimenting to see if we could dry things. Like, you know, do we do with heat? Do we do humidification? What's too hot? What's too cold?
00:47:14
Speaker
So we had done all that. So I knew the basics of what would work and what wouldn't work. So I didn't miss a beat. And I said, yeah, I can do that, Andy. You want to be my partner? He said, yes. I said, I'll tell you what, I'll write up a little contract.
00:47:27
Speaker
I'll guarantee you some results, what results you want, how big a tense do you want to dry, how quickly you want to make them happen. So we talked about all that. What is measurables we're going to be, right? So I drew up a contract. I said, okay, give me some money. I'll build it.
00:47:39
Speaker
You come up to my shop. And if if this thing doesn't meet those measurables, you give me 60 days and I'll i'll modify it. And if it doesn't meet the measurables, I'll give you your money back. Right. But if it does make you measurable, give me some more money. We'll ship it down there. We'll set it up and make it go.
00:47:54
Speaker
I mean, he was just a beautiful partner because, you know, we had some hiccups along the way, like but we were very clear that was probably going to happen. And um I don't know what it was. Nine months later, he had a dryer, you know.
00:48:06
Speaker
And so this is is this something you envisioned or was like, did you ever see the dryer coming since, I mean, you built the washer or was that just something like, hey, I'm just going to I'm to stay in my lane and I'm to stick with the washers. Uh, I think early on, early I was just washers. I didn't really have the vision for dryers, but as people started asking for them and I realized, wow, that's obviously the next step.
00:48:26
Speaker
You know, we started figuring out what it's going to take. And then once I found a partner to do the first one, we did. Yeah. Which, I mean, we just upgraded that dryer recently. And I mean, that thing, i don't know how we would do what we do in the volume that we do without that dryer.
00:48:41
Speaker
Not only the washer, but the dryer. mean, just volume. That thing runs 24-7. I asked Mark one day, probably eight years ago, because they were still in the small shop, 3,500 square feet. I said, well, how much square footage can you get done in like, you know, 8, 10, 12 hours?
00:48:55
Speaker
He's like, oh, I can do 15, 16,000 square feet completely feet building. in thirty five hundred square feet of building You know, now if he says, if I really got to get rocking, I'll put a second shift on and we'll wash and dry all night. Yeah, absolutely. We could get you upwards of 30,000 square feet washed and completely dry, ready for the shell in 3,500 square feet of building space.
00:49:13
Speaker
Right, right. You know, and the testimony is when you moved in your new shop, you had plenty of space. And Mike's like, no way, I'm not taking out my space drying. Put that dryer over there. You know?
00:49:23
Speaker
Yep. Oh yeah. He found a spot for it. That's for sure. So where are we today, Steve, with everything and in products and, you know, you got the washers and the dryers. Is there anything new that you got come in? Is there anything you see coming down the line? Where are we at with the technology of everything today?
00:49:41
Speaker
Oh man, i mean so much has happened in the last year even, right? So, you know, from the development of the dryer, we sold a few of those at that point. We really don't have a lot of them out there. it's It's very specific product for a very specific type of company, big companies who've got issues with their with their floor space or labor space or needing service production, right?
00:50:01
Speaker
But we're selling a lot more of those. In fact, Darren Randall just bought one last year, you know, and we continue to build a lot more products for the rental industry. We had ah Sunbelt, which at the time was Mahapi.
00:50:15
Speaker
They came to us and they had nine people washing Duratrac flooring all day long, all year long, nine people. And they said, well, we need a machine that does that washes the flooring. It's got to get to this level of clean and one person can operate it and it's got to be able to stack them at the end with a certain amount of thing.
00:50:33
Speaker
So very highly automated machine. So very much like we did with Andy, we entered an agreement with them and we built that. So we build panel washing machines now, you know, and so I talked to him, know, after I got it all set up and ready to go, he says, man, I can now take two people. They decided to operate with two people. And by lunchtime, they had the volume of what nine people used to do all day long.
00:50:54
Speaker
Oh, wow. You know, so again, just kind of turning the whole thing around. So panel washers for flooring, that's a new thing. We're working on a dryer right now, and i'm I'm hoping we're going to see some final product here in six to nine months.
00:51:06
Speaker
that's going to be a lot more economical than the big dryers, you know, not, not as high productivity as those, but the big problem out there right now is, you know, these medium size guys, they're in buildings that may have 12 or 15 foot tall ceilings and you got a 60 foot or 40 foot wide tent. How are you going to hang that?
00:51:23
Speaker
Right. And we're doing it, but it takes them fricking two or three hours as you could get the dang thing hung up right. So it dries right, you know, and then it's take up a lot of space. So we taking all the technology that we know about air quality and treating it and in various other things.
00:51:39
Speaker
I think we've got a really cool design. That's going to be very helpful for those medium sized companies at a capital investment. That's not going to be like the super big dog, you know, go fast thing like Chattanooga has.
00:51:50
Speaker
When can we expect that? I'm hoping six to nine months, you know, we're, we're starting, we're, we're okay we're starting designs and drawings now, but we've, we've done all the, we usually start in our design process,
00:52:01
Speaker
what We do a kind of the what I call a bailing wire and tape thing. you know yeah You go out there and just literally, it you know one of the nice things about where our company is, we can literally, because we have fab shop, we have machine shop, we got engineering under one roof, we can literally go out there, start welding and cutting and just do something.
00:52:16
Speaker
Love it. We're not worried about what it looks like. We're not worried about a whole lot of things other than we got to learn. Well, that brings me to another point. You just merged. Is it called a merger or what do you guys? It's a merger. So what happened was, you know, kind of going back to that 2010 moment, my brother was still building, always built all my machines.
00:52:35
Speaker
The name of the company is Custom Machine. So ah I was always buying them from him and then reselling them to the world, right? Because that's really the only way the washing machines at that point could get out because nobody could really open up a manufacturing facility. They have to buy it from somebody else and sell it, you know. And it was always such a small volume of that no manufacturer was, you know, willing to go into
Company Merger and Future Vision
00:52:54
Speaker
it.
00:52:54
Speaker
Now, the time we developed the dryer that we did get a competitor in the States here that came onto the scene, was there was there was enough volume there for him to make sense of that. But our relationship with Custom Machine was strong.
00:53:06
Speaker
And so as things grew, after 2010, my kids were in high school and I started changing the way I did things. And I wanted to really re-engage in the business, you know, because at at the core of things, I love entrepreneurship. I love growing businesses, you know.
00:53:21
Speaker
And to a little bit of a story about personally, I kind of get back to your question there about products and my merger, but you know I realized that there were people out there who owned businesses and grew them very well and walked this line, but there wasn't a lot them.
00:53:35
Speaker
so i So I knew a handful of them. I went to lunch with them and they started mentoring me on how to do this. I got involved with an organization called EO, Entrepreneur Organization. Phenomenally, completely changed my life. I was with these guys for 12 or 15 years.
00:53:48
Speaker
If anybody wants to walk this line, that is the organization to belong to because you are with a group of people who are running your same exact life. And it will catapult you into being the best person you can be and being the absolute best business person you can be.
00:54:01
Speaker
At the same time, i joined Vistage, very similar type of organization. If you want to know about nuts and bolts and how to put processes around business and develop your culture and all that, that's a great organization. But at that point, I really realized that I'm not going to grow this business until I understand myself and how I'm going to engage with this business.
00:54:20
Speaker
And then we started putting people around us. It's all about the relationship. all about how you put people around you, right? So we started growing the business more and more volume. That's when we really became recognized across the world. We started to sell into Europe.
00:54:31
Speaker
And so most recently, what happened was little bit before COVID, probably 2017, 18, somewhere in there, we started rebuilding washing machines. We would take the old ones in and rebuild them sell them.
00:54:44
Speaker
So what that did was that wasn't good for my brother's company because he was growing big enough now where he couldn't really effectively do that. So we agreed that I would take that on. But what it did for me was it put me in the manufacturing world.
00:54:57
Speaker
Because up until then, I was in the sales world, right? And I'm good at it. I'm above average at that, but I'm not a rock star at it. One of the things I learned about EO is if going to go to work and make a living, I need to be in what I'm a rock star at.
00:55:11
Speaker
Mm-hmm. So I started putting, I got great people around me to manage that. And we started building that side of the business up. But at the same time, our service calls increased and we needed to figure out how to better service our customers. You know, ah Kyle, you'd call me, when machine was broke, blah, blah, blah.
00:55:28
Speaker
you know So you know we were were failing at that because we really didn't have the wherewithal to support that. The volume of calls started coming in. So I had to start hiring great mechanics. We hired some mechanics that weren't so great.
00:55:41
Speaker
Then we had realized we had to hire really high dollar mechanics to get this done. These mechanics then started rebuilding our machines. I now was in the manufacturing business, right? So that grew.
00:55:51
Speaker
That grew quite a bit, especially after COVID. So it was good and we were doing great. But this year, something inside of my gut again, just like like when I came my kid, it said, you know, Steve, you're 55. Your kids are all gone. They're successful. They live in different cities. They're all these things. like you That's a season of life that's done.
00:56:12
Speaker
What's your next season look like? So I literally took off and I walked 200 miles in Spain this summer asking that question. And I came back and I realized, and I talked to my brother and I said, you know what?
00:56:23
Speaker
I got a lot of overlap with you now. And that was never the plan. You know, I'm not in my right space here. I've got a bunch of rockstar people around me. Why don't we merge? Because he too had grown.
00:56:34
Speaker
He'd grown a lot bigger than me. There's about 70,000 square feet of building there. he is There's 80 employees involved. The 9001. There's four other companies involved because the core company is Custom Machine, but he started buying other small companies very similar to mine. And I said, man, if we can merge, we are going to be a rock star.
00:56:54
Speaker
I mean, it'll allow me to be where I want to be. Then we can get involved in using your whole engineering department, your whole, like I had two mechanics. They've got like five. Yeah.
00:57:04
Speaker
You know? So because of where we're at in the history of things comes together now by merging with them, I'm now a 9001 ISO. i i could have never been, you know, last year and I got access to all this. So it's now it's allowing me, there's some, there's some products we're coming to market with. I can't tell you about, you know, but we're doing it.
00:57:24
Speaker
Oh, come on. Come on. We can be the first one. Nobody listens to us. Come on. But it allows me to do that. It allows me to be on this podcast today. Yeah. It allows me to do the webinars that we did yesterday. It allows me then to, you're going to see a lot more from us, lot more engaging on you know, with ah with our customers, our potential customers.
00:57:41
Speaker
Now you're back to that mentality. You know, now you can move on to that next chapter. Your kids are gone. Now it's back to that mentality of spending time with your wife. Yes. Going to Spain, traveling, doing what you want to do now, later in life again. It's like, it's all come full circle for you.
00:57:56
Speaker
It totally has. And my wife is in more than ever. You saw, you know, if you guys saw me before on this, I'm like, Nate was here like, Beck, my microphone don't work. How do do this? She's pressing all the buttons. And not my deal. Her deal is that.
00:58:07
Speaker
Yep. Absolutely. I mean, her and I are just lock on. We work very hard every day to make this happen. And we are just super happy about this merger, but I'm excited about what it's going to do for the industry. Yeah.
00:58:18
Speaker
I know what we can bring. I know our European expansions is happening very quickly. Yeah. We're going to be more competitive than ever. Our service levels are working on merge the teams together right now.
00:58:30
Speaker
We got about another three or four months ahead of beat that all completely straight, but and it's going really, really well. So I'm very excited about where it's going to go because now we got the momentum like we never had and the depth that we never had.
00:58:41
Speaker
We did great. Don't get me wrong, but yeah you can tell how excited I get. you know But now I'm in the big and the big seat. Yeah, but I think everybody like us gets excited when we hear something new revolution, the revolutionized the industry, you know, 4C, 10 OX, Tico machines, anything.
00:58:58
Speaker
I mean, and I think you hit the nail on the head and I love where you're going with Tico solutions with trying to draw more to the mid-sized because I think a lot of people just like 10 OX, you know, people get scared when they're that mid-level business that they think we don't need this. We can't afford this. We don't, we we can't do this.
00:59:16
Speaker
The sticker shop gets them.
Leadership and Lifestyle Investments
00:59:18
Speaker
Yeah, every time the sticker shock will get you. But see, it's the investment in your lifestyle is what you're saying. It's the investment of your family. It's the investment in everything overall in your life that helps.
00:59:30
Speaker
And I think, you know, if there's any smaller companies or midsize companies listen to this, You got to take the chance and you got to move forward with products like this, like 10 OX to be able to keep your business moving forward and you not have to work so hard in it.
00:59:44
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. I would even go a step further and say, you know, it's not only about the products and I love telling you guys about our products. Don't get me wrong by nature. I'm a sales guy, but I got to tell you, if you haven't figured it out in the podcast yet, where my real passion lies,
00:59:57
Speaker
It's the fact that, you know, you can have it all. You can have a great business and have a great family. But the one thing that's got change is you. You've got to have the courage to become that better leader, to lean in, to find out what you don't know.
01:00:10
Speaker
And once you figured out what you don't know, master that, right? Because the only way you're going to grow is to be able to spend time on both sides of that scale and become and continually morph into a different person.
01:00:21
Speaker
And oh, by the way, it happens in how, you know, part of the equation is buying products like mine. But, you know, when I learned at EO and Vistage and a bunch of other mentors, if you're working on the side of the scale with business, it's not only about the products. It's not only about a 10th ox or a Chico or whatever.
01:00:37
Speaker
You have got to focus on your finances. Your finances got to drive everything. Those kind metrics that drive things. Otherwise, you can work your tail off and in get all kinds of sales in the door and will be completely broke. Day after day after day. I know a lot of companies have to do a lot of sales and never have money in the bank.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. Because I sell them machines and they got, well, can't it another six months until get saving up. I'm like, you're a $10 million company. Yeah, but can't afford $100,000 machine or a $50,000 machine. you know because they don't pay attention their finances. So as you grow your company, you've got to be able to pay attention to your finances.
01:01:08
Speaker
You've got to be able to pay attention to your culture. You've got to be able to pay attention to your processes. That's where the machines come in. You've got to be able to know about your sales and marketing, and you've got to be able to really be able to have a vision that drives all those things.
01:01:21
Speaker
So all of that to me has to do with the leadership and the person leading that company. And that's what I'm passionate about. Yeah. And everything that you said today, I agree with everything, but that little one minute tidbit that you just said about finances and being that size company,
01:01:36
Speaker
That goes so far. That is the honest to God truth. And that's really terrific. And I love washing machines. Don't get me wrong. You know, call me all day long. we'll I'll work with you there. But that's my passion, Nate. That is my passion.
01:01:48
Speaker
And, you know, you're going to see from us not only a direction for new products, but I really want to help the industry understand that little tree I just talked about and walk with them and help with them and continue to develop that in the industry. Because, you know, 4C's doing that.
01:02:02
Speaker
The 4C program touches about two or three of those those items there. you know your finances and your your processes and you're some of your sales and marketing where he ties the sales with the back end. Absolutely. So his product touches on three or four of those, but it really, where my passion lies is taking the people that on this podcast. They're on this podcast because they're leaders.
01:02:21
Speaker
right Whether they own the company or manage the company or even they're back in their Washington tents, they took the time to be on this podcast and listen this far in. They're leader. Appreciate that. And developing those leaders to be whole people so they can go home.
01:02:34
Speaker
I'm going to share with you my mantra. It's ah better business for better lives and better lives for better business. You see, I think that's circular. on that Right. And where do you hop into that circle? There's no entry point.
01:02:45
Speaker
Right. We got just go. Yeah. You have no choice. Like we're going to spend time in the middle of the day on a Friday, have this podcast and I'm going to learn. Right. I'm going to become a better business. So my hope is tonight you go home and you're like, man, my business can be better. I have hope.
01:03:01
Speaker
I learned something today and I feel better to be with my family because of that. You got me hyped up. I'm hype right now. Then you come in the next morning, you're like, man, I had a great time with my family and my friends. You know, went out, we had a great dinner, whatever.
01:03:14
Speaker
I'm ready to nail this business and learn the next thing. And then you go home and this whole cycle just keeps happening. I've seen this happen. I've seen people who can live in this world and lean into themselves and continue to learn that.
01:03:25
Speaker
And their businesses just take off. You know, we all know people like this. And that's what I'm passionate about. That's why I would really want to lean into moving forward. We usually end with getting, you know, advice for anyone listening, but you just answered the question without us even asking, you know, your mantra is such, it's so deep.
01:03:46
Speaker
I think a lot of people can learn a lot from that. Yesterday when I was in your webinar, for anyone listening, if you don't know, Tico's doing a webinar series this winter on all things tent washing related. It's totally worth it.
01:03:59
Speaker
So reach out to Tico Steve or check their Instagram for more information. But you said the mantra yesterday in the webinar, and it kind of made me sit back in my chair a little bit and think about it. was like, man...
01:04:11
Speaker
He is very right with that. And I've never thought of it from that aspect, but you know, I hope I'm going to listen this far. You take that mantra and you bring it back to your own business and it does make it all worth it in the end.
01:04:25
Speaker
And I want to ask one more question then since Steve just took our question away from us there for a good point though, what would you tell someone new coming in to do different than what you did when you started your business?
Advice for Aspiring Business Owners
01:04:37
Speaker
I started my business with a lot grit and just determination. I'm going to be successful, i make a lot of money, going to grow a big business. That was it. Like in whatever the day, whatever the goal for the day was, I just plowed through and got it done. I wouldn't do that. I would start in a different place.
01:04:50
Speaker
I would start by asking, what do I want out of life and why do I want it? And if you can't answer that question, get around people who can answer that question for you. Once you get clear about that, whatever your answer is, it's that's your answer.
01:05:02
Speaker
You know, don't make it my answer. And then once you understand that, then you're going to build that business around that. That business is there to serve that. you know So I know customers of mine that have very consciously stayed small.
01:05:16
Speaker
And this time of year, you can't find them because they're very clear. I want to spend time traveling or family or whatever. They're clear on what their why is. you know, so that's where I would start.
01:05:28
Speaker
Got to find your why. You always got to find your why. And, you know, this is our, what, fifth episode now, Kyle. And I think if you haven't noticed what the consensus on everybody's mind has been on this conversation about them themselves has been family.
01:05:42
Speaker
Everything has come back to family. Which is just crazy to hear because it's not something that comes up normally and conversation when you talk with 10 guys or women in the industry. It's not a normal conversation.
01:05:54
Speaker
We're normalizing yeah business and family right now is what we're doing. Yes, absolutely. So Steve, I appreciate you coming on
Closing Thoughts and Appreciation
01:06:02
Speaker
today. Anybody who doesn't know Tico Steve personally, i encourage you to reach out, get to know Tico Steve, get to know his products, follow his webinars, follow along with everything he's got coming.
01:06:12
Speaker
As you see, you know, he's got some really cool products coming through that he won't even tell us about. So, Pay attention. You can find him ah at Tico underscore solutions on Instagram and as well as, you know, give him a call, shoot him a text.
01:06:24
Speaker
I can guarantee you he's always willing to talk to you. And if you're unsure, if a washing machine is right for you, Tico Steve is the man to talk to you and tell you I think Steve would be honest if it wasn't a good investment for our company.
01:06:36
Speaker
Absolutely. So he's definitely a good resource for knowledge. If you have any questions. I'm glad that I know Tico Steve. I know Nate is. isn And Steve, thanks so much for coming on today.
01:06:48
Speaker
Thanks for coming on, Steve. Appreciate you. You guys are awesome. Really love what you're doing. Thank you so much for your contributions to the industry. Looking forward to you know continuing this relationship. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Have a good day.
01:06:59
Speaker
Thank you, guys. See you. Bye-bye.