Introduction

In this episode of the Americanmade Entrepreneur Podcast, host Anthony Amunategui engages with Roggen Frick, the owner of Bear Iron Works, a manufacturing business based in Grand Junction, Colorado. Roggen's journey from a side project to a full-fledged manufacturing operation exemplifies the spirit of American entrepreneurship. This summary captures the essence of their conversation, highlighting key insights into entrepreneurship, leadership, and the importance of continuous improvement.

The Birth of Bear Iron Works

• Origin Story: Roggen's venture began with an idea from his father, who had a background in construction. The initial product, the Grizzly Rock Screen, was created to help contractors screen soil on-site.
• First Creation: Roggen crafted his first rock screen during high school, using a trailer for mobility due to a lack of heavy equipment. This hands-on experience laid the foundation for his entrepreneurial journey.

Key Lessons in Entrepreneurship

• Start Imperfectly: Roggen emphasizes that the first iteration of any product doesn't need to be perfect. The key is to start and learn through the process.
• Continuous Improvement: The evolution of the Grizzly Rock Screen involved multiple iterations, leading to a stronger and more efficient product. Roggen notes that improvement is an ongoing journey.

Leadership and Company Culture

• Core Values: Roggen highlights the importance of honesty and integrity in business. He learned from a previous employer that building strong relationships through honesty leads to repeat business.
• Team Dynamics: As the company grew, Roggen recognized the need for a strong team. Hiring an operations manager with logistics expertise transformed the business, allowing for efficient shipping and operations.

Challenges and Growth

• Navigating Early Days: Roggen faced challenges managing friends as employees and balancing his studies with business responsibilities. Learning to delegate and focus on core business functions was crucial.
• Embracing Lean Manufacturing: Roggen adopted lean manufacturing principles to minimize waste and improve efficiency. This approach involved engaging employees in identifying areas for improvement.

The Role of Technology

• Data-Driven Decisions: Roggen utilizes software and AI to analyze data, track processes, and improve decision-making. This technological integration enhances operational efficiency and customer service.
• Marketing Efficiency: By collecting data on customer interactions, Roggen aims to streamline marketing efforts, targeting the right audience without unnecessary expenditure.

Conclusion

Roggen Frick's journey with Bear Iron Works is a testament to the resilience and adaptability required in entrepreneurship. His story illustrates that success comes from hard work, continuous learning, and a commitment to integrity. As Roggen continues to grow his business, he remains focused on supporting his team and delivering quality products to the construction industry.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, his experience serves as a reminder that the path to success is paved with challenges, but with determination and the right mindset, it is achievable.

Contact Information

For those interested in learning more about Bear Iron Works or connecting with Roggen, visit bearironworks.com and use the code FUTUREFACTORY for a 5% discount on your order.

Transcript

00:05
Americanmade entrepreneur. Welcome to the show. Today we've got Roggen Frick with us. He's uh the owner of Bear Iron Works. He's what America's made for. Right. Look, a young entrepreneur with the spirit of of of just great spirit. Ra welcome. Thank you very much for

00:22
having me. You know, when I get to meet you, you are palpable, right? who you are, the story that you are, what it means to be an American entrepreneur, right? Digging it out, you know, just I I want to dive into that. Uh folks, if you guys don't know, Raen owns a great

00:36
company. Maybe tell them about your company. Yeah, so we have a a little manufacturing business located in Grand Junction, Colorado. We make some products for the construction industry, primarily the civil construction industry. And there's some products that aren't commonly made and sold. Um

00:50
they're very niche. And the main product that we make is uh called the Grizzly Rock Screen. It's a simple tool for contractors to be able to screen out their soil. Um, and what started out as a side business, we've turned into a full manufacturing operation and we've

01:04
implemented some core values that I think are very important to not only our business but um, a lot of businesses in general uh, to be able to drive some success there. Well, I mean, so look, you started out when you talk about guys when you see this, it's literally

01:19
screens for excavators, you know, uh, for people to do site work, right? being able to screen a material right there on site, right? And so you you create this product. First of all, I want to go back. Where did you get the inspiration? What was the first one you did and why'd

01:33
you do it? So the first one I did, you know, it wasn't my idea. It was my dad's idea. He has always been in the construction industry and he's always had kind of a a kind of like a hustler mentality at times where he would come up with little things to do on the side

01:46
just to make some extra cash in the slow season. So he came up with the idea to make these rock screens. um he would make a couple and send them to an auction. And then when I was in high school, uh I needed some money, so I I made the very first one for myself back

02:01
then and uh in my a class and I didn't have equipment to move it, so I actually built it on a trailer. Um and I took it and sold it to a friend of mine that I raced dirt bikes with. Uh his dad uh wanted one and so I just made it there, painted it on the trailer and took it

02:19
straight to him. And that was the first one we did. Um, then when I got into college, that's when I kind of started as a side business cuz I wanted to have a garage to keep my dirt bike in. So, this has all kind of been driven by my uh my goal to have fun with my life and

02:35
go have some great experiences, but I need to be able to support those experiences in some way. Yeah. It's so literally it's one of those things where there's a idea, right? Like look idea, right? ideas that your dad has. Let's make a rock screen, right? And then

02:51
growing the idea, right? And then how do you live your life around you? Look, you got to, you know, walking through that that chasm of of ideas, right? So look, all you entrepreneurs are out there. This every one of us go through the same idea. You have an idea, right? Most

03:05
great idea, first of all, most great ideas die with us, right? Most people don't have the the it took us to to go out there and and and really go and and push through creating that first one, right? That just starting, right? Even if it's not perfect, that first one uh

03:19
compared to the ones you build today, what's the difference in them? You know, the the first one it it wasn't uh quite the proven design that we have. We had some good uh fundamental ideas that we had about how to make these strong and affordable for customers. Um, but it

03:35
really kind of took multiple iterations of the product to really find those little tiny spots to where we could really improve the product, manufacture it faster, and make it stronger, um, and serve the purposes of the customer. And it's just it's it's a it's an ever

03:50
continuing improving process. Well, and I think that's that's the thing that people don't get. It's like the first one does not have to be perfect. Just start. Look, my first day at CDO Group, nobody here back then, 28 years ago, there was no such thing as an outsourced

04:05
construction manager, right? And that's how we started as as a we weren't a GC yet. We were we were just an owners rep and we were inventing the business while we were going. So like literally we were building the plane where we're going. And I mean I same thing for you guys,

04:18
right? You're you So you built that first one, you have it on the back, you literally built it, welded it on your truck. Yeah. On a trailer. Yep. that was parked outside the the egg classroom. Yeah. No, no, no. Why? Because you didn't have the here. There was a reason

04:31
why you did that. Why? Yeah. I didn't have heavy equipment. Couldn't move it. So, I had to build it on the trailer so I could move it and take it to the customer. So, look, I want people to get that. Like if you want to start a podcast or you want to do an idea, like

04:43
my first podcast was literally at my desk with a Zoom camera and we did it on Zoom and my buddy who did it, Dan Whis, bless his heart, who passed away uh just recently and and uh he was brave enough to get on there with me, right? But we did it off a Zoom thing, right? You

04:58
don't have to be perfect. Look, you welded this on a trailer because once it was built, you you you couldn't move you didn't have anything to put it move it on the trailer, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, you're never going to be perfect on the first one.

05:12
You know, you're never going to be the expert right away, but you know, as you gain experiences and and you keep doing it and you keep doing it, you're going to get better as it goes. And I mean, that's with many things in life. You know, I can I can ride a motorcycle

05:24
pretty well. Um I can I'm pretty fast at it. I can hit any jump, but there was a time that, you know, I could barely ride a motorcycle. I was falling over on my two wheels. And it just it takes that you just got to do it and you just got to keep at it and then eventually you'll

05:38
get better. You know, I I think Jordan Peterson says it best. You must be willing to be a fool to be a master, right? To become a master, right? If you're not willing to step into that place where you just don't know, right? It's okay, right? What I love about your

05:53
story and why I wanted to highlight it is is that you know, you had this idea, your dad had this idea now where you've taken it from there. And what I really want to get dive into, and this is something that entrepreneurs need to hear like the relentless behavior of who

06:09
you what what you do every day when you show up, right? Every day you're showing up uh to make payroll, every day you're to get material to to, you know, figure out your facilities. How can we do these more efficiently, right? You're solving, you know, every day you're trying to

06:23
solve a better fix for the company, right? Yeah. You know, we have a goal of like where we want the company to be. And so every day that we show up to work, you know, how are we going to achieve that goal? You know, when I first started out, it was simply how do

06:37
I weld these things together, juggle my classes, and get them in the hands of the customers. Today, you know, I don't have any hands-on. I'm not welding the products. Now, it's today, how do I get my brand out to the right people, make sure that they know that we exist when

06:53
they need our product. Um, and just kind of focusing on those efforts. And you know, as you go through your entrepreneurial journey, what you do on a day-to-day basis will change drastically. I it keeps changing. And you know, I think that that's a great part of the

07:10
story is just that, you know, who you become to lead the company, right? I mean, who who you are as a man has changed a lot since that first well, I mean, that first weld you did, right? Remember who you were then? First of all, how old were you back then? I was 18 when I first so 18 first first

07:28
products sold 18. Now now through through that time I think about who you've become as a man uh during that journey. Yeah. I mean I've I've had to grow up fast, right? I had to mature because I'm as the company became legitimate. I'm entering the professional world. You know a lot of

07:45
18-year-olds, younger individuals, uh we kind of go down a path of just partying, not caring, not having a care in the world, right? But uh you know I had to learn responsibility and really kind of grasp those reigns and uh be able to be a player in the in the professional industry. Look a lot of you

08:03
entrepreneurs are out there we make mistakes. I I did as an early entrepreneur I remember when I first started I I did believe that I used to hire people. I would take them out drinking like I literally thought if I wanted them to be my friends, right? I wanted people to like me and I thought

08:19
that was a great idea that I would hire somebody and I like take them out drinking and we would do foolish stuff and then you you go okay I wonder why they don't you know there's not the respect or the or or people think of you as a serious person you know you went

08:33
out and did foolish behavior I just you know like who I was then part of being an entrepreneur for me was kind of proving I wanted to be seen right there there was some of that lower me that was trying to get you know seen uh you you know, and maybe that's okay, right? Like

08:48
that's part of the gift is like like you want to be seen for what you're doing and then you start to grow a little bit more and take another step and um you start to notice that your thoughts, actions, behavior are causing the company you're having, right? So your

09:02
your integrity, right? Talk a little bit about that because look, you're a strong Americanmade company, right? And and your integrity shows through to the products that you build, right? So that look I can tell a lot about a human by the products that they deliver be you

09:17
know because it takes that going in as an entrepreneur right. Yeah. You know it it comes down to the culture that you set in your company um really kind of influences how the company works as a whole and it it comes from the leadership and who you are as a person

09:31
with leading the company. You know one of the kind of core values that we have in our business is something I learned working for a commercial contractor and one of their core values was honesty. And I I watch them by being honest to their clients when I mean plenty of

09:46
contractors aren't, you know, and they the client might never know, but I watched because of their honesty and the reputation that they built with that they were pleasurable to work with. And that won them work again and again and again. And so I felt like that was a

10:00
really good value that should be in most businesses because people it the your business is all about the people that you have and the relationships that you make whether that's with your customers, your employees or your suppliers or whoever else it might be that influences

10:14
your business. And if you're not somebody that uh those people want to work with or build a good relationship with, then you're going to have struggles. But if you can, you know, have good, honest values, provide good quality work, um, people want to come back and they want

10:30
to keep working with you because their day-to-day life, they'd rather work with somebody like that than somebody who's a pain. Yeah. No, look, we want to work with those I I I truly believe that especially as Americans, we you know, each one help one, right? I think that,

10:48
you know, once we kind of meet our basic needs, like we're not sur we're not we're not in survival mode around here anymore, you know, most of us have a pretty decent life. Even the even our worst our worst off here in our country have we have some pretty good, you know,

11:02
we have some pretty good support system. Not everybody's perfect. I'm not trying to say everybody's perfect, but you know, each one of us, you know, can do better and and when we see someone doing better, we want to support that, right? There's, you know, I always kind of use

11:14
the analogy when you see a car broken down on the side of the road and you see someone out there pushing the car, everyone wants to jump out and help, right? But if you're sitting in the car waiting for someone to help, you know, you're wondering why people aren't

11:26
helping. It's kind of obvious, right? Yeah. I mean, helping yourself, it it inspires others to help you, too, because it's like, oh, look, they're trying, right? Yeah. People don't want to jump in and help people who aren't trying. Yeah. So talk about some of the

11:41
wins and losses as you've gone through different employees, as you gone through different systems. Let's talk a little bit about that because it takes a lot to grow the company you're on and you know those early days of growing the company. You know, you went through some people,

11:53
you went through some employees, there were some things that were great. What are some things that some things that weren't great? Yeah, you know, we've had a different a lot of different uh moments in the company. you know, we started out part-time and trying to

12:06
teach people how to weld um in the very beginning cuz I was hiring fellow college students with me. Um and it that was like hard to manage, you know, when you're managing your friends. Those that's a that's something that's hard to do cuz trying to keep them accountable.

12:21
Uh that was something that we kind of fell off on. You know, I got lucky. One guy was he would overproduce and then I had another guy that would underproduce, you know, kind of evened out, right? Um, and then my focus was something that was kind of like something that in the

12:35
beginning was an area that needed improvement because I was trying to do the deliveries all myself, right? I was driving these things to the customers. When you're driving these things across the states, it takes up a lot of your time and then your focus isn't in the right

12:49
areas, you know? Um, and then when we turned around, so when I had it in college, it was just kind of a side business. I shut it down to finish school and we opened it back up. um my dad came on board and we made this a full family business and some of the wins that we have was by you know coming

13:07
up with a goal of what we want the business to be and then putting in the right people to help us make that happen. And um you know one of the biggest wins that we got was finding an operations manager um that could help run our business. And we didn't hire him because he knew manufacturing and

13:25
welding and fabrication. We know that, right? We hired him because he understood logistics and how to ship products, which was something that was the biggest failure for me in the beginning. I was losing money. I was losing time. So, we brought him in. Now, we can ship these to all 50 states. We

13:43
can get them to islands cuz he understands that process. And then we teach him how to do the welding and manufacturing part, manage that part of the process. And now we've got a team that is like rockstar team, you know, that's it's awesome, right? Like that's Yeah. Right. He compensates for the

14:03
places where you're hurting, right? Where you don't do well, right? And you support him in things that you do do well. Yeah. You know, taking the like a problem with your business and trying to turn it into an opportunity, I think, is a is a good way to go about it, right?

14:20
Because if you find the the weakest point that you have and then you make that a strength, well now as a whole whole company gets a lot stronger. That's right. That's right. Like each if if almost as if everything you're going through if you could look at it as a gift, right? And that's that's there

14:39
times as business owner I'm like I have enough gifts, right? I've had enough gifts, right? If all the problems are a gift, right? If all of them are you look at them as a gift and you go, all right, this is something I'm going to learn. Right? So those hours and hours of

14:50
driving the car to go deliver it, you know, get makes you think about stuff, right? There's maybe like in that uh there's a gift in it and and it's hard to see it when you're when you're driving and you're tired and you've been doing this and there's all these things

15:03
you got to get done. Uh but when you look back, right, you start to notice, all right, uh now you've got someone who can do that and they do it well. Yeah. Yeah. and it and doing it wrong myself the first time really gave me a lot of good perspective, you know, and how to

15:19
how to improve it and how to do it right the next time, the next generation. Um, you know, it's I think it goes back to what we started off the conversation with. It's like you just got to start doing it and you'll find ways that the areas that you need to improve or the

15:34
things that you need to figure out to make it work, right? I mean, like each each thing you go through, there's a there's like a step that you learn, you know? Uh I I I was I went I left the office yesterday really upset, you know, just some things didn't go. First of

15:49
all, long day. It was like a successful day with a new client, all kinds of new stuff. Ended the day with just some some stuff that was I was tired, right? And and sometimes when I'm tired, I'm not my best me, right? And I don't know, I was kind of kind of grumpy with somebody.

16:04
And you know, like as a leader, I don't like to be grumpy. I like to be a little bit more uh reverent than than, you know, aggressive. And you know, sometimes I feel like I could shut I shut things down with that behavior. And but what was funny about it was I woke up this morning and I could go all

16:19
right, I want to truth is I want to be a better leader, right? How could I have handled yesterday's situation in a different way, right? If if I look at it and go, okay, there was a gift in um maybe maybe I I just got too close to the fire and I you know, by the way, I

16:34
should have probably taken a a moment of pause, right? So you start to learn some things like all right taking a deep breath is okay right I don't have to be on all the time and and maybe you know so so I think all that stuff when you go through it if you have the capacity to

16:49
look at it and go all right how am I accountable for my behavior right and the winds and falls of of our company and I take it on not blaming somebody else then I can work on it right then there's some gift you get to have to where you get to work on it yeah yeah I

17:04
agree with that you know it's uh It's important to try to focus on the solutions to the problems that you have. Um, and being a good leader is, you know, trying to work through those problems, not necessarily like trying to find the person to blame. You know, it's

17:19
sometimes it's easy to take the blame yourself, whether it was your fault or not, and just try to move on through through the issue, you know. And um, it's very important. Sometimes I think that great leadership is about you know bringing all this you know uh you know

17:36
managers and and you know they have a they have a book they go to a manual and go all right when this happens do this right they have kind of a sequencing but as a great leader I think sometimes my job is to go look at um my my job is to have access to all the ideas in the world and the more I'm

17:54
open to other ideas right and to bring them because no no one walks in our office as an entrepreneur. No one ever walks in and goes, "Hey boss, we just made an extra hundred,000 bucks on that deal and oh, this went perfect and oh look, everybody's dancing. They're all

18:06
out there singing hallelujah." No, it's usually walking things on fire. Something's wrong. Everything just melted. Uh I don't know what what things broke break down and you got to come in and find a solution for them. And I I think you know great leadership allows

18:21
us to uh have the more open we are to more solutions, right? So we don't have this narrow mind. The more we have this o opening to be able to take all the solutions of the world, the billions and billions of ideas that are out in the world and bring it to that scenario, I

18:36
think the better opportunities we have for our companies when we do that. Yeah. And that, you know, that's the biggest thing I think about being in a leadership position too is you don't have that book that tells you what to do. You don't got the steps. You know, you go into any business, even if

18:51
they're in the same industry, they're going to do things differently. you know, construction, a building's built relatively the same way. It's same materials, goes up in the same sequence, ground up to the roof. Um, but any construction company that you go into, they're going to have a different

19:07
process about how they go about it. And you bid out a job, same job, they're going to do it all different way. There there's humans involved. And when humans are involved, right, every single one of those ants that we got to work with shows up with a different a different, you know, just a

19:23
different experience for us, right? Yeah. So, I I want to shift over because I think one of the things you guys do uh you guys have a lean manufacturing uh way of looking at your business. Let's talk a little about that. How did you get into lean? First of all, talk to the

19:38
audience about what lean is and then uh you know, how how did you start to implement that? Yeah. So, lean manufacturing, uh, it's a kind of a set of principles. Um, I want to give credit to Toyota. I don't know if they're the ones that developed it, but they're one

19:52
of the ones that are most known for it at the very least. And lean manufacturing is what it sounds like. You're trying to identify ways to cut down waste and unnecessary parts of the process. And so, some of the main principles with it is like identifying waste, doing quality control as you're

20:11
going along. that way you don't have to go back and undo things and redo them. Um, and trying to incentivize your employees to find ways to make the process more efficient because um, you know, your employees have a hands-on eyes on on the process. You as a leader

20:29
probably don't, you know, and if you do, uh, it was probably a long time ago when the process was different. Um, and then something else is like uh trying to keep uh a low amount of inventory or just the right amount of inventory of the right stuff when you need it. And so it's all about timing

20:47
and this really trying to make this process efficient. And so I learned about lean management principles when I was going to college cuz I went for construction management. And if you're on a tight construction site, you have a lot of materials to bring in but not a

21:00
lot of places to put them. So they teach you how to make that process efficient and kind of incorporate that there. When we made the when I made the switch to manufacturing um that's what it was like made for and so I wanted to implement that into the business. We start identifying okay how

21:18
can we minimize the amount of steel that's being wasted on each product or if there is waste can we turn those into other products. Getting a culture going with the employees. you know, if you guys see a way that we can do it better, tell us, you know, and it was a lot of

21:35
push at the beginning, but, you know, you start incentivizing them with something like that. Like, if you guys come up with something that makes the process better, we're going to, you know, get you a lunch or do some type of celebration, you know, then you start

21:46
seeing some of those problems arise and then you can uh they'll even provide suggestions to on how to make them better. Um, and the other thing is trying to keep a fluid process going. was something that we identified. Um, and you have to have the tools in place to kind of identify

22:03
this. You know, we put in software so we can track this and have good data points so we can make the right decisions. But what process is taking up most the time and where are your bottlenecks at and trying to eliminate those bottlenecks. So 80% of our process um for building

22:19
the product is welding. So that means we need to have welders welding constantly. we should not have welders painting or cutting or running a forklift or doing anything else, right? So, we in instead of hiring another welder, well, maybe we should hire employees to support the

22:36
welders so that they can just keep it moving forward, right? And just identifying things like that and having data really helps make those types of decisions. um and tracking the process and um you know you can even kind of get take some of those lean principles to your management too like are there

22:55
things that your managers that they're doing that is inefficient and wasting time in their day where they can help improve the process. Um and there's a lot of opportunity with software to uh auto automate a lot of these uh menial tasks that we have to repetively do

23:11
every day especially with the um as I AI arises you know um it's crazy you can apply artificial intelligence into even a simple operation like my where we're making very simple products. Yeah look it's coming that all that's going to be part of yeah how are you implementing

23:30
AI? So we're using it to uh track like our our lead sources, right? So we try to mark them with tags. We ask them on the phone, hey, where'd you hear about us? Right? So we put those tags in there. And then we have that analyze the different tags from the different

23:46
sources because some of them buy on our e-commerce store. They don't talk to us. We try to use that to identify, you know, what marketing is working, right? That's one of the ways that we're utilizing it. Um, we can we also utilize it to just kind of analyze a large

24:00
amount of data because at the end of every year I'll go through and get a spreadsheet with, you know, 2500 3,000 line items about how much time it took on each job to do each process and throwing that in there and seeing if it can recognize any patterns and give me

24:15
some types of insights. And it's not going to do the job for me, but it can at least point me in the right direction of where I should look. I I I think the thing that we're people don't realize is the value of the data that you're collecting, right? If if you know, um I

24:30
just got done doing a podcast with the Canadian Lumber Association. And one of the cool things that they were talking about is from the second a tree is literally cut down in the forest as it goes from the from there to the mill tracking the time it take you know from

24:45
the time they mark the tree time they cut it down from from there to the mill from the mill through the mill through the kilms through the all the way to the distribution points tracking and managing and putting and putting uh you know tagable you know taggable u uh

24:59
chips in each each product and you watch it through there and Now you know their belief is really that as AI gets smarter and smarter and designed in AI without that digital without that digital uh process identified well right AI won't be able to pick the product

25:17
right it you know on job sites in the future you'll see job sites that go you know we'll be done 15-minute increments or faster on every on every schedule and to today you know that just would blow I mean to try to do a schedule in 15-minute increments on a regular construction site today you know

25:32
literally will make people's heads squish, you know, pop like a zit. Well, and then it becomes too hard to manage that schedule, too, you know, if you haven't changed. Yeah. It's just too much work, too granular for a human to be able to manage. Yeah. And and but AI

25:45
can, right? And that's really where we're That's the gift of where we're going. And people aren't seeing, you know, the, you know, there's fear that kicks in. I'm like, listen folks, you're we we've we beat our asses. We we beat ourselves to death in this business. We

26:01
work so hard to, you know, and people I I call it hide the banana. You think that people don't realize you have to make a profit on this. You have to make a profit. And what the whole purpose here is to really start to identify your schedules and clearly communicate to

26:15
each other. And the more that we can do that with each other so that each, you know, when someone shows up, they can get, you know, really efficient at doing their job and be able to get in and communicate that work's done so the next guy can get in and do their job. uh that

26:28
that will is really where our profitability will go up, right? Efficiency will go up. Uh but it's going to take some converting. You know, this this you know, having to play leave my shop to go to a job site and not know what they do all day. You know, it's it's not big brother watching. It's

26:44
trying to create efficiency so that you know, one, the owner of the company knows the work that they, you know, they they bid on was correct, right? The project needs to know where they are in a schedule. But imagine a day when at the end of every shift, we're paying

26:59
that subcontractor in the moment. You know, just like an Uber driver gets paid uh at the end of every ride, right? The days of lean releases and pay application. All that stuff's so damn inefficient. But we do it because we have to, you know, we have to go, you know, most people put a pay application

27:14
in. Someone's got to verify the work's done. All that's done by some human that goes, uh, they're, I don't know, 30% is done, right? And it's a guess. Uh but you know, imagine a future where it'll be actual. Yeah. You know, if you can speed up the movement of cash, it

27:31
definitely would help because I mean that's the whole reason that that's the hardest part of running a business is trying to maintain a positive cash flow, especially in construction. I mean, subcontractors have it the hardest because you got to wait till usually have a paid when paid clause. That's

27:44
right. and and you got to wait till the general contractor gets paid after he submits his payment application. And then when he gets paid, he's going to take five to 10 days because it helps his cash flows before that hits your your account and you're the subcontractor, you're floating the

27:57
materials. Usually, it's it's a difficult game. And all businesses have to figure out how are we going to effectively be ahead of our cash because if it doesn't matter if you get a $10 million job if you don't have the money to or don't have positive cash flows through it, you're not going to make a

28:15
dollar. Well, and and it becomes, you know, it becomes inefficient for everybody, right? It's it's not just you. It's the other subs that are on that job site. Unfortunately, that's where the business went to. The bid process is such a nonsensical item. It's all based on fear and not trusting each

28:32
other and and you know our you know we we go to we go to bid for a project. You know if let's say it's a I don't know call it a a restaurant A right ABC restaurant and and it's a groundup building. Let's say we have five or six uh general contractors bidding it. Call

28:47
it you know 50 line items that are on there. You know for us we get all 50 line items. We literally bid three subs per line item right? Say it cost each of our subs a,000 bucks per line item to bid that project. You just in our subs is $150,000. Two times five contractors, that's

29:05
$750,000. And no one won the job yet. Right. Right. Right. And that's before the the job even started. And now you're thinking, all right, how inefficient is that in the business? You know, we start looking at where the business is going to go in the future. Th that right there

29:20
is one process that needs to go away. It's just so inefficient, so co so costly uh to the industry. You know, uh imagine a future where in design you'll be able to know the cost, the labor, and the the people all in the same moment. And that's what AI is going to give us

29:37
is that ability. Yep. Yeah. And that's one of the things that I really liked with my business is, you know, at the beginning it was they call us, get a quote. Okay, let me work it up. Let me calculate the materials, try to figure out how much this thing's going to cost,

29:50
how much I'm going to charge you. Then there was a point when I was like, let's just collect this data. We can identify what the average time it takes to make each product and then we can price that for our customers so they know. So then we started selling them e-commerce. Now,

30:05
now we don't have to do the quoting. We do it once a year just to make sure that we're with any price fluctuations that we're good. Um, but you can just go on the website and and buy it, see what's in stock. you know, we stock the most popular items. That way, people can just

30:19
have it ready to go. And um it it really uh kind of adds a lot of value for the customers because there's now we're not wasting time estimating this because then I have to add that cost in there. That's right. Now I had to do it once. I ju just and as that gets smarter and

30:37
smarter and smarter you know being able to have that um you know and and then you know as you start to do all the other stuff you're doing with marketing you know today even our marketing campaigns are so inefficient right today in order to sell uh you know to sell

30:51
your equipment you have to you market to 100% of the marketplace but as we get smarter at looking at segments of the market and going all right where are your core people right as you start to learn what equipment they have what kind of projects they're working on how old

31:03
the current equipment is started to know this is, you know, start to get smarter at the client acquisition. I think AI is going to bring that to to us in a much much smarter way where you can get in front of, you know, more customers that need your product quicker. Uh, you know,

31:19
as that gets smarter. Have you have you started to really break through there yet? You know, it's I think the hardest part with the marketing side of it is, you know, trying to have the data, right? because you know it's people don't want to be tracked but then at the

31:33
same time they want to be given ads that are relative to them and it it trying to get those data points is very hard. Um we've gotten to the point where you know we do have a core demographic of people that we know that we need to target right and uh we can go after people that

31:50
own civil construction companies. You know that's the simplest place to start. We know that they're they probably have a need for our product. maybe not now, but they do in the future. Um, but then, you know, we use a lot of Google ads and relying on people searching for our

32:03
stuff to make sure that we're showing up in front of them. And you know, you're right, there's a lot of inefficiencies with marketing. I mean, just trying to like manage Google ad campaigns. If if any of your listeners have never touched that before, I recommend that you hire

32:17
somebody else out that is an expert in that because there is so much data to go through to try to make them function efficiently so that they're showing up and you're not blowing your budget. Each of those are are great learning lessons like like a like an athlete needs uh a

32:35
great coach. So does the entrepreneur and it you know no one ever said to me when I was going to become an entrepreneur. No one said I want to start a construction management company. No one ever said that I was going to have to be an HR expert, right? No one said I had to be a a marketing expert,

32:48
how to start a marketing company. No, no one had told me how to be an AI. You know, you know, today, you know, my grandfather to run, I I have seven or eight different businesses inside of my business to run. And the fact that we all think that we we're supposed to be

33:02
omnipotent and have all knowing about all of these is the crazy part. Yeah. Yeah. There's so much to learn. I mean, I spend a lot of my time now trying to tie softwares together and and learn how to be a software developer. I went to school for construction management. I have a manufacturing

33:19
company. I spent a lot of time developing software. That was never where I thought I would be. No, no, it's it's just funny how those iterations of you come into play. But, by the way, all those, you know, just imagine all that serves us a little bit, right? So, everything that you go

33:34
through is making your company smarter, making you smarter. Yeah, you know, you know, it's just it's it's it's a gift. You know, for those entrepreneurs that are out there, look, I really want you to really speak to uh you know, what you're working on, where you see

33:47
yourself going. I like I want them to know, look, even though it's hard work, right here, is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it. You know, you get you get to a point where it's like, okay, this is starting to be fun. It's starting to pay off. It's starting to be a little bit

34:03
easier to manage. And, you know, I'm not so stressed out. And then you'll you'll be able to like the employees that you have, you'll be able to take care of them better and you start feeling good about that because it's like I'm supporting these guys. I'm making sure

34:15
that they have a good life and people like working for me, you know, but it's they're the grind in the beginning and you got to push through it. Um you know, rewards are there for people who put in the hard work for the most part. You know, some people get lucky, but um

34:30
majority of people are going to have to put in the work to get where they want to be. I don't know many lucky people. Maybe some of those guys that uh your parent gave you something, but uh uh not as far as as far as I'm concerned. I think that uh every entrepreneur I know that's been

34:47
successful gets up every day and they grind and uh that relentless behavior that you are that passion for being for taking care of your humans that you know not the people that you're in charge of but the people that are in your charge, right? Where you take care of them,

35:02
right? and and I can see that in the products that you make. You're a great American entrepreneur. I just so much enjoyed having you on this show. It's I want to make sure that everybody gets to uh uh go check out Bear Iron Works and gets to you. If people want to get to you and

35:18
talk to you some more, uh what's the best way for them to contact you? Yeah, they can go visit our website beareon.com. Um you can call the number on there. If I don't pick up, you can ask for me. We'll get you transferred over. Um, you know, and you can check out all of our product lines and the

35:32
things that we offer to the construction industry. Um, if you guys have any, you know, want to talk to me about anything just business in general, I'm happy to have a conversation. Um, and yeah, we want to offer um, your guests or your listeners a a discount if they are in

35:48
the need for any of our products and uh, you can use code future factory to get 5% off your entire order. Nice. Nice. Nice. Hey, I guess awesome. We'll get that out there. Uh listen, let's make sure we get that out to all of our site work contractors that are on our our podcast. Make sure they know

36:04
they got a 5% discount. Uh that Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you very much for that. That's that's awesome. We'll uh we'll make sure we put that down in the uh in the comments down below, how to get a hold of of how to get to to their company website and all that. So, uh

36:18
thanks for being on the show today. Yeah, thank you for having me. This was a a great conversation that we had and um I appreciate being on here. Thank you very much. uh audience members, last week we it was amazing. We had six we broke 65,000 subscribers. I am so damn

36:32
uh happy and proud of of all of us for the work it's been taken to get this done. Uh but we noticed that a lot of you guys made to the end of the podcast but weren't subscribers last week. If you could take a second and like and subscribe, it means the world to Alyssa

36:45
and Joe and all the people in the background who put hard work uh to make this podcast happen and it gets us great guests like Raan be able to bring them on and tell their stories. So if you could do that right now for us, it'd be great. I'd be grateful for that. And as always, thanks for listening.