Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome episode number twenty seven Hunting Collective.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm Been O'Brien, and today we're joined by
Speaker 1: two brothers, two brothers that just so happened to have
Speaker 1: founded company Yettie. These two brothers are about as regular
Speaker 1: as regular guys get, a couple of hunters and anglers
Speaker 1: who love going outside and just so happened to be
Speaker 1: smart enough to figure out what is now the best
Speaker 1: premium cooler in the business, and why it's important for
Speaker 1: me to talk to them. Well, a lot of you
Speaker 1: guys know me as the Yetie guy. Of course, a
Speaker 1: lot of you guys know I worked at YETI for
Speaker 1: the last going on three and a half almost four years,
Speaker 1: and I no longer work that Yetie. I on to
Speaker 1: a new adventure. Uh. That's kind of why we started
Speaker 1: this series of Texas podcasts, going back to episode number
Speaker 1: two four with Woman Menzer, for me to say goodbye
Speaker 1: to Texas as we moved north to Montana. And so
Speaker 1: when I think about the final podcast in Texas that
Speaker 1: we would put out, it had to be Roy and
Speaker 1: Ryan Sears, and it had to be running Ryan Caesars
Speaker 1: because they're basically the reason I came to Texas to
Speaker 1: follow them on a journey to create this company called
Speaker 1: Yet and it was a hell of a run. And
Speaker 1: they're a hell of a couple of dudes with a
Speaker 1: great story of success that I feel like we can
Speaker 1: all learn from. So enjoy that story and it's totality
Speaker 1: for episode number coming right up, Roy and Ryan, how
Speaker 1: are you guys great? Thanks for having good How are
Speaker 1: you doing. I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing real good.
Speaker 1: It's hot you you'll be out of here next week,
Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, yeah, you guys are, especially Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 1: You guys are especially the last of my podcast, I
Speaker 1: was doing to trying to like get a final lap
Speaker 1: in Texas and appreciate my time. So I figured you
Speaker 1: guys would be perfect since you're yetties and you guys
Speaker 1: the reason I came here, you minds would be good
Speaker 1: way that hopefully enjoyed your stay. I really did join stay.
Speaker 1: How long were you here for? Four years? Just a
Speaker 1: little under four years? Like two months under four years?
Speaker 1: And what were your highlights of Boston and Texas? Boy?
Speaker 1: That could be that could be you're flipping around on
Speaker 1: flipping around overready early man? Uh? I remember when we
Speaker 1: first were sitting in the YETI flagship store, and I
Speaker 1: remember when we launched this thing. Gosh, wasn't a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, sounds about right. And you had
Speaker 1: a room full of like the people. Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1: Lance Armstrong, Ryan Bingham's playing with JT. Van zand singing
Speaker 1: song from Towns van Zan. You just had pretty much
Speaker 1: Troy Landry running around. You had Fly Fisherman from Montana,
Speaker 1: bull Riders from Colorado, had the Cowboy, the UFC fighter
Speaker 1: was here. Yeah, Cowboys Seroni was here. So you got
Speaker 1: like cowboys Seroni hanging out with like Flip Palette, yeah,
Speaker 1: from Fishing Guide and and so this is I mean,
Speaker 1: what a awesome way too to celebrate that, like what
Speaker 1: you guys have done and what this place is, even
Speaker 1: this town, it just felt like I think somebody wrote
Speaker 1: later on that they it was the weirdest group of
Speaker 1: people that ever been assembled. This town's motto is keep
Speaker 1: it weird. So yeah, it was. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: uh interesting crew for sure. Yeah, you have any memories
Speaker 1: from that night specifically, you know, no, not really, uh
Speaker 1: nothing other than I mean it's a it's a special
Speaker 1: night for for Ryan and I because you know, never
Speaker 1: in our wildest dreams that ever think Yetie would be
Speaker 1: where it is and and to have that flagship open up,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of those folks that were there
Speaker 1: were friends and family, but also the Jetty ambassadors that
Speaker 1: Ryan and I grew up and kind of aspired to
Speaker 1: and looked up to. These guys, whether it's um, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't remember Flip was there, but guys like Flip
Speaker 1: Palette and uh, the rest of the crew. Um, So
Speaker 1: that that's pretty Yeah, pinch yourself a little bit to
Speaker 1: see that. I think I was at night too, between
Speaker 1: SIPs whatever Margarite was drinking. But yeah, that was one
Speaker 1: of my highest because I just remember looking around that
Speaker 1: room thinking, Okay, yeah, this is not this is not
Speaker 1: where I came from. It's a little bit different. Um, Brian,
Speaker 1: you have a pretty good powered description. Did you describe
Speaker 1: what the flagship is, what it looks like, 's here?
Speaker 1: Where it is? Well, I mean, I think the reason
Speaker 1: we brought we decided to open a flagship in Austin,
Speaker 1: if that's what you're getting at, is just so when people,
Speaker 1: you know, Yetti being from Austin started in Austin, and
Speaker 1: when people come visit here, you know, and and it'd
Speaker 1: be nice to have a place to go to see
Speaker 1: all the Yetti products and to say that while you
Speaker 1: were in Austin you got to go to the Yeti
Speaker 1: store and so, you know, with all our offices here,
Speaker 1: we didn't necessarily want it right at our offices, but
Speaker 1: having it downtown where you can stop in and and
Speaker 1: and get a drink at the bar and see all
Speaker 1: the product and all the way the store is, uh,
Speaker 1: you know fitted out. It's it's pretty neat to see everything,
Speaker 1: celebrate the products, the brand, the history, our heritage that
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's a lot of nods to Austin
Speaker 1: and and Ryan and nice family being from Austin. That's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of fun to put put together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and there's artifacts from your life growing up. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: tagged into the bar you're sitting there. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Is that fun to see? Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: And again it's uh, it can be a little bit
Speaker 1: of like pinch yourself type, you know, overwhelmed. We never
Speaker 1: thought that, but it is. You know, we have a
Speaker 1: we have a history in the outdoors, and it's fun
Speaker 1: to kind of see those artifacts from Ryan and I
Speaker 1: growing up in the outdoors and and um, whether it's
Speaker 1: our first deer or or um, you know, our old
Speaker 1: buck knife for whatever, it might be a lot of
Speaker 1: memories on each one of those items. Yeah, yeah, my
Speaker 1: all my stuff like that displayed like a bedroom my
Speaker 1: parents has like a treadmill in it. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of these artificts. My mom tends to our mom tends
Speaker 1: to uh keep everything. So we just had to go
Speaker 1: visit our parents out in Driftwood and take through a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff. Yeah, we got it, thought and and
Speaker 1: my you know, the one one cool thing is my dad.
Speaker 1: Our dad always had a camera with him, so all
Speaker 1: of our adventures were pretty much recorded with good photographs.
Speaker 1: And whether it was a grand ol fishing trip or
Speaker 1: um siege of Creek deer hunt. Yeah yeah, um, that's
Speaker 1: a probably a good place to start with. How this
Speaker 1: all you you got to be here? Maybe that's a
Speaker 1: nice nice like bo I mean, you guys are this
Speaker 1: YETI will continue to grow and it's gonna probably still
Speaker 1: shock you guys every year. Well I think I think
Speaker 1: I think you're right, it will, um, But for the
Speaker 1: purposes of this, it's it's starting probably starting with Roger,
Speaker 1: your your father, and the way he was as a
Speaker 1: young man or but also as raising you guys to
Speaker 1: be independent, to be entrepreneurs, to think for yourselves, talk
Speaker 1: about you know, your upbringing. So I I do think
Speaker 1: yet he kind of start the origin of YETI you
Speaker 1: definitely would would be with with our dad. And you
Speaker 1: know when um My, both my parents were raised here
Speaker 1: in Austin, but after um, after the college, they were
Speaker 1: filming themselves in Houston. My mom was a nurse and
Speaker 1: our dad was a school teacher wood shop teacher in Houston.
Speaker 1: And one of his um semester projects were building fishing
Speaker 1: rods with his students. And he was also a big fisherman,
Speaker 1: and so he did a lot of custom rod building
Speaker 1: on his own. And um you know he uh in
Speaker 1: his classroom and through his own custom rod building, he
Speaker 1: discovered that there really wasn't a good finish for for
Speaker 1: coating fishing rods. And this is the coating that goes
Speaker 1: on top of the thread that the thread holds the
Speaker 1: fishing guide to the rod blank And I think at
Speaker 1: the time, Ryan, they're using some type of wood varnish
Speaker 1: that sounds several coats of wood varnish and it just
Speaker 1: wouldn't last. The life of the rod would be the
Speaker 1: first thing that failed. So he was looking for a
Speaker 1: solution for himself and in his classroom, and he got
Speaker 1: together within a POxy company and they developed a two
Speaker 1: part of POxy that was clear and flexible and UM.
Speaker 1: So it was a solution, but it was it is
Speaker 1: more than what he could um he could use on
Speaker 1: his own and through the classroom. So he took it
Speaker 1: to market to see if there's an opportunity there and
Speaker 1: went to a local sporting goods store in Houston and
Speaker 1: started selling it through there. And you know, I think
Speaker 1: that led to a fishing tackle show UM called Athma,
Speaker 1: which is the which is now called eye Cast, which
Speaker 1: YETI is that's the same show. We go to Yetti
Speaker 1: and UM and he he he created the solution and
Speaker 1: it was kind of right timing, and it it became
Speaker 1: kind of an industry standard on on both custom rods
Speaker 1: and rod manufacturers. So if you look at the fishing
Speaker 1: rod industry, you have folks like Sage, Scott, I, Rod
Speaker 1: st Croix, G. Loomis all used his finish on on
Speaker 1: their rod blinks. And and then he got from there
Speaker 1: he got into all kinds of rod building equipment and
Speaker 1: and how to videos and instructions, and you wrote some
Speaker 1: little books on on how to build a customer fishing rod.
Speaker 1: So you know that was in the late seventies. He
Speaker 1: started that business out of our garage in Houston. I
Speaker 1: mean I think I was born the same year he
Speaker 1: started it, in seventy seven, and I would have been
Speaker 1: about four or five. And UM, but what that did
Speaker 1: was it gave him the the freedom to um move
Speaker 1: back to Austin. So I think when when I was
Speaker 1: five or six, we moved back up to the Austin
Speaker 1: area out in Driftwood. But I think you know that
Speaker 1: the funny thing about his business is that it was
Speaker 1: always kind of a one man show, is him and
Speaker 1: one or two full time employees and and and his
Speaker 1: business was always attached either in our in the rage
Speaker 1: or small building next to my parents house and UM.
Speaker 1: And so that exposure as a kid from you know,
Speaker 1: seeing him do where all the hats and and those
Speaker 1: were like shipping and receiving, product development, UM, building a catalog,
Speaker 1: price sheets, customer service was a big deal. HR and
Speaker 1: and UM you know, uh counts receivable counts. But I
Speaker 1: mean it's a little one oh one class and small business.
Speaker 1: And and I know at the time we didn't recognize
Speaker 1: what the exposure we were getting, but it was really
Speaker 1: a big, big deal as as Ryan and I decided
Speaker 1: to start our own business. You know, we'd go to
Speaker 1: trade shows with him as a kid, and so we
Speaker 1: understood the industry. We knew the brands in the industry.
Speaker 1: We knew the guys like flip Palette, that kind of
Speaker 1: the ambassadors of the industry that we we'd watched their
Speaker 1: uh what was Walker's case today morning ESPN Saturday flip Palota,
Speaker 1: So we we we would watch a flip Palette on
Speaker 1: on our Sunday morning ESPN Walkers k And then you
Speaker 1: know at the annual ATHMA show, we'd see him walking
Speaker 1: around there as well. And we actually, probably Ryan Moore
Speaker 1: so than myself got to know flip um over those
Speaker 1: years and um and and so being growing up in
Speaker 1: the industry and seeing that firsthand experience of running a
Speaker 1: small business by yourself and doing everything, and even my
Speaker 1: mom got involved, um so so and and you know,
Speaker 1: during the summers, Run and I were working in the business,
Speaker 1: kidding up, you know, small kits and and answering the
Speaker 1: phone when my dad wasn't available. Just exposure that that um,
Speaker 1: you know, again we didn't know what we're getting, but
Speaker 1: it was just gave us a huge advantage when we
Speaker 1: decided to start our own business. We kind of had
Speaker 1: a road map. I guess I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: like some kind of you know, shrink or something, but
Speaker 1: it was a good childhood. Uh you know it was
Speaker 1: my you know in the business that that that exposure
Speaker 1: was great. But I think our dad was very hands on.
Speaker 1: Our parents were very hands on and um, and you
Speaker 1: know that their priority was their family and kids and
Speaker 1: and um, you know my dad today, our dad today
Speaker 1: treats the grandkids the same way they treated us, which
Speaker 1: is just all out and if if whether it's fishing, hunting, um, skateboarding,
Speaker 1: uh you name it, and it's skateboarding. Well you know
Speaker 1: the funny when we showed a little bit of interest
Speaker 1: in skateboarding as a kid, and you know this was
Speaker 1: probably in the mid eighties, and him being a wood
Speaker 1: shop teacher, uh he uh, he decided, well, I'm going
Speaker 1: to build these guys a half pipe and uh so
Speaker 1: in our front yard, which we had some property out there,
Speaker 1: in Driftwood in in our front yard. We uh we uh.
Speaker 1: He built the probably way oversized for what we had,
Speaker 1: eight ft tall vertical and he still got a scar.
Speaker 1: Of the later ones after that we built with friends.
Speaker 1: They were more about a six ft with no vertical,
Speaker 1: and that was more is a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. But at the time, at the time, and
Speaker 1: drifted Its twenty five miles southwest of Austin at the
Speaker 1: time is probably one of the better ramps in Austin.
Speaker 1: So we had kids coming all over from from Austin
Speaker 1: in central Texas to skate our ramp. And um, my
Speaker 1: dad tells stories about him. He had a water cooler
Speaker 1: out there that's way out in the middle of the
Speaker 1: yard and um, and he'd go through a dozen five
Speaker 1: gallon water bottles a day because kids would just be
Speaker 1: out there rotating through and um. And remember if we
Speaker 1: if we left town, my dad would have to run
Speaker 1: a chain across it. And uh. But the funny thing
Speaker 1: is to look back on that and and look at
Speaker 1: the liability that might have might have been involved with
Speaker 1: that foot vertical. They yeah, and kids traveling in from
Speaker 1: all over, We didn't you know. These they're all great
Speaker 1: and it's a ton of fun when we did that
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. But but nevertheless, my parents
Speaker 1: and and my dad, you know, uh, they were all
Speaker 1: in on everything we're doing and their hands on and
Speaker 1: it felt like, you know, business was always kind of
Speaker 1: second priority to to family, which is something that Ryan
Speaker 1: and I have struggled with as Yettie has grown and
Speaker 1: it's kind of taken all of our resources to keep
Speaker 1: up with the business. Luckily, we're at a spot today
Speaker 1: that family is first and and uh, but we also
Speaker 1: have to balance that with with our own pursuits around
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing. And when when my dad went when
Speaker 1: our dad went fishing, Um, I mean it was a
Speaker 1: family activity. It's like that's the only way to do that, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm right now he's struggling with that. How
Speaker 1: do you bounce that all out? And uh weird pile
Speaker 1: into his fifteen passenger van and uh takes some friends
Speaker 1: and head to Grandall, Louisiana and fish down there. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think our our parents offered kind of
Speaker 1: that visibility into small business and and the fishing tackle
Speaker 1: market and you know, being exposing us to the outdoors
Speaker 1: at an early age, do you have any Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny because you're a lot of your family members.
Speaker 1: Scott Cedars owns his own business is very successfully old Scott,
Speaker 1: and your brother Rick owns his own business was very successful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's just kind of the thing. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think, Um, we're not smart enough to
Speaker 1: do anything else. So I I the funny thing the
Speaker 1: if if I was interviewed by Yeddie today, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get hired. There's no way. Yeah. But um, and that
Speaker 1: that happened pretty early. So so I think our way
Speaker 1: of kind of figuring out our own own path was
Speaker 1: we're gonna start our own business. Yeah, and we saw
Speaker 1: our dad's lifestyle and we liked it and we knew
Speaker 1: we knew how to do that, and that's how we
Speaker 1: kind of Nowadays people are like, how, what's the secret?
Speaker 1: Ryan's the secret? The secret is you just gotta do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the hardest part. Well, that's what it always
Speaker 1: struck me about you guys. There was just there was
Speaker 1: no fear of you didn't have to like jump off
Speaker 1: a ledge to get to be entrepreneurs, start shop, and
Speaker 1: we were already doing stuff before Yeddie, and so it
Speaker 1: was just we were doing different things until one of
Speaker 1: them hit like we need. It's not like somebody now
Speaker 1: you get in the corporate structure and you're you feel
Speaker 1: like you have you're taking a leap, taking a chance
Speaker 1: to go to your own thing. You guys never felt
Speaker 1: like I never felt like I was taking a chance.
Speaker 1: I did see after college. I did see my buddy
Speaker 1: starting success estual careers and making money right away, and
Speaker 1: that you know, when you start comparing yourself to others,
Speaker 1: that was kind of ate at me a little bit
Speaker 1: because I was I felt like I was kind of
Speaker 1: spinning my wheels and trying to figure it out. And
Speaker 1: uh so, you know, to kind of back up, we
Speaker 1: Ryan and I both knew we we wanted to start
Speaker 1: our own business right after school, and we grew up
Speaker 1: building fishing rods and and um using my dad's product
Speaker 1: and uh Ryan started a fishing rod company. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so I had built fishing rods through middle school, high school,
Speaker 1: a little bit in college, but when I went to college,
Speaker 1: I pretty much knew that when I got out, I
Speaker 1: wanted to start a start building rods full time and
Speaker 1: develop a brand name rod company and uh, so I
Speaker 1: got out of school the end of ninety six started
Speaker 1: Waterloo Rod Company INN and uh I had a great
Speaker 1: time with it, you know, never made that much money,
Speaker 1: but had a lot of a lot of freedom and
Speaker 1: good lifestyle type business and earned a lot, made a
Speaker 1: lot of good connections and uh and really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Had an opportunity to sell it in two thousand and
Speaker 1: five and I did. And then you know during that
Speaker 1: time is when Roy had been had been getting involved
Speaker 1: with coolers. I think he started. I think it's a
Speaker 1: great story how you sold it because you weren't looking
Speaker 1: to sell exactly like I've heard this story. Probably early
Speaker 1: two thousand five, had one of my best customers that
Speaker 1: you know, kind of retail customer, not a store, but
Speaker 1: he had bought a lot of rods from me, and
Speaker 1: he was just always afraid that, you know, if I
Speaker 1: had disappeared, that he wouldn't have enough rods. I mean
Speaker 1: he would every time I hear from him, he'd buy
Speaker 1: another three or four rods from He had a closet
Speaker 1: full of them. And anyway, he called me and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you interested in in selling your rod companies? I don't know,
Speaker 1: and he threw out a number to me that wasn't
Speaker 1: enough to get me interested, since that's the only thing
Speaker 1: I've ever done, And so I thought that it was
Speaker 1: interesting that he was interested in buying this rod company.
Speaker 1: He was moving out of Austin down to Victoria, and
Speaker 1: he had someone in mind to run it for him
Speaker 1: down there. Anyway, Um, about a couple of months later,
Speaker 1: he calls calls me back up. I was up one
Speaker 1: night finishing rods and in they're late, and he goes, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what would you sell this thing for? And
Speaker 1: so I threw out a number that I thought was high.
Speaker 1: I knew would take me a long time just to
Speaker 1: save up that much money. And as soon as I
Speaker 1: said it, he goes sold. And my heart just sank
Speaker 1: because I knew that when this guy said sold, he
Speaker 1: was he was kid, and so you know, you didn't
Speaker 1: know what you could get away with. But when I
Speaker 1: when I threw out the number, he said sold, and
Speaker 1: I knew it was a done deal. And he ended
Speaker 1: up having one of his buddies by it. And it's
Speaker 1: still run today down in Victoria and Victoria, and so
Speaker 1: it's kind of neat to see that still going. Probably
Speaker 1: much more successful than than what you took a little
Speaker 1: more serious than I was at the time. What you
Speaker 1: do after So so immediately after we closed, I get
Speaker 1: in my perfect timing for darre season and I had
Speaker 1: Southern Colorado on a bow hunt for Elk on public
Speaker 1: land and then did that for like two weeks, come
Speaker 1: back and just go full blast into whitetail hunt and
Speaker 1: I went to Illinois that year, did some South Texas,
Speaker 1: did some Panhandle Texas Panhandle of Texas where we had
Speaker 1: a lease spent that was two thousand that had been
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. Yeah. I ended up getting a pretty
Speaker 1: good deer in the Panhandle that year, my first big
Speaker 1: one in the Panhandle. And uh, you know, came home
Speaker 1: from about you know, September through December hunting and looking
Speaker 1: for something to do. And then that's when I started
Speaker 1: helping out Roy at the warehouse he had with the
Speaker 1: with the coolers before we started Yettie. Yes. So, so
Speaker 1: to back up a little bit, when Ryan was running
Speaker 1: this this fishing rod company, I came out of school
Speaker 1: three or four years later and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: my path in the small business world. And you know,
Speaker 1: our dad's business was um it could support him, but
Speaker 1: it was not any bigger than that. The opportunity was
Speaker 1: not much bigger than that. So I really didn't have
Speaker 1: opportunity there to go into business with him. UM, So
Speaker 1: I gotta figure out my path, and I was working
Speaker 1: on several projects. Um. One of the first things I
Speaker 1: did was a a a fold up shooting bench. Yeah
Speaker 1: and uh, And I went to McBride's here in Austin,
Speaker 1: and I started selling them a few And this was
Speaker 1: a real simple design. You ap plywood top that it
Speaker 1: could handle left handed shooter or right handed shooter. And
Speaker 1: the base was like this little fold up metal saw
Speaker 1: horse and and so it packed down really nice, and
Speaker 1: and it was you know, it's a decent product, but
Speaker 1: it's a pretty small market. I remember I was those things.
Speaker 1: So I was selling some to McBride's and selling them
Speaker 1: to friends and family, and then um, I also I
Speaker 1: started reaching out to like Cabella's, And I remember just
Speaker 1: reaching out on a daily basis to to the buyer
Speaker 1: at Cabella's and seeing if I could get any kind
Speaker 1: of response, and I couldn't get through his assistant. And
Speaker 1: I sent a couple of products up there, of these
Speaker 1: folding shooting benches because I knew if I could get
Speaker 1: it in the Cabella's catagory catalog, could do okay. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I finally got through to that buyer up
Speaker 1: there and and UM he said, I like it quite
Speaker 1: a bit, but you know, I don't think we're interested
Speaker 1: in it. So that, you know, I kind of decided
Speaker 1: to go look at other opportunities. And at the time,
Speaker 1: my dad was UM, he was UM messed around with
Speaker 1: aluminum boats for the way we fished on the Texas
Speaker 1: coast and um and we'd get these aluminum holes built
Speaker 1: down in Florida bringing back up here to um driftwood
Speaker 1: and we'd rig him out. So I I that, and
Speaker 1: he was just doing that for our own fishing. I decided, well,
Speaker 1: maybe there's an opportunity there. I'll try to turn that
Speaker 1: into a business. And I UM, so I started going
Speaker 1: to a few boat shows, the Houston Boat Show and
Speaker 1: and and um and these were just highly specialized shallow
Speaker 1: water boats. Usually a tunnel hole. I'd hang a ninety
Speaker 1: horse Shamaha on it and put a center console in it,
Speaker 1: and you know, everything about the boats were kind of
Speaker 1: durable and well thought out, well well designed and um
Speaker 1: and on every boat you'd least you would have at
Speaker 1: least two coolers on each boat. You'd have one in
Speaker 1: front of the center console and one behind the center console.
Speaker 1: And maybe you'd elevate that one behind the center console
Speaker 1: and using it use it as a kind of a
Speaker 1: um a leaning post or leaning platform, and use them
Speaker 1: as seats. You'd keep your fish fresh in them, your drinks,
Speaker 1: your your sandwiches, whatever, and so everything about the boat
Speaker 1: was was uh fairly high quality and um, but the
Speaker 1: coolers that were available to me at the time really
Speaker 1: didn't match up to the rest of the quality of
Speaker 1: the boat. So, um, didn't your dad say you you
Speaker 1: only sold like one boat? You say, said that if
Speaker 1: we can stay in business as long as you don't
Speaker 1: sell too many boats, we're only we're losing a thousand,
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars per boat. That just don't sell too
Speaker 1: many of them will be fine. That's what I remember that, right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's right, but yeah, that's that
Speaker 1: sounds uh, that sounds pretty accurate. Um. So you know,
Speaker 1: the cool thing about the boat business is that I
Speaker 1: learned a ton and and like Ryan's fishing rod business.
Speaker 1: Um um, it exposed me to a lot of different
Speaker 1: things and and clients and other people and the way
Speaker 1: they fish. And then you know, what I quickly realized
Speaker 1: about the boat business is that it's highly specialized and
Speaker 1: it's highly you know, custom and everyone has their idea
Speaker 1: what the perfect boat is. Um. But you know, it
Speaker 1: also exposed me to the shortcoming you know, we've been
Speaker 1: using We've been using coolers all of our life, you know,
Speaker 1: when in the outdoors, hunting and fishing. But it really
Speaker 1: amplified the shortcomings of ordinary coolers. You know, the hinges
Speaker 1: would break, that you would use it as a seat
Speaker 1: and you'd go out poundling across the bay, that that
Speaker 1: lead would start caving in, the latches would snap, the
Speaker 1: you know, they would fall apart in and you know,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't really an ice retention issue. Is more
Speaker 1: of a durability issue. These these coolers would follow apart
Speaker 1: after a short season, and I was frustrated. I wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily looking for a solution, but I was frustrated with
Speaker 1: the with the shortcomings. So UM. I h. Ryan was
Speaker 1: actually at a shallow water expo out in Florida, and
Speaker 1: I remember him calling me up and saying, Hey, I
Speaker 1: think I found the cooler it might be uh, might
Speaker 1: be a good fit on your boats. And um, so
Speaker 1: that that original cooler, um was this Thailand made ice
Speaker 1: chest that was Roada molded, and it kind of exposed
Speaker 1: me to, oh, there is a better product out there
Speaker 1: that's heavy duty, and I um I started So I
Speaker 1: started putting those coolers on my boats. But also recognized
Speaker 1: that if I'm frustrated with the shortcomings of ordinary coolers,
Speaker 1: I bet there's other people out there too. And so
Speaker 1: I got ahold of that distributor and got pricing on
Speaker 1: this product and and um where I could resell it
Speaker 1: in Texas. So I got that that original Thailand cooler
Speaker 1: that and started open up accounts here in Texas, you know,
Speaker 1: like McBride's Fishing Techle Unlimited in Houston and you name it.
Speaker 1: And and so pretty quickly I had a handful of
Speaker 1: retailers that were reselling this product. You know, I was
Speaker 1: just a distributor. I I didn't you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: own the brand. I didn't. It wasn't my design. But
Speaker 1: but it was again, like so many things that happened here,
Speaker 1: all these were stepping stones, you know, whether it was
Speaker 1: my dad's company to to Ryan's road company to to UM, boats,
Speaker 1: shooting benches, all these are stepping stones to YETI, and
Speaker 1: it exposed me to the cooler business. And pretty soon
Speaker 1: I was building up a retail network in and UM.
Speaker 1: You know, after doing that for several years, I recognized
Speaker 1: that although that Thailand product was good, there's plenty opportunity
Speaker 1: to improve it, improve the product. So I set out
Speaker 1: for UM to make one, build one from the ground up.
Speaker 1: And and that's kind of when Ryan was selling his
Speaker 1: fishing rod company and we joined up and he decided
Speaker 1: he didn't have enough money to hunt. I was for sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: if I maybe had it. But what strikes me about
Speaker 1: that just hearing because I never heard about I knew
Speaker 1: about the boats and rods, but I didn't know about
Speaker 1: you know, the shooting benches are kind of the way
Speaker 1: that you went through. And I mean you describe it
Speaker 1: as a step to yetti, but it could have been
Speaker 1: a step to anything you could have figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: stainless steel. You know, fishing shirts have been uncomfortable. Whatever,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter what it was like, it was leading
Speaker 1: to something. Always you always feel like when you were
Speaker 1: doing that, you're just we're just hustling or you always
Speaker 1: felt like I'm gonna find something that's gonna be big. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't Our goal ryananized goal when we
Speaker 1: were starting our own business as something like my dad's
Speaker 1: company that could support us in our lifestyle. We never
Speaker 1: in our a million years did we ever think that
Speaker 1: it would turn into something bigger or even what Yettie
Speaker 1: has turned into. We were used to these smaller industries,
Speaker 1: like like, you know, the fishing industry is pretty big,
Speaker 1: but the fly fishing trade shows a little smaller and uh,
Speaker 1: and some of these outdoor companies, you know, they're real
Speaker 1: specialized and not that big. They have great brands and
Speaker 1: they're great companies, but they're highly specialized. And and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's they're not very big companies and they're really cool,
Speaker 1: but it's a lifestyle. It's a lot of fun. When
Speaker 1: we started Yettie, you know, we were thinking more down
Speaker 1: that same path and anything that we were starting, we
Speaker 1: were we were thinking down the path of all we
Speaker 1: cared about was it being successful enough to support us,
Speaker 1: meaning us in our family. That's why I always tell
Speaker 1: people like, this is a what we're talking about, here's
Speaker 1: a plastic box. It's a pretty damn badass plastic box.
Speaker 1: But like it, it was only a hunting and fishing thing,
Speaker 1: because that's what you guys loved it. That's what it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, well that's where we'll make all the money,
Speaker 1: We're gonna be rich. I recognized it as an opportunity.
Speaker 1: I knew that there's potential there, but never did I
Speaker 1: ever see it going to where it went. And and
Speaker 1: you know, our our frustration around coolers was definitely around
Speaker 1: hunting and fishing and on boats, and and again it
Speaker 1: was way more about durability. The nice retension. Ice re
Speaker 1: tension became a really cool feature that you know when
Speaker 1: you when you do these thick walls with polyurethane foam
Speaker 1: and a full frame gasket. Yeah, of course that that's
Speaker 1: a becomes a big deal and hold hold ice a
Speaker 1: lot longer than a commodity ordinary cooler. And for certain
Speaker 1: pursuits that's a that's a you know, multi day trips
Speaker 1: or or you know, you're l hunting up in Colorado
Speaker 1: and driving it back to the heat and Texas and
Speaker 1: ice re tension is a big deal. But our frustration
Speaker 1: was by far in the yea, and the and around
Speaker 1: the durability of the lid, the latches, the hinges, the handles,
Speaker 1: all that stuff. I always say that, you know, you said, well,
Speaker 1: why would you need a cooler like that? We'll come
Speaker 1: live in Texas for just one summer and then you'll
Speaker 1: be like even even yeah, even a day on the
Speaker 1: water in Texas is can go through ice. It's a
Speaker 1: late August, mid to late August right now, and you
Speaker 1: go outside, you're like us, You're running from your A C.
Speaker 1: Truck to the to the still sweat. Can't quite do it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's always interesting to me, is like trying
Speaker 1: to analyze as you guys go through this thing. So
Speaker 1: you start Yetie. In two thousand six, we start Yetie.
Speaker 1: And how did you come up with a name? That's
Speaker 1: always a question. Yeah. So, um, you know, first of all,
Speaker 1: we knew how important a brand was. We knew we
Speaker 1: knew being exposed to the fishing tackle industry and seeing
Speaker 1: all those brands there, and and you know guys like um, Sage,
Speaker 1: which I thought was a really cool brand, Sage fly
Speaker 1: rods and what are some four letters? And it wasn't
Speaker 1: somebody's last name similar to what Yeah, you know, this
Speaker 1: is not a knock on Loomis Rods, but that's a
Speaker 1: great fishing rod. But it's named after Gary Loomis, the founder,
Speaker 1: and it's just not as cool as as a yeah sage,
Speaker 1: yes smell Yeah. And so so, you know, being exposed
Speaker 1: to other brands, whether it's Patagonia or or um Able
Speaker 1: which ables the last name I guess, is that right?
Speaker 1: It was Steve Abel. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good name. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: still yeah it is. If your name something cool, your
Speaker 1: last name something, if Sam's is a great name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you guys have been like Roy and Ryan, like,
Speaker 1: we want you know, short that looked good on a hat.
Speaker 1: You know, we're used to seeing seeing you know, stage
Speaker 1: for example, on a hat looked great. Uh and you
Speaker 1: know with something short that you could remember and remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah I do, but but I just wanted to. We
Speaker 1: knew how important a brand was. We knew that that
Speaker 1: that that you know, we aspired to be one of
Speaker 1: those brands that that resonated with us, that had a
Speaker 1: cool name that we could remember looking on a hat, shirt, whatever.
Speaker 1: So we start putting together a list of names, and
Speaker 1: we put together a list of about ten names, and
Speaker 1: I remember Yetti. I mean, like so many things over
Speaker 1: the years, when when I'm starting to think about something,
Speaker 1: I'll I'll lay up, lay in bed and just you know,
Speaker 1: it'll keep me up at night. So I remember laying
Speaker 1: there in bed at night, uh, probably early two thousand
Speaker 1: and six and going through names after name then. I
Speaker 1: don't know how it popped in my head, but Yetie,
Speaker 1: I knew it was kind of that that ice monster
Speaker 1: of the Himalayas that okay, I like that visual of
Speaker 1: a of a cold, tough environment, and Yettie was pretty unique. Um,
Speaker 1: and I liked that it was that it was four letters,
Speaker 1: and so I had to it to the list, and
Speaker 1: it you know, it was my favorite going into that list.
Speaker 1: But I just we as we took that list to
Speaker 1: friends and family and bounce those different names off off
Speaker 1: the off, those folks, Um, not everyone liked the name Yettie.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times they're like, what what is
Speaker 1: he Yettie? And I tell then what it was, and
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, and and um okay, they they maybe
Speaker 1: they got it after that, but they weren't sure if
Speaker 1: they liked it, and and and some people were big
Speaker 1: fans of it. But when we went back to that
Speaker 1: same group a week or two later. The the one
Speaker 1: common theme. Even even if they didn't like the name Yetti,
Speaker 1: everyone could. I asked, I asked this, these guys, which
Speaker 1: names do you remember? Remember? All of them? All of
Speaker 1: them could remember Yetti. So I thought that was a
Speaker 1: good validator of what what we set out to do.
Speaker 1: And um, so we went with it. Some of the
Speaker 1: other names on the list where we used tundra. Tundra
Speaker 1: was on the list and that was our first, you know, cooler,
Speaker 1: and then Sherpa was on the list too. That was
Speaker 1: actually a predecessor to the tun tundra. Um was that
Speaker 1: the first one. Serpa was the first Yetti. You run into. Guys,
Speaker 1: every one. I was like, a sure bok, Yeah, time
Speaker 1: to cut that thing and happen. Get a tundra m upgrade.
Speaker 1: They told us the last one you ever bought. Were
Speaker 1: just kidding about that, just choking around, Get you another one.
Speaker 1: And we had some other terrible names on that list,
Speaker 1: and um, but I can remember. Yeah, yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: there I might laugh at one. There there are some
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to share that you would laugh at. No,
Speaker 1: all right, Um, the so we went with the name.
Speaker 1: And you know, I remember the first couple of weeks
Speaker 1: of answering the phone and saying yetti yetti. Cooler said,
Speaker 1: it sounded weird to me. I felt a little bit weird,
Speaker 1: and um, but luckily it worked out for us. Well
Speaker 1: the business gets going right. So yeah, So for for
Speaker 1: for a long time, it was just Ryan and I
Speaker 1: and and we're um, no, it's we can handle the business.
Speaker 1: And again this is this is um we knew how
Speaker 1: to operate a bit, and it's just from watching our
Speaker 1: dad and from Ryan's previous business and and um, you
Speaker 1: know another thing that we didn't do was you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of we self funded it. It was a
Speaker 1: it was a something that you know, we used a
Speaker 1: little bit of Ryan's proceeds from from his fishing road company,
Speaker 1: and then a line of line of credit at the
Speaker 1: UH from the local bank. And you know, um, I
Speaker 1: see a lot of companies today, startups, and they all
Speaker 1: are looking for seed funding, and I don't think we could.
Speaker 1: Ryan and I didn't have the skill set to go
Speaker 1: navigate that. So you know, luckily our earning supported our
Speaker 1: growth and and we're able to get it off the
Speaker 1: ground with the working line of credit. From our locals,
Speaker 1: and we were pretty low rollers. Yeah, we're We're. We
Speaker 1: didn't spend a lot of money back then. Everything. We
Speaker 1: didn't take money out of the business. We kept it
Speaker 1: in and continued to fund the growth at the company.
Speaker 1: Yeah that, I mean, that's a really good point. We
Speaker 1: I mean, I was living in a in a house
Speaker 1: out next to my um parents that my parents owned,
Speaker 1: so I you know, I wasn't paying anything there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a garage kind of back behind my parents
Speaker 1: place that were full of coolers. And then as as
Speaker 1: we outgrew that, we went down the street and in
Speaker 1: Driftwood and and found a warehouse that was sitting Bacon.
Speaker 1: We got a good deal on that and sub leased
Speaker 1: it actually from from the tenant and um there's kind
Speaker 1: of a crazy story behind that as well. Um we UM.
Speaker 1: So I I sub leased two thousand square feet from
Speaker 1: the tenant, and I think this building was UM probably
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand square feet, and that I used that a
Speaker 1: little front right hand corner of that warehouse to ship
Speaker 1: and receive product out of and UM and the tenant
Speaker 1: was absentee. He'd come in about once a quarter and
Speaker 1: checking on his product that was there. But as we grew,
Speaker 1: we uh, I began using his space for our product,
Speaker 1: and I would pile the coolers on top of the
Speaker 1: on top of his product, which was all and it
Speaker 1: was all in boxes and on pallets, so it's easy
Speaker 1: to do it without causing any problems. And um as
Speaker 1: we um and this this are are you know our
Speaker 1: LEAs or landlord landlord? Uh would Bryan's here to Landlord
Speaker 1: would call us up and say, hey, I'm coming in
Speaker 1: town next week on Wednesday. So before he would come in,
Speaker 1: we would pull everything back into our little two thousand
Speaker 1: square feet pile it up so high you couldn't get
Speaker 1: to anything, and then he would come in, look around
Speaker 1: and say, y'all are doing good? Y'all. Every time I'm
Speaker 1: come in here, that pile gets bigger, The pile of
Speaker 1: coolers gets bigger. And then then he'd leave town and
Speaker 1: and you guys like, well, yeah, it's all always over
Speaker 1: here on our side. It's never on your side, if
Speaker 1: that's what you're saying. So in order to ship stuff out,
Speaker 1: we as soon as he would leave, we we had
Speaker 1: basically shut down while he was there, and then we
Speaker 1: would spread stuff back out and start shipping again and
Speaker 1: again we were low rollers. We figured out how to
Speaker 1: get things done on what that had to make you
Speaker 1: more nimble, right, because you weren't. You're like, well, we
Speaker 1: got a million bucks seed money, we can just spend, spend, spend.
Speaker 1: You're like, we got what's in our pockets? Yeah? Bank,
Speaker 1: I mean if every dime count. And and you know
Speaker 1: when we when we had extra capital sitting in the bank,
Speaker 1: we were using it to go out and go to
Speaker 1: trade shows, build a brand, starting starting to do some
Speaker 1: marketing and or invest into more inventory, and using that
Speaker 1: to just fund the growth and and scale the business.
Speaker 1: But we quickly realized that that we needed help and
Speaker 1: that this thing was bigger than just us. And so
Speaker 1: that's when we started to look for um smart and
Speaker 1: capable folks to bring into the company. And and it
Speaker 1: was the early guys like the Johnny Comba all was
Speaker 1: and and the David Bullocks and who uh you know,
Speaker 1: these guys were just problem solvers and because of a
Speaker 1: small team, again, they had to wear multiple hats. So
Speaker 1: David Bullock, our CFO, who we hired as our CFO,
Speaker 1: I mean he would help me with the catalog and
Speaker 1: help me with the copyright. He would also help me
Speaker 1: with help us with customer service. He would be jumping
Speaker 1: on the phone. So he wasn't a CFO somewhere else. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he was just a smart yeah with it, Yeah U
Speaker 1: T M B A and and so he came in
Speaker 1: and um and Yeah. He spent a little bit of
Speaker 1: time closing the books each month and working with our
Speaker 1: bank and hopefully extending our line of credit at the
Speaker 1: bank and that relationship. But that might have been five
Speaker 1: percent of his time. The other was everything else in
Speaker 1: the small business of you know, customer service to to
Speaker 1: um you know, helping lay out a catalog and the
Speaker 1: copy that goes in the catalog. So that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Well there's a big turning point around a guy named
Speaker 1: Ivan Brown. Yeah, you're gonna tell that story because I
Speaker 1: think it's one of those things where we talk about
Speaker 1: I think it's fun for people to hear about the
Speaker 1: struggles what you're going through. And even like the quirky
Speaker 1: hay removing the warehouse around I got fun. But there
Speaker 1: was like a pinnacle in the business world almost you
Speaker 1: were actually planning to shutter down because something happened that
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, so so so um so Ivan Brown
Speaker 1: was our original cooler manufacturer was in the Philippines, Okay,
Speaker 1: and um. Ivan Brown was the owner of that factory
Speaker 1: and UM and he was also the owner slash engineer.
Speaker 1: So Ryan and I worked closely with Ivan and as
Speaker 1: we developed the Tundra, um No, we were. I would
Speaker 1: go over to the Philippines, sit sit down with him
Speaker 1: and and work through these design features and um. And
Speaker 1: you know those early years of the of the Sherpa
Speaker 1: and then the Tundra, we had all kinds of quality
Speaker 1: issues and and I look him back, I don't even
Speaker 1: know how we stayed in business given some of the
Speaker 1: challenges we were faced with the with these issues and UM.
Speaker 1: But you know, Ivan was just a fantastic resource. And
Speaker 1: when when we had a challenge, whether it was a
Speaker 1: a production issue, uh, you know, quality issue that we're
Speaker 1: having with our customers, you know, he was always in
Speaker 1: the weeds with us to help solve the problem. And
Speaker 1: he saw us as a as a no, a way
Speaker 1: to get into the US market and and grow his
Speaker 1: manufacture over in the Philippines. So you know them. But
Speaker 1: he was all in with us, and and he would
Speaker 1: come over and visit with us here in the States.
Speaker 1: And he might go to travel to a trade show
Speaker 1: with us, and we'd we'd go spend time over the Philippines.
Speaker 1: You know. The funny think about the Philippines. Ran and
Speaker 1: I growing up in Texas is we felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm in my late twenties. I guess Ryan might be
Speaker 1: early thirties. Here. We felt like a fish out of water.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I mean we're we're kind of homebodies
Speaker 1: and um being over there. Um, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: it's a culture shock. Whatever it's you're just it's different.
Speaker 1: And and um, unlike our middle brother, who I think
Speaker 1: wherever he travels, he feels at home, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: and he he travels all over in his and his
Speaker 1: granite business, you know, Brazil, China, Italy, whatever, and he
Speaker 1: feels at home traveling abroad. And Ryan and I are
Speaker 1: way more home bodies. Well, I think that's what people
Speaker 1: think about Big, the big Yetie company now. They think, oh,
Speaker 1: the guys have found it. That must have been like
Speaker 1: slick Harbard businessman that And I always might do my
Speaker 1: best describe you guys like this normal dudes. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're expecting, but it ain't that like it's
Speaker 1: not what you think it is. Um. I mean we
Speaker 1: did some things that we were sticking our neck out,
Speaker 1: and I was sticking I mean, we were going over
Speaker 1: to the Philippines at an early age, and it just
Speaker 1: it was I guess getting outside of your comfort zone
Speaker 1: is what it is. It helped a lot to go
Speaker 1: there together, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, I you know
Speaker 1: spent how long like long stretches over there. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: our initial visit was for a few days, and we
Speaker 1: maybe went back and forth once or twice after that.
Speaker 1: Then then when we were designing the tundra from the
Speaker 1: ground up, I think I was over there for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks or if not more so. You worked
Speaker 1: with Ivan, yes, And I would talk to him daily
Speaker 1: by either through email or phone calls and and so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, um, Ryan and I had grown pretty close
Speaker 1: with Ivan, and UM, you know, one day email him,
Speaker 1: I didn't get a response, which wasn't too unusual, but
Speaker 1: I followed back up with him, um later that evening
Speaker 1: or or maybe the next day, and and I got
Speaker 1: ahold of his wife and and Ivan had passed away,
Speaker 1: and um, and you know, I I've told his wife
Speaker 1: that I'm sorry and asked what happened and and she said, well,
Speaker 1: he was on his way home from work and two
Speaker 1: guys on a moped pulled up beside him and shot
Speaker 1: and killed him. And um, so I never we never
Speaker 1: got to the bottom of the story of of what
Speaker 1: happened there. And it was something that's tragic that that,
Speaker 1: first of all, we lost someone that was close to
Speaker 1: us and um, and and he was he was a
Speaker 1: key man to our business. So you know, I remember
Speaker 1: going Ryan and I had a handful employees at the
Speaker 1: employees at the time, and remember going into the office
Speaker 1: the next day and kind of broke the news to
Speaker 1: them that it didn't look good. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: how important what it was he was too to us,
Speaker 1: is that it didn't look good. And and this this,
Speaker 1: we don't know if that factory is gonna be able
Speaker 1: to produce products without him, and and we just didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole lot of confidence in our future. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, Ryan and I are deciding what what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do here? And you know one thing we did.
Speaker 1: Um We're sitting on some pretty decent amount of inventory,
Speaker 1: and we decide, well, um, let's go ahead and raise
Speaker 1: prices a little bit because if that's if we're liquidating here,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and raise the price and and and
Speaker 1: try to get a little bit more money for it, Okay,
Speaker 1: and um, So we sent it. I think we probably
Speaker 1: had a fifty retailers at the time we sent out
Speaker 1: an email and and didn't get any kind of response
Speaker 1: on that price increase, had no complaints on the price increase.
Speaker 1: That was kind of a moment that you know, we
Speaker 1: learned from about pricing that you could you know that
Speaker 1: that that at the way it was selling and the
Speaker 1: with the brand name, that pricing wasn't the first thing
Speaker 1: people looked at as far as you know, when they
Speaker 1: were making that decision to purchase a cooler. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Then then the next thing we did was we started
Speaker 1: getting on planes and going to visit other road of
Speaker 1: molders and um. At the time in the Philippines we
Speaker 1: had the tunder was a decent product, but it was
Speaker 1: made from an inferior mold, a sand cast called a
Speaker 1: sand cast mold and UM and we started visiting domestics
Speaker 1: suppliers and quickly realized that this sand cast mold that
Speaker 1: was in the Philippines wouldn't necessarily apply to the US
Speaker 1: manufacturers because once you get that product out of the mold,
Speaker 1: you have to do so much handwork to it um
Speaker 1: that that uh the cost of labor in the US
Speaker 1: didn't really allow you to do that. So what that
Speaker 1: did was there's another mold, a called you know as
Speaker 1: a C and C UM mold, just higher precision. And
Speaker 1: when you when you uh use that particular mold, you
Speaker 1: get it out of the product and there's it's the
Speaker 1: fit and finishes just way elevated, so very very little
Speaker 1: touch up needed when you bring it out. It's like
Speaker 1: a mirror finished mold, real real pretty part and when
Speaker 1: the when the cooler comes out of that, there's not
Speaker 1: you don't have to throw additional labor at So UM
Speaker 1: we went through that process, and in the meantime, the
Speaker 1: Philippine factory had got back up and running, and by
Speaker 1: that time Ivan had hired a few young engineers that
Speaker 1: UM they were able to kind of take take over
Speaker 1: where he left off, and we started getting product again
Speaker 1: from them, and and and we're we're building a supply
Speaker 1: chain domestically using the C and see these high quality
Speaker 1: C and C molds. So all of a sudden Through
Speaker 1: that process, our product begins to elevate, the quality begins
Speaker 1: to elevate because we start refining some of some of
Speaker 1: those details, some of those details in the tundra we
Speaker 1: start refining through this new mold. Did you feel like
Speaker 1: he had more wiggle room? Now You're like, look, the
Speaker 1: consumer will pay for this, Like, yeah, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: I think so the consumers willing to pay more for it. Therefore,
Speaker 1: we we have the room to add value. So that's
Speaker 1: exactly what we did. We we added value where we could.
Speaker 1: And the tundra of those first couple of years there's
Speaker 1: a cousin to the next generation UM tundra, and we
Speaker 1: we modified all the details the gasket, the latch, the
Speaker 1: drain plug that the rope handles and so all. Then
Speaker 1: then we started sending um um. We opened up a
Speaker 1: domestic factory and got this higher quality part, and then
Speaker 1: we um any. We we brought the higher quality molds
Speaker 1: into the into the Philippines, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we're dual source. Now it's a higher quality part and
Speaker 1: it's a value add where we where we could. And
Speaker 1: UM So as tragic as as as Ivan's um death was,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're much stronger company. We we
Speaker 1: have a just a much better product. Our margin profile
Speaker 1: helps invest into that growth and um and then you know,
Speaker 1: once we once we kind of neled the product and
Speaker 1: kind of settled back into a routine from there, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start. Let's start, you know, kind of putting dollars
Speaker 1: at work and branding and marketing and um no. I
Speaker 1: think our big tipping point was probably in two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten when we started getting guys like Flip Palette
Speaker 1: and Jim Shocky to do thirty second commercials for us
Speaker 1: and take it to the you know, the the outdoor
Speaker 1: channel and talk about you know, Yetie being wildly stronger,
Speaker 1: keep ice longer, it being grizzly resistant, and and then
Speaker 1: just telling our our thirty second story. And when we
Speaker 1: got it on the outdoor channel, that was a that
Speaker 1: was a tipping point because it was that hardcore consumer
Speaker 1: like Ryan and I that were around fishing and hunting well,
Speaker 1: and people don't remember that. Back in two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: you had you know, Jim shock he was kicking yet
Speaker 1: He's off the back of his truck. Yeah, you had um,
Speaker 1: Si Robertson and Phil Robertson I want to say there
Speaker 1: was a commercial about Wiley stronger, No keeps eyes longer, No,
Speaker 1: Whiley stronger, like all these the duck commanders. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a much smaller world then, right. You had the
Speaker 1: outdoor channel you had and then you had print and
Speaker 1: that's about all there was. Yeah, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1: There's the personalities were So there's there was major personalities
Speaker 1: who somehow you guys got on board of the product
Speaker 1: early on it. So here's how we got those guys.
Speaker 1: No other cooler company was was pursuing those guys. So
Speaker 1: the big uh commodity type coolers of the world, they
Speaker 1: were mass market, mass channel and and they weren't focused
Speaker 1: on hunting or fishing. So when we when we went
Speaker 1: after uh Flip Palett or Jim Shocky, Yeah, those guys
Speaker 1: were sponsored by phishing rods or optics or guns or
Speaker 1: boats or whatever else. But they've never been approached by
Speaker 1: a cooler company. So if you if you were starting
Speaker 1: an archery company, for example, a bow company, and you
Speaker 1: know you were trying to go in there and find
Speaker 1: someone on TV and get them to use your bow
Speaker 1: is much more difficult because they were already sponsored by
Speaker 1: by an archery. Yeah, so having a cooler and you
Speaker 1: could make friends with any of these guys sending them
Speaker 1: a high quality cooler, they start using it and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, when we get around to do in some advertising,
Speaker 1: we'd like to get a testimonial for you or maybe
Speaker 1: shoot at thirty second commercial. And it was there was
Speaker 1: a void in the outdoor marketplace, you know that we
Speaker 1: could uh, you know, take advantage of well, and then
Speaker 1: then there's avoid in the consumer market point. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: So so avoid with the with that that personality. But
Speaker 1: when we walked into McBride's here in Austin, or Fishing
Speaker 1: Tackle Limited in Houston, those guys they weren't selling coolers
Speaker 1: because you could go get your commodity, the ordinary cooler
Speaker 1: down the street at Walmart. So although every single consumer
Speaker 1: that walked in their doors was a cooler user, because
Speaker 1: if you did anything outdoors, you were using coolers. The
Speaker 1: small specialty shops, the mom and pop shops of the world,
Speaker 1: the hard little hardware stores, fishing tackle stores, hunting Ammo stores, whatever,
Speaker 1: those guys, we weren't replacing a product. We were giving
Speaker 1: them a product that they could sell to their to
Speaker 1: their customer now everyone that walked in the door was
Speaker 1: a potential buyer because of the price point. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't for everybody, but we knew if we could
Speaker 1: get our foot in the door at these retailers, the
Speaker 1: it that like us, there's gonna be a certain for
Speaker 1: small percentage that we're frustrated with ordinary coolers and that
Speaker 1: they we could get them too willing to pay up
Speaker 1: for value add endurability and ice retention. So, you know,
Speaker 1: when we recognize that void in the marketplace, it was
Speaker 1: a kind of a lightbulb moment for us, is like,
Speaker 1: holy sh it, this is this is a big opportunity.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's twenty it's this. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of products out there. There's a lot of ship floating around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of people creating markets in
Speaker 1: any segment of any consumer products. But there's not a
Speaker 1: whole lot of people creating anything. And what what happened
Speaker 1: pretty quickly is premium coolers became a thing where to
Speaker 1: where there was never a market for them before or
Speaker 1: if they're I will I will say it for you.
Speaker 1: The longest time, it felt like we were under the radar.
Speaker 1: You know, two thousand and six through ten to eleven. No,
Speaker 1: we didn't. We you know, us and one or two
Speaker 1: other guys out there in the market. We're doing high
Speaker 1: and coolers, but you know, we weren't getting a whole
Speaker 1: lot of attention. And then over the last four or
Speaker 1: five years, there was just a wave of me too,
Speaker 1: uh and and um, well we're all this story builds
Speaker 1: to when you hired me really exactly. Um So, so
Speaker 1: you know, in those early years, it's all about finding
Speaker 1: the right people to bring into the company. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that made Yetty successful, but
Speaker 1: probably more than anything was finding the right people to
Speaker 1: bring into the business. And and it was those early
Speaker 1: guys and gals, but also you know, even the even
Speaker 1: the folks that we hired today. It's just it's part
Speaker 1: of that team that that um you know has made
Speaker 1: this thing so special and and we can you know
Speaker 1: for uh, we've been fortunate to find the right people
Speaker 1: at the right time. Well, you and you grow the
Speaker 1: thing like it's it's probably best to fast forward when
Speaker 1: you know this thing's growing, it's growing exponentially. When I
Speaker 1: first found out about him, it was very much oh
Speaker 1: the cup company, Um, you introduced the ram the products. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember if that was fifteen fourteen or
Speaker 1: what it would have been fourteen okay, okay. So so
Speaker 1: we recognized early on that the Yetie brand could go
Speaker 1: beyond coolers, okay and um and we recognized that that um,
Speaker 1: you know, the brand was bigger than a one product company.
Speaker 1: And essentially that's what we were with the with the
Speaker 1: Tundra coolers were one product company. We had different sizes,
Speaker 1: we had great accessories like corner chalks, tie down system,
Speaker 1: see cushion se deck for standing using it as a
Speaker 1: casting platform. But uh, you know, the we were a
Speaker 1: one product company, so we were we recognized that there
Speaker 1: was other product category that we could take this kind
Speaker 1: of same approach to. And the first natural one for
Speaker 1: us was the soft cooler space. You know, the soft
Speaker 1: coolers were you know, you walk into Target, you'll see
Speaker 1: the twenty foot aisle full of all kinds of different
Speaker 1: colors and shapes and sizes. Always joke that they're falling
Speaker 1: apart on the shelf. Yeah they are. Like sometimes you'd
Speaker 1: be like, is that broken already? It's in the it's
Speaker 1: on the shelf to buy, and and uh so we UM.
Speaker 1: The Tundra is a heavy product. It's meant to be
Speaker 1: more stationary. You put it on the boat, you leave it.
Speaker 1: You put it on your front porch or the back
Speaker 1: of your pickup truck. You leave it there. You know,
Speaker 1: you might move it from time to time, but it's
Speaker 1: it's way more stationary. What a soft cooler gave you
Speaker 1: was the you know, shoulder straps, lightweight portability where you
Speaker 1: can take it, you know, haul it somewhere fairly easy.
Speaker 1: And UM and we just saw the exact same opportunity.
Speaker 1: We we saw that these cheap commodity type soft coolers
Speaker 1: that it would leak, the seams would bust, and we
Speaker 1: we we went through a process of developing a soft cooler,
Speaker 1: and luckily by that time we had folks like Chris
Speaker 1: Keller who who could run a development process for us
Speaker 1: and and put some engineering effort into the front end
Speaker 1: instead of after the fact. And the Tundra we are
Speaker 1: all of our engineering went into after market. Yeah, our
Speaker 1: our market, our market feedback was our our testing process.
Speaker 1: Now we got into UM as we developed the product
Speaker 1: team are UM engineering resources went into the front end
Speaker 1: and so we we we know, we learned a lot
Speaker 1: about r F welding and taking coded nylon and not
Speaker 1: using stitches but radio radio frequency to adhere the fabrics
Speaker 1: together some high end waterproof zippers that have a docking
Speaker 1: station that that are used in in UM like survival
Speaker 1: suits for offshore crabbing and stuff like that. UM. And
Speaker 1: and so you combine RF welding, coated nylon waterprool zippers
Speaker 1: and uh inch two inch and a half of insulation,
Speaker 1: you have the ultimate badass solt cooler. And that's when
Speaker 1: we launched the hopper, and that hopper was probably it
Speaker 1: was it was a long development process that took you know,
Speaker 1: probably two or three years. And about the same time
Speaker 1: we were launching that, we were launching them our stainless drinkware.
Speaker 1: And you know, vacuuments related drinkware has been around for
Speaker 1: a long time, like Stanley and Thermis, and it's always
Speaker 1: been in like a like a Thermis type setting or
Speaker 1: bottle type setting. And UM. Now I remember Ryan showing
Speaker 1: me a product that you know, hey, Roy, we should
Speaker 1: consider something like this, and UM using this vacuumentally and
Speaker 1: technology and UM, so kind of the natural thing for us. Well,
Speaker 1: let's just make it make a cup and so we
Speaker 1: made a twenty ounce and the thirty ounce and put
Speaker 1: a clear lid on it. And that that I feel
Speaker 1: like that clear lid was kind of a another like
Speaker 1: a pivotal point for us, because as soon as you
Speaker 1: put a black lid on a stainless steel cup, it
Speaker 1: turns it into a coffee cup. And what we with
Speaker 1: that clear lid, it it um it gave you the
Speaker 1: sense of something refreshing. I guess where you can see
Speaker 1: the ice and and and so we launched that and
Speaker 1: um that was yeah to this fourteen, I mean it
Speaker 1: was it was a different way of putting out products. Right.
Speaker 1: That was the first time you guys, guys really sit
Speaker 1: down and like, hey, we we got yes here, We're
Speaker 1: gonna capitalize Almo success and create something that we think
Speaker 1: is gonna you know, dominate this marketer. For the continuum,
Speaker 1: it was a different process that it feel different where
Speaker 1: you guys excited coming to work, like let's look at
Speaker 1: every damn I as as we brought on more resources,
Speaker 1: whether it was a product team, marketing team, whatever and
Speaker 1: started building out these badass teams. Yet he has definitely
Speaker 1: become um way, I mean more and more like attractive
Speaker 1: and fun and being a part of that and being
Speaker 1: a part of something that's much larger than yourself and
Speaker 1: and you when you have resources, it's a special thing
Speaker 1: because you know, you start working with the team towards
Speaker 1: a goal and it's it's it's way cooler than doing
Speaker 1: it on your own. And um and uh so the
Speaker 1: so the cup, the Rambler, the twenty and thirty. Kind
Speaker 1: of the magic about that was it did have a
Speaker 1: wow factor with this vacuum in relation holding ice for
Speaker 1: a really long time or keeping your coffee hot for
Speaker 1: a really long time. But our brand was these coolers
Speaker 1: that were at three and four hundred, even five hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: and even the soft coolers are are relatively expensive, that
Speaker 1: are ten x of an ordinary soft cooler, you know,
Speaker 1: two three, three dollars, And all of a sudden, we
Speaker 1: were coming to market with a product that's way more
Speaker 1: of an affordable luxury at a thirty dollar price point,
Speaker 1: our thirty five dollar price point. And it still has
Speaker 1: a wow factor, It still has a durability, still has
Speaker 1: you know, the vacuum insulation for ultimate ice retention, but
Speaker 1: but it that price point just gives you that much
Speaker 1: broader Yeah, that's right, and and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: a lot of folks that maybe wouldn't pull the trigger
Speaker 1: on a cooler, we're pulling the trigger on a thirty
Speaker 1: dollar piece of drink War, which is still super premium
Speaker 1: for drink War drink wears item. And now you're you're
Speaker 1: tripling that. And I mean with anything we do, we
Speaker 1: try to find ways to add value. You are, when
Speaker 1: we're developing product, it's all about how do we make
Speaker 1: it better? And and uh so we're making a super
Speaker 1: premium drink, so that up. Yeah, And that's so that's
Speaker 1: why I want to get to that blowing up. Because
Speaker 1: when I got when I came on, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of like, I remember when I interviewed with you guys.
Speaker 1: I think Ryan might don't. I think you were probably hunting,
Speaker 1: I think, but I think Ryan sat me down with
Speaker 1: David Bullock and just asked me questions about like what's
Speaker 1: your favorite white tail hunter? And that's not what I
Speaker 1: had I had prepped. I'm like, yeah, what about marketing,
Speaker 1: I got it, I got some answers, and so I
Speaker 1: think I might have said something like, oh, Bill Winky,
Speaker 1: I love that guy. He's like, yeah, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: working out, so like, how do you cook up a
Speaker 1: turkey breast? I'm like, wow, put in the oven. And
Speaker 1: it just felt immediately like I didn't know anything about Austin,
Speaker 1: I didn't anything about Texas. I really didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about Yettie other than it was cool and the opportunity
Speaker 1: was attractive and it's it was worth checking out. And
Speaker 1: once I left that interview, I was like, I'll beg
Speaker 1: these guys to let me come down, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I think people were asking me like why, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not really. You just had to have kind of have
Speaker 1: seen it. You have to go in the office and
Speaker 1: see the sticker wall and see like the open floors
Speaker 1: and people run around being cool, and just feel the
Speaker 1: vibe be like yeah, yeah, and trust the energy of
Speaker 1: a place, because that's what always struck me is that
Speaker 1: is the energy of what it felt like to walk
Speaker 1: in at that time. And that's at the time where
Speaker 1: things were kind of bubbling up to the point where
Speaker 1: you guys were you know, Forbes was coming around to
Speaker 1: interview you guys and the New York Times and started
Speaker 1: poking around and and it started like there was more
Speaker 1: than just who would have thought, who would have thought.
Speaker 1: But that that spins into was it, Chris, I want
Speaker 1: to say Christmas? Is that right? When it's uh? When
Speaker 1: we we just couldn't we couldn't keep up. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean we basically the appetite from the consumer. For all things,
Speaker 1: Jettie Drinkwar was kind of leading the charge. But for
Speaker 1: all things Jettie was just like, is everything we can
Speaker 1: do to keep up with the business. And we didn't
Speaker 1: keep up with the business. And and um, the the
Speaker 1: demand was here and and our supply was here, and
Speaker 1: there's a huge gap, and you know, we um and
Speaker 1: and our our hiring was probably behind of what it
Speaker 1: needed to be in our infrastructure and our systems. You know,
Speaker 1: we weathered the storm, and it was you know, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a problem, it's a great problem to have.
Speaker 1: But every time we felt like we're gonna catch up,
Speaker 1: the demand took another step ahead. And then we thought
Speaker 1: we're gonna catch up again, and demand took another step ahead.
Speaker 1: And we were just out there finding trying to build
Speaker 1: systems and people and teams to keep up with the business.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, we were fortunate to find the
Speaker 1: right people at the right time. I guess we um um,
Speaker 1: you know it was. It was a ton of fun,
Speaker 1: but it was also uh very stressful. And if you know,
Speaker 1: if I look back at Jetty and these stepping stones
Speaker 1: that were talking about, you know, to kind of sum
Speaker 1: up Yettie, it's been you know, a ton of fun
Speaker 1: and again never in our wildest dreams that did we
Speaker 1: ever think it would be what it is, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's but it's also been a ton of hard
Speaker 1: work and and a lot of I think, a lot
Speaker 1: of sacrificing along the way, and you know, sacrifice, you know,
Speaker 1: your own pursuits. You know. I think when Ryan that
Speaker 1: that elk hunt that he went on, he was my
Speaker 1: last Elk hunt. I was in two thousand five, and
Speaker 1: and you know, getting Yettie started after that and I
Speaker 1: didn't go el cutting again until last year or whatever. Stressful,
Speaker 1: So so we thought we were starting a life cut
Speaker 1: lifestyle company to go do things like that, but it
Speaker 1: was everything we could do to keep up with the
Speaker 1: business and sacrificing our own pursuits. Family. I didn't like
Speaker 1: leaving work, leaving to work early and getting home at
Speaker 1: dark when I had a young family. Friends, I mean,
Speaker 1: those were you know, fourth priority. Yeah, and and but
Speaker 1: as as um as the company has grown and we
Speaker 1: built out the team. Um, you know, Ryan and I
Speaker 1: had definitely taken a step back at yet where we
Speaker 1: can refocus our priorities on on the right health, family health,
Speaker 1: and and friends and and being outdoors again. So when
Speaker 1: the things growing like that, you know that that company
Speaker 1: was growing, Folks that you know, forget what it was
Speaker 1: like those those years I was in the building and
Speaker 1: I are just remember having so many friends, so many
Speaker 1: my like my third answer movie, like calling me up, Hey,
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to you in eight years, just wanted
Speaker 1: to check in and also got yeah. I can only
Speaker 1: imagine what it was like for you guys. Did you
Speaker 1: ever Like for both of you there had to been
Speaker 1: I just remember being around and seeing you from afar
Speaker 1: and thinking like, there's some reluctance in this because you've
Speaker 1: got to be the ace of people want to reason
Speaker 1: to you know, other than the products to jump into
Speaker 1: the brand. Right, you created hashtags and created all that,
Speaker 1: but still they want an origin story. That people want
Speaker 1: to know this story that you're telling right now. Um,
Speaker 1: and so then they want to interview you, put you
Speaker 1: on covers and and have you be at some level
Speaker 1: the face of this thing is that there was the
Speaker 1: reluctance there. Ye oh yeah. First of all, it's not
Speaker 1: natural for Eye, for Ryan and Eye to get up
Speaker 1: and talk to people or to be a part of
Speaker 1: an interview like this. If you call this an interview,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for you, not for me. Well, I
Speaker 1: got you a waterloo a free soda there, that's right.
Speaker 1: So so it's it's not in our DNA to be uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is the limelight, but whatever
Speaker 1: you call, it's not in our DNA to be front
Speaker 1: and center. And but it definitely comes with the territory.
Speaker 1: I will say that I've gotten and I think both
Speaker 1: Ryan and I have gotten really good at saying no,
Speaker 1: because it does come on on a weekly So why
Speaker 1: are you here? I thought you was gonna tell me
Speaker 1: for you. I'm only doing it for you because he
Speaker 1: came and worked for us for four years, four years,
Speaker 1: four years, So we're gonna get them out. Consider yourself
Speaker 1: lucky in a lot of ways. It's funny because, um,
Speaker 1: I look back at that time and it was like
Speaker 1: being in a tornado. Like you knew you were in
Speaker 1: a tornado. You knew that everything around you was spending
Speaker 1: way too fast for you to understand. But there's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do. You're just inside. It's fun, it's fun,
Speaker 1: but it is a tornado. And I will say today, Yeddie,
Speaker 1: we're way more professional. I mean, right, I was CEO
Speaker 1: up until three years ago. Ryan was right there beside me.
Speaker 1: And now we have a team that is deeply rooted
Speaker 1: into um, you know, the outdoors in their their history.
Speaker 1: But they're also very professional. You know, Matt righteous our CEO,
Speaker 1: he's a he's a professional. I mean he is a
Speaker 1: pro and he and he uh he lives and breathes
Speaker 1: the brand like us, but he's a pro. And and um,
Speaker 1: you know those early days of the chaos and the
Speaker 1: shooting from the hip and the tornado, those are kind
Speaker 1: of Matt has a handle on those things. And it's
Speaker 1: it's way more control. It's at times for me it's
Speaker 1: a little bit frustrating because I feel like we're moving slow.
Speaker 1: But it's way more intentional. It's way more intentional where
Speaker 1: we're going, and way more precise and and decisions are
Speaker 1: thought out. Yeah, no, we When I think my third
Speaker 1: day there there was it was a sales meeting and
Speaker 1: then somebody rolled in a Tundra M one ten full
Speaker 1: of Franklin barbecue. Yeah. I was like, well, okay, But
Speaker 1: but the fun thing now for for Ryan and I
Speaker 1: is we get to kind of take Yeeddie out of
Speaker 1: our own pace. And I'm no, we're still involved, and
Speaker 1: I'm still very involved on the product side, and that's
Speaker 1: where my passion is and the product brand and and
Speaker 1: but but the you know, we have sixty person product team.
Speaker 1: So you know, at one time I was the product team.
Speaker 1: Now we have this machine that's full of bright people
Speaker 1: that are driving a product roadmap. And it's way bigger
Speaker 1: than four years ago. When I walked in the door,
Speaker 1: it was the you and Chris Kelly. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's you know, and then DJ Bell that's three people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now there's sixty yeah, And and those are engineers to
Speaker 1: to industrial designers. And it's it's fun to go in
Speaker 1: there and debate about product ideas and what's features and
Speaker 1: and value add But again I can go fishing, be
Speaker 1: with the family, and I kind of go and come
Speaker 1: as I please. Um, well, that's important. I mean I
Speaker 1: think once you become a brand like yet he has
Speaker 1: like people start to ask questions, and they start to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, make assumptions and and so there's all these
Speaker 1: little thing is associated with the brand that I didn't
Speaker 1: want to let you out of here without, but you know,
Speaker 1: asking or at least talking through some of the things
Speaker 1: that happened, because a lot of these are our questions
Speaker 1: that you never thought of or things that you never
Speaker 1: want wanted to happen. You just wanted a company support
Speaker 1: yourself and then kept growing. It kept growing, it kept growing,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden people are saying, like,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do for conservation? You're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're just doing this and so that's Um.
Speaker 1: I think the probably the most important one I think
Speaker 1: is you guys are hunters and anglers. This is a
Speaker 1: hunting podcast. Um. When you see the company now, it
Speaker 1: serves many ecosystems, right, It serves as we talked about,
Speaker 1: it serves hunter It serves hikers and campers and surfers
Speaker 1: and climbers. Yeah yeah, so let me interrupt there. So
Speaker 1: our laser focus in the early days was around hunting
Speaker 1: and fishing. We quickly realized that that Coolers was much
Speaker 1: bigger than that, and it started spilling over into these
Speaker 1: other mark It's like ranch and farming and and and
Speaker 1: it you know, the camping, telgate, surfing community and really
Speaker 1: you know being outdoors, you know, oil filled construction. And
Speaker 1: so when we saw that happening, uh that because I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: started we were designing for the hunting and fishing and
Speaker 1: all the marketing was based around hunting and fishing. But
Speaker 1: as we saw it starting spilling over, you can go
Speaker 1: so many different directions, but we had to pick. And
Speaker 1: so outside of hunting and fishing, we went into you know,
Speaker 1: beer and barbecue, into into music, into just general outdoor camping, kayak, ranch, ranching, rodeo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I started to interrupt. I know that's I kind
Speaker 1: of knew the answer to the question, but I was
Speaker 1: trying to want to phrase it so everybody can't understand
Speaker 1: that transition. So in marketing terms, it's like we have
Speaker 1: the core, the people that started with the brand, the
Speaker 1: people that were buying the product. When Ryan was on
Speaker 1: trade shows and Roy was going you guys were going
Speaker 1: to trade shows and staying behind a table and trying
Speaker 1: to explain why this thing is what it is, why
Speaker 1: it's worth That's worth. And then eventually you realize these
Speaker 1: other opportunities to brand starts to grow, but you still
Speaker 1: have this group of people that were, like I was
Speaker 1: riding with you from day one. I saw early adopters.
Speaker 1: You're I'm your people, You're my people, And I think
Speaker 1: that's every good company that grows goes through that. And
Speaker 1: I always explained it's it's a cooler. It was never
Speaker 1: a hunting cooler, fishing cooler. It was only that because
Speaker 1: Roy and Ryan, that's what they love, That's what they knew,
Speaker 1: that's what they did. So just explain now from teens
Speaker 1: point of view, how you look at that, You know,
Speaker 1: what you would say to hunters and fishermen as this
Speaker 1: company grows, like, we're with you, We've always been with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, the the Tundra was designed around I mean,
Speaker 1: it works great for any type of hunting adventure you going.
Speaker 1: But the hard cooler was really designed and with with
Speaker 1: a lot of good features for fishing and being able
Speaker 1: to tie it down to a boat, being able to
Speaker 1: have a you know, a seat could on it, or
Speaker 1: the or the sea deck. Yeah, and so so there
Speaker 1: were a lot of features that that appealed to the
Speaker 1: hardcore fishing, you know, person and all those features didn't
Speaker 1: take away from it when you crossed over into hunting.
Speaker 1: And then we came out with the Tan cooler, which
Speaker 1: we thought appealed to more of the hunting buyer, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh, but yeah, I mean everything we did was
Speaker 1: every ad we did on television and print was all
Speaker 1: based around hunting and fishing, and over time it did
Speaker 1: we did to go beyond that. We still or I
Speaker 1: was talking to one of our long time TV guys
Speaker 1: today on the way over here, uh, in the fishing community.
Speaker 1: So we're still do that, but it just has we
Speaker 1: had to pick areas to focus on and eventually, you know,
Speaker 1: right now we have about six or seven markets that
Speaker 1: we actively advertised to. Yeah. Yeah, and I think from
Speaker 1: from my seat at the table, it's very much there is.
Speaker 1: Once you attach an ideology to something or get people
Speaker 1: excited around, hey, this is built for you. It's built,
Speaker 1: it's durable because you're gonna beat the crap out of it,
Speaker 1: like yeah, um, you just kind of return to him
Speaker 1: and say, still you yeah, still is still what of
Speaker 1: all the all the different outdoor activities, Roy and I
Speaker 1: are still I think that's focused on hunting and fishing
Speaker 1: ourselves and so that's who we are. Yeah. So I
Speaker 1: think that's why I like talking to you guys. That's
Speaker 1: the important thing. The company is what it is because
Speaker 1: you made it that way and you're still that way.
Speaker 1: That's right. And I would say that as we have
Speaker 1: expanded into these other markets, that that core consumer is
Speaker 1: still the hunter, the fisherman, the outdoorseman, and but it is.
Speaker 1: It is a little bit tough to expand into other
Speaker 1: markets and not alienate that that early adopter core consumer.
Speaker 1: And that's something we talked about every day. Is like, um,
Speaker 1: but it it's that's who we are. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: we we are that we are the early adopter. We
Speaker 1: are that core consumer. That's what who Ryan and I represent. Uh.
Speaker 1: The other question you get all the time is a
Speaker 1: price question. Um well, I think we've hopefully explained in
Speaker 1: this conversation a little bit wide is what it is.
Speaker 1: But you guys are again just regular dudes hunting and fishing,
Speaker 1: connecting with regular guys hunting and fishing. This was never
Speaker 1: a brand for people on yachts. It was never a
Speaker 1: brand for people had a lot of money to spend.
Speaker 1: It was a brand for the price came about more.
Speaker 1: You know, Roy and I didn't really have a business
Speaker 1: background in school, and so to me, the price more
Speaker 1: came out of, Hey, we want to build the best
Speaker 1: cooler possible. What is that in price gonna look like? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so if we can find ways to add value,
Speaker 1: if if, whether whether whatever it might be, We're always
Speaker 1: going to look for ways for our pursuits. It was
Speaker 1: always about the best gear for our pursuits. And and
Speaker 1: I think when we when we're out either chasing redfish,
Speaker 1: tarpan or white tail or quill hunting for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: because that's your passion, you always want kind of the
Speaker 1: best gear for that those pursuits and that that could
Speaker 1: be a Sage fly rod or um, you know, a
Speaker 1: high end optics um, whatever that might be. But you know,
Speaker 1: and that that's kind of we took that same mindset
Speaker 1: to the cooler industry and if we can find ways
Speaker 1: to add value, we're going to add value. Unfortunately, it's
Speaker 1: gonna cost more and you have to charge more forward,
Speaker 1: and you know, the product is not forever because of
Speaker 1: the price point. It's not for everybody, but it is
Speaker 1: it is gonna be the best in class and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be the value add and it's going to be durable,
Speaker 1: and you know, high performance, high quality, well thought out
Speaker 1: design and engineering. I've been around you guys enough to know,
Speaker 1: like when somebody's wearing a pack or a pair of
Speaker 1: boots or something, the question it's always what's that? What
Speaker 1: are you wearing there? Yeah, because you want to have
Speaker 1: the best thing, because maybe that guy's got something better,
Speaker 1: he knows something about it. Yeah, Um, that's a that's anything, God, everything,
Speaker 1: it's all. It's it's fun to be kind of a
Speaker 1: gear head and kind of chase the the top of
Speaker 1: the line stuff for your pursuits. Yeah. Yeah. You guys
Speaker 1: have uh a boatload of kids now, yeah. Right, And
Speaker 1: I knew that congratulation on the fifth I didn't know about. Um,
Speaker 1: what would you tell your kids when they come of age?
Speaker 1: You know, what would you want to teach them from
Speaker 1: the Eddie story, your experiences? You know what's the first
Speaker 1: thing you might tell them that you learned? Ryan take
Speaker 1: a shot at Well. It's real tough to to to
Speaker 1: think about that, you know, the way Roy and I
Speaker 1: grew up out in the country, Yet twenty five miles
Speaker 1: from Austin with our dad growing up in the small business.
Speaker 1: I mean we had a you know, we had land
Speaker 1: leased right across the street from our house. We could
Speaker 1: go hunting before school in the morning. Uh. The way
Speaker 1: we grew up is hard for Roy and I to duplicate. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, we live in in Austin. Now we do
Speaker 1: all like we like Austin. I mean it's it's a
Speaker 1: great place to live, great place grew up, and we
Speaker 1: we have places to take the kids hunting and fishing
Speaker 1: and we do a lot of that. But you know, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to relate to Yetti now in our
Speaker 1: as our kids get a little older. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just not the same same environment that we grew
Speaker 1: up in with our dad seeing seeing this, you know,
Speaker 1: one or two man operation, you know, going to the
Speaker 1: trade shows, answering the phone, shipping stuff out, all that.
Speaker 1: Yet he just grew so far past that that it's
Speaker 1: like I'll, yeah, I'll bring some of my kids up
Speaker 1: to work from time to time, but they can't even relate.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's totally different. And I think the
Speaker 1: one thing that Ryan and I struggle with is we
Speaker 1: we grew up hunting across the street from my parents
Speaker 1: place on that least land and and if we found
Speaker 1: an eight pointer over there, like we were doing everything
Speaker 1: we can too, and it was like the season goal
Speaker 1: if you killed a hill country eight pointer. I say
Speaker 1: the same thing I used to when I grew up.
Speaker 1: It was like how many points it was. It was
Speaker 1: like it was he six, seven, Well, that's onto, that's
Speaker 1: not typical, the eight, that's typical. Nine, well that's not typically.
Speaker 1: That's all one. It's never the numbers are so much lower.
Speaker 1: So now Ryan and I have a place in South
Speaker 1: Texas and we you know, it's a white tail ranch
Speaker 1: and we're we're into chasing free ranging white tails and um.
Speaker 1: And but when I take my kids down there, it's,
Speaker 1: you know, there, it's not reality. It's there's it's the
Speaker 1: pursuit of chasing an eight pointer is not there. It's
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, let's go shoot a dough because I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want my son killing a whatever. It is.
Speaker 1: Shut out to Ben Bennion, by the way, I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're out there. We have the season is right around
Speaker 1: the course, and we've been getting some trail camp pigs.
Speaker 1: But but you know that they'll miss that they'll miss.
Speaker 1: Our kids are gonna miss the small business experience that
Speaker 1: we had, and they're gonna miss, like it's hard to
Speaker 1: duplicate even the hunting that we I mean we we
Speaker 1: were hunting on a budget as a kid. We were
Speaker 1: working our way up from hunting right across the street,
Speaker 1: trying to kill a hill country eight, getting invites from friends. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then then then it's you know a friend that has
Speaker 1: a ranch that brings us, you know, brings us down
Speaker 1: and and just have to blast over a long weekend
Speaker 1: and then going on on day hunts down to South Texas.
Speaker 1: I remember doing some of that day bow hunts, you know,
Speaker 1: like a hunter hundred fifty dollars a day and maybe
Speaker 1: a kill fee, I don't know. And then after that,
Speaker 1: Roy and I we got to wait up to our
Speaker 1: our Texas Panhandle lease and that was unbelievable times. We
Speaker 1: had you know, eight other friends on there and men
Speaker 1: you look forward to the month in November, spent as
Speaker 1: much time there as you could, and uh, and and
Speaker 1: the way and then and now having our own place
Speaker 1: down in South Texas. Uh, it's just really you know,
Speaker 1: been the steps along the way and it's you know,
Speaker 1: running straight into our operation we have going on down
Speaker 1: South Texas. It's just h yeah, and so our kids
Speaker 1: are skipping all those steps that we took to get
Speaker 1: to South Texas. There are nothing more than having a
Speaker 1: big ranch. I just I just got to manage our kids,
Speaker 1: the kids expectations down there. And and I kind of
Speaker 1: wish I could duplicate what I had growing up of
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I remember the night before the opening day,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't I couldn't go to sleep either, I could
Speaker 1: go to sleep, and it was and it was the
Speaker 1: coolest thing. And the biggest thing across the street from
Speaker 1: our house was a shitty eight point and uh, I
Speaker 1: got the buckets full of skull cap spikes and stuff
Speaker 1: that are the coolest thing I ever saw. I just
Speaker 1: hope my kids will lose sleep before the opening day
Speaker 1: of deer season. Yeah, well, we hope they get rest.
Speaker 1: I mean, I wanted to be but yeah, that's the great,
Speaker 1: great thing to say, is it's like you'll never at
Speaker 1: least Roger at least your dad's around, Like you make
Speaker 1: them go work at flex Coders. Yeah, that's right, that's right,
Speaker 1: And that's what I should be doing. I should be
Speaker 1: sending them out to Driftwood where my where our dad
Speaker 1: still operates that business, and make them work in the
Speaker 1: business over the summers, a little taste of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's the interesting one. I've got a little
Speaker 1: one now and I think about that all the time.
Speaker 1: Of course I don't have but you you have access
Speaker 1: to to all these great pursuits through your industry. And
Speaker 1: if you, as your kid grows up in with you,
Speaker 1: with you around, it's not gonna be. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be saying we're moving to Montana for very much so
Speaker 1: we can have no reality. We live in a place
Speaker 1: where we can just run over to the Galton River
Speaker 1: whenever we need to, or run off and hunting elk whenever.
Speaker 1: That's very much what I was hoping to achieve there.
Speaker 1: But that's it's funny how generationally, I mean, your kids
Speaker 1: are gonna be awesome. They're gonna be great, but they
Speaker 1: just won't have it. They won't have with you. And
Speaker 1: that's because you, you guys, had success, so that those
Speaker 1: are weird there. Um, is there any you know, what
Speaker 1: do you see for the future? This thing like you know,
Speaker 1: I'm having a I think we're both having a ton
Speaker 1: of fun being uh involved in yetting and kind of
Speaker 1: doing it at our own pace. But you know, our
Speaker 1: future is is a little bit of yetti and a
Speaker 1: little bit of you know, family first and pursuits and
Speaker 1: and you know, I think we're excited about this upcoming
Speaker 1: hunting season. I think, Ryan, what do you have lined up?
Speaker 1: I guess you just got let's go, let's we gotta
Speaker 1: tell some hunting stories. Ryan just got start. So Bryan
Speaker 1: took twelve years off from LK hunting. Yeah, last year
Speaker 1: I got a good, real good win last year, and
Speaker 1: I kicked the gears right up. The sheep hunting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had been about four or five years ago. I
Speaker 1: I started applying for every sheep tag there was and
Speaker 1: in the US, and I guess it's just the US,
Speaker 1: every state that had sheep that you could apply for
Speaker 1: those Western type hunts. And I've always been just hardcore
Speaker 1: white tail hunter, which you know obviously isn't very active,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of fun. I really white tells
Speaker 1: my favorite thing to hunt. But I always kind of
Speaker 1: had in my back of my mind. I got buddies
Speaker 1: going to Africa and doing all kinds of other crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: But I had seen this um this book about sheep hunting,
Speaker 1: the kind of the old school sheep hunting called Great
Speaker 1: Sheep and Great Sheep Hunters, and it's a lot of
Speaker 1: old black and white photographs. I think it's by Robert
Speaker 1: Anderson's and it's kind of a coffee table book, but
Speaker 1: it's really about the old um you know, sheep hunters
Speaker 1: and and then some of these early days of sheep
Speaker 1: hunting and twenty one day hunt stuff like that. And
Speaker 1: so I thought it'd be neat to start putting in
Speaker 1: try to get try to draw one of these tags.
Speaker 1: And this last year I was actually quill hunting down
Speaker 1: to South Texas, got a text message saying, hey that
Speaker 1: I drew the the Toke tag in Alaska, which um
Speaker 1: to I guess it's maybe a wilderness area in Alaska
Speaker 1: was set aside in nineteen seventy four for for doll
Speaker 1: sheep management. And and you can't just the residents can't
Speaker 1: go buy a tag over the counter there. They do
Speaker 1: get preference in the draw system. But I think for
Speaker 1: my early season hunt, I think five out you know,
Speaker 1: five non residents drew this tag. I was one of them.
Speaker 1: So I felt real lucky to get it, and then I,
Speaker 1: you know, have to get in uh in shape for
Speaker 1: the hunt. People talk about being in sheep shape. Here
Speaker 1: here's the funny part of the story. How many how
Speaker 1: much weight did you lose? I lost twenty two pounds
Speaker 1: before I left. Give Ryan. Ryan has a lot of
Speaker 1: motivation to lose a little weight. And you know he
Speaker 1: wasn't overweight to begin with, but give him a sheep
Speaker 1: hunt to work towards and he loses. I heard all
Speaker 1: these stories from I heard like guys would come into
Speaker 1: the aspit like I was on I was hiking the
Speaker 1: Barton Creek trailing that I had my backpack on going
Speaker 1: up and down that in a hundred degrees. We did that,
Speaker 1: DJ and I did that years ago training and that's
Speaker 1: a that's a start training. I knew it would be
Speaker 1: miserable hunt or it would be tough to get through
Speaker 1: it without getting in better, without losing weight and getting
Speaker 1: better shape. And I always exercise a lot, but just
Speaker 1: kind of eat too much, eat whatever I want, and
Speaker 1: then you know, kind of let let myself go on
Speaker 1: that regard. But I started eating healthier, kind of lower
Speaker 1: carbs and and uh we had an app though, right,
Speaker 1: a nutrition app yeah. Yeah, so so my fitness Pal.
Speaker 1: That's the I actually ended up having a guy helped
Speaker 1: me out, and he wanted me to get going on
Speaker 1: my fitness Pal and and logging every thing you eat,
Speaker 1: and I did some of that. But really what I
Speaker 1: boiled down to is is eating just more you know,
Speaker 1: protein and fat and less carbs, and that the way
Speaker 1: to start drawing and most of your alcohol. Yeah. Uh
Speaker 1: and and exercising. Yeah. That the alcohol parts hard for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I did okay with it, you know,
Speaker 1: you know it, Uh, not too much. I mean there
Speaker 1: was a couple of days, Uh did real good and
Speaker 1: efficient tournament that I was in, and I had a
Speaker 1: cheat cheat evening that evening there. But but uh, but overall,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the process of gearing up for the sheep hunt,
Speaker 1: all the gear that goes into it, and then and
Speaker 1: then the training and then the eating healthier, losing the weight,
Speaker 1: the whole experience, and then the hunt went great. Uh
Speaker 1: you flew flew down your sheep guide? Yeah? From where
Speaker 1: was he based? Well, he you know, he he guides
Speaker 1: in in Alaska for about four or five months a year,
Speaker 1: and then uh, he's out of Idaho and so so
Speaker 1: you flew him. He Ryan flew him down to Austin too.
Speaker 1: We would call this unorthodox. Yeah, that was It's the
Speaker 1: first time anybody requested that. But in order to try
Speaker 1: to you know, everything you put in your pack, you know,
Speaker 1: accounts his weight, and uh, I wanted to be really organized,
Speaker 1: and so I felt like there was some guy I
Speaker 1: got a list of what I need to bring, but
Speaker 1: I still felt like there were some gaps in it,
Speaker 1: and how you pack the pack, how you get it
Speaker 1: to fit right, all that kind of stuff. So I
Speaker 1: bought his plane ticket. He came down, spend a day
Speaker 1: in half with me. We hiked up and down the
Speaker 1: steep of stuff we could find in Austin, got the
Speaker 1: pack all fitted right, knew what I could, you know,
Speaker 1: We went through all my gear, you know, obviously this
Speaker 1: is a month before the hunt, and got rid of
Speaker 1: the stuff that he didn't need because he's been doing
Speaker 1: this and and knows what you need and don't need.
Speaker 1: And that was as important as anything. And just showing
Speaker 1: how to pack up the pack right and uh, and
Speaker 1: that gave me a lot more confidence going into the
Speaker 1: hunt and who I was gonna be spending time with
Speaker 1: during the hunt. This guy his name is Brandon, and
Speaker 1: uh shout out the Brandon. I mean that, like, uh,
Speaker 1: I was saying telling somebody about that. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the packing is good to would be comfortable, and you
Speaker 1: know what's on your back, but the time spent with
Speaker 1: the individual that you have to be stuck with for
Speaker 1: that amount of time is way more important than what
Speaker 1: you learned about packing. Yeah, yeah, so so and and
Speaker 1: that was nice to meet him and know what I
Speaker 1: was getting into before I traveled up to Alaska for
Speaker 1: a week potentially spent twelve days with him or whatever
Speaker 1: it was, so it uh, just make sure he's not
Speaker 1: you know, he likes jerky, it likes the right flavor
Speaker 1: mountain house. So it was a lot of fun. Had
Speaker 1: a great sheep hunt and uh uh you know my
Speaker 1: first super cub experience that oh you were nervous. You
Speaker 1: were very nervous about Yeah, you know, I don't like
Speaker 1: one pilot and me sitting right behind him. But it
Speaker 1: was real comfortable and uh enjoyed. Yes, all grizzly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first time I think I'd probably camped in grizzly country,
Speaker 1: you know. Uh, and uh it was able to see
Speaker 1: one on opening day a sheep season that was pretty
Speaker 1: wild and uh, but overall just fun being up in
Speaker 1: that country, seeing all that, all the experience first time
Speaker 1: to Alaska and to experience all that that toke Wilderness
Speaker 1: area or management area and uh and to kind of
Speaker 1: you know, see what I had been reading about for
Speaker 1: so long and all these and all these sheep type
Speaker 1: books or picture books or whatever. To actually be there
Speaker 1: in that country was pretty special. Yeah, and you were saying,
Speaker 1: you're very happy to have drawn that tag and to
Speaker 1: have some way I mean it's you know, you can't
Speaker 1: say really earned the tag, but the way that you
Speaker 1: got the tag was was natural. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: some sheep punch you could just you know, pay to
Speaker 1: go on as part of an outfitter, and and I
Speaker 1: had to pay it. Alaska requires you to to to
Speaker 1: hire it outfit or before you even apply for the tag,
Speaker 1: or to have a contract signed with the out or
Speaker 1: so they won't let you go on your own if
Speaker 1: you're a nonresident, which I wouldn't want to go on
Speaker 1: own anyway. I was glad to have have this guide
Speaker 1: with me. But uh, it it was it was neat
Speaker 1: to draw draw that tag and and to be able
Speaker 1: to go on that hunt. It was such a limited
Speaker 1: amount of people that get to go into the token
Speaker 1: hunt sheet. So the question is is are you going
Speaker 1: to chase the other three sheep? I'd like to now,
Speaker 1: I wanted to see how this first hunt went, but
Speaker 1: I had such a such a good time, you know.
Speaker 1: I would like to try to figure out how to
Speaker 1: the desert Big Horn, yea desert Big Horn, Rocky Mountain
Speaker 1: Big Horn, and then the stone Sheep. I think is
Speaker 1: British Columbia. Ucon maybe it is all that country. I haven't.
Speaker 1: I was on We're Shooting to YETI film last year
Speaker 1: and was in the Northwest Territories for where doll Sheep
Speaker 1: were and uh a little bit east uh and in
Speaker 1: north of Ward stone sheep hang out, and um, that's
Speaker 1: when I first realized what that country is all about,
Speaker 1: you know, and that and that has to give you
Speaker 1: a perspective change. I mean, you guys from Texas, you're
Speaker 1: hunting the least property. I mean it's you know, if
Speaker 1: there's adventure down here, Rattlesnake's most are most of the
Speaker 1: adventure in Texas? Well, Like, did you come back from
Speaker 1: that with a different perspective on hunting or just your
Speaker 1: just a different, different type of hunting. I mean I
Speaker 1: don't want I love the white tail hunting. I love
Speaker 1: sitting and you know these days hunting particular deer that
Speaker 1: you find on on camera, which we used to it
Speaker 1: was also exciting when you went out there and had
Speaker 1: no idea what was gonna come out. But I found
Speaker 1: plenty of challenge and hunting deer off of off of
Speaker 1: trail camp photos. But being out there in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: seeing how insignificant you feel out there, how big that
Speaker 1: country is, and how you know you really don't want
Speaker 1: to make any mistakes. Ye, you feel there's exposure to it.
Speaker 1: There's like, uh, hunting in South Texas, you don't feel
Speaker 1: exposed at all. But out there with with the weather,
Speaker 1: with even though with the terrain, getting getting hurt out there,
Speaker 1: uh with bears, with even though matter how small the
Speaker 1: possibility is of getting attacked by bear or shark somewhere,
Speaker 1: you know it's still out you know, the thoughts out
Speaker 1: there in the back of your mind. Well, that's it,
Speaker 1: Like that's those singular things that happened. Like you're probably
Speaker 1: in more danger driving to the airport, for sure, you
Speaker 1: get eaten by a bear. But when you see I
Speaker 1: saw a bear, the same kind of same circumstances, like,
Speaker 1: that's too close, that's a mile away. I'm like, that's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, it's too close. Um, and you shot
Speaker 1: a good sheet, Yeah I did. Uh. We uh were
Speaker 1: able to scout before the season opened, and we found
Speaker 1: three rams the first afternoon. We were out there. The
Speaker 1: next morning the season, uh, that was Thursday. Season opens
Speaker 1: on Friday, So Thursday we went out to try to
Speaker 1: get a better look at one of those rams, and
Speaker 1: while we were trying to get closer, we found another,
Speaker 1: you know, group or band of rams up here. Uh,
Speaker 1: kind of over our left hand shoulder. When we crossed
Speaker 1: the creek. We can see back up there. And we
Speaker 1: spent the We spent from nine am to nine pm
Speaker 1: glassing the watching these rams interact. That day, button heads
Speaker 1: messing with each other. Uh. And it was a pretty
Speaker 1: cold day. I was at killing time as we were
Speaker 1: glass and I would eat. You know, I'd been eating
Speaker 1: so healthy. I ate about three or four candy bars
Speaker 1: and little fruit snacks and kind of odd on the sugar.
Speaker 1: So I'm hopefully done with that. That's the worst part
Speaker 1: about the training for those mountain hunts. You train, you
Speaker 1: get real healthy and you're feeling good. Then you go
Speaker 1: on the hunt. They're like, well, here's a bag of
Speaker 1: dehydrated salty crap Snickers bar in the cana tuna. You're like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. I spent my whole time eating eating
Speaker 1: right for this. Now I gotta eat salt pouches for
Speaker 1: so you know now that the sheep punts over this year,
Speaker 1: that was kind of a lot earlier than I'm used
Speaker 1: to start in the hunt. I'd like to get in
Speaker 1: a couple more red fishing trips on the fly rod
Speaker 1: and then dove season will be here in a week.
Speaker 1: Love walking around my house last night and there were
Speaker 1: flying circles. A good dove hunt for me? Is I
Speaker 1: mean top not? That as good as it gets? Well,
Speaker 1: that's why? Is that? That's why there's the YETI bucket
Speaker 1: because yourself, I always surmise, I'm like the reason that exists.
Speaker 1: We you know, we're working on a swivel seat for that.
Speaker 1: I heard about that and that's gonna be yea. And
Speaker 1: you know I hunt South Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and
Speaker 1: so Kansas season will get started here mid September. And
Speaker 1: then Kansas quail season opens up mid November and the
Speaker 1: all start hunting quail and Kansas around then and and
Speaker 1: transition into South Texas. That's something over the last our
Speaker 1: Our granddad was a big quel hunter, and we got
Speaker 1: to hunt a little bit with him when we were
Speaker 1: kids before he passed away. I got too old to hunt.
Speaker 1: But that's something that recently Ryan and I have uh
Speaker 1: kind of got back into. It's the quel honey out.
Speaker 1: I think I will return to Texas As every year
Speaker 1: if I can to hunt quail. Yeah, probably texting you guys,
Speaker 1: he was watching the dogs work, and this the whole,
Speaker 1: the whole atmosphere of falling around the dog and and
Speaker 1: anticipating that kevy rise is so much fun. And the
Speaker 1: quail populations in Texas, especially down where you guys are
Speaker 1: on your ranch, is unbelievable, so that you can walk around.
Speaker 1: I walked around there by myself a couple of times.
Speaker 1: The shot that doesn't quail. Hopefully we get another good year.
Speaker 1: We haven't been getting much rain down there this this
Speaker 1: spring or summer, so I'm not sure what that has
Speaker 1: done to the quail population. But we'll see how to
Speaker 1: keep them going. Yeah, well, boys, um, thanks for bringing
Speaker 1: me down to Texas well. Ride. You know, you're one
Speaker 1: of the one of the folks that made it happen.
Speaker 1: Like I said, a lot of good people at Yeddie
Speaker 1: and that's that's our that's the reason for our success.
Speaker 1: And you're just one of the good ones. Well, I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. And then and I look back. I was
Speaker 1: saying this in another podcast and something something like, do
Speaker 1: you look back on your life or stages like you
Speaker 1: guys have stages. You're a stepping stones, stepping stones right
Speaker 1: and if you're doing it right, everything the stepping stone,
Speaker 1: you're not falling off. Occasionally you fall up, just back up.
Speaker 1: But for me, this is like this. My son was
Speaker 1: born in this stay. My son will forever be a
Speaker 1: te which he's a Texan in Montigana. I'd be happy splits.
Speaker 1: He's giving me good. So I would say I generally
Speaker 1: this time my life was very much transformative and and
Speaker 1: part of oneting to have you on because I knew
Speaker 1: your story. Everybody should know it. Not because the three
Speaker 1: of us who wanted to buy coolers you should do that,
Speaker 1: but because it's a success story and you guys aren't.
Speaker 1: You're normal guys who love something and turned it into
Speaker 1: this massive success that have affected other people's lives, mind included.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's that's the story that matters,
Speaker 1: not you know why the cooler is so damned Durham. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Um, it's been a lot of fun and
Speaker 1: and uh, I wish you the best of luck on
Speaker 1: your next journey and thanks for your four years here
Speaker 1: in Texas. Yeah, come come hunt out with me. Will
Speaker 1: let's do it, Ryan, you got a lot of years
Speaker 1: to make up. Make up? All right? Thanks a thank you.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's all Episode number twenty seven in the books.
Speaker 1: Thank you to Roy Cedars. Thank you to Ryan Cedars
Speaker 1: for joining me at the Getty Flagship store in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: It's a great conversation. They have one of the craziest stories,
Speaker 1: not only in business but just in life for where
Speaker 1: they started and where they are now. And I can't
Speaker 1: wait to watch those boys and their company in the future.
Speaker 1: I think it was important to have that conversation for
Speaker 1: many reasons, but I just I want to be able
Speaker 1: to reflect all my time there and let you guys
Speaker 1: know was good folks. Uh. The Cedars brothers are and
Speaker 1: how important they are to me. So a couple of
Speaker 1: days after that podcast, I got in a U haul
Speaker 1: in Drew in Drew twenty six hours up as Bozeman, Montana.
Speaker 1: And uh, that's where we'll be for hopefully very long time.
Speaker 1: And so we'll have some news and coming podcasts about
Speaker 1: exactly why we're here and what we're doing with the
Speaker 1: podcast and what it will be a part of. That's
Speaker 1: coming very soon, very very soon, so hopefully you stick
Speaker 1: around for that. In the meantime, the Hunting Collective dot
Speaker 1: com articles, videos, of course, podcasts a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1: Check out all our Texas podcast starting with Wyman, Mensor,
Speaker 1: Russell Cunningham, Omar, Crispy Avila, and then this one. Uh.
Speaker 1: I want to close by saying thanks to Texas for
Speaker 1: having me, thanks for letting me live in your beautiful
Speaker 1: city of Austin and changing my life. We'll see you
Speaker 1: next time with Hunting Collector step and a