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Navigating the Shipping Container Industry with Julia Mozumdar
91 Plays7 months ago
In this episode of Dial It In, we had the pleasure of speaking with Julia Mozumdar, the founder of Super Cubes, a company that specializes in selling and modifying shipping containers. Julia shared her unique journey from working in social media in Europe to becoming a shipping container entrepreneur. She humorously recounted how she stumbled into the industry and has now been running Super Cubes for 15 years.
Julia emphasized the importance of exceptional customer service, a principle that sets Super Cubes apart in an industry where purchases are infrequent and often overwhelming for customers. She detailed how her company not only sells containers but also offers tailored modifications to meet specific customer needs, from basic doors to complex industrial requirements.
We delved into some fascinating projects Julia has worked on, including a shrimp farm in Las Vegas and Shakespeare's Globe Theater made from containers. She also discussed the challenges of maintaining integrity and trust in an industry rife with scammers, offering tips on how to spot potential fraud.
For more information about Super Cubes and their innovative container solutions, visit Supercubes.com.
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Dial It In Podcast is where we gathered our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Dial It In' Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of Busy Web, and every week, Trigby Olsen and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
00:00:22
Speaker
I found our client and friend. This is the first time we've actually had an actual live client on the air. So hopefully they don't fire
Julia and the Super Cubes Revolution
00:00:29
Speaker
us. But I asked Julia from Super Cubes to join us. Julia founded Super Cubes with a bold vision to redefine the shipping container industry through exceptional customer service. And when you talk to her, you're going to realize she's just a hoot and she's infectious. She caters to a diverse clientele and sells containers like shipping containers, but also collaborates
00:00:52
Speaker
with customers for tailored modifications and seamless delivery. So with experience managing international products, her portfolio includes intriguing adventures like a shrimp farm in Las Vegas, which we're definitely getting into. Yes, we need to talk about that.
00:01:08
Speaker
and Shakespeare's Globe Theater made from containers, container homes and more. Julia is active in supporting nonprofit initiatives and enjoys entertaining friends following MLS soccer and traveling with her family, often incorporating container related adventures into their journeys. So that'll be question number three. What is a container related adventure? Her name in and of itself is fun to say, Julia Mazumdar. Nice to see you, Julia. How are you?
00:01:38
Speaker
I'm great. Thanks so much for having me.
Julia's Career Transition to Super Cubes
00:01:41
Speaker
So first question, you woke up one day and said, you know what? I'm going to sell shipping containers. I'm going to start a business selling shipping containers. Yes. Lifelong goal, naturally. Who doesn't grow up dreaming that? I always say princess, ballerina, shipping container magnet. Three goals of every little girl. So naturally, that was where I was at.
00:02:05
Speaker
No, I actually, I had been living in Europe working for a social media company before social media was a thing. I got really sick of trying to explain what that was to people and I wanted something super tangible. It turns out I found something very tangible. That's when I came back home. I got into the container business and they say, if you steal it after three years, you're never getting
00:02:30
Speaker
So yeah, so that's how I got it. I worked for a company that rented them and sold them and then started super cubes 15 years ago this year. Happy anniversary. Thank you. So very exciting. One of the questions that everybody always asks is what's your differentiating value? What makes that special? And everybody always says, Oh, it's our customer service. We really care about our customers. That's usually where I roll my eyes and say, Oh yeah. Okay. Sure. Cause everybody says that, but you actually do it.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, it is something that's different because, first of all, containers are one of those things people don't buy very often. So when you go to buy one, I think it can be a little overwhelming if you're not used to it. And if you are someone who buys them regularly, you either have somebody that's on speed dial that you're used to working with or else you have to start calling around and you get a variety of reactions to things. So when I started Supercubes, one of my big things was actually answering the phone.
00:03:28
Speaker
actually answering questions nicely and then making sure that I thought through really what were those problems. And having done it for a while, I knew where people were at and what was the big things that people needed to know. Starting with a customer service on the website, making sure there really was a lot of information for new buyers because it's pretty overwhelming at first.
00:03:46
Speaker
and then making sure that you really slow down and see where are people at with the buying process and their knowledge and meeting them where they're at and walking through that process with them to make sure that they're really where they need to be in terms of getting that information to make good decisions.
00:04:04
Speaker
It's awesome so what how did you get into shipping containers yeah the individual containers did you have an experience or were you did you ship before and had something like it's just not something that you wonder into.
Founding of Super Cubes
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I actually did wander into it. When I'd come back, I was looking for a job and my dad worked with one of his law partners. His son was running a business that was a container business and they'd expanded to the point where they needed to hire someone. So I ended up working with someone I'd actually known my whole life. He was a bit older than me, so we weren't
00:04:41
Speaker
like buddies or anything like that, but we had known each other for forever. And so I ended up working for his rental company and getting into the business that way. This is a very traditional one. They do rentals and then they also had expanded into trailers and then I got into sales. Whereas what's different about my business is we don't do any rentals.
00:04:59
Speaker
very unusual. And we don't do anything else besides containers. We just do containers. That's it. And then also doing those modifications. Some companies will do things like some basic doors or some basic things like that. But as I got into the modifications, I really realized there's a lot to do there. And there's a lot of need getting into doing a lot more of that. That was one of those things that kind of grew over time as well too.
00:05:24
Speaker
I want to get into that because I think that kind of gets into the creative selling because you really have a commodity. And so people aren't going to necessarily buy from a logo, they're going to buy from a person, which I think is really demonstrative with you as they get a higher level of care and intimacy that you are going to work with them on what is their real need and what is their real issues.
Customization of Shipping Containers
00:05:45
Speaker
And you're going to deliver the same product, you're just going to deliver it better than other people.
00:05:51
Speaker
That truly is exactly what the selling is with that, is that we could do a specialty container if that's what the situation calls for. We can modify it if that's what the situation calls for. It just need a plain old container. We just deliver a plain old container and that's that. But the modifications
00:06:06
Speaker
When I first started doing them, we're pretty basic, just throwing in a door here, a door there. But I had a few of them that got a little more complicated with a little bit more industrial needs where the customer was a business using it for more industrial purposes, where they're putting their own equipment in there to use it for their own customers and things like that.
00:06:26
Speaker
And then as I had to do those really very specific requirements that were needed for that, I realized how really particularly careful you need to be doing those projects for them to turn out right. Because if you're not putting those things in the right place, everything kind of falls apart quickly. It taught me a lot that way.
00:06:46
Speaker
I had to learn a lot about how to read plans on how to be doing a lot of that stuff, which helped me then scale that back for the people who don't necessarily need things to be done as carefully. But if you're doing it up to the same high standards for everyone, it really helps you out that way. And that does help you sell, be able to figure that out that way. I really want to get into the stories because I know some of them and some of them are just a little wackadoodle and they're awesome. But before we get to that, I've decided that I need a shipping container and I call you and say, hey, I need a shipping container.
00:07:15
Speaker
What are my options? Are there different styles? Are there different lengths or different widths? Is it something that you put on a ship on a semi or is it just a box? So there are different lengths. They all come the same width and then you choose whether you want them used or you want them new. And then there's some specialty ones where they come with some extra doors on the side or maybe they don't have a top or a removable top.
00:07:42
Speaker
So those would be the ones that that's how they're made in China, because they're all made in China, and then they all come over here on a ship. And then your choice is either ones that were just made that one trip over here and they're new, or they're ones that have been used by the shipping lines for a while and then you get abused. And so we talk through
00:08:00
Speaker
What are you using it for? Does it matter if it's used? Is the price more important to you? Is it how it looks more important to you? What are you going to be using it for? Where do you need some of those extra features on it? Or are you just going to put some stuff in it? If you're just going to throw some stuff in and you don't care, maybe that used one's just perfect. And that's fine. As we figure out for your situation what's going to be the best fit.
00:08:23
Speaker
And like the cleanest one would be something that you would maybe be converting into a home or something. Okay, because it needs to look nice right off the bat. And structurally sound. That's the other part we don't always think about. You don't want to have something that's going to collapse on you because you don't want people dying in their container house because it all fell apart.
00:08:45
Speaker
And it truly is, and I know we should get into the specifics of this, but I'm just fascinated. You could like pile up a bunch of containers and put them together and make like a big house, right? Actual Legos. And recently
Understanding Container Grades
00:08:57
Speaker
our industry association has worked together to get containers approved.
00:09:01
Speaker
as a building material, national standards, really materials. But those containers actually have to be ones that are sold by special certified vendors that are tracking those containers. And I can sell those too. I do have access to those containers as well.
00:09:18
Speaker
They're the new ones that are just fresh over from China. They just want to make sure that they know their whole lifespan, what's been going on with those so that they are those nice, secure, clean containers that are going to be structurally sound so that when you do stack them up, everything goes according to plan. Something that I would imagine varies wildly on that day to weekly basis.
00:09:38
Speaker
and location because we sell all over the country. Depends on which city it's coming out of and then also it'll depend on how far are you from that city it's coming out of too because the delivery will vary with that too. Do I have to pay to have my shipping container shipped?
00:09:54
Speaker
trucked. Yeah, so wherever it's coming from, you'll pay for it from whatever city we're taking it out of, but then it'll come on a truck out to you. So you'll have to pay for that truck to come out and set it on the ground at your place. So it's very much like getting a car. It's what are the features and benefits you want? And where is it? And what does it cost to put you in it today? Basically, yes.
00:10:15
Speaker
Except for you don't get the same choice of I want one that's only a year old or three years old or five years old. You don't get those kind of choices in a container you either get this year or eight to 10 years old. And there's not a lot in between. Everybody holds on to the 2021 model. So that was a good year for shipping containers. Yeah.
00:10:37
Speaker
Are there like grades or some dents, or is there like a guarantee that it was or wasn't used for specific things, or how does that work? So there are grades. That newest one's called a one trip, because it's made the one trip over here. That would be that new category. And then for the used ones that we sell, we have two basic categories. There's the wind and water type, which is that it's not going to leak. It's got a good floor. It's got good seals on the door. It's got a good roof.
00:11:05
Speaker
But it's just a basic used one. It's going to have rust and dents. It's going to look used. No mystery, it's a used one. That's a basic one. The next step up is a cargo worthy. Everything that first one is, it's just structurally sound enough that if you were shipping something overseas and if you're buying one to ship overseas, we can do that. It's going to meet all the requirements that the shipping lines have to use that one for shipping. And if you are going to do that, we just recertify it so that it could just go back on the ship and go off and do that.
00:11:33
Speaker
There's one category in between there called ICL. It's a technical category. It's a midlife container category. And often we just don't get those because the shipping lines and leasing lines are just in the middle of using those. And so they're just generally not sold in the aftermarket. So there's a midlife container crisis. Basically. And we're actually in the middle of one. Yeah. Where the containers are getting hot cars and divorcing their wives.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, they're down by the docks having like a big explosion. I had to go there. Oh man. I walked right into that one. You did.
Super Cubes' Online Strategy and AI Use
00:12:10
Speaker
You totally gave me that one. So the first thing I did was I had a friend of mine who does a lot of web stuff and a graphic artist. I had her come help.
00:12:20
Speaker
do my website first thing. And she referred an SEO consultant to me who was awesome. I had her for the first 10, 12 years of Super Cubes. And we made the site and got that up and start optimizing it. And I started a blog. And the first thing was to make sure that the site had a lot of keywords in it going on. And then I just started being able to add the content by adding to the blog.
00:12:47
Speaker
And then my SEO would be like, we need more content on this topic. Let's blog on it. And that drove a lot of the blogs in the beginning when you don't have a lot of business, when you're new, you have a lot of time to blog. I would blog about anything in the beginning, just anything to keep it moving, to try to find those because there is no easy demographic of who's looking to buy a container. It can be literally anyone, a homeowner, a business. It can be.
00:13:12
Speaker
bigger companies, smaller companies, anyone who needs extra storage behind their store, behind their restaurant, behind their hotel. So there's just no easy demographic online to find them. I can honestly tell you that I'm a big fan of leveraging relationships that I have with people for my own personal gain. We have a company that we work with that does foam inserts on things. And so after I leave here, I'm going to drive to their office because they made new couch cushions for me.
00:13:40
Speaker
Really amazing and really awesome, but I can't tell you Julia, how many times I've been like rummaging around my garage and actively plotting out how do I dig up my backyard to put a shipping container back there so I can get a shipping container from Julia and just stop all this foolishness. You should, you just need to. The ultimate man cave triggered me. I know. The problem is I have this angle and my wife, I can usually get away with buying things under about $20 if I can hide them.
00:14:10
Speaker
And then either the boy or the wife doesn't see them, but she'll see the shipping container, I think. She might notice back there. I'm just going to say it might be noticeable. Could I get a camouflaged one? Yes, actually, you can.
00:14:24
Speaker
There might be a double down that you could do Trigby because I've seen the pool conversion on TikTok before. Yeah. Julia obviously is a client of ours and we help her with her website and help her with her SEO. And I think I've told this story before, but one of the reasons why I just love Julia is she has completely changed my thinking on AI. Because when we were talking to Julia, originally it was about two weeks after chat GPT came out.
00:14:52
Speaker
And so I was telling her all about this new tool and how it could blog for you and do all these great things. And she said, wow, really? And I was like, no, no, let's do it. Let's do it together. And we did it together. And I asked her, give me a topic that you'd want to spend a lot of time thinking on. And she did and she wrote it. And I put it in chat GPT and it spit out a 500 word blog. I said, oh, I'll put this in an email and send it to you. I didn't really think anything of it.
00:15:16
Speaker
And I can remember specifically the note she wrote back two days later, which was, Trigby, thanks so much for sending this. This was amazing technology to see. And it's 100% factually wrong.
00:15:30
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, and so as a result of that, it's completely changed my thinking because when you're using these sort of tools and we had an episode recently about AI content creation, it's really only going to pull anything from the internet that it finds that doesn't make it true. And when you're doing something, especially with a shipping container that needs to be structurally sound,
00:15:52
Speaker
being factually incorrect in a blog will get you sued and probably kill people. So it was really eye-opening for me personally. But I guess that story is more about me. What do you think about AI, Julia? We just said our conference for our industry association had someone back for the second time to talk about it. And I listened for the first time, but more interested in the second topic that was going on at the same time. And I avoided the AI.
00:16:15
Speaker
No, I think there's a good space for it. I think that there's places where it really can save a lot of time. I think if there's something that you need to write often or you want to get a start to something where you want to like, you need that base to it and you're going to have to edit it anyway. It's a great starting point. Or if you're one of those people that can't look at a blank page to get started, I think it's a nice way to get started.
00:16:38
Speaker
The format of that blog was beautiful. If I had wanted to redo that blog on that topic, I could have very easily used that format and it would have looked very nice. I just could not use what they said because it was going to lead to some very big problems. As soon as you stack the second one on top, it'll just crush it like an aluminum can.
00:17:00
Speaker
There was going to be a lot of leaking going on in that container. I'm just going to say rain would not have been favorable to that whole situation. It was also eye opening for me because I am of the opinion that I'm smart when it comes to fixing stuff. I think whatever the topic was, I think it was like changing out a door to roll top door versus a hinged door. I think it was.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yes, it's telling a roll up door. Yeah, it's telling a roll up door. And I remember saying, OK, this is important to her. So it's important to me. And then I was like, it can't be that hard. And it I had a complete and utter unappreciation of how hard those things are. And even something as simple as switching a door out, which you think shouldn't be that hard really is. And it does require a tremendous amount of care and craftsmanship in order to get right.
00:17:49
Speaker
And that's one of the products we sell as a kit for doing it. And we make it easy. If you do it, it doesn't need to be an impossible task. You have the right tools to do it, but AI doesn't know what those tools are as the problem. So it was just pulling random stuff off the internet and then making it up as it went along, literally. Right. Grab a nail file and a ball peen hammer. That should be all you need. A little clock and you're done.
00:18:17
Speaker
Yeah. I'd love to hear some of the examples of what some of your clients have done, because I would imagine in the broad universe of containers and all of the things that you can build with these building blocks, essentially, what are people doing? Let's hold off on that. Cause we're going to take our break, but we'll come back right after our break. We'll have Julia tell us about the shrimp farm coming up next.
00:18:46
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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00:20:14
Speaker
We're back. I swear to God, we're going to get into the stories about, about the shrimp farm. But while we're on break, I was thinking about the last car buying cause we talked about how it was like a car buying experience. I bought my car completely blind from a guy in Northern Virginia.
00:20:29
Speaker
where I had to fly out, buy it, and then drive it home.
Building Customer Trust
00:20:33
Speaker
So a lot of your business, it sounds like is based on faith too, right? So you can see these pictures, but God only knows if that's what you're gonna get. How do you create a higher sense of integrity which is what you get?
00:20:46
Speaker
is the big challenge. That really is exactly why I hire you, is to help me with that. It's part of why having the website that people can go back and see. I've been here for this long. I'm still around.
00:21:02
Speaker
really helps because there's so many scammers right now and they're on both sides of the equation right now in the container world. There's scammers trying to scam me and there's also scammers trying to scam my customers. So it's hitting both sides of the equation and the pictures that they're putting out to the customers are these
00:21:26
Speaker
fancy containers with these ridiculously low prices. And then customers will call me and say, oh, why aren't you at these ridiculously low prices? And I'm like, because that's not realistic. And then trying to build up that, here's what you're really going to get. Here's a realistic picture. And here's what the price is really at. Sometimes I can give them picture with the unit, like this is your actual unit you're going to get, and this is what it is.
00:21:46
Speaker
Sometimes I can't do that, but I do have the here's all my customers. I've been around. This is what I've been doing. Sometimes it is just a challenge because when you're up against a convincing scammer, it's hard to do. That's really the challenge right now.
00:22:00
Speaker
There's probably common watchwords and things, right? Let's get right to that for a second. How would I know that I'm maybe being scammed? Is A, of course, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is, but what are some of the other things? Like, is it Venmo me or PayPal me? Yes. Yes. And actually, Zelle me, Venmo me, text me. I don't want to talk to you. I only want to text you. Okay.
00:22:24
Speaker
That should be a huge red flag to anyone. What business only wants to text you? They don't want to talk to you on the phone. My other favorite one is that the delivery fee is that the container is going to come from halfway across the country and the delivery fee is $200.
00:22:40
Speaker
Could you hop in your car and drive that far for that price? No. So do you think you could drive a really big truck for that price? Absolutely not. Especially if you have to pay a driver. So I think if customers slowed down and thought through some of it, they go, oh yeah, now that I think about it, that doesn't really pass the smell test.
00:23:01
Speaker
I just hadn't slowed down long enough to think about that part of it. The other one that's coming up is that they will take a real company's website, change a letter and then clone it and then try to get their info. So calling the actual company, like Googling it and calling the actual real company and saying, did you sell this to me? Am I sending the money to the right people? It has been the other big thing. Yeah.
00:23:26
Speaker
We should be really careful if we get something from sugarcubes.com instead of supercubes.com. In my case, the other problem I have is there's a company called Supercubes, S-O-U-P-E-R that makes places where you can freeze your soup into small ice cube type trays for when you want to freeze your soup. So at the end of the size spectrum. Wow.
00:23:52
Speaker
So we are in a constant SEO battle, as Trigby could attest, because he was like, wait, what is this that happened on this date? I'm like, oh, that's when super cubes came on the block. And we battle it out over the term super cubes. All right. We've reached the point in the show where we got to do it. Julia, tell us about the shrimp farm. All right. The shrimp farm. I got a call from a woman who said, I know it's going to sound crazy.
00:24:20
Speaker
but we're building a shrimp farm outside of Las Vegas.
00:24:25
Speaker
I said, you do realize that it's in the desert, right? And she said, yes. That's why I need containers. I said, OK. And she said, because they're going to hold the water. And I said, oh, that makes a little more sense. I guess I can follow that thinking, that obviously. This was going to be their first farm, and they were going to do it out there because the whole idea is that they wanted to have sustainable organic shrimp
00:24:52
Speaker
But they wouldn't need to transport it anywhere too far to provide this beautiful shrimp to all of the restaurants in the Las Vegas area. And so very logical thinking on my part. I'm following you. I get this.
00:25:10
Speaker
They needed between 50 and 60 containers. And we needed to cut the tops of these off. We needed to grind down any rust, any anything of them. We had to put in some other stuff that they needed in it. But they needed them.
00:25:25
Speaker
like the project was kind of an accelerated schedule. I worked with my Los Angeles shop that I was working with at the time and they had to farm it out to three different shops and we rushed and we actually got it done two days ahead of time and it was amazing that we did it. We trucked it all out to Las Vegas.
00:25:43
Speaker
And it was cool to see because they buried the containers up about two feet into the ground and the exact spacing that they needed. And we all went out there when they did it because it's a shrimp farm in Las Vegas. Of course we were going to go watch them see this. So we went out to go see it when we had all the containers mostly in place and then
00:26:05
Speaker
They poured the concrete around that to create the rest of the space. So when they got done with that, when you walked up to the containers, they were about knee high. And the rest of it went down. They put this fancy coating over the whole thing and got all the water going everywhere it needed to go. And they built a whole building over the whole thing. So the whole thing's encased now in a whole big building. And if you go out to Vegas, you can see all the mountains around the city.
00:26:32
Speaker
opposite where the airport is. And if you just drive out there, you're going to slip into the mountains. It's just tucked in there. Apparently, there were a couple of flaws with it, though. When the shrimp got to be adolescence, they started hanging out against the container walls.
00:26:52
Speaker
And I just wondered if maybe they were like selling teenagers or if there was some problem that way and they just didn't like the containers or something. But apparently like the blowers or something were really hard or I don't know something was going on there, but they they did not do well. And so they were.
00:27:07
Speaker
It didn't work. I guess there was some problem with it that way. And so the farm was in fact not sustainable and it did not work as planned. They ran it for a short amount of time and end up selling some shrimp in the grocery store and then it folded. So now apparently, rumor has it, and I don't know if this is true, but apparently it is currently a farm outside of Las Vegas.
00:27:29
Speaker
Oh, so they're doing the Lord's work twice. Yes. It's probably the life cycle of almost anything in today's market. Great idea. Has some unforeseen technical thing becomes a pot farm. Yeah, I love it. Shrimp farm, pot farm, lots of home stuff, right? There's an entire section in your site for that. Have you been to any of the homes that were created with your containers?
00:27:58
Speaker
Um, do you live in a home that you created? I would metaphorically. Sure. But theoretically, sure. I'd have to convince my husband to live in one. I think there's that I have not actually been in one. Once they're done, a lot of them, what we do in their multiple containers is that we get them to a certain point and then we give them off to the customer because they have to put them together and then finish them out. So at a certain point you hand them over to the general contractor.
00:28:27
Speaker
And we did a really cool one in South Dakota, where we it was three containers and it had doors that came with doors that opened and closed on the one of the long 40 foot sides. And then they had some other fun stuff that we were building in there. So lots of windows and is very cool.
00:28:45
Speaker
Um, it was a really fun project, really nice people on the project. And, um, I've been trying to keep up with it. I've seen some pictures since they kept going with it, but I have not seen the final product on that one, but beautiful
Innovative Shipping Container Projects
00:28:56
Speaker
house. There's one over in river falls where they did four stacked on four and then with a seventh or three on three. And then the seventh container is upright to be the staircase. And, and then that's a dorm at the university over there. Yeah.
00:29:14
Speaker
Oh yeah, there is one that looks like that too. Then there is one couple down in St. Louis that did four stacked on four. And I went down for the day the crane came to put those into place. They were being filmed for a pilot for a reality TV show on reusing things. Really cool couple. They did all of the work themselves on all the actual modifications for it because the husband's father was a welder. And so they had a great team to do all of that work themselves.
00:29:41
Speaker
but I provided the containers for that one and have stayed in touch with them over the past years. Just saw it was eight years ago that we did that. We stay in touch and in fact, he has helped some other people work on houses and I've helped with some of that work too with providing the containers. That one, he's an artist. The inside of the house is gorgeous. He was just on CBS Sunday about six months ago. That container just keeps popping up in the news every once in a while because that house does. It's beautiful.
00:30:10
Speaker
What about the Globe Theater? Oh, it's one of my absolute favorite projects. I love the project. I love the customer. I just everything about that project I just love. So super cool project.
00:30:24
Speaker
The whole idea is recreating Shakespeare's Globe Theater, which is a circular shaped theater where the people sitting higher up are looking towards the stage. And then in the middle of the circle is where down on the ground you have people either sitting or standing to see the stage.
00:30:41
Speaker
Most of the circle is made out of 20 foot containers, uh, 20 foot high cubes that have the most of the side cut out of it. So you can see out to see the stage, but a little bit stayed in there so that, you know, where you're sitting is your knees are covered up and that you don't feel like you're going to fall out of the container when you're up high. The plan is to, when it's finished, it'll go three high right now. We have all the containers to go three high, but we're only stacked too high. We're having a.
00:31:06
Speaker
little bit of a kind of finishing up problem what we're finishing up here with it but currently it's all set up with two high with that third row all ready to go and then the stage is four 40-foot containers so the front two that are stacked on top of each other are the stage and the two behind them that are right there are the backstage and on the top one we've got the balconies that can be removed so if this the whole kit and caboodle move somewhere the
00:31:33
Speaker
the balconies can come off and be put inside and moved on. So this is something that's going on now. Yeah.
00:31:40
Speaker
Where? In Detroit. Oh, the picture. That's amazing. Yes. Supercube.com. Container uses. Yes. I'll check that out as well as way to naked plug the gas, David at supercube.com. Yeah. Yeah. Actually I'll just, I'm going to plug the customer here. They're doing some sort of a techno thing coming up in the beginning of June. If you're in the Detroit area in June of 20th.
00:32:04
Speaker
All right. Well, there's a going to have an event going on there, but yeah, super, super cool thing going on there. So you've recreated Shakespeare's iconic theater and shipping containers. You built a now pot farm. What's your favorite thing that somebody's ever done with one of your containers?
00:32:21
Speaker
Oh, it's got to be the Globe Theatre, really. How could you top that? That one just does just top everything just because it's so creative and I can't take credit for that because it truly is the customer who did all of it. All that and just such a cool one. But try to think what other fun ones we've done. Pizza.
00:32:37
Speaker
Truck that's made out of a container where we actually modified trailer sits on so that when they come sale you know how you're usually like reaching way up high to pay and that's always so awkward and everything and We modified it so that the people selling are dropped down in a little
00:32:52
Speaker
step down to down lower and they're like almost like at people level, but then they're big brick oven thing for making the pizzas are in the container up at a nice high level and some fun stuff that way. So there's some such fun things that we've been doing. Yeah. When people call and they say, I've got this really crazy idea. I don't know if this is going to work. I'm like, Oh, lay it on me. I've done a shrimp farm. You're going to have a hard time getting, don't worry about it. I love crazy. Just tell me about it.
Embracing Unique Business Ideas
00:33:18
Speaker
Awesome. You are continuing to grow, right? We've made your website better and better. Business is good. It is as business is great. I have to say you guys have been awesome and wonderful. Your team is great. Wonderful. Excellent. So what's next for you in the super cube market?
00:33:34
Speaker
I think at this point, we are heading into our busy season. So we are just bracing for the onslaught of all of the many leads coming our way that you're helping us get. Oh, we do have one fun project that is about to roll out. Another fun one. E-bikes here in the Twin Cities area.
00:33:54
Speaker
a rental place over at Back Channel Brewery. We'll have a little spot where you can rent out some e-bikes that a customer of mine is doing. Really cool one where the doors flip, one door flips open and up and down. So the top part becomes an awning and the bottom part becomes a ramp so that you can get into the container. Sounds going to look really cool. Really nice customer with that one too. And so there's something that you can do in a container this summer. So that'll be something fun.
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. But I suppose the net benefit of certainly anything container related like this, but if there's a new spot, they could either duplicate the same thing or maybe even just move it if they needed to. Yeah, that's the idea. Yeah. Yeah. This outfit actually has a rental up on the North Shore already that we did for them a few years ago. We're taking some learnings from that and just refining up what they want to do differently on this one and coming up with a fun idea with that. And the idea is to roll it out, I think, to do some other fun stuff.
00:34:49
Speaker
I have a friend who is a very nice middle-aged man who owns a factory that makes Aztec death whistles, which one does naturally as one does. Yes. And if you have one, I have several, I have a collection thanks to him.
00:35:08
Speaker
It's an actual thing that is really rooted in history is because the Aztecs would have them and they'd blow into them. And it sounds like a woman screaming. They're really quite extraordinary. And you wouldn't pick him out from a crowd of somebody who had an Aztec death whistle business. I know another guy who's a cricket farmer. There it is. Yeah. Dave's got it on screen there. And since this is a podcast, I should probably blow it. Right. So we're ready. Everybody, everybody kind of get ready back away from the microphones.
00:35:41
Speaker
I didn't grow hard because I didn't want everybody to come running in the office, but yeah, it's terrifying. Dave's got a woman screaming in there. What's he doing? Um, my point was, uh, although that was funny is, uh, you're a great example of how there's a million different ways to make a living in America. My advice is do it. Jump in and first of all, make sure that you actually have a good business plan, but then do it. And I think what holds a lot of people back is that fear of, Oh, I'm not sure I have everything planned out, but I think.
00:36:10
Speaker
cover the basics, make sure you've got a good basic grip of what you're doing and jumping in and do it. I think marketing, get the word out. And I feel like I'm going to just shamelessly plug busy web here. You guys are doing awesome.
00:36:25
Speaker
have really helped me out a ton with that. But I think for these niche ones, that's really where the internet's so awesome. If it weren't for the internet, I don't think super cubes would really exist because I could not go knock on everyone's door to tell them about us, but the internet makes that possible. And then not be afraid to put out on the web what you're doing and give people that info so that they can learn a little bit more about what you're doing so that they know to come to you. I think the huge part for
00:36:53
Speaker
My success is that I wasn't afraid to put some of that information out there to make people want to come in and trust me and talk to me because they were like, oh, she's not afraid to tell me about that. Then I want to come in and hear more. I'd say just go do it.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think in your case in particular, but in general as a word of advice, the riches are in the niches. And so you are so specific in the delivery of shipping containers because there's a lot of intermodal or shipping container companies.
00:37:25
Speaker
There's none that specifically customize and make them into anything you want. And so that gives you such hyper power to publish really cool stories and content that resonate with people that meet that need. And there's lots and lots of markets for almost anything under the sun. The internet lets you do that. All you need to do is share your stories. So that's one thing that you guys are brilliant at.
00:37:53
Speaker
If you looked across the US, there's a limited number of companies that are doing the range of modifications that we do. There's a lot of companies that will do some modifications, but to do the full range that we do, there is a very limited number of us out there. Yeah, I think when you do find that niche,
00:38:11
Speaker
Don't be afraid to tell everyone about it. Last question, which we always ask everybody is blatant naked self promotion. Where can people find you if they want to learn more, if they want to buy a shipping container? Make sure that I get an affiliate link for this. Absolutely. Go to super cubes dot com. Remember that super cubes has an S at the end of it. And also spelled like Superman. Not the super you eat. Yes, but super as in like the Superman. Yes.