The Manufacturing Startup That's Outcompeting China | Jim Belosic, SendCutSend

If you take a quantity of risk, it'll be

seen differently by 10 different people.

I am often told that I'm taking risks.

And I don't see it that way. I'm just

like, no, this is what it's going to

take to move forward. Manufacturing is

infinite. This place will never ever

ever be perfect. We'll never have enough

capacity. We can never offer enough

materials and enough processes or

whatever. So, this can keep me busy for

the foreseeable future.

I am here in Reno, Nevada with the

founder and CEO of Sinatend, Jim Blossk.

Um, and he is crushing building massive

factories. Um, do you want to just talk

about manufacturing in America in

general, uh, over the past like few

years and where you kind of see like

things evolving?

>> Yeah. Um,

manufacturing in the US

especially like what you hear on social

media and on the internet, it's making a

huge resurgence. Um it's popular to make

in America again. Uh there's there's a

lot of momentum behind it. People are

excited. There's conferences and stuff

around like hey instead of outsourcing

everything we need to make it in the US.

Uh I didn't hear a lot of that in the

early 2000s or anything. It was like how

fast can I offshore something so that I

can make some more profit. So, uh, I

wish that I could say that we timed it

so that we were right on the leading

edge of that wave. Um, I'm not that

smart. It we're just kind of lucky. I

guess we

>> serendipity in what you actually wanted

to focus on.

>> Totally. Um, this whole this whole thing

was started out of a selfish need

anyway. I needed parts and so I decided

to make them myself. Um, which is that's

how a lot of manufacturers have started.

So, I think that there's a lot of

momentum. People are making cool stuff

in the US. Again, for a long time, it

was focused on aerospace and robotics

and like ITAR controlled stuff, but the

thing that I'm most excited now is

people are making the basics here again.

You know, uh people are making cutlery,

people are making washers and screws and

nuts and bolts and like steel. They're

making the foundational stuff again. So,

uh it's exciting, but I also think that

it's also been happening for a long

time.

It's just people haven't seen it. Uh

>> like you said earlier, the marketing is

basically just not there.

>> Yeah. That I don't want to say that

we're, you know, oh man, we're leading

the charge with making stuff in America.

Guys have been doing that for 100 years.

You know, I think about all the

companies that we deal with these like

legacy second or third generation

suppliers and maybe they started the

company in the 70s or the 80s or

something like that. They had a handful

of of customers that they've had for the

entire time and they're not good at the

Google. They're not good at Instagram.

They don't know what social media is.

So, there's this new crop of of

engineers who need stuff made. And they

go online, they're like, "Oh my god, no

one manufactures this anymore, or this

can't be done, or we forgot how to make

this." I My argument is you haven't

looked hard enough. Um, you know, back

in the old days in 1995, if I needed a

part made for my go-kart, you know, I'd

have to beg my dad for a ride to the

industrial park and then I'd knock on

doors until I got enough referrals to

find like old Joe, you know, at the

machine shop who would make me

something. That's how a lot of

manufacturing is done. Um now like we're

in that that new generation where we we

have the manufacturing capability but

then we also are leveraging with uh

accessibility and marketing and

exposure. So that's a trend that I see

is that's really encouraging just

getting people to know that hey not only

are we doing new things in manufacturing

but there's also some exposure to stuff

that's been here for 40 years that you

may not have known about.

>> Yeah. I think I think like one of the

best things is or the best way to do

business is like really uh trusting the

people that you're working with and

building that trust. And you talked a

little bit earlier about, you know,

showing up and you if you want to go

work with some factory and it's like

2,000 square feet or whatever, the right

way to do that is not by looking online.

It's by just showing up in person or

like sending a letter or an email or

calling or whatever. Um how do you think

about that?

>> Yeah, I I'm part of the, you know, the

Oregon Trail generation. basically where

uh I grew up a period of my life where

there was no internet, you know, or cell

phones and then, you know, we got

internet and cell phones. So, I can kind

of have a leg in either side. So, if I

can't find something online that is not

a deterrent, you know, I'm like, how can

I um, you know, make some calls? There's

a part of town that I can go to that has

a bunch of industrial space, I'm going

to go knock on doors or whatever. So, in

order to find really good suppliers,

the newer generation is online. You can

read their reviews and stuff, but really

it's going to be based on referral. It's

going to be based on going there,

shaking a hand, you know, talking to

them, seeing what they can do. Um, and

then building that trust. And I think a

lot of people treat suppliers as like

indentured servants. And, you know, we

have a contract, you better do this. I

see it as more of like an employee and

we take really good care of our

employees and we see our vendors or our

drivers or delivery guys no different

than our employees. So, we want to make

sure that

they want to work with us and we want to

work with them. Um, one of our tests is

like, would we want to have a beer

together? And nine times out of 10, the

answer is yes. But if you're at some

vendor and you're like, I would never

sit next to this guy at lunch, like go

find a different one. Um, it'll it'll

make your working relationship so much

better if it's just a cool guy.

>> Yeah. And I the reason that I like came

out here and was so interested to come

out here was because I I ran into so

many companies that like use Sinus parts

and and and buy from you guys and

everyone loves it. Like everyone loves

Sinus Send. Um, you mentioned when you

are interacting with some FedEx guy or

an employee and they're doing well, you

try to like kind of let them know that

they're doing well. Um,

>> yeah, we we call them fun coupons.

>> Yeah,

>> explain fun coupons. Uh,

so we recycle a lot of metal. Um, I hope

our accounting team isn't listening to

this. Anyway, Ivana, I need you to like

log off right now. Anyway, we get paid

in cash from one of our recyclers. and I

don't really want to know too much about

his business model, but anyway, he

really likes cash. So, we get cash, but

we redistribute that into the org. So,

if that's a FedEx driver, you know, who

stayed a little late cuz we were slow

loading the truck, hey, here's a fun

coupon, you know, um $100 bill or

whatever. But we we use those to

lubricate the ecosystem and show people

that they're doing a good job. Um, you

know, employees are always eligible for

spot bonuses, you know, if they're doing

something super cool going above and

beyond. But same thing with vendors.

Like,

>> uh, a lot of times people get invited to

like golf tournaments or whatever. They

get a bottle of wine from a vendor. We

try and do the the preemptive strike.

>> I'm like, "Hey, I want to, you know,

give you guys a hotel room at a really

cool place or I want to show thank you

with a bottle of champagne or whatever."

Um, and they're not

>> put first foot forward.

>> Yeah. And it's because

>> I don't know. I've never been wronged

with generosity. You know, if if I'm

overly generous and it doesn't

reciprocate, it's still fine. You know,

people have a good impression of us and

the company. Um, but oftentimes that

generosity, it pays back, too. You know,

we've had we've had FedEx guys that have

put on chains, you know, to come and do

their one delivery here because they

were like, I'm not on the road today,

but I put on chains because I love you

guys and you guys take good care of me.

So, um I we're not the only ones doing

that either. There's there's a lot of of

manufacturers and just really cool

companies in the world that you're never

going to hear about. Um but they're just

cool guys. They just haven't scaled up

to a certain size because it's difficult

to scale that.

>> Yeah. Do you do you want to talk about

like what has been the biggest moment

where you were just kind of putting that

first foot forward and expressing

generosity and all that stuff and it

just came back in a very serendipitous

way.

>> So one example of you know I guess you

could call it generosity but it's also

kind of blended with having a good

product. Uh, one of our early customers,

he was just a dude in his garage, you

know, needed a quantity of one or

something and everyone else told him to,

you know, pound sand. We're not going to

do quantity one. But but for us, that's

our entire business model. I'll do

quantity one, quantity a million. I

don't really care. Uh, and he's like,

"Hey, I'm kind of in a rush. You know, I

work on this on the weekends, so if

there's any way that I could get it by

Friday, you know, please, that'd be

amazing." So, we're like, "Okay, no

problem." So, we put a little bit of a

rush on it. We know he's a hobbyist and

you know that's how I run my hobbies. I

need everything at my doorstep on Friday

cuz I have like three hours on Saturday

that I can use it. So we get him his

parts and Sunday night comes and he

emails us and he's like, "Dude, you guys

were awesome. I got my project done. You

know, he's making like an electric

skateboard. I got my project done. I'm

going to tell the guys at work about

you." I was like, "Oh, awesome. Thanks."

And we didn't really think twice about

it. Well, like a week goes by and we're

getting onboarding letters from a very

large uh rocket ship company and they're

like, "Hey, so and so told us about you.

You have this cool product." And I was

like, "Okay, thank you." So then all of

a sudden there's 200 or 300 engineers

that are using us within this company

from like a little bit of generosity,

but really it's just trying to

>> like a day earlier or a little bit

smoother.

>> Yes. Yes. Um, so the more you can do

that, uh, it's not about saving money,

you know, it's it's an investment. And,

you know, that's that was one of our

early mottos is don't save money.

>> Don't save money.

>> Don't save money. Yeah. We had it, uh,

laser engraved on a piece of stainless.

I'll have to find it. But don't save

money.

>> In what ways did you kind of like

implement that because obviously you are

trying to be, you know, you said in

another thing where you mentioned uh,

you want to be frugal, not cheap.

>> Yes. Right.

>> Frugal not cheap. Yeah, not cheap.

>> That's tied into don't save money.

>> Meaning

if you need a piece of equipment

and you can cheap out and get the the

one that's half the price or it's used

or whatever,

uh that's being cheap cuz you're you're

cutting off your nose to spite your

face. You know, you're trying to save

some money, but you're going to pay for

it in maintenance or downtime or

whatever. So, we're like, be frugal, be

smart about your purchase, but if the

best purchase happens to be triple the

cost, that is still the best purchase.

It's the most frugal, you know. Um, you

can be wasteful and just buy the Ferrari

because you like the colors or something

stupid like we don't do that.

>> Um,

>> you're being thoughtful about how you're

spending money kind of thing. So,

don't save money is about like, hey, if

we don't put a piece of candy in this

package, it'll save us seven cents, you

know, or hey, we don't include a sticker

or something like that. It's going to

save us a little money. If we ship it a

day slower, you know, saves us $4. Uh,

don't save money. Go for that good

experience. And oftentimes, we find that

the more we spend, the better that

experience is, the more customers we

get, the longer lifetime that we have.

So,

I don't know. Uh, we we don't have a CFO

right now

because

>> that probably helps.

>> Yeah, we we run the company based on gym

math and gym math is you do what feels

right and it feels right to overnight

stuff when you know they need it before

their wedding or something like that,

you know. Um

it's it makes sense to you know hand

carry something on a plane because it

has to get there otherwise this guy's

going to get fired or you know it makes

sense to uh invest in the absolute best

tools so that they don't break and we

have no downtime. So I think from the

outside it looks like we're blowing a

lot of money and when we could we could

save a little bit here and there. Uh but

my argument is, you know, the the more

we spend on cool stuff like that, the

more it comes back.

>> The the way that I think about that is

Jeff Bezos had this uh this line where

early on in Amazon, um they basically

implemented something where if a

customer had already purchased a like

item, let's say a book, um sometimes

people just, you know, they're busy,

their lives are busy, and so they'll

forget that they ordered the thing. And

so what what they implemented was

basically this uh automatic thing where

it would tell a customer if they had

already ordered it and like did you mean

to try are you trying to reorder it? And

a lot of executives and stuff inside of

Amazon pushed back and were like that

will at least short term burn money. And

Jeff was like, "No, what happens is,

yes, we do lose 10, 20, $30 or $50 or

$100 today, but over the long term,

we're building this customer

relationship, and them having this

magical kind of like experience like

Amazon's looking out for you is worth

it."

>> Yep. Yeah, I I agree. Um,

which I don't think they're doing that

anymore because I've ordered like the

same thing like 50 times. I have a pile

of them. I

>> Andy Jasse is now in charge.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I often do, uh, I don't

know if you'd call it like a race

condition, like if I need a a part or a

nut or bolt or whatever, I'll order it

from like five different vendors or I'll

order it on Amazon from like six of

their vendors and then McMaster and then

whoever else I can. Whoever gets here

first wins and then I have good

intentions of returning it and I I never

do. But yeah, the the investment in the

magical experience is something that I

it needs to be ingrained in the culture.

And actually, I I love that we have a

lot of people who

are skeptical of it. Uh especially at

first, they're like they're like, "Hey

man, we're spending too much money on

this." And like I'm like, "Good. I'm

glad that you're not just like blowing

stuff. you're not just like ordering

crazy Snap-On tools when Craftsman will

work just as good. Um,

but then they get to see what happens

and they get to see the magic, you know,

especially after you're here for like a

year or two and you start to hear the

stories and see the feedback that we

get. Um, it makes you want to double

down on it. You're like, what else can

we do? You basically, it's it's kind of

like gone all in. Ironically, you're

doing the marketing online and stuff,

but really, if you're just making

someone's life much better, they just

magically will start telling people

about you.

>> Yeah. Well, yeah, marketing sucks, dude.

We've we've spent so much.

>> Go for it.

>> Maybe we My head marketing is sitting

across from me. She's not super happy

about that statement. But we've spent

millions and millions of dollars on

Google ads and all kinds of different

stuff when really if you invest in that

really cool experience or just reinvest

in product that's all you need. It takes

longer. Uh it's not VC backable like

you're not going to have this you know

crazy you know hockey stick growth from

uh from investing in Google ads or you

know DTOC marketing or whatever but it

pays off ultra ultra long term. And

then, you know, the best advertising is

word of mouth. And that's a million%

true. And I think that's why a lot of

these legacy manufacturers

are in business without being on the

internet. They've never had a website.

They don't know how to use email or

they're like, "Hey, it's it's uh uh Jim

and Aaron at AOL.com." You know, I've

seen that from vendors. Those guys never

had to do additional marketing or

whatever because they had a really great

product, a really great customer

experience that was like handshake based

and they've been able to do it for 40

years except now they're retiring and

not everyone, you know, they don't have

a son or a daughter or whatever that's

taking their place. So

>> yeah, and I want to I want to go back uh

now to kind of like the start. There's

very few businesses that I know of that

have kind of bootstrapped. I think you

started Syncend in 2018.

>> Yeah. And now you are doing millions and

millions and millions of dollars in

orders uh to I don't know how many

customers like tens of thousands of

customers.

>> Yeah, I think it's 250 or 300,000

customers.

>> 250 300,000 customers. Um take me back

to like when you started the company. I

know you initially spent like, you know,

$750,000 on a laser. Um how much, you

know, how did you make that decision?

And

>> the thing is like I didn't spend 750

grand on a laser. I bought the laser

that was worth that. But, you know, 70%

down. Yeah.

>> Oh, how' that how'd that happen?

>> Financing, man. Uh, so

when no one's going to lend you money,

you have to get creative. And so, you

know, Amada Amada makes our lasers.

They're amazing. There are other great

manufacturers out there. Um, but Amada

was the ones who like believed in us and

they had flexible payment terms. They

they offer financing inhouse. So, you go

to Wells Fargo, like Wells Fargo, I

banked with them since I was 18 or

whatever, and when I really needed them,

like, "Hey guys, you know, can I get an

equipment loan?" They're like, "No, how

long have you been in business?" "Well,

I haven't. I'm starting a business." So,

they're like, "Get out." Uh, the right

equipment vendor who has a program where

they lend in house or they believe in

you, they'll go to bat for you. And so,

yeah, I didn't have to come up with

750,000 cash. I just had to come up with

a down and then hope and pray that I

could make the payments. Um but that was

that was the initial seed of this

business was I was running a software

company and I was very happy with that

software company but I also am like a

fabricator and you know kind of maker

guy and so I I wanted to get some parts

made and it was it was difficult you

know even with my connections and

driving around industrial areas it's

still very difficult to get a single

part made. Um, so I was like, I tell you

what, I will buy this laser and uh if I

can get it to just like make its payment

and pay for the guy operating it, then

that'll be my fun send business that

I'll never have to worry about. Um, that

that only lasted like a month

and then we got we got a little bit

busier. So, you know, starting off with

no money. Um,

it's

>> Are you glad that you started out with

not a whole lot of cash in your bank

account? Like, did that did that kind of

set the right foundation or was that a

more difficult thing?

>> Oh, yeah. Um, I think that if I would

have taken $10 million of VC money,

oh my god, you're you don't know what

the hell you're doing. So, you're buying

the wrong equipment, you're buying too

much equipment, you're hiring the wrong

people. You know, as soon as you take VC

money, they're like, "Oh, well, you need

a CFO and you need legal counsel and you

need this and this and this." No, dude.

I needed like laser operators. I needed

some guy to drive the forklift. Um, you

need a shipping line. You need, you

know, basic stuff. You get a CFO way

down the road. Um, you get a controller

way down the road. You get all this

other stuff later on. So, I've seen a

lot of companies that get money and they

buy the wrong [ __ ] When you're

constrained, you spend a lot of time

thinking about is this the right move?

Um, and you move slow because you have

to move cautiously. We've still made

mistakes. You know, I lit money on fire

um on some of the wrong stuff.

>> Do you want to go into that?

>> Yeah. Uh

the frugality versus cheapness. Like

that's a really tough line to walk and

especially when you're when you're brand

new. Um I was like

>> sometimes you accidentally do something

and

>> yeah I bought some stuff on eBay that

that didn't quite work out. Uh we

actually one of our packaging machines

the very first one I found the company

that makes them and they're like 30

grand and I was like there's no way in

hell I'm spending that. So I found one

on eBay for like $3,000

and it kind of worked but it caused us

probably $35,000 worth of headaches. And

then I I remember distinctly the day

that I picked it up with a forklift and

dumped it in the dumpster. And wow,

>> we spent like an afternoon beating the

[ __ ] out of this thing. Uh then I bought

another one used for like five grand and

it was the same damn thing. Uh

so that's what taught me like, hey,

maybe I should have just bought the

$30,000 one first. Um,

but it also if I if I had a bunch of VC

money, I probably would have bought 10

of them and I probably would have bought

the $100,000 machines with all the

automation and stuff that doesn't work

for a high mix involved environment, you

know. Um, so constraints are a big thing

here. That's all we do. Work within

constraints. Get really creative. Money

is one of the better constraints that

you can have. that forces you to make uh

really honest decisions.

>> Can you talk through basically what it

was like for the first month after you

bought the laser and you're like first

setting it up, you're figuring out the

forklift guy and all this stuff and then

also like the first year and scaling up

and starting to get orders.

>> First month,

first month I was like uh I have a

little bit of runway like payments

aren't due for a little bit. So that's

the other trick is

we never negotiate on price of a

machine. We negotiate on terms.

Our payment structure is way more

important than the final price of the

machine.

>> So for us, if I can get the machine, get

it operational, and then make the first

payment 3 or 4 months down the line,

like oftentimes we can have the machine

like pretty much paid off before we make

the first payment. So, we had negotiated

some like delayed payment or deferred

payment uh when we landed the machine.

So, I was like, "Okay, I got a few

months and we'll just kind of learn how

to operate it. We'll get some friends

and family to place orders and we'll

figure this thing out." Well, like week

one, they sent a trainer out, uh, you

know, machine was installed and they're

like "Okay

uh, let's cut some parts. Let's cut some

geometry." And I was like, "Okay, I know

the first thing that I want. It's the

trucker mud flap girl." You know? I was

like, I I want one of those. We load it

into their software and it like blue

screens the machine. I was like, oh,

that's weird. Let's that was supposed to

happen.

>> Let's try that again.

>> So, we loaded again, blue screens. And

the trainer's there and he's like, well,

it's because you have all these like

compound curves and you know, cuz she's

a she's a curvy lady, the trucker

mudflap girl. And so he's like, you

know, we really don't handle that type

of geometry with all these like complex

splines and everything. It's, you know,

where's where's like a square with holes

in it? And I was like, are you [ __ ]

me? Like we are an ondemand

manufacturer. People upload all kinds of

stupid [ __ ] They're going to upload

like dragonfly wings and uh, you know,

crazy hexagonal patterns and and art and

beautiful things and then, you know,

also holes with squares. But we we have

to handle everything.

So anyway, long way of saying the

machine didn't work. Uh granted, it cuts

really well. It's it's a great machine,

but for our particular client base, it

worked. So, uh it was all hands- on

deck. We're like, uh I guess we have to

write our own software for this. So,

that's what we did. Uh, Jacob Graham,

our CTO, like spent a weekend without

sleep and hacked something together so

that we could convert these weird file

types into something that machine could

handle. And that was like the basis of

our software stack. Um, from that moment

on, we realized like, oh, this is a

software first company. Uh, it's not

just going to be this like fun side

project for Jim and his hobbies. It's

going to be like a real effort. Um, but

it forced us to figure some things out

really really quickly.

>> At the beginning, did you start out

being able to kind of deliver this very

delightful early and often, you know,

putting the foot first, you know, best

foot forward sort of situation um sort

of experience for your customers or was

it were there were there any delays at

the beginning because like machines

didn't work or they didn't work as

expected um in having to figure that

out?

>> Yes, both. So I would say at the

beginning it was way easier for us to

deliver this magic experience. Uh

because we had no volume. So everything

works amazing when you have you know

five orders a day. Uh we used to call it

shipping with Jim. So orders would come

in in the morning. We'd cut them all and

get them all ready and then after lunch

like I would pack everything up and then

I'd drive to FedEx every day. And so

sometimes like shipping with Jim got

later and later in the day and then

sometimes I'd need a couple people to to

help with the the shipping with Jim

show. And it was it was fine because we

were shipping so early, you know, we

were beating expectations so far by

having low volume. Everything was h

everything was great. If there was an

anomaly like we ran out of material or

machine went down, we had a little bit

of cushion. We had a couple days to make

it right. We'd still be able to ship on

time. Well, when volume increases, all

of that goes out the window. Now, you're

constantly fighting capacity, and we

still do to this day. We're always

fighting capacity. I remember in the

early days, um, we had moved into our

second building so that we could have

two lasers cuz we realized like, holy

crap, our whole business is based on

this one machine operating. And it

started out at one shift, then it ran

two, and then we got up to four shifts.

And we're like, "Oh my god, if this

thing dies, like if it dies for like two

weeks, we're we're fucked."

>> So, we're like, "Okay, let's get a

bigger building. Let's put two lasers in

it." That second laser, it worked for

like a week and then it was down for 6

weeks. Uh, and so that was a time when

we were incredibly fragile. We were

barely meeting deadline or we were

missing deadline and we were running

24/7 with a super tiny crew. Um, I

remember waking up in the middle of the

night and I check the cameras to check

on the crew because sometimes we only

had one guy in the building, you know,

or so I check the crew and like shout

out to Keven for uh for running. I I

check the cameras and there's like Keven

no shirt like he's just in his boxers

cuz he's like sprinting around carrying

metal. I'm like I don't know if I should

see this. Um, but just making sure that

everyone's alive, you know? It was that

was a super super hard time for us. Um,

so we're like, okay, we always have to

have spare capacity. You have to have

surge capacity, reserve capacity in

order to meet deadline. To anyone

listening, if you go into quick turn

manufacturing, holy [ __ ] it's super

super hard. If we had 8 weeks to do

anything, oh my god, it's the all the

math changes. But when you get into

quick turn, redundancy becomes your

friend. So we're like, oh, we'll add

more lasers. Well, guess what? When you

add more lasers, the math is forcing you

to keep those lasers busy. It's

expensive to have a laser sitting idle,

you know, just for emergency purposes.

So, you're like, well, we'll increase

demand a little bit and fill up the

machine and then your redundancy goes

away. So, it you're always fighting this

crazy battle. We got pretty good at it.

And with scale,

with scale comes a little bit of luxury

to have an idle machine. Um, but then

again when you get CFOs, they don't like

that.

>> They want maximum uptime. So, I don't

know, dude. It's super hard. But I love

it. I mean, it's like, you know,

everyone always says it's Factorio in

real life. It's it's factorial in real

life.

>> Yeah. Outside of outside of the actual

machines, you know, having redundancy

and and those types of risks. At the

very beginning, what were you most

afraid of? I was afraid of of growing

too fast and then the rug getting pulled

out from under me, you know. Uh

>> we're always trying to build a moat. I I

have so much invested in this company

that you know if uh if China decides

like you know some they're like hey we

can ship to the US in one day and we're

onetenth the cost. I'm like oh uhoh what

is what happens to my

>> competitiveness disappears. Yeah. So

whether that can happen or not, I'm

trying to build a mode against it. You

know, I'm like, how can I be able to

ship in one day? How can I have, you

know, 90% lower prices, you know, how

can I figure all that out? So, at the

very beginning, that was a real worry um

that someone would with bigger, deeper

pockets would come in and and kick our

butt. Um and today, that's still a

worry. You know, we're we're a little

more comfortable, but technology is

advancing so fast. You know, it's easier

to start this type of business today

than it ever has been, but it's very,

very difficult to do it at scale. So,

we're constantly adding more equipment,

more square footage, uh more humans,

more software, um in order to to make

sure that we're delivering a great

product and a great, you know, magical

experience like you said, um but then

also preventing, you know, some uh

foreign adversary from, you know, taking

our hard-earned efforts. I'd imagine

that for, you know, to kind of mitigate

some of that risk, yes, maybe you can

get a part slightly cheaper and there's

there's some of the the things where

China could just turn on tomorrow and

say, "We're going to do overnight

shipping and stuff like that for for

parts." Um, but by building like really

strong customer love, you kind of

mitigate that risk. And so even though

you know you're you're you're spending

some money like you said um it actually

counterintuitively makes it so the

likelihood that those customers will

disappear overnight also really goes

down.

>> Yeah. Well, you know, the the goal is if

you're equal on everything, you're

you're equal on shipping, you're equal

on price, um you're equal on quality,

you know, I want them to choose our

company because of that relationship or

the they get a cool sticker or hey, we

sponsored their first robotics team or,

you know, whatever. So, all things being

equal, I still want to win. But when

things are not equal, that's when I

still want to win, too. So, you know, if

someone is shipping faster and I just

can't do it, how do I win? Well, I have

to win on price or I have to win on

relationship. I can always double down

on that relationship and continue to

win. But the thing that thing that no

one tells you is people shop with their

wallet. They will say one thing, they'll

be like, I'm buying Americanmade and you

know, whatever. And sure as [ __ ] they

will go and and offshore. U especially

when the price is half as much. It's

just hard for people to walk the walk

and talk the talk.

>> I I love I love um same thing for with

like content. It's like people may like

the post on Twitter, but the truth is

you watch the views and you watch the

watch time and if people are actually

watching like they'll say a whole bunch

of nice things, but if you made a thing

that isn't great, they just won't watch

it.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is very simple. And so you

actually know that that's your metric.

>> Yeah. People will tell you one thing and

then they're not trying to be mean.

>> No. But they will.

>> It's just a very human thing to not try

to be an [ __ ]

>> Well, and when you're like when you're

in that voting booth all by yourself,

you're going to do what's really on your

conscience. And you know, that's that's

uh that's our number one battle right

now is making sure that, you know, as

competitors, especially offshore, get

better and better, that we're right

there with them. So, as fast as they're

trying to improve and go faster and

lower prices, we have to move 10 times

faster. and we're doing it in a

constrained environment. You know, we're

not getting electricity as cheap or or

raw materials as cheap or whatever. Um,

but it's still 100% possible. You know,

that that's the thing. People are like,

"Oh, we can never be competitive." Uh,

[ __ ] No, it's dude, we pay like

three bucks a pound for aluminum, 320,

something like that. Uh, that's such a

small portion of the final price of of

an actual part. Like this is my fidget

toy. um you know this is for a quantity

of one this is a few hundred bucks

probably.

>> Um so the the half a pound of aluminum

like that doesn't factor in the price.

So a lot of people are complaining on

the internet they're going oh yeah it's

cuz Chinese are subsidizing the

aluminum. Dude if I if I got my aluminum

for free

>> it doesn't affect the final price that

much. So it's not an excuse like try

harder. Do do better with what you got.

Use those constraints. If my constraint

is that aluminum is three bucks a pound

and I need to be competitive, I'll find

a way to be more competitive with better

machines, better process, better

strategy, uh better training, uh you

know, all kinds of stuff. We have so

many other things to do than just like

cry about China getting their raw

materials for less.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And I I love So earlier

today when we were kind of just walking

around um and you were showing me the

factory, you're talking about basically

being able to see, you know, a lot of

people there's the whole

financialization of like everything. Um,

and what you're doing is kind of the

exact opposite of that where yes, you

have the topline numbers and stuff, but

then you're actually trying to kind of

learn about how your business is

evolving by literally just walking

around and seeing what's being made,

seeing how the customer orders are

coming in and changing, who's starting,

who's, you know, increasing their

orders. Is there some new person at some

company um that suddenly out of the blue

starts ordering even though there's some

other engineer that's also ordering? Um,

how did you kind of come to that

philosophy and what were you what were

you doing at the beginning?

>> It's not a philosophy like

>> I know it's I know you say that but like

most people don't do it.

>> The these companies companies like

Suncut send or or any other

manufacturing company or anything where

you're producing a product. You have a

factory. These are not companies that

are run on spreadsheets. You you can't

run this company remotely. You can't

look at uh some dashboards and make

decisions. You have to go out. You have

to hear the machines. Like before we

started I was like why the hell is that

machine so loud? Sure [ __ ] Yeah. One of

the pumps is funny on it. So uh you have

to know what's going on. You have to

have that pulse. You can see a lot

through dashboards. Like we invest a lot

of time and effort in data. And I love

all the data. I think it complements the

floor though. If I had to choose one, I

would choose walking the floor. And I'd

rather have no data. Um, I have a really

good pulse on what's going on by seeing

how many totes are there or seeing how

low the FedEx truck is sagging because

that means we filled it up with a lot of

steel that day, right?

>> When when the front wheels of the FedEx

truck are barely touching the ground,

like that's good volume. I don't need

data to tell me that. So, you know,

looking at orders, talking to customers,

uh, it it's not I am not some kind of

like groundbreaking,

you know, thought leader on this. It's

just that's how you run a business.

Like, you should be out there sweating

with the guys. Um, you know, we have

good lighting, good air conditioning,

good heating, noise reduction, good

lunches, cuz that's what I want. um I'm

out there with them and if something's

too loud or something stinks or

whatever, we fix it because

>> because you wouldn't want to work in the

conditions if your position was

reversed.

>> Yeah.

>> Yes.

>> I kind of think it's also for, you know,

if you have a specific type of um you're

creating that type of environment where

the employees are actually going to be

happy to work and you're also trying to

like you're trying to know people's

names and you try to let people know if

they're doing a good job or just

interact with them and stuff. um you're

basically frontloading the customer

experience through your employees. So if

you have an amazing you know you can't

say like I want to have an amazing

customer experience if the employees are

you know hate their job and hate living

you know. Um

>> yeah no a million%. If if you take

really good care of your employees

they're going to take really good care

of the customers. Um,

I don't know. If you're if you're mean

to your dog, you're probably going to be

mean to your wife and your kids and

everything else, but you know, if

someone who stops and like pets the dog,

they're probably a good father, you

know. So, so it starts it starts from,

you know, uh,

it starts from the top, I guess. It

starts with that experience of like,

hey, let's just do something that feels

right. And it helps us identify the

right people who work here too. Uh

sometimes there's people who don't have

it naturally. They don't naturally want

to be generous. They don't naturally um

want to go the extra mile. And it's

really easy to identify those people as

a not good fit when they're surrounded

by, you know, 300 people who live and

breathe that every single day. So once

you have that infrastructure set up in

your culture, then it trickles down to

the customer and then it keeps going

back and back and back. Also, it helps

when there's a super [ __ ] customer

and people are like, "This is out of the

norm. You know, normally our customers

love us. Like, what is going on with

this guy? It's obvious that it's not a

good fit." You know, we we gently say

like, "Hey, maybe we're not a good fit

for you. I want you to be successful,

whether it's with us or with somebody

else. Uh, here's a refund. Like, we wish

you the best. Here's a referral. Like,

please go be happy somewhere. I just

want happiness for you." It's obviously

not with us. Uh,

>> and when that type of thing happens, how

do you how long does it take for you to

make that call? And then how do you

actually do that?

>> Usually it ends up at my desk. Um, I'm

like chief of customer support, you

know. I always I always try and take the

the super nasty ones. Um, honestly, it

it doesn't happen that often because if

you deliver a really good product and

you exceed expectations, then you're not

dealing with a bunch of chaotic customer

support stuff. Um,

how do we solve it? We we go the extra

mile. Like usually our our goal is

onetouch resolution. So if someone

writes in is like, "Hey dude, my parts

were all bent up. It looks like the

FedEx guy like kicked this down the

alley, our first response is, "You have

a full refund and new parts are getting

overnighted. You'll have them tomorrow."

Like, "We're so sorry. We want to make

it right."

And then, you know, it's expensive, but

we learn from it. You know, we learn,

hey, did our packaging fail? Whatever.

It's always there's always a lesson in

there. And then the customer is usually

like ready for battle because they're

used to dealing with these other

companies that are

>> fighting back. Yeah.

>> And as soon as we don't fight, they're

like, "Oh [ __ ] Okay, so sorry." You

know, and then they're totally chill. If

we do that and then they're still mad,

it's like, "Okay, cool. What else can we

do?" Like the phrase that you hear a lot

from us is, "How can we make it right?"

We want to make it right. Sometimes

right isn't a refund. Sometimes right

isn't part. Sometimes they sometimes

they want to talk to me, you know.

Sometimes they want a public apology. I

have no idea. But it's like what do

these people want to make it right? We

will do that. If we try and we still

can't make it right, then it's just the

blunt conversation of like, hey man, you

don't like us

>> and that's okay.

>> Yeah, it's okay. We're not we're not a

fit for everybody. And that that's the

whole thing with Sen. We're a little

weird. Um,

if you're if you're really experienced

in sheet metal or CNC machining, we can

do 80% of it, but if you have been doing

this for 20 years or whatever, and

you're like, "Hey, how come you can't do

this super common thing in the

industry?" We're like, "Because we

don't." You know, we are In-N-Out

Burger. Um, small menu, but it's super

good, super fast. You know,

>> you know what you're getting when you

show up.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

>> Um, so yes. Could does In-N-Out have a

fryer where they could make a breaded

chicken sandwich or something? Uh, sure.

But they're not going to because it's

not in our model. So, we have to explain

like, hey, we're not a good fit for

everybody, but for a lot of people, we

are. Um, some people accept that and

some people don't.

>> Yeah. The best form of capitalism is

basically you're trying to create as

much goodwill as with the most number of

people and they just have a consistent,

you know, every single time they

interact with you, they love it and they

want to come back. And also you're, you

know, the way that this works is like if

they get their part a day faster or

something, maybe that just speeds up

their business just ever so slightly,

which allows them to scale faster, which

then allows them to send you more

orders.

>> Yeah. We we try and be like the guy next

door that if you could pay in beer, you

would. I've done that. I've brought a

six-pack to to a place and been like,

"For the love of God, can you help me

make this?"

>> Okay. You You have to explain that. What

How many times have you done that?

Brought a pack of beer to some

>> Oh, dozens. Well, you have to know their

advice. So, it's like which kind of beer

or do they prefer bourbon or whiskey or

vodka? Yeah. Very, very thoughtful. Um,

Zen, you know, whatever. And then the

same thing happens to us. You know, a

neighbor will come over and, you know,

we've got so many bottles of tequila for

lending out a forklift. Uh, that's how

the economy works, you know, and it's

neighbors and machining and stuff like

that. So, we're like, okay, how can we

take that concept and scale it to the

internet? And so, it's just going the

extra mile. It's it's it's caring about

their project. You know, we we have more

investment in customer support and DFM

engineers than anybody. And the reason

why why we're overstaffed is so that

people can like show true interest in

the product project that these people

are building and help them carry it over

the finish line. You know, again,

whether we're the right fit or not. In

the super super early days, we had a

customer who got us confused with like a

guitar company and they were like, "Hey,

I need to find this um uh this owner's

manual for this guitar pedal thing." And

we're like, "Hey, that's not really us."

But we looked for it and we found it and

here's the PDF. And they're like, "Oh my

god, you know, that guy ended up coming

back and ordering um a bunch of pick

guards for guitars or whatever." But you

can't do that if you're trying to slam

through and hit metrics. So the other

thing that we do with customer support

is we don't really hire customer support

agents. We hire enthusiasts and makers

and designers. And so everyone on our

team is a customer. Actually, we we do

that everywhere besides customer

service, too. It's like we try and hire

our customers. Um people who just get

it. And then that way when they're

talking to a customer, they're like, "Oh

man, I've been there. I've done that. Uh

here's how I would do it. Here's how I

would approach it." Uh especially with

automotive projects, we have a lot of

guys who are super into cars and if

you're making like a battery box out of

sheet metal, oftentimes when we go and

we're like, "Hey, how come this ticket

had like 85 responses? How come it took

21 days to solve this ticket?" It's it

was solved the first shot, but then they

were talking about cars for like a month

and a half, you know, talking about like

which fuel injection system to use or

whatever. So, I love having that luxury.

And you know, again, CFO is going to be

like, you're way overstaffed in customer

support. You know, are we though or

>> I know like I I my bet is is when you do

hire a CFO, it's going to be someone

that's like very culturally aligned.

>> I want to see how long we can go without

having one. That's my goal.

>> Why?

>> We've had a couple and they're great

people, just not the right fit at the

right time. Um, I think when you're

publicly traded,

obviously you have to have a CFO and

governance and and whatever, but when

you're growing and you're just trying to

build a really good product,

they're focused on that spreadsheet.

They're they're focused on running the

business from a spreadsheet and they're

the ones to say like, "How come you

spent $42,000 in candy last month?" I'm

like, "Cuz it's [ __ ] feels good, you

know, and and all the chocolate spoiled

cuz we shipped it to Florida and it all

melted. So, we had to reorder, you know.

Um, so CFOs don't get it cuz especially

a lot of CFOs haven't run a lemonade

stand, you know, they weren't hustling.

You know, they had uh they they went to

a good college. Uh they they got some

job as an analyst at McKenzie or

something like that and then they just

were crowned CFO. Uh, I want a CFO who's

like, you know, down and dirty and seen

some [ __ ] and

>> excited to walk the floor.

>> Yeah, exactly. Walk the floor, figure

out what's going on. Those are pretty

rare people. So, right now we can

operate without a CFO because we the

whole leadership team is the CFO. Yeah.

>> You know, I contribute my gym math and

instinct and forecasting abilities. um

you know our VP of operations

contributes like what our capacity is

our controller is looking at like tax

burdens and all this other stuff. So

combined you know we're like Captain

Planet you're too young for Captain

Planet probably. Um Voltron that's

you're way too young for that too.

Anyway, together we're like pretty

kick-ass machine

>> on the on the like uh you know 85

tickets for you know some guy building a

car. Um, it kind of reminds me of, I

think it's Tony Sheay from Zapos and he,

you know, their entire tagline for Zapos

while they were building it was they

want to like deliver happiness. Um, and

there was this moment where I believe

that he was in Vegas and it was like

11:00 p.m. at night and he was, you

know, he tried to build a staff of

people that or like support people and

customer service people that would just

solve people's problems, you know, and

and whatever the problem was. And uh

just off the cuff, they decided to at

like 11:00 p.m. at you know, they were

trying to order a pizza and they

couldn't find anywhere in Las Vegas that

had a pizza at 11:00 p.m. And so they're

like, "Fuck it. Let's just try calling

the support number and see what

happens." They didn't tell them who they

were or anything. They just called the

customer support of Zapos and were like,

"I need a pizza." And the guy was like,

"Well, we don't really do pizza." But

then he like found a pizza place and

like helped them order the pizza.

>> Yeah.

I I think if everyone took that

approach, the world would be a better

place. However, you can't take that

approach when you have VCs breathing

down your neck for growth and margin and

um you know, just

money at all costs. You know, how can we

how can I pretty you up so I can flip

you on to the next greater fool? You're

not allowed to do that. uh you're you're

not allowed to do all these like

over-the-top cool gestures that are

going to build a generational company

because you're so worried about making

the next quarter. So, we have that

luxury. Um I think more people should uh

be exposed to that type of building a

business where they can have the luxury

of doing what's right versus what helps

the bottom line. Um because the bottom

line will come. You just have to be

patient. when you're thinking about the

whole legacy of the company and your

legacy um and you're thinking about this

much more long-term perspective of you

know 25 50 years and you're getting a

customer that is super happy today

that's going to be ordering for the next

50 years um how are you deciding to make

decisions um when with that

understanding in mind like short-term

profitability of a single order is not

necessarily as important as like the

happiness of a customer and yeah how do

you think about that

>> I mean obviously I have no background in

finance

you seem to be doing all right. Um, you

know, I I don't have an MBA or or

whatever. And I think that's a huge gift

because I run the company as a company

that that I would want to interact with.

Um, so my legacy is, you know, how can I

how can I win a customer over now and

then have them as a lifetime customer.

Um, and that that brings a lot of

challenges. It's not just like speed and

price and quality. It's also expansion.

It's growth with that customer. So

my my software company prior to this was

uh uh B2B SAS. So hell yeah. Um

>> you made the right pivot.

>> That was back when it was cool.

>> Um and so we had the concept of churn.

Churn was terrifying to us and because

we put all this effort into having a

customer and then they'd leave and we're

like, "Oh no, our subscription count

went down." Uh when I started this

business, I was like, "Oh, dude, we

don't have a concept of churn.

Once people use us, they keep using us

over and over again." Now, they may use

us less frequently if they don't have a

project or something like that, but

typically if we win them over, we could

win them over for the lifetime. We found

out that that's not true in all cases.

Um sometimes our customers outgrow us

and it's really really cool. It's like a

proud bittersweet moment. you're like

really excited to see that they're not

going to use you anymore because they

bought their own equipment

>> um or they're starting their own

manufacturing line and we've advised on

hey here's the equipment to buy here's

how you want to set up your line here's

where procure your nitrogen yeah we

>> I want people to win

>> you know um but I was like okay I can't

do that for everyone what if all of our

customers outgrow us then I'm screwed

right so how can I grow with them so

speaking of like legacy or whatever I

want someone to be able to start at a

kitchen table with an idea, we do a

quantity of one and then they're like,

"Hey, I made some iterations. Quantity

of 10, quantity of 100,000, whatever."

They're like, "Hey, I'm starting to

distribute into other countries. Uh, can

you help with that?" I'm like, "Okay,

let me figure it out."

>> That before, but

>> my quantities are massive. Um, laser

cutting doesn't make it sense anymore.

How can you help us with stamping? Can

you help us help us with casting? Can

you help us with injection molding? I'm

like, I don't know. That's that's where

I want to go with legacy. Uh because if

I can truly have a lifetime customer

like someone who discovers us from First

Robotics or VEX Robotics when they're 16

and then when they're 45,

>> they're still using Sen.

>> They're still using Sen Cut Send, you

know cuz

>> I know guys that have done that with

McMaster,

>> you know. I know guys that have used

McMaster for 40 years. Uh I would love

to be in that same category. I would

also like to spend a moment um you

started off with just some laser

machines and now you are doing all sorts

of stuff I think. How many different

machines do you have right now?

>> I don't know

>> a lot like different processes or

different total machines in the network.

I have no idea. Um cuz we have a lot you

know all the the CNC machines are that's

the fastest growing part of the business

right now. Um, so we do laser cutting,

water jet cutting. We have CO2 lasers

for plastics. We have CNC routers for

like carbon fiber and phenolic

materials. Um, we have CNC lathes and

three-axxis machines and five axis

machines and robotics and we have powder

coating and hardware insertion machines

and kitting systems and picite and I

don't know we have a lot

>> we have a lot going on and it all comes

from customer demand. uh you know the we

add materials because people ask for it

and we don't we can't add everything

because again we we still try and be

like in and out and have a a menu that

is manageable. Um but you know as we

grow it's like not only are customers

asking for it but I'm my own customer

too. So I often have a project where I'm

like oh man

my welding bottle is out of gas again.

Uh I don't want to weld this. I haven't

welded in 6 months, so I'm shaky. You

know, I'm not good. I wish that I could

just have this welded up. So, it's like,

okay, maybe we get into welding. Um,

maybe 3D printing is not quite working

for this application and injection

molding would be way better, you know,

if I personally need it. You or my

>> probably other people that need it.

>> Exactly. So, that's how we explore

stuff. That's how I'm going to stay busy

for the next few.

>> And I'd be curious like on on the

expansion side when you're thinking

about entering a new market like buying

a bunch of CNC machines or something

like that. Um, you want to you have a

certain standard of quality of the

customer experience that you have with

the things that you currently sell. Um,

and I imagine that day one, right as

soon as you turning it on, you want that

same standard of quality.

>> Yeah. We don't tell anybody. So, so how

do you how do you once once you decide

to go into some new business line, how

do you like basically make sure that

that first interaction with the customer

when they're ordering something is going

to be the same standard?

>> Uh,

>> like spinning that up,

>> you you don't tell anybody.

>> Don't tell anyone. What do you mean?

>> We call we call it the gaslight launch.

>> Um, where we just gaslight people into

believing that it's always been there by

the time they discover it, you know?

They're like, "Oh my god, I didn't know

that you guys had carbon fiber." And

we're like, "Yeah, dude. Where have you

been?" You know, it's been there for a

long time. Gez,

>> even though maybe we just launched it,

but we we don't tell anyone because we

want to get really damn good at it

before we do anything. So, uh, we we

just started a podcast

and to interview cool customers and and

staff and stuff and just like a little

behind the scenes. So, if we don't have

cool lighting or anything, our podcast

that's it's getting better, though.

>> You got to you got to start somewhere.

You got to start by doing the first

That's the thing. You just have to do

it. So, the first three episodes we

threw away. Uh the next five episodes,

no one has seen because we're not

telling anybody about it cuz I'm not

proud of it yet. Once we become like

we're proud uh and we start to talk

about it and advertise it, it'll be

episode 30 and they'll be like, "Oh my

god, I didn't know you had a podcast."

Like, where have you been, man? Geez.

So, same thing like with CNC,

uh, with new materials, with new

capabilities, we run it secret menu. Uh,

>> you have you have an entire secret menu

of things that you can do but don't tell

anyone about.

>> Yes. Yes. It's uh

>> it's a hell of a menu.

And, you know, we have we have select

customers that are vocal um both

positive and negative. We keep them into

a couple different buckets. So, if

you're watching this and uh and you get

asked to test secret menu stuff, you

you're in one of the buckets. You're

either you're either in there because we

love your positive feedback or you're in

there because we love your negative

feedback.

>> Um

>> just love your feedback.

>> Yeah. So, so,

>> so we let them test it. We refine. We

refine. You know, I years ago I was

like, I think I want to start a

restaurant and I started researching how

to start a restaurant and everything.

And one of the the big takeaways was you

don't just say grand opening. You open

and you invite like a couple buddies and

then their families and then a few

people off the street. And so you have

this like slow launch that happens and

by the time there's a grand opening sign

out there, your waitresses are trained,

your chefs know, you know what rush,

>> everyone knows the process.

>> So that's the same thing we do here.

>> Um,

>> how long does something typically stay

on the secret menu before it's wide

openly available?

>> It depends. It depends. Uh

>> cuz I imagine for every single one you

have to basically get it to that point

where you're proud of it.

>> Yep. Yeah. You have to work out all the

bugs.

>> Um so yeah, by the time the public sees

anything, it's probably at version four

or five. Um if it's a material, it could

be four or five weeks. If it's something

like CNC, it could be four or five

months. Um, there are projects that are

coming that have been in the works for

two years and we've started it up, shut

it down. Started up, shut it down.

Sometimes we'll shut it down because the

technology is not there. We wait a year

and we're like, "Oh my god, we just

works."

>> Yeah. Cuz someone was having the same

problem that that we were having. They

figured it out and we're like, "Oh [ __ ]

let's blow the dust off of this, add

this new piece of tech, and and see if

we can make it happen." So, that's

always super fun. Um, but what I don't

like to do is uh, you know, tease and

then not have anything to show.

>> Yeah. You want to be able to deliver

what you are saying that you can

deliver.

>> Yep.

>> Yeah. For the factory itself, you know,

you're working on a whole bunch of

different stuff now. Um, and you're

walking around your own factory to see

that everything is, you know, even as we

were walking through earlier, you were

picking up little, uh, little things off

the floor and you wanted to be clean and

and and put together. You know, I think

the best way to learn is you just go see

something in action that's working and

then you kind of and you get enough of

the data points where you're able to

say, I like, you know, this works really

well. I also don't really like you. I've

seen two or three factories and now I

know that like one thing works really

well, another thing is not so great. And

you're taking the best parts to

incorporate in your own business. Um,

what have you done there?

>> Yeah. Um, everything. So, being in Reno,

we're not exposed to a lot of factories.

There's a lot of warehousing here. Um,

however, that's really cool for

automation. Uh, you can see like pick

robots. Uh, we've toured an Amazon

fulfillment center before. Um, Aero

Electronics is down the street. We we

toured that facility which is amazing.

>> Um,

>> the issue with us is we're so high mix.

There's nothing really like it. We often

see a lot of solutions that are great if

we made, you know, 10 SKs or even 100

SKs. Um, but because we make thousands

of skewless things per day, it's it's

really challenging.

>> My favorite thing to do though is you

don't tour if you're a sheet metal

manufacturer, you don't tour other sheet

metal manufacturers. It doesn't matter.

Go tour something that's super weird. Go

tour like uh food processing or like

flower distribution, cold chain stuff.

You'll always pick up something that you

could apply to your industry. And then

now that secret sauce

So, if you're looking at what's been

done, like if you go to trade shows, you

like Fabtech, Fabech is a huge trade

show in the fabrication industry, you go

there and you learn more about like your

own industry and it's kind of like

preaching to the choir. But if you go to

like a cosmetics uh trade show, it's

wild. You're going to see like weird

marketing techniques that you've never

seen. You're going to hear about like

packaging equipment that you didn't know

existed. Um like our packaging

equipment, it's for food. like it's to

keep like stakes fresh. Um

so the the weirder

industry that you can explore and borrow

from like that's how you get innovation

in your own industry.

>> Yeah. I know when we were talking

yesterday you said that the two people

that you have like learned a lot from

and I think there's probably others but

it's like Lehwab and Sam Walton. And Sam

Walton would, you know, whenever he

would go to, you know,

>> I think he took on his family on a lot

of trips.

>> Yeah.

>> And almost every single day that they

were out on a trip, he would be

basically just touring the uh the

different like retail locations and like

supermarkets and all the different

things. and his kids knew that he would

just, you know, go to some supermarket

in like Argentina and then go lay on the

floor to see how, you know, wide the

aisles were and they'd like go talk with

the staff and ask about, you know, all

these different things. How have you

kind of chosen your role models and what

have you like learned from them? I think

I the reason I I like Sam Walton and Le

Schwab especially, uh, is because their

their reading level or their writing

level is right at my reading level, like

fifth grade. um they use vocabulary that

I'm familiar with. You know, I grew up

in rural Nevada. Um I didn't go to

school or well I went to high school but

I did like six weeks at UNR. Um I you

know on X there's a lot of people what

they call them word cells or something

but they're using crazy terminology to

explain something that's like really

freaking basic. I think Sam Walton, Le

Schwab were confident enough in their

abilities of just doing it like a blue

collar method and just making [ __ ] work.

They didn't have to use crazy ass

vocabulary or try and impress species

with, you know, I can't even think of

any words to use an example.

>> Yeah, I feel the same way, by the way.

>> It's just it's

>> basic. Do the basics really really well.

Um, maybe you're not going to impress

people at a high society party or, you

know, god forbid I go to Silicon Valley

to some, you know, cocktail party. Uh,

because I'm going to be wearing jeans

and my flannel or whatever. Uh, but I

have a good business and I have good

customers. And I think those guys knew

it, too. They took good care of their

employees. Um, they weren't there for an

exit. They were there for a legacy. They

were there to make America better. uh

they were there to make sure that their

employees could buy homes and and cars

and have babies. Um and that's that's

exactly what I'm doing. And I I'm like,

dude, do I need to write a book or

something so that people will respect my

stupid approach because they're like Sam

Walton is doing, you know, all kinds of

awesome stuff and he wrote a book and of

course

>> he wrote the book at the end of his life

>> and yeah and he did he did an incredible

job. So, I'm like, "Fuck, I guess I got

to just wait until I'm dead and then

people will be like, "Oh, dude, the

Jimalosic method like actually works."

>> There might have been some special sauce

there.

>> Yeah. So, I'll just wait until I'm dead

and then uh maybe they'll like teach

this in business school. I don't know.

It just feels like I'm doing the right

thing.

>> Yeah. So, when you're thinking about,

you know, there's there's things that

you can kind of control inside of the

the four walls of your warehouse or your

factory. Um, but especially with, you

know, customers, it's it's you're

relying on a lot of other people's

supply chains to make everything work.

And you know, I know and again with Sam

Walton, like he would go to like he

would talk with the supermarket people,

the people that were in charge of his

his his stores and other people's

stores, but then he would also to get

like the the best source of real-time

information on a whole bunch of

different stores at once. He would

basically go to some uh distribution

center where they have a whole bunch of

different trucks going to a whole bunch

of different stores at once. And then he

would just bring a bag of donuts or like

a box of donuts, I believe, at like 5:00

a.m. before everyone shipped out. And he

would just talk with these guys. uh

there were truck drivers and you'd be

able to get uh like a pulse on, you

know, 15 stores at once. Um how have you

kind of thought about what you can

control and then for the things that you

can't control, how do you make that

work?

>> Yeah, I kind of lit up when you said,

"Oh, you focus on stuff that you can

control." That's a million% our motto.

It's focus on our constraints. Our

constraints are what we can control. If

it's outside of our control, um it's

still our problem.

And we can mitigate like catastrophes a

little bit by having you know backup

vendors or redundancy or whatever but

really our focus needs to be on what do

we do best and we don't spend any time

thinking about oh what could have been

or you know we would have should have

could have I I often say I don't have a

time machine I don't have a time machine

yeah that went sideways that was super

screwed up um but I can't go back in

time so what should we do moving forward

our constraints. Uh one of the things

that we talk about is is it our problem

or their problem? Uh meaning our

customers and

you know we can't do a certain type of

bending geometry or whatever. Is it

their problem that we can't do that? No,

it's our problem. So we always have to

look inward and like challenge ourselves

to be better. Like we'll add tooling,

we'll add process, we'll add technique

in order to to make sure that it's uh

it's not their problem. It's it's our

problem. we'll solve it. Um, when it

comes to things outside of our control,

so

we look at weather, you know, we're in

northern Nevada, we're 30 minutes from

Lake Tahoe. Winter weather is a real

thing. Um, first couple years it bit us

in the ass. So, that was actually a big

reason that we expanded, you know, to

different facilities across the country

so that we can

>> You have one in Kentucky and Texas now.

Yeah. one in Paris, Kentucky, and one in

Arlington Arlington, Texas.

>> And then we have a fourth facility that

um the secret menu right now.

>> No one no one really knows about it. So

>> is that your like lab the special stuff?

>> Uh no, it'll be a full facility. Yeah,

it's just not not online yet. So anyway,

we're trying to expand so that we have

better control on the things that are

outside of our control, whether uh lead

times from uh raw material vendors, you

know, uh do Memphis got hit with an ice

storm or something like that a couple

years ago. And that's like the FedEx

hub. And if you have all your eggs in

the FedEx basket and Memphis goes down,

like you are screwed for weeks. So that

ice storm shut down the hub. So they

started putting stuff on intermodal rail

and then all the rail got like

backlogged and trucks were lost. Anyway,

it was it was all kinds of issues. So

we can't control everything outside of

our control, but we can have backups on

backups on backups. We can have

redundancies. So yes, we ship UPS, we'll

ship DHL, we'll ship um you know,

whatever we can in order to mitigate

>> uh carrier issues, weather issues.

>> Uh suppliers for every material that we

have. We have at least three suppliers.

Uh we always have favorites, you know,

based on price or lead time or whatever.

But [ __ ] happens, you know, during

COVID, like they'd be like, "We're shut

down. All of our guys are sick for 10

days." It's like, well, I can't allow

you to shut me down. So, uh, it's it's

expensive. It's time consuming, but once

you start to get used to it, uh, it it's

a huge

>> you get a little better. You build a

muscle of like working on the fly and

figuring [ __ ] out.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. For the amount of like inventory

that you have, um, you know, I think you

talked about basically having like seven

days of metal pretty much, uh, in in in

the factory at any given time. Um, how

are you thinking about

basically guaranteeing that assuming not

everything goes right, you can still

deliver on time and like all that sort

of thing? Um, like how much how much

inventory do you want?

>> Well, this is actually where a CFO would

really help

>> because I learned that uh having

millions of dollars of inventory on the

floor impacts cash.

>> Didn't really know that. I was like, how

come we have no cash? What is a capital

cycle?

>> Yeah. I was like, that's weird. Uh oh,

also I learned a lot about uh like net

terms.

>> Yeah.

>> I was like, oh, we're making all kinds

of money, but then it doesn't come in

for a little while. I was like, oh [ __ ]

we have no cash. So anyway, we're we're

trying to be smarter about how much

inventory inventory we carry. If it's a

long lead time material, we may have to

carry a year's supply. Um, you know,

some of our our non-metals are kind of

exotic

>> and it might take us three months to to

get a supply.

>> So, you got to be basically expecting

assume for the worst. You need to make

sure that you have that on hand

>> plus a spike.

>> That's the other issue.

>> We're we're kind of like a contract

manufacturer. We're kind of a job shop,

but on steroids.

>> A contract manufacturer is usually going

to say like, "Hey, I need a million

units over the next 12 months. you know,

deliver me, you know, 100,000 a month or

whatever, we have no idea what's going

to happen at any given moment. So, if

you have this material that's three

month uh lead time, you're like, okay, I

need to carry enough for 3 months plus 3

months to replenish. But then what if

what if a company what if an aerospace

company comes to you and it's like, hey,

I need 10,000 units of that long.

>> So, you have to have surge capacity,

too, which sucks for cash. But actually

not having a CFO has allowed us to do

that because I'm like I just don't want

to run out. Like that's that's the

number one uh order that we give to our

procurement staff and our supply chain

staff. Don't run out. Just stop running

out for the love of God. It's so

expensive to run out. There's

opportunity cost. There's you have to

make it right, you know? So maybe you

have to overnight a bunch of [ __ ]

You're you're ordering raw material from

McMaster, which is wildly expensive.

Um, so just don't run out. And that's

that's something that when you're

running the business on a spreadsheet,

it's really hard.

>> You don't see the same. Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So, uh, the other thing that we do

is like you said earlier, just have a

good relationship with your vendors, um,

our building next door or our old

building, we when this, well, not this

building. Anyway, we outgrew our

building and the building next door came

available and we're like, okay, we're

going to move there. We put up our

existing building for sale and

uh, we got a bunch of offers. It was

very popular piece of real estate and we

ended up selling it uh for a deal to one

of our vendors and it's Coast Aluminum.

They're they're right next door and

they're amazing. And I was like, I would

rather our vendor be right next door um

than, you know, make a little extra

money on, you know, some dude who's not

going to be a cool neighbor. So yeah,

the the fact that we can have uh we can

walk over with beer and get them to hop

in the forklift and deliver some metal,

you know, in an emergency case is super

super awesome. Um

I wish we could scale that. I mean,

we're trying to we're trying to um be

more vertically integrated and control a

little bit more of our supply chain, you

know? Uh I was talking to somebody the

other day. I was like I was like could

we own the mill where the aluminum is

melted down or actually where does that

come from? Well, it's it's boxite which

is mined. I'm like can we get a mine?

And I'm like wait who actually makes

money in all of this? I think it's the

shipping guys.

>> The shipping guys.

>> It's always like if you go to the root

cause analysis it's usually like

shipping. Everything that you do has to

be shipped. So anyway, maybe we need

like an ocean transit company and then a

boxite mine and then a refinery and then

and then we can be

>> scale you can kind of make that make

sense on a spreadsheet.

>> Yeah. Something.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I I think our first step is

um I I'm not really worried about our

supply chain. We deal in commodities and

uh if we can't source it, there's a lot

of other guys that can. If our stuff is

really exotic, then it's hard and you'd

want to control the supply chain more.

Um, but at least for where we're at now,

we're we're okay working with really

really good vendors. But at at some

point, yeah, you know, how do we how do

we own the metal, you know, from the

mill? How do we own the transport that

it's going on? You know, can I can I

have a railroad line that delivers our

coils? You know, uh, that's that's how

I'm thinking. I don't know if I'll ever

get there. think of uh is is John D.

Rockefeller kind of in the back of your

mind at any time?

>> Yeah, I don't I've never read his stuff

or anything, but um

>> cuz he basically he he kind of thought

through I think his entire business uh

in figuring out how could you like there

was I think at one point he bought an

entire forest to basically create

barrels so that he could transport oil

easier and it was just like fully

integrating vertically integrating his

entire supply chain. I I think that's

always been my challenge, you know, from

my first business, you know, when I was

15, you know, mowing lawns. Um, I was

like, man, I want to get every house on

this street.

>> And I should have thought bigger, you

know, I should have thought like, I want

to get this entire neighborhood and then

the adjoining neighborhood and then I'll

be able to hire a driver so I can go to

other neighborhoods or whatever. But I

always I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get

my neighbor, then I'm going to get the

street, and then maybe I'll get the

block or whatever." Um, that thought

process has followed me through all my

companies. And just now I'm like, "Oh,

wait. You have to think so much bigger

so that you can land somewhere in the

middle." Uh, Brian Wolf, our VP of

operations, he always says, um,

aim for perfection and you'll achieve

excellence.

And so, yeah, if I think about owning a

box site mine, you know, maybe we'll end

up acquiring uh one of our service

centers or something like that. So, I'm

not going to have a mine or a

>> in your mind, but it'd be cool

>> in in your mind like throughout the the

journey building Sync Send. um how has I

wouldn't necessarily even say the

ambition level but basically the way

that you think about the business how

has that evolved over time even now that

you're you're thinking about it today

you know you're thinking about maybe we

have to buy a mine maybe we have to buy

a railroad all sorts of stuff um to to

make things work um how is that evolved

I think a lot about what can Jim do um

what can only I do And at the beginning,

like I said, shipping with Jim, I I can

ship. I can drive a forklift. I think

I'm still forklift certified. Uh,

you know, I can push a broom. I I can

load machines. I can I can do some

stuff, but so can other people. And so I

find myself focusing on stuff that only

I can do. Um, I'm going on podcast to be

the face of the company, you know. Uh,

I'm the one who has to have these

relationships with key customers. I'm

the one who has to negotiate with key

vendors. I'm the one who solely has to

control vision and expansion and be the

number one cheerleader. So, yeah, every

once in a while I'm like, "God, I really

wish I could just go run a machine,

>> you know? I really wish I could just be

on the forklift all day. It's it's so

fun. It's your happy place."

>> Yeah. U but I can't. I have to do gym

stuff. So,

you know, looking forward, um, it's it's

all in my mind. You know, I have a great

leadership team. We have great staff

that that is there and we work together

and and come up with like ideas for the

future, but when it comes down to it,

it's my responsibility. Um, so it's it's

hard shifting from, you know, oh man, I

I I really want to, you know, go hang

out with the guys and and sharpen tools

or something like that. Um, but I got to

go be in a conference room and talk to

some dude on Zoom for two hours. Uh,

it's not super great, but it's a good

use of my time because it it pushes us

forward. And I think only a founder can

do that. you know, if if I brought in a

CEO from somewhere else that they're

just not going to happen.

>> No, I think I think the you you you kind

of got to lead with, you know, the the

business that you want to build and and

also I I imagine that you didn't start

out always wanting to be on the forklift

like at the very beginning before you

even tried the forklift for the first

time, you didn't know that you enjoyed

that. Um, but then also over time as

you're as you're growing and and making

a bigger company, there's other things

that are probably

really enjoyable that you just wouldn't

like you get a little bit of the the

fun.

>> Yeah. Yeah. I

I get to I get to do like intangible

things more than anybody else. I get to

experiment more. Uh I get to throw a

bunch of stuff away. I get to try things

and, you know, throw [ __ ] at the wall

and not all of it sticks and no one's

breathing down my neck about it. Like,

Jim, you just burned up six weeks of

time or you just lit $100,000 on fire.

Um, it was my decision and it was also

your money and you like that. That's the

great thing about like really owning the

company is that if you're if you're

spending a dollar, it's your dollar.

Yes.

>> It's not someone else's dollar. And so,

if you spend it in a way that other

people are like that doesn't make sense,

it's like it made sense to me.

>> Yeah. I still get yelled at. our our

president, who is my lovely wife, um she

gets a little upset at me when I when I

uh light too much of our own cash on

fire. But it's it's fun. Um it keeps me

coming back. I am notorious for

>> starting projects and then giving up

halfway through. So, I'm I'm a car guy

and I'm always like restoring a car,

building a car, doing something like

that. Facebook Marketplace is my nemesis

because I'll tear the engine out of

something and then I'm waiting for

parts. So, I'm on Facebook Marketplace.

I'm like, "Oh, there's a Bu Grand

National for sale." You know, let me

check that out. And then I'm selling the

other project for for parts. You know,

this business uh is a continual project.

It's never finished. And

I've sold cars as soon as I'm done

building them

>> cuz I like the build.

>> Yeah.

>> And as soon as it runs and drives, I'm

like, boring, lame, don't give a [ __ ]

>> You didn't You didn't enjoy. You You

wanted to make the thing.

>> I like the project. And manufacturing is

infinite, you know, uh, challenges and

weird stuff that you can always improve

upon. This place will never ever ever be

perfect. Um, we'll never be done. we'll

we'll never have enough capacity. Uh we

can never offer enough materials and

enough processes or whatever. So, uh I'm

excited that this can keep me busy for

the foreseeable future.

>> Yeah. I I want to I want to spend a

little bit of time, you know, in the

very beginning, you took a huge I think

what most people would consider a huge

risk. I think people generally

misunderstand risk. Um but you took a

big risk by buying that first laser. How

do you think about what risks make

sense? What is risk in your mind? And

then what is something that most people

perceive as risk, but in your mind is

the most obvious thing in the world? If

you take a quantity of risk, it'll be

seen differently by 10 different people.

You you if you tell 10 different people,

rate how much risk this is, you'll get

10 different answers. Um, I think the

best founders and entrepreneurs are

naturally risk tolerant. Um, so my

concept of risk is wildly different than

my wife's. Uh, but I bought an old car

and it doesn't have seat belts and oh my

god, she does not want to ride in that

thing. And the whole way we're riding

home, she's like, "Where's the seat

belts?" Um,

and I'm like, "Dude, they they did this

in 1964. They lived. My dad drove a car

like this and he's alive. So, um I'm

totally comfortable with that risk. So,

when it comes to business, I am often

told that I'm taking risks and I don't

see it that way. I'm just like, no, this

is what it's going to take to move

forward.

>> What have been those biggest moments?

>> It's uh like if you build it, they will

come. You know, it comes with capacity.

So the CNC endeavor is one of our bigger

investments and we have never done CNC

machining and we have no clients that

have you know uh had CNC machining needs

but I was like I the market's there I

need it you know personally as a

customer. Um, I've heard some grumblings

from customers that it would be nice if

Sen could offer that, but when I ran the

math, I was like, "Oh, to do it right

and to do it at Senutson scale, you you

have to go all the way in. You're

jumping in with both feet." So,

it's calculated risk. Um, I always know

what my safety net is. And the worst

case scenario, I was like, the banks

know where these machines are. They can

come and get them. Um, yes, I will lose

some money, but I'm not gonna like go to

jail. Uh, I'm I'm not going to lose my

home or anything like that. You know,

it's it's if everything went completely

sideways, what would the worst case

outcome be? And then then I plan against

that. So, if the worst case outcome is

like I'm going to jail,

>> you're probably not going to take that.

>> I usually avoid that. Although my kids

are older now,

>> so, you know,

>> so maybe a little bit more risk on. We

haven't actually seen what Jim is

capable of yet.

>> Yeah, exactly. like that's that's

coming. Um I've avoided uh like a

private pilot's license forever. Um cuz

I had kids, but my daughter's going to

be 19 and and my boy is going to be 16.

Um so whatever. They knew their dad for

long enough. Like I

>> they had they have some good memories.

They they you know, at least he went

out, you know, flying the flying the on

top, man, you know. So

>> uh anyway, we we avoid jail time in our

risk calculations. Uh, I also avoid, on

a serious note, I avoid like anything

that's gonna result in layoffs or

affecting my staff's like home life.

>> You're thinking about their lives.

>> Yes.

>> I have I have 350 families that I take

care of. It's it's not staff. It's not a

dude. It's it's the dude and his wife or

the wife and her dude or whatever and

their kids and everything. So

I have to I have to be very cautious

that I can't overhire. Um oftent times

we are running a lot of overtime. Uh

again CFO CFOs do not like overtime. Um

I do because I'd rather pay more on the

paycheck then have to lay off 10 people

because I made a bad bet. Um

>> have you had any situations where you

had you know you were operating on a

slightly different philosophy and uh you

did have to make one of those really

tough decisions at at any point in this

in the in the journey or have you been

relatively able to predict? I was ready

to go down with ship with co um I

remember what was that March of 2020 or

whatever 20

>> yeah it was

>> whatever that whole time sucked

>> um

it was like lockdown I was driving to

work there was no cars on the street

>> and we got to work and we all went

outside we're like we don't know what

the hell's going on supposed to touch

each other or whatever and I said we

have enough money where we can like

sweep and paint and uh organizing stuff

for about six weeks and I was like, I'm

gonna burn all that money making sure

that these guys are paid because they

had mortgages and stuff. I was like,

let's let's keep going, you know, and

until we're completely done. Um, turns

out, you know, we were lucky. Um, a

bunch of ventilators needed to be made

and then battery packs for the

ventilators and everything. So, we were

we actually made more parts during CO

than we ever had. Um,

>> so it turned from like a very very

difficult time on the other side of that

six week period. You actually had a lot

of business and were able to keep on

going.

>> Yeah. But I was I was prepared to do

everything I could to make sure the

payroll was met.

>> Was that the the time where you were

like the most afraid?

>> Yeah. Um,

unknowns to me they don't happen very

often because I run many many scenarios.

Um that was a very unknown like black

swan event. Yeah. I I had no idea what

the possible outcome was. Um so it was

it was great that we were able to

benefit. Um but I didn't have a whole

lot of options, you know, after that

money ran out. After we paid a couple

payrolls, I was like, I don't know what

to do, man. So,

uh, yeah, having having options, being

creative, it it allows us to

handle worst case scenarios.

Whenever I'm doing modeling or

forecasting,

we always have three. It's there's a

high, a medium, and a low. The low is

the worst case scenario, like what's our

what's our bare minimum so that we can

keep going. And then medium is like what

do we think is going to happen? And then

high is, you know, what if we beat? You

never plan on the high. You don't start

buying equipment based on the high. Um,

you buy equipment based on the low, you

know, or somewhere between the low and

the worst case based on the low.

>> You if you bet on on the the the best

golden, you know, rainbows scenario,

it's not going to work out every time.

And and bad things happen if it doesn't

work.

>> No. And oh my god, I I see so many like

pitches.

uh you know, they're like, "Hey, man,

I'm raising. C can you look at this uh

this pitch deck?" I was like, "Where did

you get your math from?" And they're

like, "Oh, it's all going to be perfect

and we're going to have this much ramp."

And they're like, "No, you got to plan

for the ship. If you can make the model

work with this shitty scenario where you

have a quarter of the customers that you

thought and your machines break 50 times

more than you expect, um, and your

maintenance is 100 times the cost. If

you can make the numbers work, then then

then by all means go for it. U but so

often people don't account for the real

world. They don't account for an ice

storm in Memphis. Uh they don't account

for

>> uh Yeah, lasers make thermite. Like we

make thermite all day long. We have

aluminum oxide and iron oxide that are

mixing together. Um so lasers catch on

fire. I was like the salesman doesn't

tell you that. when you're running a

bunch of them 24/7, you start to learn

like, oh, there's there's these issues

that happen. So, you get good. You just

have to survive. If you survive long

enough, eventually they write a book

about you.

>> I think I think on the surviving point,

um, that's that's pretty key as well.

Uh,

you've talked about in like other

interviews that you've done, you've

talked about growing a little bit slower

than maybe you would like. Um, and I

think that's probably pretty

intentional. um because you might be

able to make a bigger you take a bigger

risk today, but if that's like an actual

risk where the company doesn't work if

that thing goes you know to [ __ ] um

that's maybe not a risk that you want to

take. Um and so from like a growth

perspective what have been like the

mental models for you on deciding to

grow a little bit slower and more

methodically so that you know that there

is going to be customers there the 25%

is is okay you know

>> I have have there been like that or no

>> no I can't say like I chose to grow

slowly.

>> Yeah.

>> Um

>> I was constrained I was constrained on

money. uh when you're trying to

self-fund

um you can only grow so fast but thank

god you give me seven years ago you give

me $100 million to create sendut send

>> no we we'd be 100% dead in the water I

would have bought the wrong equipment I

would have uh hired the wrong people I

would have done everything wrong because

money would not be a constraint so I

would um be very risk tolerant with

money because money is a conraint

you have to move a little slower. And

I'm glad I'm glad

>> it's much more enduring. Like this is

this is one of those things where you're

like building a very enduring business

that's going to be there. It's going to

continue serving customers.

>> Yeah. But that's not how VC works. They

need a return very very quickly um so

that they can pay off their LPS or GP. I

don't know how that works. Um anyway,

they got they got guys breathing down

their neck to get a return. So growth at

all costs as fast as possible. Get that

valuation,

get new money in, punch out, whatever.

Um, we've always thought about it as,

you know, what's the right decision at

the right time so that we don't burn the

house down, but at the same time we're

growing to meet demand. uh we throttle

our marketing all the time because if we

if we marketed at the percent of

investment that that every other company

does uh I think the demand would be too

great and then we'd piss off emotional

services I don't have the capacity for

it you know this is a very capital

inensive business

>> you talked about you talked about

yesterday your your when you were

initially talking with your wife about

it you know you'd been working in in

software for a very long time um and as

a joke. You're like, "Yeah, this is a

capital intensive business, not a

capital life business."

>> Yeah, it was a it was a term that I I

had been told. I was like, "Oh, it's

capital intensive." Yeah, it's just cost

[ __ ] ton of money. Also, I hate when

people say capital. It's just money. Do

you need money or not? Jesus.

>> Um

it's it's because you have all these

fixed assets, these you have equipment

that may have a 10-year lifespan or or

longer. Um and it's expensive to get it

going. I mean, think about starting a

steel mill, you know, and it's like damn

near impossible now. It takes so much

money and investors are not patient. You

know, that's why it takes government

level investment in order to get these

huge things off the ground because you

have to be comfortable not seeing a

return

>> either or maybe after 50 years or

something like that. So,

>> I'm trying to run this company so that

yeah, there there's there will be a

return. Um, but I'm the one looking for

the return and I'm very patient because

I I enjoy this. I'm having a good time.

>> So, you've been very methodical about

how you're building this business and

you have a different semi- different

management style than uh than most

people do. Um, and I think you're trying

to find employees and like partners that

are very aligned with that philosophy.

Um, how do you go about finding really

fantastic talent?

>> Would I want to have a beer with them?

Uh, also hire customers. Um, I'm a huge

fan of diversity. Like we were talking

about earlier, you don't tour sheet

metal shops. You tour a dog food factory

or a place where they're making nail

polish or something and you try and take

things from other um

>> other industries,

>> other industries and apply them to your

own. So,

I'm not hiring sheet metal guys. I'm not

hiring a lot of CNC machinists. I'm

hiring people that are problem solvers.

Uh people that come from, you know, an

array of different backgrounds and and

it works. Uh we're a pirate ship. You

know, I'm I'm the captain of a pirate

ship, but we we're all wildly different,

wildly different in backgrounds, but

together it's like we have all these

skills. If you hire a bunch of sheet

metals guys, they're going to try and

solve sheet metal problems using sheet

metal tools. Um, but if you have, you

know, an ex uh rocket scientist and then

a biologist and a psychologist or

whatever, you come up with like

>> novel solutions, you know, stuff that's

that's never happened. So,

>> um, we hire based on what you've done.

Uh,

>> like proof of work.

>> Yeah. I just I just told my daughter the

other day she was worried about her GPA.

I was like, I have never looked at

someone's GPA when I've hired him. U but

I will look at what you've done. And uh

even our software engineers uh Cody

Callahan, I hired him at a job fair at

the university uh didn't even care what

classes he was taking or whatever

because he pulled out his iPhone and he

was like, "Check out this app that I

built." And I was like, "This is

amazing. You know, come work for us." Um

that was that was a decade ago.

>> So you're looking for like those

experimentalists that are actually

getting out getting their hands dirty

with whatever they are passionate about

>> and people that are chasing like

tangible things like projects that you

can show off versus like awards and

credentials. Uh there's nothing worse

than seeing on someone's resume they

have like all these threeletter terms. I

don't even know what the hell they are.

>> You're you're looking for the people

with the inner inner scorecard.

>> Yeah. Yeah. Um, what are you proud that

you accomplished? What what uh stuff

have you done that shows that you've

tried and you failed? Uh, and you tried

again and you got it to work. Um,

another one of our engineers, he he

worked at a a factory that was making

the breakfast sandwiches for Starbucks

and his job was to like monitor if the

bacon was cooked accurately or not. And

he was like, "This is [ __ ] job." So

he built a little robot that would snap

a picture of the bacon and then compare

it against like good bacon and so he

didn't have to stand on the line next to

the bacon. I was like, "Holy [ __ ] you

are working for me now." Um, when we see

those opportunities, we grab them. Also,

we have passionate customers. Like the

the really cool thing about the business

at this Oh, I got my finger stuck in

there. Um, the really cool thing about

this business

at this point of our of our lifetime is

we have a little bit of brand

recognition. So people are like, "Hey, I

use you. I'm a huge fan. If you have any

job openings, you know, I've used you as

a customer for x number of years. We can

go back in their account and see what

they've ordered." You know,

>> and I have to imagine that's like an

incredible source because it's not only

are they using you, but it means that

they were they were building stuff.

>> Yeah. But at the beginning, no one knows

what the hell send, cut, send is. They

don't they don't understand what we're

doing. Um, so you have to suffer. You

have to convince a lot of people at the

beginning. Um, every startup founder

knows that. You have to

force them to drink the Kool-Aid. And

you're like, "Come on, man. Like, we're

doing this awesome thing. Believe in

it." So, you do a lot of cheerleading.

Then something happens where all of a

sudden you're on the other side and

they're like cheerleading for you.

They're they're coming and saying, "Hey,

I've used you forever." um I think I

could add this cool skill to your skill

set. Um what do you think? So oftentimes

like when we post a job, we have

hundreds of applicants for for a single

role.

>> Um and we get to kind of cherrypick the

best of the best, but that comes from

seven years of building brand and

culture and and everything else. So hire

your customers if you can. Um hire the

best in the field if you can. You know,

I said that we don't really hire

machinists and um we don't hire sheet

metal guys because everything we do is

weird. If you're if you're a press break

operator for the last 20 years and you

come and get a job at Sen Cuts, like

it's it's worthless. Um every the way

that we approach it is completely

different. And so that 20 years of skill

set is not very valuable to us. um we'd

rather have someone that is able to

adapt and uh come up with novel

solutions that you know approach

something in a way that's never been

done. If you know too much about

something, it can hold you back. Um it's

one of the reasons like I try not to

know too much about any machine or any

process here. So I can still have like a

little bit of uh you know first day

experience every time I walk through the

shop. I'm like whoa I've never seen it

do that before. You know can we can we

make it do that? You want you want to be

thinking about it from fresh eyes as

much as possible.

>> Always fresh eyes. Always fresh eyes.

>> Um but yeah, with staff it's

hire people that can actually do

something and they can prove it beyond a

resume. You know, hire based on

portfolio, hire based on projects that

they've done, whether it's software or,

you know, even if I was if I was hiring

a CFO, I want to see like how did you

get through COVID? Like what did your

models look like? How did you how did

you fund raise? How did you do all this

stuff? I don't care what school you went

to. Um I don't care what companies you

worked for. I care about what challenges

were presented to you and how did you

solve it? And that can be applied

anywhere.

>> So, has it been another thing where

every time you start working uh expand

you know what you're offering and you're

setting up new machines and stuff,

you're kind of bringing in fresh eyes

and fresh blood that know how to operate

those machines, know how that sort of

like world works. And then you're

adopting those people and they look at

the other facets of your business and

they're able to look at it from a little

bit of a fresh perspective um and figure

out things that you made out of come to

you on your own.

>> Yeah. I think I think if you if you know

uh hey that machine cannot cut that

material, you're not going to try it.

But we don't know. We try not to know.

We're just like let's see if it'll do

it. We're like oh [ __ ] you know,

machine caught on fire, you know,

whatever. It's like, okay, how do we how

do we try it again and make it work? And

we keep pushing and pushing until it

works. Um, I I encourage everyone to not

know too much about their own business.

I you know, I I said earlier that my job

now is to do gym only things. The side

effect of that is I'm not doing

everything to perfection out on the

floor. So, I still have those fresh

eyes. When I walk out on the floor, I

can see things that other people aren't

seeing. uh because it's it's still new

to me because I'm not doing the same

thing every single day.

>> So, I think that there's kind of this uh

cultural zeitgeist or the the general

feeling um that a lot of like younger

people have is uh the world is not

necessarily set out to to to work for

them and they can't really build a a

life and career uh in the same way that

they maybe could have 50 years ago. um

how how are you thinking about that and

and uh like kind of inspiring young

people to get after it and and do

meaningful things? Yeah, I think

yeah the the talk right now is like hey

in the 50s you know uh single income

>> you buy a house

>> you know you can buy a house you can

raise seven kids you know my my

grandfather yeah I think there was no

there's five kids um single income

forever they had a house with a pool and

you know they had two cars and

everything and that was fine on his

income uh he actually worked at Lockheed

uh on the SR71 program Um,

so that was totally possible back then.

Now people think it's only possible if

you're a software engineer, you know,

somebody

>> making $400,000 a year.

>> Yeah. A total comp, you know, 500k or

whatever.

>> Um,

>> in machining, in sheet metal, in the

trades, in uh manufacturing, that used

to be the case that you could make good

money and then it kind of went away

because it was a race to the bottom.

people were competing, you know, with

offshore or whatever. And

I don't think it has to be that way. Um,

we pay our people well because, well, at

first we started with because we're

weird, we have to train people how to do

things our way. If we invest all this

training in them, I want them to stay.

Um, if they stay, they're extremely

valuable. Like, if you are turnurning

people out constantly, it's incredibly

expensive. you know, you put all this

time in onboarding and training and then

they leave to go somewhere else, you

have to start all over again. There's

massive opportunity costs. So, we're

like, hey, let's let's pay well. Um,

also, I think it's right like if you

build all your models to allow for a,

you know, well compensated employee, it

makes a better product, it makes better

customers, etc. So,

>> they're not going to be looking out uh,

you know, over their shoulder trying to

figure out what is the next leap where I

can actually build this future that I am

excited about. Well, let's provide

growth from within. Um, let's take good

care of these people so that they care

about the product, they care about the

equipment. Dude, if you've you grab

someone off the street for like 13 bucks

an hour and you're like, hey, run this

million-doll machine, if that thing

starts smoking or making a terrible

noise, they're not going to care.

They're like, I don't know. My job is to

hit the green button.

>> You know, you pay the guy 40 bucks an

hour, he's pretty happy for that job. He

knows that that machine takes care of

him and his buddies. Exactly. Uh, so you

have better equipment uptime and it just

it pays for itself over and over again.

That generosity uh isn't for not, you

know, you you work it back. But I hear,

you know, oh, nobody wants to work

anymore. You know, these kids, they

don't want to work anymore. No, they

don't want to work for you. They don't

want to work for this, you know,

70-year-old [ __ ] that

started out making $225 an hour and he

thinks that $20 an hour is like you

should be jumping up and down for that,

especially in a dark, dirty, you know,

gross place. Uh, and it, you know,

there's no AC or whatever. No, no.

If you say nobody wants to work anymore,

they don't want to work for you.

and

>> you've created an environment that's

just not exciting and and and not Well,

the thing is too is, you know, you're

spending a lot of time and money and

thoughtfulness on trying to create an

environment where someone you can go

hire that guy for $40 an hour and

they're excited, you know, they're

they're they're they're looking forward

and trying to figure out like problems

and solutions. You said 350 employees.

If you do the right job, you have 350

people that are all independently

looking out for ways to improve the

business. Yep. and improve how the thing

works and make customers happier.

>> Yeah, they actually care. Um, when when

you're making minimum wage or you're

getting taken advantage of, the the main

thing that you're doing on all your

breaks and on your lunch is looking for

a new place. And if your buddy leaves

and finds a better place, he you're

going to go with him, you know. Um, one

of the things I'm most proud of is when

we get, you know, we'll get one new guy

and then he's like, "Ooh, this place is

awesome." And he'll grab like two of his

buddies from his old job. people that he

knows are the best.

>> So we have little pockets of this. Um we

have families, you know, we have like

most of the Andre's work here. We have

all kind lighteners. We have like six

lighteners or something that that work

here. Um so we have husbands and wives

and sons and daughters and and whatever.

And that's really cool. But then we also

have these guys that oh hey, we all used

to work at X and then you know they they

work here now. So um I I hear talk that

in order to be competitive in

manufacturing, we have to automate. Um

we have to have dark factories. Uh you

know,

manufacturing can't afford to pay

people, you know, living wages. I'm

proving the opposite. We're profitable.

We pay our staff well. Uh if you if you

pay them well, they care about the

product. It actually saves you money.

And we see it time and time again.

Difference again being frugal and cheap.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. A million%.

>> Final question. What's the hardest thing

you've overcome?

>> Hardest thing that I've overcome?

>> The The hardest thing that I've

overcome? That's That's a tough question

because

um it's just like a series of challenges

constantly every single day. Um I've

been really lucky. You know, I I've been

with my wife for over 20 years. You

know, my kids are great. Uh, I've been

punched in the face a lot in business.

We've had highs and lows, but that's

just part of it. Um, I overcome little

challenges every minute. Sitting here

with you is a challenge. I'm like, "Oh

my god, do I look okay? Am I sitting up

straight? Am I sweating through my

shirt?" Um, and then I'll go on to the

next one. The next one I I don't

remember a whole lot because I'm I'm

moving on to the next thing. Uh, it's

like women in childbirth. you know,

>> you're forgetting as much as you can all

the time.

>> Pushing that kid out, they're like, "I'm

never doing this again." And then a week

later, they're like, "Oh, I'd love

another one." You know, so they they

forget. I have that same problem. Um I

don't know. I I I love challenges. I

love a challenge when you're working

within constraints.

If you put me in a grocery store and

said, "Make me something for dinner." I

>> You would never know. No, dude. I'm

like, "Oh, fish with chicken on top of

steak and rice and noodles." Um, but if

you give me constraint, you know, you're

like, "Hey, dude. Here's uh, you know, a

can of chili and some graham crackers."

I'll be like, "All right, dude. We're

going to whip something up. It's going

to be great." So, I don't know. I

People have overcome

way bigger challenges than I'll ever

face. um you know, they've gone through

cancer, they've gone through uh the loss

of a child or a loved one or whatever. I

haven't had those things happen. Um so,

anything that happens in business is

just a challenge. You get punched in the

face, you bounce back up. Um and I'm

having a good enough time to where I

keep getting in the ring every day to

get punched in the face. So, it makes me

strong. I'm I'm super happy to do it.