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The Hunting Collective
Ep. 27: Roy & Ryan Seiders
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1h43m
Roy & Ryan Seiders were born and raised in Driftwood, Texas, a small town outside of Austin. Their parents cultivated a family-first environment and dad, Roger, brought his boys up in an entrepreneurial environment. They also went hunting and fishing...a lot. What seems like a pretty typical childhood turned into the fuel that would power the brothers as they hit the real world. They both started businesses after college in the fishing space until Roy discovered something that would change it all: the need for a better cooler. Next thing they knew, these two regular guys were at the helm of one of the fastest growing companies in the country. The company was called YETI. It's an amazing story. One that I was very privileged to be a part of for almost four years. YETI was the reason I went to Texas and I wouldn't change it for anything. So, there's no better way to end our Texas series of podcasts and for me to say goodbye to the state than with a conversation with the founders of YETI. Enjoy.
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Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome episode number twenty seven Hunting Collective. Of course, I'm Been O'Brien, and today we're joined by two brothers, two brothers that just so happened to have founded company Yettie. These two brothers are about as regular as regular guys get, a couple of hunters and anglers who love going outside and just so happened to be smart enough to figure out what is now the best premium cooler in the business, and why it's important for me to talk to them. Well, a lot of you guys know me as the Yetie guy. Of course, a lot of you guys know I worked at YETI for the last going on three and a half almost four years, and I no longer work that Yetie. I on to a new adventure. Uh. That's kind of why we started this series of Texas podcasts, going back to episode number two four with Woman Menzer, for me to say goodbye to Texas as we moved north to Montana. And so when I think about the final podcast in Texas that we would put out, it had to be Roy and Ryan Sears, and it had to be running Ryan Caesars because they're basically the reason I came to Texas to follow them on a journey to create this company called Yet and it was a hell of a run. And they're a hell of a couple of dudes with a great story of success that I feel like we can all learn from. So enjoy that story and it's totality for episode number coming right up, Roy and Ryan, how are you guys great? Thanks for having good How are you doing. I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing real good. It's hot you you'll be out of here next week, that's true. Yeah, yeah, you guys are, especially Bozeman, Montana. You guys are especially the last of my podcast, I was doing to trying to like get a final lap in Texas and appreciate my time. So I figured you guys would be perfect since you're yetties and you guys the reason I came here, you minds would be good way that hopefully enjoyed your stay. I really did join stay. How long were you here for? Four years? Just a little under four years? Like two months under four years? And what were your highlights of Boston and Texas? Boy? That could be that could be you're flipping around on flipping around overready early man? Uh? I remember when we first were sitting in the YETI flagship store, and I remember when we launched this thing. Gosh, wasn't a year and a half ago, sounds about right. And you had a room full of like the people. Yeah, that was fun. Lance Armstrong, Ryan Bingham's playing with JT. Van zand singing song from Towns van Zan. You just had pretty much Troy Landry running around. You had Fly Fisherman from Montana, bull Riders from Colorado, had the Cowboy, the UFC fighter was here. Yeah, Cowboys Seroni was here. So you got like cowboys Seroni hanging out with like Flip Palette, yeah, from Fishing Guide and and so this is I mean, what a awesome way too to celebrate that, like what you guys have done and what this place is, even this town, it just felt like I think somebody wrote later on that they it was the weirdest group of people that ever been assembled. This town's motto is keep it weird. So yeah, it was. It was a pretty uh interesting crew for sure. Yeah, you have any memories from that night specifically, you know, no, not really, uh nothing other than I mean it's a it's a special night for for Ryan and I because you know, never in our wildest dreams that ever think Yetie would be where it is and and to have that flagship open up, and and a lot of those folks that were there were friends and family, but also the Jetty ambassadors that Ryan and I grew up and kind of aspired to and looked up to. These guys, whether it's um, you know, I can't remember Flip was there, but guys like Flip Palette and uh, the rest of the crew. Um, So that that's pretty Yeah, pinch yourself a little bit to see that. I think I was at night too, between SIPs whatever Margarite was drinking. But yeah, that was one of my highest because I just remember looking around that room thinking, Okay, yeah, this is not this is not where I came from. It's a little bit different. Um, Brian, you have a pretty good powered description. Did you describe what the flagship is, what it looks like, 's here? Where it is? Well, I mean, I think the reason we brought we decided to open a flagship in Austin, if that's what you're getting at, is just so when people, you know, Yetti being from Austin started in Austin, and when people come visit here, you know, and and it'd be nice to have a place to go to see all the Yetti products and to say that while you were in Austin you got to go to the Yeti store and so, you know, with all our offices here, we didn't necessarily want it right at our offices, but having it downtown where you can stop in and and and get a drink at the bar and see all the product and all the way the store is, uh, you know fitted out. It's it's pretty neat to see everything, celebrate the products, the brand, the history, our heritage that you know, there's there's a lot of nods to Austin and and Ryan and nice family being from Austin. That's that's a lot of fun to put put together. Yeah, and there's artifacts from your life growing up. Yeah, he tagged into the bar you're sitting there. That's a lot of fun. Is that fun to see? Yeah, it is. And again it's uh, it can be a little bit of like pinch yourself type, you know, overwhelmed. We never thought that, but it is. You know, we have a we have a history in the outdoors, and it's fun to kind of see those artifacts from Ryan and I growing up in the outdoors and and um, whether it's our first deer or or um, you know, our old buck knife for whatever, it might be a lot of memories on each one of those items. Yeah, yeah, my all my stuff like that displayed like a bedroom my parents has like a treadmill in it. Yeah, a lot of these artificts. My mom tends to our mom tends to uh keep everything. So we just had to go visit our parents out in Driftwood and take through a bunch of stuff. Yeah, we got it, thought and and my you know, the one one cool thing is my dad. Our dad always had a camera with him, so all of our adventures were pretty much recorded with good photographs. And whether it was a grand ol fishing trip or um siege of Creek deer hunt. Yeah yeah, um, that's a probably a good place to start with. How this all you you got to be here? Maybe that's a nice nice like bo I mean, you guys are this YETI will continue to grow and it's gonna probably still shock you guys every year. Well I think I think I think you're right, it will, um, But for the purposes of this, it's it's starting probably starting with Roger, your your father, and the way he was as a young man or but also as raising you guys to be independent, to be entrepreneurs, to think for yourselves, talk about you know, your upbringing. So I I do think yet he kind of start the origin of YETI you definitely would would be with with our dad. And you know when um My, both my parents were raised here in Austin, but after um, after the college, they were filming themselves in Houston. My mom was a nurse and our dad was a school teacher wood shop teacher in Houston. And one of his um semester projects were building fishing rods with his students. And he was also a big fisherman, and so he did a lot of custom rod building on his own. And um you know he uh in his classroom and through his own custom rod building, he discovered that there really wasn't a good finish for for coating fishing rods. And this is the coating that goes on top of the thread that the thread holds the fishing guide to the rod blank And I think at the time, Ryan, they're using some type of wood varnish that sounds several coats of wood varnish and it just wouldn't last. The life of the rod would be the first thing that failed. So he was looking for a solution for himself and in his classroom, and he got together within a POxy company and they developed a two part of POxy that was clear and flexible and UM. So it was a solution, but it was it is more than what he could um he could use on his own and through the classroom. So he took it to market to see if there's an opportunity there and went to a local sporting goods store in Houston and started selling it through there. And you know, I think that led to a fishing tackle show UM called Athma, which is the which is now called eye Cast, which YETI is that's the same show. We go to Yetti and UM and he he he created the solution and it was kind of right timing, and it it became kind of an industry standard on on both custom rods and rod manufacturers. So if you look at the fishing rod industry, you have folks like Sage, Scott, I, Rod st Croix, G. Loomis all used his finish on on their rod blinks. And and then he got from there he got into all kinds of rod building equipment and and how to videos and instructions, and you wrote some little books on on how to build a customer fishing rod. So you know that was in the late seventies. He started that business out of our garage in Houston. I mean I think I was born the same year he started it, in seventy seven, and I would have been about four or five. And UM, but what that did was it gave him the the freedom to um move back to Austin. So I think when when I was five or six, we moved back up to the Austin area out in Driftwood. But I think you know that the funny thing about his business is that it was always kind of a one man show, is him and one or two full time employees and and and his business was always attached either in our in the rage or small building next to my parents house and UM. And so that exposure as a kid from you know, seeing him do where all the hats and and those were like shipping and receiving, product development, UM, building a catalog, price sheets, customer service was a big deal. HR and and UM you know, uh counts receivable counts. But I mean it's a little one oh one class and small business. And and I know at the time we didn't recognize what the exposure we were getting, but it was really a big, big deal as as Ryan and I decided to start our own business. You know, we'd go to trade shows with him as a kid, and so we understood the industry. We knew the brands in the industry. We knew the guys like flip Palette, that kind of the ambassadors of the industry that we we'd watched their uh what was Walker's case today morning ESPN Saturday flip Palota, So we we we would watch a flip Palette on on our Sunday morning ESPN Walkers k And then you know at the annual ATHMA show, we'd see him walking around there as well. And we actually, probably Ryan Moore so than myself got to know flip um over those years and um and and so being growing up in the industry and seeing that firsthand experience of running a small business by yourself and doing everything, and even my mom got involved, um so so and and you know, during the summers, Run and I were working in the business, kidding up, you know, small kits and and answering the phone when my dad wasn't available. Just exposure that that um, you know, again we didn't know what we're getting, but it was just gave us a huge advantage when we decided to start our own business. We kind of had a road map. I guess I don't want to sound like some kind of you know, shrink or something, but it was a good childhood. Uh you know it was my you know in the business that that that exposure was great. But I think our dad was very hands on. Our parents were very hands on and um, and you know that their priority was their family and kids and and um, you know my dad today, our dad today treats the grandkids the same way they treated us, which is just all out and if if whether it's fishing, hunting, um, skateboarding, uh you name it, and it's skateboarding. Well you know the funny when we showed a little bit of interest in skateboarding as a kid, and you know this was probably in the mid eighties, and him being a wood shop teacher, uh he uh, he decided, well, I'm going to build these guys a half pipe and uh so in our front yard, which we had some property out there, in Driftwood in in our front yard. We uh we uh. He built the probably way oversized for what we had, eight ft tall vertical and he still got a scar. Of the later ones after that we built with friends. They were more about a six ft with no vertical, and that was more is a lot of a lot of fun. But at the time, at the time, and drifted Its twenty five miles southwest of Austin at the time is probably one of the better ramps in Austin. So we had kids coming all over from from Austin in central Texas to skate our ramp. And um, my dad tells stories about him. He had a water cooler out there that's way out in the middle of the yard and um, and he'd go through a dozen five gallon water bottles a day because kids would just be out there rotating through and um. And remember if we if we left town, my dad would have to run a chain across it. And uh. But the funny thing is to look back on that and and look at the liability that might have might have been involved with that foot vertical. They yeah, and kids traveling in from all over, We didn't you know. These they're all great and it's a ton of fun when we did that for a couple of years. But but nevertheless, my parents and and my dad, you know, uh, they were all in on everything we're doing and their hands on and it felt like, you know, business was always kind of second priority to to family, which is something that Ryan and I have struggled with as Yettie has grown and it's kind of taken all of our resources to keep up with the business. Luckily, we're at a spot today that family is first and and uh, but we also have to balance that with with our own pursuits around hunting and fishing. And when when my dad went when our dad went fishing, Um, I mean it was a family activity. It's like that's the only way to do that, right, I mean, I'm right now he's struggling with that. How do you bounce that all out? And uh weird pile into his fifteen passenger van and uh takes some friends and head to Grandall, Louisiana and fish down there. So, um, you know, I think our our parents offered kind of that visibility into small business and and the fishing tackle market and you know, being exposing us to the outdoors at an early age, do you have any Uh, Well, it's funny because you're a lot of your family members. Scott Cedars owns his own business is very successfully old Scott, and your brother Rick owns his own business was very successful. Yeah, it feels like it's just kind of the thing. I don't know. I think, Um, we're not smart enough to do anything else. So I I the funny thing the if if I was interviewed by Yeddie today, I wouldn't get hired. There's no way. Yeah. But um, and that that happened pretty early. So so I think our way of kind of figuring out our own own path was we're gonna start our own business. Yeah, and we saw our dad's lifestyle and we liked it and we knew we knew how to do that, and that's how we kind of Nowadays people are like, how, what's the secret? Ryan's the secret? The secret is you just gotta do it. Yeah, that's that's the hardest part. Well, that's what it always struck me about you guys. There was just there was no fear of you didn't have to like jump off a ledge to get to be entrepreneurs, start shop, and we were already doing stuff before Yeddie, and so it was just we were doing different things until one of them hit like we need. It's not like somebody now you get in the corporate structure and you're you feel like you have you're taking a leap, taking a chance to go to your own thing. You guys never felt like I never felt like I was taking a chance. I did see after college. I did see my buddy starting success estual careers and making money right away, and that you know, when you start comparing yourself to others, that was kind of ate at me a little bit because I was I felt like I was kind of spinning my wheels and trying to figure it out. And uh so, you know, to kind of back up, we Ryan and I both knew we we wanted to start our own business right after school, and we grew up building fishing rods and and um using my dad's product and uh Ryan started a fishing rod company. Yeah. So, so I had built fishing rods through middle school, high school, a little bit in college, but when I went to college, I pretty much knew that when I got out, I wanted to start a start building rods full time and develop a brand name rod company and uh, so I got out of school the end of ninety six started Waterloo Rod Company INN and uh I had a great time with it, you know, never made that much money, but had a lot of a lot of freedom and good lifestyle type business and earned a lot, made a lot of good connections and uh and really enjoyed it. Had an opportunity to sell it in two thousand and five and I did. And then you know during that time is when Roy had been had been getting involved with coolers. I think he started. I think it's a great story how you sold it because you weren't looking to sell exactly like I've heard this story. Probably early two thousand five, had one of my best customers that you know, kind of retail customer, not a store, but he had bought a lot of rods from me, and he was just always afraid that, you know, if I had disappeared, that he wouldn't have enough rods. I mean he would every time I hear from him, he'd buy another three or four rods from He had a closet full of them. And anyway, he called me and said, hey, you interested in in selling your rod companies? I don't know, and he threw out a number to me that wasn't enough to get me interested, since that's the only thing I've ever done, And so I thought that it was interesting that he was interested in buying this rod company. He was moving out of Austin down to Victoria, and he had someone in mind to run it for him down there. Anyway, Um, about a couple of months later, he calls calls me back up. I was up one night finishing rods and in they're late, and he goes, well, you know, what would you sell this thing for? And so I threw out a number that I thought was high. I knew would take me a long time just to save up that much money. And as soon as I said it, he goes sold. And my heart just sank because I knew that when this guy said sold, he was he was kid, and so you know, you didn't know what you could get away with. But when I when I threw out the number, he said sold, and I knew it was a done deal. And he ended up having one of his buddies by it. And it's still run today down in Victoria and Victoria, and so it's kind of neat to see that still going. Probably much more successful than than what you took a little more serious than I was at the time. What you do after So so immediately after we closed, I get in my perfect timing for darre season and I had Southern Colorado on a bow hunt for Elk on public land and then did that for like two weeks, come back and just go full blast into whitetail hunt and I went to Illinois that year, did some South Texas, did some Panhandle Texas Panhandle of Texas where we had a lease spent that was two thousand that had been two thousand seven. Yeah. I ended up getting a pretty good deer in the Panhandle that year, my first big one in the Panhandle. And uh, you know, came home from about you know, September through December hunting and looking for something to do. And then that's when I started helping out Roy at the warehouse he had with the with the coolers before we started Yettie. Yes. So, so to back up a little bit, when Ryan was running this this fishing rod company, I came out of school three or four years later and trying to figure out my path in the small business world. And you know, our dad's business was um it could support him, but it was not any bigger than that. The opportunity was not much bigger than that. So I really didn't have opportunity there to go into business with him. UM, So I gotta figure out my path, and I was working on several projects. Um. One of the first things I did was a a a fold up shooting bench. Yeah and uh, And I went to McBride's here in Austin, and I started selling them a few And this was a real simple design. You ap plywood top that it could handle left handed shooter or right handed shooter. And the base was like this little fold up metal saw horse and and so it packed down really nice, and and it was you know, it's a decent product, but it's a pretty small market. I remember I was those things. So I was selling some to McBride's and selling them to friends and family, and then um, I also I started reaching out to like Cabella's, And I remember just reaching out on a daily basis to to the buyer at Cabella's and seeing if I could get any kind of response, and I couldn't get through his assistant. And I sent a couple of products up there, of these folding shooting benches because I knew if I could get it in the Cabella's catagory catalog, could do okay. Um. You know, I finally got through to that buyer up there and and UM he said, I like it quite a bit, but you know, I don't think we're interested in it. So that, you know, I kind of decided to go look at other opportunities. And at the time, my dad was UM, he was UM messed around with aluminum boats for the way we fished on the Texas coast and um and we'd get these aluminum holes built down in Florida bringing back up here to um driftwood and we'd rig him out. So I I that, and he was just doing that for our own fishing. I decided, well, maybe there's an opportunity there. I'll try to turn that into a business. And I UM, so I started going to a few boat shows, the Houston Boat Show and and and um and these were just highly specialized shallow water boats. Usually a tunnel hole. I'd hang a ninety horse Shamaha on it and put a center console in it, and you know, everything about the boats were kind of durable and well thought out, well well designed and um and on every boat you'd least you would have at least two coolers on each boat. You'd have one in front of the center console and one behind the center console. And maybe you'd elevate that one behind the center console and using it use it as a kind of a um a leaning post or leaning platform, and use them as seats. You'd keep your fish fresh in them, your drinks, your your sandwiches, whatever, and so everything about the boat was was uh fairly high quality and um, but the coolers that were available to me at the time really didn't match up to the rest of the quality of the boat. So, um, didn't your dad say you you only sold like one boat? You say, said that if we can stay in business as long as you don't sell too many boats, we're only we're losing a thousand, two thousand dollars per boat. That just don't sell too many of them will be fine. That's what I remember that, right. I don't know if that's right, but yeah, that's that sounds uh, that sounds pretty accurate. Um. So you know, the cool thing about the boat business is that I learned a ton and and like Ryan's fishing rod business. Um um, it exposed me to a lot of different things and and clients and other people and the way they fish. And then you know, what I quickly realized about the boat business is that it's highly specialized and it's highly you know, custom and everyone has their idea what the perfect boat is. Um. But you know, it also exposed me to the shortcoming you know, we've been using We've been using coolers all of our life, you know, when in the outdoors, hunting and fishing. But it really amplified the shortcomings of ordinary coolers. You know, the hinges would break, that you would use it as a seat and you'd go out poundling across the bay, that that lead would start caving in, the latches would snap, the you know, they would fall apart in and you know, so it wasn't really an ice retention issue. Is more of a durability issue. These these coolers would follow apart after a short season, and I was frustrated. I wasn't necessarily looking for a solution, but I was frustrated with the with the shortcomings. So UM. I h. Ryan was actually at a shallow water expo out in Florida, and I remember him calling me up and saying, Hey, I think I found the cooler it might be uh, might be a good fit on your boats. And um, so that that original cooler, um was this Thailand made ice chest that was Roada molded, and it kind of exposed me to, oh, there is a better product out there that's heavy duty, and I um I started So I started putting those coolers on my boats. But also recognized that if I'm frustrated with the shortcomings of ordinary coolers, I bet there's other people out there too. And so I got ahold of that distributor and got pricing on this product and and um where I could resell it in Texas. So I got that that original Thailand cooler that and started open up accounts here in Texas, you know, like McBride's Fishing Techle Unlimited in Houston and you name it. And and so pretty quickly I had a handful of retailers that were reselling this product. You know, I was just a distributor. I I didn't you know, I didn't own the brand. I didn't. It wasn't my design. But but it was again, like so many things that happened here, all these were stepping stones, you know, whether it was my dad's company to to Ryan's road company to to UM, boats, shooting benches, all these are stepping stones to YETI, and it exposed me to the cooler business. And pretty soon I was building up a retail network in and UM. You know, after doing that for several years, I recognized that although that Thailand product was good, there's plenty opportunity to improve it, improve the product. So I set out for UM to make one, build one from the ground up. And and that's kind of when Ryan was selling his fishing rod company and we joined up and he decided he didn't have enough money to hunt. I was for sure, yeah, if I maybe had it. But what strikes me about that just hearing because I never heard about I knew about the boats and rods, but I didn't know about you know, the shooting benches are kind of the way that you went through. And I mean you describe it as a step to yetti, but it could have been a step to anything you could have figured out, you know, stainless steel. You know, fishing shirts have been uncomfortable. Whatever, it didn't matter what it was like, it was leading to something. Always you always feel like when you were doing that, you're just we're just hustling or you always felt like I'm gonna find something that's gonna be big. No, I didn't. I didn't Our goal ryananized goal when we were starting our own business as something like my dad's company that could support us in our lifestyle. We never in our a million years did we ever think that it would turn into something bigger or even what Yettie has turned into. We were used to these smaller industries, like like, you know, the fishing industry is pretty big, but the fly fishing trade shows a little smaller and uh, and some of these outdoor companies, you know, they're real specialized and not that big. They have great brands and they're great companies, but they're highly specialized. And and it's it's it's they're not very big companies and they're really cool, but it's a lifestyle. It's a lot of fun. When we started Yettie, you know, we were thinking more down that same path and anything that we were starting, we were we were thinking down the path of all we cared about was it being successful enough to support us, meaning us in our family. That's why I always tell people like, this is a what we're talking about, here's a plastic box. It's a pretty damn badass plastic box. But like it, it was only a hunting and fishing thing, because that's what you guys loved it. That's what it was. It wasn't like, well that's where we'll make all the money, We're gonna be rich. I recognized it as an opportunity. I knew that there's potential there, but never did I ever see it going to where it went. And and you know, our our frustration around coolers was definitely around hunting and fishing and on boats, and and again it was way more about durability. The nice retension. Ice re tension became a really cool feature that you know when you when you do these thick walls with polyurethane foam and a full frame gasket. Yeah, of course that that's a becomes a big deal and hold hold ice a lot longer than a commodity ordinary cooler. And for certain pursuits that's a that's a you know, multi day trips or or you know, you're l hunting up in Colorado and driving it back to the heat and Texas and ice re tension is a big deal. But our frustration was by far in the yea, and the and around the durability of the lid, the latches, the hinges, the handles, all that stuff. I always say that, you know, you said, well, why would you need a cooler like that? We'll come live in Texas for just one summer and then you'll be like even even yeah, even a day on the water in Texas is can go through ice. It's a late August, mid to late August right now, and you go outside, you're like us, You're running from your A C. Truck to the to the still sweat. Can't quite do it. But yeah, that's always interesting to me, is like trying to analyze as you guys go through this thing. So you start Yetie. In two thousand six, we start Yetie. And how did you come up with a name? That's always a question. Yeah. So, um, you know, first of all, we knew how important a brand was. We knew we knew being exposed to the fishing tackle industry and seeing all those brands there, and and you know guys like um, Sage, which I thought was a really cool brand, Sage fly rods and what are some four letters? And it wasn't somebody's last name similar to what Yeah, you know, this is not a knock on Loomis Rods, but that's a great fishing rod. But it's named after Gary Loomis, the founder, and it's just not as cool as as a yeah sage, yes smell Yeah. And so so, you know, being exposed to other brands, whether it's Patagonia or or um Able which ables the last name I guess, is that right? It was Steve Abel. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good name. Yeah, yeah, still yeah it is. If your name something cool, your last name something, if Sam's is a great name. Yeah, if you guys have been like Roy and Ryan, like, we want you know, short that looked good on a hat. You know, we're used to seeing seeing you know, stage for example, on a hat looked great. Uh and you know with something short that you could remember and remember. Yeah I do, but but I just wanted to. We knew how important a brand was. We knew that that that that you know, we aspired to be one of those brands that that resonated with us, that had a cool name that we could remember looking on a hat, shirt, whatever. So we start putting together a list of names, and we put together a list of about ten names, and I remember Yetti. I mean, like so many things over the years, when when I'm starting to think about something, I'll I'll lay up, lay in bed and just you know, it'll keep me up at night. So I remember laying there in bed at night, uh, probably early two thousand and six and going through names after name then. I don't know how it popped in my head, but Yetie, I knew it was kind of that that ice monster of the Himalayas that okay, I like that visual of a of a cold, tough environment, and Yettie was pretty unique. Um, and I liked that it was that it was four letters, and so I had to it to the list, and it you know, it was my favorite going into that list. But I just we as we took that list to friends and family and bounce those different names off off the off, those folks, Um, not everyone liked the name Yettie. And a lot of times they're like, what what is he Yettie? And I tell then what it was, and and uh yeah, and and um okay, they they maybe they got it after that, but they weren't sure if they liked it, and and and some people were big fans of it. But when we went back to that same group a week or two later. The the one common theme. Even even if they didn't like the name Yetti, everyone could. I asked, I asked this, these guys, which names do you remember? Remember? All of them? All of them could remember Yetti. So I thought that was a good validator of what what we set out to do. And um, so we went with it. Some of the other names on the list where we used tundra. Tundra was on the list and that was our first, you know, cooler, and then Sherpa was on the list too. That was actually a predecessor to the tun tundra. Um was that the first one. Serpa was the first Yetti. You run into. Guys, every one. I was like, a sure bok, Yeah, time to cut that thing and happen. Get a tundra m upgrade. They told us the last one you ever bought. Were just kidding about that, just choking around, Get you another one. And we had some other terrible names on that list, and um, but I can remember. Yeah, yeah, I thought there I might laugh at one. There there are some that I'm not going to share that you would laugh at. No, all right, Um, the so we went with the name. And you know, I remember the first couple of weeks of answering the phone and saying yetti yetti. Cooler said, it sounded weird to me. I felt a little bit weird, and um, but luckily it worked out for us. Well the business gets going right. So yeah, So for for for a long time, it was just Ryan and I and and we're um, no, it's we can handle the business. And again this is this is um we knew how to operate a bit, and it's just from watching our dad and from Ryan's previous business and and um, you know another thing that we didn't do was you know, we kind of we self funded it. It was a it was a something that you know, we used a little bit of Ryan's proceeds from from his fishing road company, and then a line of line of credit at the UH from the local bank. And you know, um, I see a lot of companies today, startups, and they all are looking for seed funding, and I don't think we could. Ryan and I didn't have the skill set to go navigate that. So you know, luckily our earning supported our growth and and we're able to get it off the ground with the working line of credit. From our locals, and we were pretty low rollers. Yeah, we're We're. We didn't spend a lot of money back then. Everything. We didn't take money out of the business. We kept it in and continued to fund the growth at the company. Yeah that, I mean, that's a really good point. We I mean, I was living in a in a house out next to my um parents that my parents owned, so I you know, I wasn't paying anything there. Yeah, there was a garage kind of back behind my parents place that were full of coolers. And then as as we outgrew that, we went down the street and in Driftwood and and found a warehouse that was sitting Bacon. We got a good deal on that and sub leased it actually from from the tenant and um there's kind of a crazy story behind that as well. Um we UM. So I I sub leased two thousand square feet from the tenant, and I think this building was UM probably eighteen thousand square feet, and that I used that a little front right hand corner of that warehouse to ship and receive product out of and UM and the tenant was absentee. He'd come in about once a quarter and checking on his product that was there. But as we grew, we uh, I began using his space for our product, and I would pile the coolers on top of the on top of his product, which was all and it was all in boxes and on pallets, so it's easy to do it without causing any problems. And um as we um and this this are are you know our LEAs or landlord landlord? Uh would Bryan's here to Landlord would call us up and say, hey, I'm coming in town next week on Wednesday. So before he would come in, we would pull everything back into our little two thousand square feet pile it up so high you couldn't get to anything, and then he would come in, look around and say, y'all are doing good? Y'all. Every time I'm come in here, that pile gets bigger, The pile of coolers gets bigger. And then then he'd leave town and and you guys like, well, yeah, it's all always over here on our side. It's never on your side, if that's what you're saying. So in order to ship stuff out, we as soon as he would leave, we we had basically shut down while he was there, and then we would spread stuff back out and start shipping again and again we were low rollers. We figured out how to get things done on what that had to make you more nimble, right, because you weren't. You're like, well, we got a million bucks seed money, we can just spend, spend, spend. You're like, we got what's in our pockets? Yeah? Bank, I mean if every dime count. And and you know when we when we had extra capital sitting in the bank, we were using it to go out and go to trade shows, build a brand, starting starting to do some marketing and or invest into more inventory, and using that to just fund the growth and and scale the business. But we quickly realized that that we needed help and that this thing was bigger than just us. And so that's when we started to look for um smart and capable folks to bring into the company. And and it was the early guys like the Johnny Comba all was and and the David Bullocks and who uh you know, these guys were just problem solvers and because of a small team, again, they had to wear multiple hats. So David Bullock, our CFO, who we hired as our CFO, I mean he would help me with the catalog and help me with the copyright. He would also help me with help us with customer service. He would be jumping on the phone. So he wasn't a CFO somewhere else. No, no, no, no, he was just a smart yeah with it, Yeah U T M B A and and so he came in and um and Yeah. He spent a little bit of time closing the books each month and working with our bank and hopefully extending our line of credit at the bank and that relationship. But that might have been five percent of his time. The other was everything else in the small business of you know, customer service to to um you know, helping lay out a catalog and the copy that goes in the catalog. So that was pretty interesting. Well there's a big turning point around a guy named Ivan Brown. Yeah, you're gonna tell that story because I think it's one of those things where we talk about I think it's fun for people to hear about the struggles what you're going through. And even like the quirky hay removing the warehouse around I got fun. But there was like a pinnacle in the business world almost you were actually planning to shutter down because something happened that yeah yeah, yeah, so so so um so Ivan Brown was our original cooler manufacturer was in the Philippines, Okay, and um. Ivan Brown was the owner of that factory and UM and he was also the owner slash engineer. So Ryan and I worked closely with Ivan and as we developed the Tundra, um No, we were. I would go over to the Philippines, sit sit down with him and and work through these design features and um. And you know those early years of the of the Sherpa and then the Tundra, we had all kinds of quality issues and and I look him back, I don't even know how we stayed in business given some of the challenges we were faced with the with these issues and UM. But you know, Ivan was just a fantastic resource. And when when we had a challenge, whether it was a a production issue, uh, you know, quality issue that we're having with our customers, you know, he was always in the weeds with us to help solve the problem. And he saw us as a as a no, a way to get into the US market and and grow his manufacture over in the Philippines. So you know them. But he was all in with us, and and he would come over and visit with us here in the States. And he might go to travel to a trade show with us, and we'd we'd go spend time over the Philippines. You know. The funny think about the Philippines. Ran and I growing up in Texas is we felt like, you know, I'm in my late twenties. I guess Ryan might be early thirties. Here. We felt like a fish out of water. And I mean, I mean we're we're kind of homebodies and um being over there. Um, it's just it's just it's a culture shock. Whatever it's you're just it's different. And and um, unlike our middle brother, who I think wherever he travels, he feels at home, you know, uh, and he he travels all over in his and his granite business, you know, Brazil, China, Italy, whatever, and he feels at home traveling abroad. And Ryan and I are way more home bodies. Well, I think that's what people think about Big, the big Yetie company now. They think, oh, the guys have found it. That must have been like slick Harbard businessman that And I always might do my best describe you guys like this normal dudes. I don't know what you're expecting, but it ain't that like it's not what you think it is. Um. I mean we did some things that we were sticking our neck out, and I was sticking I mean, we were going over to the Philippines at an early age, and it just it was I guess getting outside of your comfort zone is what it is. It helped a lot to go there together, you know. Oh yeah, yeah, I you know spent how long like long stretches over there. Yeah, you know, our initial visit was for a few days, and we maybe went back and forth once or twice after that. Then then when we were designing the tundra from the ground up, I think I was over there for a couple of weeks or if not more so. You worked with Ivan, yes, And I would talk to him daily by either through email or phone calls and and so, um, you know, um, Ryan and I had grown pretty close with Ivan, and UM, you know, one day email him, I didn't get a response, which wasn't too unusual, but I followed back up with him, um later that evening or or maybe the next day, and and I got ahold of his wife and and Ivan had passed away, and um, and you know, I I've told his wife that I'm sorry and asked what happened and and she said, well, he was on his way home from work and two guys on a moped pulled up beside him and shot and killed him. And um, so I never we never got to the bottom of the story of of what happened there. And it was something that's tragic that that, first of all, we lost someone that was close to us and um, and and he was he was a key man to our business. So you know, I remember going Ryan and I had a handful employees at the employees at the time, and remember going into the office the next day and kind of broke the news to them that it didn't look good. I mean, that's that's how important what it was he was too to us, is that it didn't look good. And and this this, we don't know if that factory is gonna be able to produce products without him, and and we just didn't have a whole lot of confidence in our future. And um, you know, Ryan and I are deciding what what are we gonna do here? And you know one thing we did. Um We're sitting on some pretty decent amount of inventory, and we decide, well, um, let's go ahead and raise prices a little bit because if that's if we're liquidating here, let's go ahead and raise the price and and and try to get a little bit more money for it, Okay, and um, So we sent it. I think we probably had a fifty retailers at the time we sent out an email and and didn't get any kind of response on that price increase, had no complaints on the price increase. That was kind of a moment that you know, we learned from about pricing that you could you know that that that at the way it was selling and the with the brand name, that pricing wasn't the first thing people looked at as far as you know, when they were making that decision to purchase a cooler. Yeah. Um. Then then the next thing we did was we started getting on planes and going to visit other road of molders and um. At the time in the Philippines we had the tunder was a decent product, but it was made from an inferior mold, a sand cast called a sand cast mold and UM and we started visiting domestics suppliers and quickly realized that this sand cast mold that was in the Philippines wouldn't necessarily apply to the US manufacturers because once you get that product out of the mold, you have to do so much handwork to it um that that uh the cost of labor in the US didn't really allow you to do that. So what that did was there's another mold, a called you know as a C and C UM mold, just higher precision. And when you when you uh use that particular mold, you get it out of the product and there's it's the fit and finishes just way elevated, so very very little touch up needed when you bring it out. It's like a mirror finished mold, real real pretty part and when the when the cooler comes out of that, there's not you don't have to throw additional labor at So UM we went through that process, and in the meantime, the Philippine factory had got back up and running, and by that time Ivan had hired a few young engineers that UM they were able to kind of take take over where he left off, and we started getting product again from them, and and and we're we're building a supply chain domestically using the C and see these high quality C and C molds. So all of a sudden Through that process, our product begins to elevate, the quality begins to elevate because we start refining some of some of those details, some of those details in the tundra we start refining through this new mold. Did you feel like he had more wiggle room? Now You're like, look, the consumer will pay for this, Like, yeah, yeah, that's right, I think so the consumers willing to pay more for it. Therefore, we we have the room to add value. So that's exactly what we did. We we added value where we could. And the tundra of those first couple of years there's a cousin to the next generation UM tundra, and we we modified all the details the gasket, the latch, the drain plug that the rope handles and so all. Then then we started sending um um. We opened up a domestic factory and got this higher quality part, and then we um any. We we brought the higher quality molds into the into the Philippines, and all of a sudden, we're dual source. Now it's a higher quality part and it's a value add where we where we could. And UM So as tragic as as as Ivan's um death was, all of a sudden, we're much stronger company. We we have a just a much better product. Our margin profile helps invest into that growth and um and then you know, once we once we kind of neled the product and kind of settled back into a routine from there, Okay, let's start. Let's start, you know, kind of putting dollars at work and branding and marketing and um no. I think our big tipping point was probably in two thousand and ten when we started getting guys like Flip Palette and Jim Shocky to do thirty second commercials for us and take it to the you know, the the outdoor channel and talk about you know, Yetie being wildly stronger, keep ice longer, it being grizzly resistant, and and then just telling our our thirty second story. And when we got it on the outdoor channel, that was a that was a tipping point because it was that hardcore consumer like Ryan and I that were around fishing and hunting well, and people don't remember that. Back in two thousand ten, you had you know, Jim shock he was kicking yet He's off the back of his truck. Yeah, you had um, Si Robertson and Phil Robertson I want to say there was a commercial about Wiley stronger, No keeps eyes longer, No, Whiley stronger, like all these the duck commanders. Yeah, it was a much smaller world then, right. You had the outdoor channel you had and then you had print and that's about all there was. Yeah, that's it. That's it. There's the personalities were So there's there was major personalities who somehow you guys got on board of the product early on it. So here's how we got those guys. No other cooler company was was pursuing those guys. So the big uh commodity type coolers of the world, they were mass market, mass channel and and they weren't focused on hunting or fishing. So when we when we went after uh Flip Palett or Jim Shocky, Yeah, those guys were sponsored by phishing rods or optics or guns or boats or whatever else. But they've never been approached by a cooler company. So if you if you were starting an archery company, for example, a bow company, and you know you were trying to go in there and find someone on TV and get them to use your bow is much more difficult because they were already sponsored by by an archery. Yeah, so having a cooler and you could make friends with any of these guys sending them a high quality cooler, they start using it and say, hey, you know, when we get around to do in some advertising, we'd like to get a testimonial for you or maybe shoot at thirty second commercial. And it was there was a void in the outdoor marketplace, you know that we could uh, you know, take advantage of well, and then then there's avoid in the consumer market point. Yeah, that's right, So so avoid with the with that that personality. But when we walked into McBride's here in Austin, or Fishing Tackle Limited in Houston, those guys they weren't selling coolers because you could go get your commodity, the ordinary cooler down the street at Walmart. So although every single consumer that walked in their doors was a cooler user, because if you did anything outdoors, you were using coolers. The small specialty shops, the mom and pop shops of the world, the hard little hardware stores, fishing tackle stores, hunting Ammo stores, whatever, those guys, we weren't replacing a product. We were giving them a product that they could sell to their to their customer now everyone that walked in the door was a potential buyer because of the price point. You know, it wasn't for everybody, but we knew if we could get our foot in the door at these retailers, the it that like us, there's gonna be a certain for small percentage that we're frustrated with ordinary coolers and that they we could get them too willing to pay up for value add endurability and ice retention. So, you know, when we recognize that void in the marketplace, it was a kind of a lightbulb moment for us, is like, holy sh it, this is this is a big opportunity. Do you think it's twenty it's this. There's a lot of products out there. There's a lot of ship floating around. Yeah, there's not a whole lot of people creating markets in any segment of any consumer products. But there's not a whole lot of people creating anything. And what what happened pretty quickly is premium coolers became a thing where to where there was never a market for them before or if they're I will I will say it for you. The longest time, it felt like we were under the radar. You know, two thousand and six through ten to eleven. No, we didn't. We you know, us and one or two other guys out there in the market. We're doing high and coolers, but you know, we weren't getting a whole lot of attention. And then over the last four or five years, there was just a wave of me too, uh and and um, well we're all this story builds to when you hired me really exactly. Um So, so you know, in those early years, it's all about finding the right people to bring into the company. I think there's a lot of things that made Yetty successful, but probably more than anything was finding the right people to bring into the business. And and it was those early guys and gals, but also you know, even the even the folks that we hired today. It's just it's part of that team that that um you know has made this thing so special and and we can you know for uh, we've been fortunate to find the right people at the right time. Well, you and you grow the thing like it's it's probably best to fast forward when you know this thing's growing, it's growing exponentially. When I first found out about him, it was very much oh the cup company, Um, you introduced the ram the products. Yeah, and I can't remember if that was fifteen fourteen or what it would have been fourteen okay, okay. So so we recognized early on that the Yetie brand could go beyond coolers, okay and um and we recognized that that um, you know, the brand was bigger than a one product company. And essentially that's what we were with the with the Tundra coolers were one product company. We had different sizes, we had great accessories like corner chalks, tie down system, see cushion se deck for standing using it as a casting platform. But uh, you know, the we were a one product company, so we were we recognized that there was other product category that we could take this kind of same approach to. And the first natural one for us was the soft cooler space. You know, the soft coolers were you know, you walk into Target, you'll see the twenty foot aisle full of all kinds of different colors and shapes and sizes. Always joke that they're falling apart on the shelf. Yeah they are. Like sometimes you'd be like, is that broken already? It's in the it's on the shelf to buy, and and uh so we UM. The Tundra is a heavy product. It's meant to be more stationary. You put it on the boat, you leave it. You put it on your front porch or the back of your pickup truck. You leave it there. You know, you might move it from time to time, but it's it's way more stationary. What a soft cooler gave you was the you know, shoulder straps, lightweight portability where you can take it, you know, haul it somewhere fairly easy. And UM and we just saw the exact same opportunity. We we saw that these cheap commodity type soft coolers that it would leak, the seams would bust, and we we we went through a process of developing a soft cooler, and luckily by that time we had folks like Chris Keller who who could run a development process for us and and put some engineering effort into the front end instead of after the fact. And the Tundra we are all of our engineering went into after market. Yeah, our our market, our market feedback was our our testing process. Now we got into UM as we developed the product team are UM engineering resources went into the front end and so we we we know, we learned a lot about r F welding and taking coded nylon and not using stitches but radio radio frequency to adhere the fabrics together some high end waterproof zippers that have a docking station that that are used in in UM like survival suits for offshore crabbing and stuff like that. UM. And and so you combine RF welding, coated nylon waterprool zippers and uh inch two inch and a half of insulation, you have the ultimate badass solt cooler. And that's when we launched the hopper, and that hopper was probably it was it was a long development process that took you know, probably two or three years. And about the same time we were launching that, we were launching them our stainless drinkware. And you know, vacuuments related drinkware has been around for a long time, like Stanley and Thermis, and it's always been in like a like a Thermis type setting or bottle type setting. And UM. Now I remember Ryan showing me a product that you know, hey, Roy, we should consider something like this, and UM using this vacuumentally and technology and UM, so kind of the natural thing for us. Well, let's just make it make a cup and so we made a twenty ounce and the thirty ounce and put a clear lid on it. And that that I feel like that clear lid was kind of a another like a pivotal point for us, because as soon as you put a black lid on a stainless steel cup, it turns it into a coffee cup. And what we with that clear lid, it it um it gave you the sense of something refreshing. I guess where you can see the ice and and and so we launched that and um that was yeah to this fourteen, I mean it was it was a different way of putting out products. Right. That was the first time you guys, guys really sit down and like, hey, we we got yes here, We're gonna capitalize Almo success and create something that we think is gonna you know, dominate this marketer. For the continuum, it was a different process that it feel different where you guys excited coming to work, like let's look at every damn I as as we brought on more resources, whether it was a product team, marketing team, whatever and started building out these badass teams. Yet he has definitely become um way, I mean more and more like attractive and fun and being a part of that and being a part of something that's much larger than yourself and and you when you have resources, it's a special thing because you know, you start working with the team towards a goal and it's it's it's way cooler than doing it on your own. And um and uh so the so the cup, the Rambler, the twenty and thirty. Kind of the magic about that was it did have a wow factor with this vacuum in relation holding ice for a really long time or keeping your coffee hot for a really long time. But our brand was these coolers that were at three and four hundred, even five hundred dollars, and even the soft coolers are are relatively expensive, that are ten x of an ordinary soft cooler, you know, two three, three dollars, And all of a sudden, we were coming to market with a product that's way more of an affordable luxury at a thirty dollar price point, our thirty five dollar price point. And it still has a wow factor, It still has a durability, still has you know, the vacuum insulation for ultimate ice retention, but but it that price point just gives you that much broader Yeah, that's right, and and all of a sudden, a lot of folks that maybe wouldn't pull the trigger on a cooler, we're pulling the trigger on a thirty dollar piece of drink War, which is still super premium for drink War drink wears item. And now you're you're tripling that. And I mean with anything we do, we try to find ways to add value. You are, when we're developing product, it's all about how do we make it better? And and uh so we're making a super premium drink, so that up. Yeah, And that's so that's why I want to get to that blowing up. Because when I got when I came on, and it was kind of like, I remember when I interviewed with you guys. I think Ryan might don't. I think you were probably hunting, I think, but I think Ryan sat me down with David Bullock and just asked me questions about like what's your favorite white tail hunter? And that's not what I had I had prepped. I'm like, yeah, what about marketing, I got it, I got some answers, and so I think I might have said something like, oh, Bill Winky, I love that guy. He's like, yeah, Okay, this is working out, so like, how do you cook up a turkey breast? I'm like, wow, put in the oven. And it just felt immediately like I didn't know anything about Austin, I didn't anything about Texas. I really didn't know anything about Yettie other than it was cool and the opportunity was attractive and it's it was worth checking out. And once I left that interview, I was like, I'll beg these guys to let me come down, and I don't. I think people were asking me like why, Like I'm not really. You just had to have kind of have seen it. You have to go in the office and see the sticker wall and see like the open floors and people run around being cool, and just feel the vibe be like yeah, yeah, and trust the energy of a place, because that's what always struck me is that is the energy of what it felt like to walk in at that time. And that's at the time where things were kind of bubbling up to the point where you guys were you know, Forbes was coming around to interview you guys and the New York Times and started poking around and and it started like there was more than just who would have thought, who would have thought. But that that spins into was it, Chris, I want to say Christmas? Is that right? When it's uh? When we we just couldn't we couldn't keep up. Yeah, I mean we basically the appetite from the consumer. For all things, Jettie Drinkwar was kind of leading the charge. But for all things Jettie was just like, is everything we can do to keep up with the business. And we didn't keep up with the business. And and um, the the demand was here and and our supply was here, and there's a huge gap, and you know, we um and and our our hiring was probably behind of what it needed to be in our infrastructure and our systems. You know, we weathered the storm, and it was you know, if you're gonna have a problem, it's a great problem to have. But every time we felt like we're gonna catch up, the demand took another step ahead. And then we thought we're gonna catch up again, and demand took another step ahead. And we were just out there finding trying to build systems and people and teams to keep up with the business. And again, you know, we were fortunate to find the right people at the right time. I guess we um um, you know it was. It was a ton of fun, but it was also uh very stressful. And if you know, if I look back at Jetty and these stepping stones that were talking about, you know, to kind of sum up Yettie, it's been you know, a ton of fun and again never in our wildest dreams that did we ever think it would be what it is, and it's it's it's but it's also been a ton of hard work and and a lot of I think, a lot of sacrificing along the way, and you know, sacrifice, you know, your own pursuits. You know. I think when Ryan that that elk hunt that he went on, he was my last Elk hunt. I was in two thousand five, and and you know, getting Yettie started after that and I didn't go el cutting again until last year or whatever. Stressful, So so we thought we were starting a life cut lifestyle company to go do things like that, but it was everything we could do to keep up with the business and sacrificing our own pursuits. Family. I didn't like leaving work, leaving to work early and getting home at dark when I had a young family. Friends, I mean, those were you know, fourth priority. Yeah, and and but as as um as the company has grown and we built out the team. Um, you know, Ryan and I had definitely taken a step back at yet where we can refocus our priorities on on the right health, family health, and and friends and and being outdoors again. So when the things growing like that, you know that that company was growing, Folks that you know, forget what it was like those those years I was in the building and I are just remember having so many friends, so many my like my third answer movie, like calling me up, Hey, I haven't talked to you in eight years, just wanted to check in and also got yeah. I can only imagine what it was like for you guys. Did you ever Like for both of you there had to been I just remember being around and seeing you from afar and thinking like, there's some reluctance in this because you've got to be the ace of people want to reason to you know, other than the products to jump into the brand. Right, you created hashtags and created all that, but still they want an origin story. That people want to know this story that you're telling right now. Um, and so then they want to interview you, put you on covers and and have you be at some level the face of this thing is that there was the reluctance there. Ye oh yeah. First of all, it's not natural for Eye, for Ryan and Eye to get up and talk to people or to be a part of an interview like this. If you call this an interview, I'm doing this for you, not for me. Well, I got you a waterloo a free soda there, that's right. So so it's it's not in our DNA to be uh. I don't know if this is the limelight, but whatever you call, it's not in our DNA to be front and center. And but it definitely comes with the territory. I will say that I've gotten and I think both Ryan and I have gotten really good at saying no, because it does come on on a weekly So why are you here? I thought you was gonna tell me for you. I'm only doing it for you because he came and worked for us for four years, four years, four years, So we're gonna get them out. Consider yourself lucky in a lot of ways. It's funny because, um, I look back at that time and it was like being in a tornado. Like you knew you were in a tornado. You knew that everything around you was spending way too fast for you to understand. But there's nothing you can do. You're just inside. It's fun, it's fun, but it is a tornado. And I will say today, Yeddie, we're way more professional. I mean, right, I was CEO up until three years ago. Ryan was right there beside me. And now we have a team that is deeply rooted into um, you know, the outdoors in their their history. But they're also very professional. You know, Matt righteous our CEO, he's a he's a professional. I mean he is a pro and he and he uh he lives and breathes the brand like us, but he's a pro. And and um, you know those early days of the chaos and the shooting from the hip and the tornado, those are kind of Matt has a handle on those things. And it's it's way more control. It's at times for me it's a little bit frustrating because I feel like we're moving slow. But it's way more intentional. It's way more intentional where we're going, and way more precise and and decisions are thought out. Yeah, no, we When I think my third day there there was it was a sales meeting and then somebody rolled in a Tundra M one ten full of Franklin barbecue. Yeah. I was like, well, okay, But but the fun thing now for for Ryan and I is we get to kind of take Yeeddie out of our own pace. And I'm no, we're still involved, and I'm still very involved on the product side, and that's where my passion is and the product brand and and but but the you know, we have sixty person product team. So you know, at one time I was the product team. Now we have this machine that's full of bright people that are driving a product roadmap. And it's way bigger than four years ago. When I walked in the door, it was the you and Chris Kelly. Yeah, that's right, that's you know, and then DJ Bell that's three people. Yeah. Now there's sixty yeah, And and those are engineers to to industrial designers. And it's it's fun to go in there and debate about product ideas and what's features and and value add But again I can go fishing, be with the family, and I kind of go and come as I please. Um, well, that's important. I mean I think once you become a brand like yet he has like people start to ask questions, and they start to, uh, you know, make assumptions and and so there's all these little thing is associated with the brand that I didn't want to let you out of here without, but you know, asking or at least talking through some of the things that happened, because a lot of these are our questions that you never thought of or things that you never want wanted to happen. You just wanted a company support yourself and then kept growing. It kept growing, it kept growing, and then all of a sudden people are saying, like, what are you gonna do for conservation? You're like, well, yeah, I don't know. We're just doing this and so that's Um. I think the probably the most important one I think is you guys are hunters and anglers. This is a hunting podcast. Um. When you see the company now, it serves many ecosystems, right, It serves as we talked about, it serves hunter It serves hikers and campers and surfers and climbers. Yeah yeah, so let me interrupt there. So our laser focus in the early days was around hunting and fishing. We quickly realized that that Coolers was much bigger than that, and it started spilling over into these other mark It's like ranch and farming and and and it you know, the camping, telgate, surfing community and really you know being outdoors, you know, oil filled construction. And so when we saw that happening, uh that because I mean, yeah, started we were designing for the hunting and fishing and all the marketing was based around hunting and fishing. But as we saw it starting spilling over, you can go so many different directions, but we had to pick. And so outside of hunting and fishing, we went into you know, beer and barbecue, into into music, into just general outdoor camping, kayak, ranch, ranching, rodeo. Yeah, so I started to interrupt. I know that's I kind of knew the answer to the question, but I was trying to want to phrase it so everybody can't understand that transition. So in marketing terms, it's like we have the core, the people that started with the brand, the people that were buying the product. When Ryan was on trade shows and Roy was going you guys were going to trade shows and staying behind a table and trying to explain why this thing is what it is, why it's worth That's worth. And then eventually you realize these other opportunities to brand starts to grow, but you still have this group of people that were, like I was riding with you from day one. I saw early adopters. You're I'm your people, You're my people, And I think that's every good company that grows goes through that. And I always explained it's it's a cooler. It was never a hunting cooler, fishing cooler. It was only that because Roy and Ryan, that's what they love, That's what they knew, that's what they did. So just explain now from teens point of view, how you look at that, You know, what you would say to hunters and fishermen as this company grows, like, we're with you, We've always been with you. Yeah, I mean, the the Tundra was designed around I mean, it works great for any type of hunting adventure you going. But the hard cooler was really designed and with with a lot of good features for fishing and being able to tie it down to a boat, being able to have a you know, a seat could on it, or the or the sea deck. Yeah, and so so there were a lot of features that that appealed to the hardcore fishing, you know, person and all those features didn't take away from it when you crossed over into hunting. And then we came out with the Tan cooler, which we thought appealed to more of the hunting buyer, you know. And uh, but yeah, I mean everything we did was every ad we did on television and print was all based around hunting and fishing, and over time it did we did to go beyond that. We still or I was talking to one of our long time TV guys today on the way over here, uh, in the fishing community. So we're still do that, but it just has we had to pick areas to focus on and eventually, you know, right now we have about six or seven markets that we actively advertised to. Yeah. Yeah, and I think from from my seat at the table, it's very much there is. Once you attach an ideology to something or get people excited around, hey, this is built for you. It's built, it's durable because you're gonna beat the crap out of it, like yeah, um, you just kind of return to him and say, still you yeah, still is still what of all the all the different outdoor activities, Roy and I are still I think that's focused on hunting and fishing ourselves and so that's who we are. Yeah. So I think that's why I like talking to you guys. That's the important thing. The company is what it is because you made it that way and you're still that way. That's right. And I would say that as we have expanded into these other markets, that that core consumer is still the hunter, the fisherman, the outdoorseman, and but it is. It is a little bit tough to expand into other markets and not alienate that that early adopter core consumer. And that's something we talked about every day. Is like, um, but it it's that's who we are. I mean, it's we we are that we are the early adopter. We are that core consumer. That's what who Ryan and I represent. Uh. The other question you get all the time is a price question. Um well, I think we've hopefully explained in this conversation a little bit wide is what it is. But you guys are again just regular dudes hunting and fishing, connecting with regular guys hunting and fishing. This was never a brand for people on yachts. It was never a brand for people had a lot of money to spend. It was a brand for the price came about more. You know, Roy and I didn't really have a business background in school, and so to me, the price more came out of, Hey, we want to build the best cooler possible. What is that in price gonna look like? Yeah, and so if we can find ways to add value, if if, whether whether whatever it might be, We're always going to look for ways for our pursuits. It was always about the best gear for our pursuits. And and I think when we when we're out either chasing redfish, tarpan or white tail or quill hunting for whatever reason, because that's your passion, you always want kind of the best gear for that those pursuits and that that could be a Sage fly rod or um, you know, a high end optics um, whatever that might be. But you know, and that that's kind of we took that same mindset to the cooler industry and if we can find ways to add value, we're going to add value. Unfortunately, it's gonna cost more and you have to charge more forward, and you know, the product is not forever because of the price point. It's not for everybody, but it is it is gonna be the best in class and it's gonna be the value add and it's going to be durable, and you know, high performance, high quality, well thought out design and engineering. I've been around you guys enough to know, like when somebody's wearing a pack or a pair of boots or something, the question it's always what's that? What are you wearing there? Yeah, because you want to have the best thing, because maybe that guy's got something better, he knows something about it. Yeah, Um, that's a that's anything, God, everything, it's all. It's it's fun to be kind of a gear head and kind of chase the the top of the line stuff for your pursuits. Yeah. Yeah. You guys have uh a boatload of kids now, yeah. Right, And I knew that congratulation on the fifth I didn't know about. Um, what would you tell your kids when they come of age? You know, what would you want to teach them from the Eddie story, your experiences? You know what's the first thing you might tell them that you learned? Ryan take a shot at Well. It's real tough to to to think about that, you know, the way Roy and I grew up out in the country, Yet twenty five miles from Austin with our dad growing up in the small business. I mean we had a you know, we had land leased right across the street from our house. We could go hunting before school in the morning. Uh. The way we grew up is hard for Roy and I to duplicate. Now. You know, we live in in Austin. Now we do all like we like Austin. I mean it's it's a great place to live, great place grew up, and we we have places to take the kids hunting and fishing and we do a lot of that. But you know, uh, it's it's hard to relate to Yetti now in our as our kids get a little older. Uh, you know, it's just not the same same environment that we grew up in with our dad seeing seeing this, you know, one or two man operation, you know, going to the trade shows, answering the phone, shipping stuff out, all that. Yet he just grew so far past that that it's like I'll, yeah, I'll bring some of my kids up to work from time to time, but they can't even relate. I mean, it's it's totally different. And I think the one thing that Ryan and I struggle with is we we grew up hunting across the street from my parents place on that least land and and if we found an eight pointer over there, like we were doing everything we can too, and it was like the season goal if you killed a hill country eight pointer. I say the same thing I used to when I grew up. It was like how many points it was. It was like it was he six, seven, Well, that's onto, that's not typical, the eight, that's typical. Nine, well that's not typically. That's all one. It's never the numbers are so much lower. So now Ryan and I have a place in South Texas and we you know, it's a white tail ranch and we're we're into chasing free ranging white tails and um. And but when I take my kids down there, it's, you know, there, it's not reality. It's there's it's the pursuit of chasing an eight pointer is not there. It's it's like, okay, let's go shoot a dough because I don't I don't want my son killing a whatever. It is. Shut out to Ben Bennion, by the way, I'm sure you're out there. We have the season is right around the course, and we've been getting some trail camp pigs. But but you know that they'll miss that they'll miss. Our kids are gonna miss the small business experience that we had, and they're gonna miss, like it's hard to duplicate even the hunting that we I mean we we were hunting on a budget as a kid. We were working our way up from hunting right across the street, trying to kill a hill country eight, getting invites from friends. Yeah. Then then then it's you know a friend that has a ranch that brings us, you know, brings us down and and just have to blast over a long weekend and then going on on day hunts down to South Texas. I remember doing some of that day bow hunts, you know, like a hunter hundred fifty dollars a day and maybe a kill fee, I don't know. And then after that, Roy and I we got to wait up to our our Texas Panhandle lease and that was unbelievable times. We had you know, eight other friends on there and men you look forward to the month in November, spent as much time there as you could, and uh, and and the way and then and now having our own place down in South Texas. Uh, it's just really you know, been the steps along the way and it's you know, running straight into our operation we have going on down South Texas. It's just h yeah, and so our kids are skipping all those steps that we took to get to South Texas. There are nothing more than having a big ranch. I just I just got to manage our kids, the kids expectations down there. And and I kind of wish I could duplicate what I had growing up of Like I mean, I remember the night before the opening day, I wouldn't I couldn't go to sleep either, I could go to sleep, and it was and it was the coolest thing. And the biggest thing across the street from our house was a shitty eight point and uh, I got the buckets full of skull cap spikes and stuff that are the coolest thing I ever saw. I just hope my kids will lose sleep before the opening day of deer season. Yeah, well, we hope they get rest. I mean, I wanted to be but yeah, that's the great, great thing to say, is it's like you'll never at least Roger at least your dad's around, Like you make them go work at flex Coders. Yeah, that's right, that's right, And that's what I should be doing. I should be sending them out to Driftwood where my where our dad still operates that business, and make them work in the business over the summers, a little taste of that. Yeah, that's a that's the interesting one. I've got a little one now and I think about that all the time. Of course I don't have but you you have access to to all these great pursuits through your industry. And if you, as your kid grows up in with you, with you around, it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be saying we're moving to Montana for very much so we can have no reality. We live in a place where we can just run over to the Galton River whenever we need to, or run off and hunting elk whenever. That's very much what I was hoping to achieve there. But that's it's funny how generationally, I mean, your kids are gonna be awesome. They're gonna be great, but they just won't have it. They won't have with you. And that's because you, you guys, had success, so that those are weird there. Um, is there any you know, what do you see for the future? This thing like you know, I'm having a I think we're both having a ton of fun being uh involved in yetting and kind of doing it at our own pace. But you know, our future is is a little bit of yetti and a little bit of you know, family first and pursuits and and you know, I think we're excited about this upcoming hunting season. I think, Ryan, what do you have lined up? I guess you just got let's go, let's we gotta tell some hunting stories. Ryan just got start. So Bryan took twelve years off from LK hunting. Yeah, last year I got a good, real good win last year, and I kicked the gears right up. The sheep hunting, Yeah, I had been about four or five years ago. I I started applying for every sheep tag there was and in the US, and I guess it's just the US, every state that had sheep that you could apply for those Western type hunts. And I've always been just hardcore white tail hunter, which you know obviously isn't very active, but it's a lot of fun. I really white tells my favorite thing to hunt. But I always kind of had in my back of my mind. I got buddies going to Africa and doing all kinds of other crazy stuff. But I had seen this um this book about sheep hunting, the kind of the old school sheep hunting called Great Sheep and Great Sheep Hunters, and it's a lot of old black and white photographs. I think it's by Robert Anderson's and it's kind of a coffee table book, but it's really about the old um you know, sheep hunters and and then some of these early days of sheep hunting and twenty one day hunt stuff like that. And so I thought it'd be neat to start putting in try to get try to draw one of these tags. And this last year I was actually quill hunting down to South Texas, got a text message saying, hey that I drew the the Toke tag in Alaska, which um to I guess it's maybe a wilderness area in Alaska was set aside in nineteen seventy four for for doll sheep management. And and you can't just the residents can't go buy a tag over the counter there. They do get preference in the draw system. But I think for my early season hunt, I think five out you know, five non residents drew this tag. I was one of them. So I felt real lucky to get it, and then I, you know, have to get in uh in shape for the hunt. People talk about being in sheep shape. Here here's the funny part of the story. How many how much weight did you lose? I lost twenty two pounds before I left. Give Ryan. Ryan has a lot of motivation to lose a little weight. And you know he wasn't overweight to begin with, but give him a sheep hunt to work towards and he loses. I heard all these stories from I heard like guys would come into the aspit like I was on I was hiking the Barton Creek trailing that I had my backpack on going up and down that in a hundred degrees. We did that, DJ and I did that years ago training and that's a that's a start training. I knew it would be miserable hunt or it would be tough to get through it without getting in better, without losing weight and getting better shape. And I always exercise a lot, but just kind of eat too much, eat whatever I want, and then you know, kind of let let myself go on that regard. But I started eating healthier, kind of lower carbs and and uh we had an app though, right, a nutrition app yeah. Yeah, so so my fitness Pal. That's the I actually ended up having a guy helped me out, and he wanted me to get going on my fitness Pal and and logging every thing you eat, and I did some of that. But really what I boiled down to is is eating just more you know, protein and fat and less carbs, and that the way to start drawing and most of your alcohol. Yeah. Uh and and exercising. Yeah. That the alcohol parts hard for a lot of people. I did okay with it, you know, you know it, Uh, not too much. I mean there was a couple of days, Uh did real good and efficient tournament that I was in, and I had a cheat cheat evening that evening there. But but uh, but overall, I enjoyed the process of gearing up for the sheep hunt, all the gear that goes into it, and then and then the training and then the eating healthier, losing the weight, the whole experience, and then the hunt went great. Uh you flew flew down your sheep guide? Yeah? From where was he based? Well, he you know, he he guides in in Alaska for about four or five months a year, and then uh, he's out of Idaho and so so you flew him. He Ryan flew him down to Austin too. We would call this unorthodox. Yeah, that was It's the first time anybody requested that. But in order to try to you know, everything you put in your pack, you know, accounts his weight, and uh, I wanted to be really organized, and so I felt like there was some guy I got a list of what I need to bring, but I still felt like there were some gaps in it, and how you pack the pack, how you get it to fit right, all that kind of stuff. So I bought his plane ticket. He came down, spend a day in half with me. We hiked up and down the steep of stuff we could find in Austin, got the pack all fitted right, knew what I could, you know, We went through all my gear, you know, obviously this is a month before the hunt, and got rid of the stuff that he didn't need because he's been doing this and and knows what you need and don't need. And that was as important as anything. And just showing how to pack up the pack right and uh, and that gave me a lot more confidence going into the hunt and who I was gonna be spending time with during the hunt. This guy his name is Brandon, and uh shout out the Brandon. I mean that, like, uh, I was saying telling somebody about that. I was like, yeah, the packing is good to would be comfortable, and you know what's on your back, but the time spent with the individual that you have to be stuck with for that amount of time is way more important than what you learned about packing. Yeah, yeah, so so and and that was nice to meet him and know what I was getting into before I traveled up to Alaska for a week potentially spent twelve days with him or whatever it was, so it uh, just make sure he's not you know, he likes jerky, it likes the right flavor mountain house. So it was a lot of fun. Had a great sheep hunt and uh uh you know my first super cub experience that oh you were nervous. You were very nervous about Yeah, you know, I don't like one pilot and me sitting right behind him. But it was real comfortable and uh enjoyed. Yes, all grizzly. Yeah, first time I think I'd probably camped in grizzly country, you know. Uh, and uh it was able to see one on opening day a sheep season that was pretty wild and uh, but overall just fun being up in that country, seeing all that, all the experience first time to Alaska and to experience all that that toke Wilderness area or management area and uh and to kind of you know, see what I had been reading about for so long and all these and all these sheep type books or picture books or whatever. To actually be there in that country was pretty special. Yeah, and you were saying, you're very happy to have drawn that tag and to have some way I mean it's you know, you can't say really earned the tag, but the way that you got the tag was was natural. And yeah, I mean some sheep punch you could just you know, pay to go on as part of an outfitter, and and I had to pay it. Alaska requires you to to to hire it outfit or before you even apply for the tag, or to have a contract signed with the out or so they won't let you go on your own if you're a nonresident, which I wouldn't want to go on own anyway. I was glad to have have this guide with me. But uh, it it was it was neat to draw draw that tag and and to be able to go on that hunt. It was such a limited amount of people that get to go into the token hunt sheet. So the question is is are you going to chase the other three sheep? I'd like to now, I wanted to see how this first hunt went, but I had such a such a good time, you know. I would like to try to figure out how to the desert Big Horn, yea desert Big Horn, Rocky Mountain Big Horn, and then the stone Sheep. I think is British Columbia. Ucon maybe it is all that country. I haven't. I was on We're Shooting to YETI film last year and was in the Northwest Territories for where doll Sheep were and uh a little bit east uh and in north of Ward stone sheep hang out, and um, that's when I first realized what that country is all about, you know, and that and that has to give you a perspective change. I mean, you guys from Texas, you're hunting the least property. I mean it's you know, if there's adventure down here, Rattlesnake's most are most of the adventure in Texas? Well, Like, did you come back from that with a different perspective on hunting or just your just a different, different type of hunting. I mean I don't want I love the white tail hunting. I love sitting and you know these days hunting particular deer that you find on on camera, which we used to it was also exciting when you went out there and had no idea what was gonna come out. But I found plenty of challenge and hunting deer off of off of trail camp photos. But being out there in the wilderness, seeing how insignificant you feel out there, how big that country is, and how you know you really don't want to make any mistakes. Ye, you feel there's exposure to it. There's like, uh, hunting in South Texas, you don't feel exposed at all. But out there with with the weather, with even though with the terrain, getting getting hurt out there, uh with bears, with even though matter how small the possibility is of getting attacked by bear or shark somewhere, you know it's still out you know, the thoughts out there in the back of your mind. Well, that's it, Like that's those singular things that happened. Like you're probably in more danger driving to the airport, for sure, you get eaten by a bear. But when you see I saw a bear, the same kind of same circumstances, like, that's too close, that's a mile away. I'm like, that's what I'm saying, it's too close. Um, and you shot a good sheet, Yeah I did. Uh. We uh were able to scout before the season opened, and we found three rams the first afternoon. We were out there. The next morning the season, uh, that was Thursday. Season opens on Friday, So Thursday we went out to try to get a better look at one of those rams, and while we were trying to get closer, we found another, you know, group or band of rams up here. Uh, kind of over our left hand shoulder. When we crossed the creek. We can see back up there. And we spent the We spent from nine am to nine pm glassing the watching these rams interact. That day, button heads messing with each other. Uh. And it was a pretty cold day. I was at killing time as we were glass and I would eat. You know, I'd been eating so healthy. I ate about three or four candy bars and little fruit snacks and kind of odd on the sugar. So I'm hopefully done with that. That's the worst part about the training for those mountain hunts. You train, you get real healthy and you're feeling good. Then you go on the hunt. They're like, well, here's a bag of dehydrated salty crap Snickers bar in the cana tuna. You're like, wait a minute. I spent my whole time eating eating right for this. Now I gotta eat salt pouches for so you know now that the sheep punts over this year, that was kind of a lot earlier than I'm used to start in the hunt. I'd like to get in a couple more red fishing trips on the fly rod and then dove season will be here in a week. Love walking around my house last night and there were flying circles. A good dove hunt for me? Is I mean top not? That as good as it gets? Well, that's why? Is that? That's why there's the YETI bucket because yourself, I always surmise, I'm like the reason that exists. We you know, we're working on a swivel seat for that. I heard about that and that's gonna be yea. And you know I hunt South Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, and so Kansas season will get started here mid September. And then Kansas quail season opens up mid November and the all start hunting quail and Kansas around then and and transition into South Texas. That's something over the last our Our granddad was a big quel hunter, and we got to hunt a little bit with him when we were kids before he passed away. I got too old to hunt. But that's something that recently Ryan and I have uh kind of got back into. It's the quel honey out. I think I will return to Texas As every year if I can to hunt quail. Yeah, probably texting you guys, he was watching the dogs work, and this the whole, the whole atmosphere of falling around the dog and and anticipating that kevy rise is so much fun. And the quail populations in Texas, especially down where you guys are on your ranch, is unbelievable, so that you can walk around. I walked around there by myself a couple of times. The shot that doesn't quail. Hopefully we get another good year. We haven't been getting much rain down there this this spring or summer, so I'm not sure what that has done to the quail population. But we'll see how to keep them going. Yeah, well, boys, um, thanks for bringing me down to Texas well. Ride. You know, you're one of the one of the folks that made it happen. Like I said, a lot of good people at Yeddie and that's that's our that's the reason for our success. And you're just one of the good ones. Well, I appreciate that. And then and I look back. I was saying this in another podcast and something something like, do you look back on your life or stages like you guys have stages. You're a stepping stones, stepping stones right and if you're doing it right, everything the stepping stone, you're not falling off. Occasionally you fall up, just back up. But for me, this is like this. My son was born in this stay. My son will forever be a te which he's a Texan in Montigana. I'd be happy splits. He's giving me good. So I would say I generally this time my life was very much transformative and and part of oneting to have you on because I knew your story. Everybody should know it. Not because the three of us who wanted to buy coolers you should do that, but because it's a success story and you guys aren't. You're normal guys who love something and turned it into this massive success that have affected other people's lives, mind included. And so I think that's that's the story that matters, not you know why the cooler is so damned Durham. Well, thank you, Um, it's been a lot of fun and and uh, I wish you the best of luck on your next journey and thanks for your four years here in Texas. Yeah, come come hunt out with me. Will let's do it, Ryan, you got a lot of years to make up. Make up? All right? Thanks a thank you. That's it. That's all Episode number twenty seven in the books. Thank you to Roy Cedars. Thank you to Ryan Cedars for joining me at the Getty Flagship store in Austin, Texas. It's a great conversation. They have one of the craziest stories, not only in business but just in life for where they started and where they are now. And I can't wait to watch those boys and their company in the future. I think it was important to have that conversation for many reasons, but I just I want to be able to reflect all my time there and let you guys know was good folks. Uh. The Cedars brothers are and how important they are to me. So a couple of days after that podcast, I got in a U haul in Drew in Drew twenty six hours up as Bozeman, Montana. And uh, that's where we'll be for hopefully very long time. And so we'll have some news and coming podcasts about exactly why we're here and what we're doing with the podcast and what it will be a part of. That's coming very soon, very very soon, so hopefully you stick around for that. In the meantime, the Hunting Collective dot com articles, videos, of course, podcasts a lot of good ones. Check out all our Texas podcast starting with Wyman, Mensor, Russell Cunningham, Omar, Crispy Avila, and then this one. Uh. I want to close by saying thanks to Texas for having me, thanks for letting me live in your beautiful city of Austin and changing my life. We'll see you next time with Hunting Collector step and a
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