Gatr Coolers: The Story Behind the Brand with Bryan McGehee

Welcome & Introducing Bryan McGehee

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good day, everybody. Welcome to the Deal Podcast. Uh, this podcast is brought to you by FA Mergers. We love helping people sell their middle market businesses. And we also love inspiring future generation of deal makers. That's why we do the show. We like deals and we like bringing the stories of other deal makers to the table to inspire people. So, Scott, I want you, Scott's our co-host, Scott Shea, the famous Scott Shea, ladies and gentlemen. Scott, why don't you introduce our guest?

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Yeah, so we got a good one today. Um Brian McGeehee, who's the founder of Gator Coolers, um, out of Thibodeau, Louisiana. Um, I first met Brian in some previous business adventures. Um, and we we kind of hit it off just sharing stories and struggles and tears, snuggles, hope. Yeah. Um I was I first went to Brian because he was like seemed to have mastered the social digital marketing before that was the thing. Um so definitely dive into that today. Love to hear more about his story, more about his company. Um, the good, the bad, the ugly. Brian, welcome, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah, thank you for the opportunity, man. I I don't know if uh if you really find my story interesting or if y'all are scraping the bottom, but happy to be here regardless.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

So let's start with this, Brian. Uh Gator Coolish, man, you spelt it wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Yeah. Let's just get the obvious out of the way. Yeah, yep. It messes people up all the time.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, all right. No, talk to us about who you are and what you do, man.

How a Group Text Became a Cooler Company

Going Full-Time in March 2020

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Uh my name's Brian McGee, uh, born and raised in South Louisiana from Thibodeau Shrever area, if you're familiar with the area. But um idea what I'm doing, no idea what I'm doing in life, no idea what I wanted to do. Um, there's a very long story behind that that I'll spare you guys. But uh, I was pipelining and uh lived in a hotel for two years, uh camper for around eight, and uh trying to figure out what I want to do next. Once I started having children, that kind of changed the mindset and and I guess the risk tolerance and the ability to be gone, all that good stuff. And um, yeah, long story short, I had a brother that or have a brother uh working offshore, and he I'm actually one of five boys. So he texted the group and said, Hey, I'm thinking about you know starting this cooler company. And everybody's like, Yeah, that's cool. Let me know when it comes in. You know, we'll we'll buy one from you. And then I text him on the side, like, hey, do you need some help with this? Because at the same time, I'm trying to figure out how to how do I get off the road, how do I get back home and be part of raising my kids instead of watching them through the phone. And uh, yeah, man, it kind of went from a text message joke to, you know, where we are today, which has been an insane almost 10 years now. Why coolers? Because my brother texted me. Why was that the idea though? It it honestly it was uh pure coincidence. Like I've never been in business before. Uh I like working. I really enjoy working, I like making stuff. I was working on a pipeline and physical labor, the I guess the satisfaction of actually seeing something that you built. Um when he when he texted us and he mentioned, hey, I found a manufacturer that sells, you know, premium roto mold coolers. Uh, I think we can sell a few of them, maybe pay some debt off and not have to take an extra hitch offshore or something like that. It it seemed intriguing because I've been traveling for so long. I built a wide network of friends at the very worst case scenario. You know, I have to go to my wife now and tell her, like, hey, you've been living in this camper with me, homeschooling kids, like all of this lifestyle that's not necessarily ideal for us. And I know we're about to build this house, but I think I'm gonna take all the money we have and start a cooler company with Mitch. And she's like, dude, there's no way you're being serious. Yeah. Like, no, I'm very serious. She's like, all right. And and she's she's been awesome. But um, I just threw I thought it wasn't risky because of the worst case scenario. I'll, you know, we'll sell them for at least what we have in it. We'll get our money back and no harm, no file, I'll just keep going. Um turns out it was not that easy, and there's way more that went into it, but it it was coolers because I'm in an industry that was constantly buying them for safety awards for uh, you know, end of job man hour type of uh parties. Um had a bunch of friends across the whole country that would use that type of product already, and just thought it wasn't risky. So we we went for it and uh we did it for that was 2017. And um I actually quote quit, retired, whatever you want to call my career that I built up in 2020. So we we pulled quadruple duty for a couple years until I went officially full-time in March of 2020, which if you remember is also the same month COVID smoked everybody. So your timing is impacting. Excellent. We we signed the dotted line to buy our current facility uh two weeks before COVID started, six weeks to flatten the curve. So, and it's been a uh roller coaster ever since then. But it's it's almost exactly like I picture bull riders before they're in the shooting, they're just sitting on the bull and everybody slapping it at amping it up, and they're like, Oh yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. All right, let me nod my head. They open the gate and then it's just like a wild ride trying to catch on. That's been me for the last several years.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

The one smacking the bull, the bulb getting smacked, or the guy on the bull.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

No, I'm the guy on the bull trying to hold on. Like, what in the world?

unknown 5:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:58

Was Gator always the name?

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Uh no. The name, the first name actually was gonna be cool ass coolers. Which is a play on coon ass coolers. Yeah. And our it's would have been a gag gift at the mall. The the logo was uh a raccoon with icicles hanging off his butt. Um and then it I'm like, you know what, this this doesn't make sense. I can't scale this. I can't, this isn't marketable, this isn't cool. Um, if you remember around that time, swamp people was a huge thing too. So everywhere I traveled, people were infatuated with the fact that I was from Louisiana because y'all have alligators. And the fact that we actually trap alligators was, you know, even better because I have actual videos and photos of us with them. So they just think I'm this like foreign object. And um Gator just seemed cool and then cold-blooded at its core. I'm like, wow man, this all makes so much sense. And I can make it into such a cool brand and make it into something sellable and and make it into something people would maybe want to be a part of. That's that's why we chose it. So you did that without like Chat GPT.

SPEAKER_04 7:11

Yeah, isn't that wild? Were you always did you always just have a good eye for design and and marketing, or did what was that learned, or how did that end up?

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Um man, you know, I think I've always been a little bit of a smart aleck, and uh I always kind of loved the Wendy's Twitter mindset of like kind of roasting people but not going too far. And I always liked nice things, I think. Um I just I was able to put all of that stuff together, kind of, and and we built a really strong following of a network of like real supporters, not just like random stuff. Um, and I think a unique difference between me and maybe some friends that I've been dealing with over the last 10 or so years is that literally this all came out of my pocket. So I'm not it's not like we started a business together and you guys put up some money and I'm just in here playing with your money. It's like literally out of this was my house that I just convinced my wife to push off. So I'm not gonna just like wing it completely. Um, I want to be, you know, make the best decisions and what makes the most sense, not necessarily what's the cheapest or most expensive, what makes the most sense that can actually turn out to something. That's I think I've always had that kind of mindset of uh, you know, kind of being creative and putting stuff together and thinking outside of the box.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

What's the value proposition of gator coolers? Hmm. Like what what's different about gator coolers than that?

SPEAKER_02 8:44

You want the truth or the sales pitch?

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Give me the sales pitch first.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Well, good news, bad news is they're both the same for me. Um honestly being in manufacturing now, I've kind of realized that everything is the same thing with a different stuff. Yes. So really the thing is like we wanted to build a brand that was supported by you know people. Um if you scroll way back on our social media, um, if it's misspelled, my brother posted it. If it's not misspelled, that's something I probably did. But we we've never done like photo shoots until way later in life, whenever we started hiring some people in marketing, they're like, bro, we have no real photos, no real assets that we can build out magazines or or any kind of portfolio stuff with. It was all user-generated content. It was all uh word of mouth. We've spent, you know, cumulative less, I would say less than probably$10,000 total on like traditional marketing ads, stuff like that, because I really wanted us to make like unique custom items, not just a plain ice chest, not just a plain cup, make it something memorable for somebody, whether it's a a photograph laser engraved on a cup or if it's uh a cooler with the logo that people get. Um, those things always stuck out to me whenever I was in the field working. So a hat's cool. Distress balls are ha ha. But you know, when you're on a a a job and towards the end of the job, they're handing everybody, you know, the Y word, the big Yeti coolers. Those are like people are fighting over it. And now I'm I'm taking a really cool product and customizing it. And the fact that I go around the country and people are infatuated with Louisiana and they're infatuated with Cajun and they're infatuated with alligators and all the stuff. And I'm trying to put all that stuff together. Um, I think what we put together and what we do really well is we have a a lot of, to be honest, a lot of the first conversations with different manufacturers is like the literal first question is do you want this brand quality or do you want this brand quality? And I always start from there. I want to have the best product that I can make. I want to have the best option for customization that we can come up with. Um I try to keep everything really streamlined to where we don't have really long lead times. And the more vertically integrated we can be, the more flexible that we can be on pricing, on quantities. I'm not, you know, it's not a thousand quantity. We make one every day. So I think our I guess the the biggest value prop today would be um we're way more flexible than some of the big guys, and we're providing, I think, as good of or better of a product.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah. So as you guys are building gator coolers, right? You went from living in an RV with wife, and you know, you guys are looking at the land being, you know, formed up and permits about to be pulled, and you know, in your head, you're like, okay, cool, this is when our house. Hey, sweetie, put that dream on hold. I know I'm making money and I'm living out of hotels and we're living at an RV. Like, put put that dream on hold because the money's gonna be better in the cooler. Right I I understand, like, you know, loving, supporting wife goes, okay, you know, I trust you. But you know, the the the truth of the matter is is you know, those are really tough conversations. And then in your head, were you ever thinking, I know, yeah, we could always get back what we paid into them and blah, blah, blah, but you quit your job like a few years later. Like, was there ever this major doubt in yourself and what value you bring to the marketplace? Like, are you good enough to do this?

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Oh, all the time.

SPEAKER_04 12:40

This morning?

SPEAKER_02 12:41

Yeah, yeah. Like, how many? Yeah. No, uh, I think um fortunately, I'm not a person that deals with um anxiety or depression. Um, fortunately, I handle stress really well. But there was a moment in there that hit me like, man, you know what? My house is collateral for this building. And things outside, I'm I'm super confident in my ability. And I know like I've always been an excellent employee everywhere I worked. I know that I can say that confidently. And I know that I do a good job at what I need to do for my own company. But when things outside of your control completely tank everything that you're working on, it's like, you know what? I I don't have self-doubt as in like, am I good enough? But I have self-doubt as in like, I don't know how to dig out of this one. And the only way to do it is just like to keep on digging. But when that moment hits you where you know everything's looking down and you're laying in bed, like, holy smokes, man, if this doesn't work, then I don't even have a house with a wife and four kids under the age of 12. So that hits you, yeah. And then you don't sleep for three or four days and you can't stop shaking, and you want to, you don't know if you want to puke or poop, or what's the deal? Like it's it's terrible.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh I've had a few moments like that. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_04 14:06

You mentioned the struggles. Could you elaborate on some of the biggest ones you've experienced uh as a manufacturer and a brand builder?

SPEAKER_02 14:17

Man, I feel like you have to almost put those into categories because we've struggled so much, um, especially being down here. I love Louisiana. I love I'd love our Louisiana brand. But it is so hard to have a business down here, especially where we're at further south, and hurricanes and insurance and property taxes and inventory tax, and you can literally pick up and go anywhere else and save a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. That's tough. It's tough to keep on wanting to put your head in that door to get smashed. Um we've struggled with people because we're competing with oil field jobs. We've we're competing with jobs where basic entry stuff might be a hundred grand a year to work seven and seven plus benefits. That's really hard to compete with. Um you might have to take you might have to take the stay-at-home mom that's looking to make some money. You might have to take the college kid. But with that comes, you know, schedule challenges, or you get one finally that's like working out really great, and you're like, man, I hope she never leaves. And next thing you know, oh, my next semester is terrible, and I I can't squeeze in any time for work. Like, dang. Um as far as the manufacturing side, there's always new issues. There's always new issues. There's always the possibility of things that are on your schedule that uh if you're not the manufacturer and you're sourcing that out, somebody else comes in and places a big order and pushes yours back two months. Then what do you do? Now I have a gap for two months, but I got$150,000 in overhead. You still have to pay your bills. It's not good. You know, it's no man, it sucks sometimes. Um it there's a lot of things that now looking back, that very first time, I don't think I've ever put together a business plan, like a real business plan, to be honest with you. I don't think I've ever put together like formal documents to go to a bank. But that very first time my brother and I talked to um the SBA and they kind of like laughed us out the door. Now I'm realizing, like, oh, that's what that chuckle was about. You know, that's what the these guys have a lot of uh, you know, ambition right now. But when you're looking at some projections and you don't see anything in there about the property tax or the inventory tax, those are struggles, those have been some of my biggest struggles that you don't know until you're in it. Right. I've never been in it. And that's what I try to explain to people now. Um, even when I have the ability to talk to different classes at nickels, for whatever reason, a couple of the professors trust me enough to talk to the kids. So, hey, how many of you guys in here want to be business owners one day? And almost all of them raise their hand. Here's the reality is most of you shouldn't be. You cannot handle what's coming your way. And no good business operates without really good employees. And sometimes it would be way better to just be a really good employee, find a company that treats you right, man, and take it to the next level. And I think that struggle with the stuff that I didn't know until you get a$80,000 bill plopped on your desk when you think everything's kicking butt, that's the struggle that hit me the hardest. I knew people were going to be a challenge. I knew uh, I knew hurricanes shutting us down for a month is gonna be a challenge. I knew all those types of things. Never had a doubt in my ability to, you know, keep people interested in our products. But those unexpecteds that are, I guess, kind of normal here, that the seasoned people probably know, that's been my biggest challenge.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

I think that's awesome. That's and a myth that I think we see recurring with our guests who own businesses. Like there's certain things people tell you that you know be hard, like people like hiring good people. Yeah. But it's like they leave out 90% of the stuff. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:15

Don't forget to tax that's like that, dude. I can't swallow it. Like it's it's it that's a heel. I'm gonna die. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:21

But to your point, working for a business and owning a business. Way different. Not comparable. No, not even.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Brian, give us an idea on how many coolers you guys have slung and you know, give us an idea of like following because you know, Scott mentioned, you know, you've built out a good social media uh digital marketing platform and and a big following. You mentioned like building a following was super valuable to you guys. Give us an idea in terms of like product success and audience success. And I want to see if there's uh correlation there.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

I think just to put a round number on total products between like coolers, drink wear, and stuff, we're we gotta be upwards of 200,000 products.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Wow. Um as far as the audience, I wish hindsight, uh, I wish we would have started this two years prior um before algorithms were really tough. So, you know, I have friends that that built pages with 800,000 plus followers off of giving a hat away a month. You can't do that now. We've given away$50,000 and people couldn't care less because it takes three steps to enter for that fifty thousand dollars. Um I think we have around fifty thousand on Instagram, around fifty thousand on Facebook, uh, a couple hundred thousand on an email list. I don't know, around I have no idea about the text list. That was new. That was another, you know, hindsight being 2020. Probably would have started collecting more of that data early on. Actually, I very specifically remember unclicking the button for text messages. Like, no, we don't need their phone stuff. No, we don't need to we don't need to collect that. Like I hate when people text me. So no, we don't need to collect that. And now it's like, dang, you know, it's way more expensive to send that text than an email, but it's way more valuable. Uh um I don't as far as specifically coolers, that'd be tough for me to put a number on. I I think we just offloaded container number 49 or 50 something, or invoice number 49 or 50 something, but we ordered multiple containers.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

For like this last one was four containers for that one order.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

So I don't know if this is causation correlation or just like, hey man, the stars aligned. 200,000 products sold.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Ish, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And you just reference about 200,000 in your audience, 50,000 Facebook, IG, then uh about a hundred thousand-ish email. So, like, not saying that that is a direct, you know, you will get no one listen, I've got a bunch of followers on like LinkedIn. Doesn't matter. Yeah, they have never reached out and bought my, you know, paid for my phone bill. Yeah, like it's it's just not gonna happen. But having a brand following of loyal people that when you launch a new product, launch something, like building a following that way in a brand behind a product, I think is super super valuable. Yeah, right. And you and you've done it well. What would you attribute? Like, talk to us about your your your best marketing piece that you guys did or campaign that you're like, dude, I didn't think it would work, and it worked.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Um I think the best thing that we did early on was uh I hate the word pro staff. I don't know if this is something that me and you cried about together way back. I was trying to figure out how you did it. Yeah, uh I hate the word pro staff because there's a vast difference between professional staff and And promotional staff. And most people are promotional staff, but online they all think they're professional staff. So everybody approaches it as we owe them$10,000 in product and$2,000 a month to post that they use our product. When in reality, we will never see anything from that. So what we did early on, instead of a photo shoot, you know, you try to book a photographer, it's a couple thousand dollars. Um you'll get you know a few images, but it'll be like the same couple of products in the same couple of settings. So we took that like five thousand dollars in product cost and we found just people, not professional people, just promotional people. You look online and see like does this person take decent photos? Not professional. If they're professional, great. But do they take decent photos? I don't care if they have 200 followers or 200,000 followers. Do they interact with people at all? Or is it just like, hey, here's my picture and a bunch of comments and nobody, you know, interacts there? And then we just approached them. And um, I got absolutely burned on the first time I did that.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

There's a difference. I I want to hear about getting burned. Those make for great stories, thank you. Uh, promotional versus professional. What are the differences?

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Um, you know, there's a lot of people that think they're professional, pro staff, professional staff, they think they're professional.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

Like influencers. Oh, yeah. Media influencers. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Um, which previous guests have talked about on here, listening to on the way over here, and it kind of like makes my soul hurt a little bit. Uh, because the fact is they don't move the needle. A lot of them don't. But some of them do. And the ones that move the needle are the ones that are professional. They're the ones that are worth paying as long as the needle moves far enough to justify it. Now, I'm not saying every single thing you do has to have some sort of return. But why would I pay you$5,000 a month? Because you have a lot of followers who may or may not have even been bought, who may or may not have been some part of some um uh some sort of program that you did that pushed people your way that they don't even care about your audience. They don't care about what you're posting. It's they came here for a free boat.

unknown 24:19

Right.

Building Brand Partnerships & the Music Route

SPEAKER_02 24:19

And after that, they don't interact with you. So why would I pay? That's not valuable to me. But the photos that you take could be valuable because I'm gonna have to pay a couple thousand dollars for a photographer. So now I take, you know, let's say 50 coolers, 50 different coolers to 50 different people in 50 different situations in different areas of the country. You got the soccer moms, the offshore fisher guys, the inshore fisher guys, the football hunting, fishing, all the things, right? All the way down to just a regular dude that just needs a cup to go to work. And all we required was 12 photos a year. So a photo a month. So now I can take the products that they're sending out. Um they're required to send us photos. So now if I have 50 people that are supposed to be sending me a picture a month, now I have a content bank that's building up and I can correlate what we post with what we have in stock. That way I didn't do a photo shoot with white 20 quartz, but we're sold out of white 20 quartz. And now I have a ton of tan 20 quarts, but I don't have any product photos of 20 quartz. So now we can kind of mix it up and and because to be blunt about it, people are really lazy. So we have to make it as simple as possible to say, like, not only am I not slinging these out of my trunk, but also we have a website. And to go to the website through Instagram, oh, here, we're gonna post the photo, we're gonna tag the product, and all you have to do is say, I like it, check out. And if you don't do that, you lose a lot of people. So the content was valuable to me, not necessarily the person. And then I have to have a lot of hard conversations with people that you know what, maybe you are professional. Maybe I'm maybe I misspoke. Maybe you are really influential, but you're not for us. So it doesn't work for us. So for here's what I'm gonna offer you to work with us. If you want$1,000 in free products, okay, I'll do that. But this is what I want in return. I don't want you to be a billboard for me because you're gonna tick everybody off that's following you. They didn't follow you to be a billboard for gator. I want to be a billboard for gator. So send me your content so we can post it. And when we was constantly, you know, posting daily, sometimes multiple times a day, interacting with people. Um, I went live a lot back in the day. I'd be kind of everybody just knew me with the brand, kind of became a thing. Um I think that really attributed to most of the early stuff. And then you make some good decisions, you make some bad ones, but make some good ones, uh, meet some good industry friends, never turn down an opportunity for a conversation, drive overnight across the country to go to the camp. You know, you're you're doing all those things that matter. And next thing you know, you're a no-name brand where they could have picked any cup or ice chess, but now you're in with brands like Real Tree or Bandit or Benelli or you know, Edge Duck Boats, and they're they're putting together this massive package, and all you need to do is provide an ice chest. And for that, you're gonna give me all the emails that are associated with this package, Rob Roberts, Custom Gun, like all of these really, really cool established brands. And y'all don't nobody knows who we are. And all I have to do is give you a single ice chest, and I'll get 60, 70, 80,000 emails in return. Um that that was like early on what really helped us out.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

When you jumped on and you did your, you know, lives and you did uh, you know, your own social media, like did you have a a saying or something that you would do that?

SPEAKER_02 28:04

I'm not a character, bro. It's just myself. I kind of I you know what I've learned over the years that um I'm not everybody's cup of tea, and that's okay. And um I maybe am too blunt. Oldfield does that to you over time, and I'm trying to rectify some relationships that I maybe have soured over the years by saying, by being blunt about it. Those guys, I love them. The guys that have the saying, the characters on the the influencers, I love them, but I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

Yeah. No, I think to thine own self be true as you're going through this. Like I I think the audience will see both both. One is if that's truly you, they'll see that. And if that's not truly you, they'll see that.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

So I think being real to your audience and your community and your followers, I think that's what creates that genuine attract people that truly know you. Yeah. Um, no, I think that's cool. Uh Scott, you were giving you a chance to do that.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

Are you looking at my notes again? I could just tell your I just I just wrote genuine. Oh, yeah? And you said it.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

You can't spell it. How did you I'm just kidding?

SPEAKER_04 29:12

I can't read my record.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Well, give him another question.

SPEAKER_04 29:14

No, but I think just to add to what he said, I think that's what made his marketing, at least from my viewpoint, so effective, is like call them influencers or staffers. Like they actually used the product and like that was your customer. Yeah. Yep. Because a lot of to me, most people can tell if someone's posting something because they're getting paid to do it, versus like you had the musicians, you had you had a lot of things that at the time were I think creative and new, maybe not anymore.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

We followed our rule was if we couldn't do it with our wife sitting next our wives, sorry, uh sitting next to us and not feel weird about it, we didn't do it. So this was all around the time of Yeti butts and Orchitail and basically just women posing with their cheeks out, you know, sitting on the cooler. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what? A lot of people like Gator Tale would have been a perfect play on that, right? But I can't do it. And and we don't want to sell products. And I didn't take, quote, influencers that were um pre-OnlyFans, OnlyFans people online. I'm not interested in it, and I'm not interested in your followers. And uh, I don't know if it was just like kind of how I always been, or if it's my mindset definitely changed when my first child came along and it was a girl, and I'm like, man, I hear what some of these guys are saying to these girls, and I would literally kill somebody if they ever talk to my daughter that way. And it's gross to me to be in some of these situations. So we chose to go the musician on a cooler route instead of the naked chick sitting on a cooler route, which has led me to some of the most unreal experiences I've ever had in my life in Nashville, making friends that, you know, lifelong friends, not just people that bought products, or, you know, sitting on Gary Lavox on his bus with Cody Cannon and uh a bunch of UFC guys, Clay Weed, like all of these guys, Dan Henderson, to go shoot geese in a peanut field in Oklahoma. I would have never done that if we didn't do this route. And now I like to know not like me and Gary's best friends and all this stuff, but like I know who he is, he knows who I am. One of the highlights of what I was able to do through this journey was uh at the last camp that I was with uh Gary at, he FaceTime my mom. She was a huge fan, she's freaking out and stuff, you know, and that's something that she talked about all the way, you know, it was always a it was a thing to her. I would have never been able to do that if we would have gone the naked girl on a cooler route. And that's where I'm talking about thinking outside the box. Because when you go to a camp, somebody's always sitting on a cooler picking a guitar. It's just part of the thing. And and it didn't need to be Gary Lavox, it didn't need to be Cody Cannon from Whiskey Myers, it could be Carrie Thibodeau from Thibodeau. It doesn't matter to us. I just think it's cool as hell, and that's that's what we want to promote, and that's what we want to be a part of.

SPEAKER_04 32:10

Yeah, I think it it's so important that the genuine and the authenticity of the brand, um, especially nowadays. Like your brand was always believable. Yeah, we never had to make something up. Yeah, like you hunting fish and night country music, it and it was obvious. And yeah, you say what you think, and a lot of people may not like it, but like people who like you don't care about them. Right, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

When you're building something, man, it's amazing how many people should you, right? Oh, you should do this with that, man. Oh, dude, I got a great idea. Yeah, and these people have never run a business, never designed something, never manufactured something. You know, they they come up they come up with these like great shoulds, right? And what is the worst should oh man you didn't do?

SPEAKER_02 32:57

It's a long list. I know. Like, I let me pick one now. I don't know, but I started telling people like, hey, dude, I've got way too much money. I want you to be rich. Which I to be frank, I have no money. But like stop giving me your million-dollar ideas, you know, you go do this. Um we've had some we've had some that I can see where the idea was good, but in practice, there's no way. And they don't know that side because they've never been in on this side. So I don't want to say the specific product idea because I don't want this dude to get mad at me. But uh let's say if if you have a product idea and you bring it to someone and you just know this is the next million dollar problem you're solving. Excuse me, and it's gonna take$220,000 in tooling and then you're only gonna make maybe on a high end$70. And your market is you'll be lucky to find 10,000 people. Lucky to find 10,000 people that'll be willing to buy this.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

It doesn't pay for it.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

How like the money, the math doesn't add up, and it's like, dude, no, that would have solved your issue at that time. And I've been guilty of of chasing some of those rabbits too, early on, until I started figuring out like, wait, we've spent eight months, twelve months, um five thousand, ten thousand in engineering and design, go to tooling, you print out the 3D sample, you fly it across the world, get it over here, this is awesome! You buy 10,000 of them and they're still sitting in the shop. Yeah, man. And you realize, like, hey, we need to maybe be a little smarter about this.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

That's it's such a great point. What I like about how you're approaching at least this conversation, and I think the way you show up genuine, like I stole from Scott, like read his notes. But you're you're willing to be a truth teller? Like you're like, nah, man, this is what is. And you actually said it you've had to go back and be like, hey man, I'm sorry for maybe being too blunt, too too. No, I think that's actually your superpower, man, is this idea of truth telling, and uh, you know, didn't want to go down that route of you know, uh naked chicks or topless uh Scott on your cool topless Scott would have been a thing if they sold in it. I think it would have sold a lot. That's your should.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

But you know, what I like about that is you know, you're building something that you're proud of, but that you know, you have this like person sitting next to you, your wife. Am I building something that she would be proud of? Right? It's not just like bringing in the money or maybe getting that house one day, but it's like, could I do this w next to my wife? I think that's cool, man. I want to honor you in saying that. Thanks. Yeah. Because I think some people will just go, oh, dude, does it make money?

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Oh, it definitely wasn't the easier route. Yeah. Definitely. I mean, the naked girl on the cooler was way easier. Yeah. Because there's unfortunately too many people willing to just do that. And uh unfortunately more, way more people that would follow that and think it's yeah, it's cool. Don't know that it necessarily equates to dollars, but um page clicks. It would have been a traffic chaser for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

But that doesn't mean it's right.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Yeah. And that lines up with the way you view things, how you view your wife, and how you view your daughter. And that's how you're doing your marketing. I think like truth in marketing is you know the theme I hear here and uh here, here. Yep. So so Brian, as you're building this this brand, this thing, you know, you've you've went all in.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

I can't get any more in.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

You're you're in in. You're here. You're in in. Um, you know, as you're building this out and you look back over the nine years of doing this, what are you most proud about you over the years?

SPEAKER_02 36:58

Man, that's a good question. So deep, John. I know. Jeez.

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Thank you. Man, wow. I stole that from you too, Scott. Keep writing on your notepad over there.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

You know, I I I think most proud about myself um probably isn't the visible stuff. It's not, you know, we went from our brother's living room to a storage unit to the facility we're at now. It's not all of the machines. I think it's because you don't really know until you're in it. I think it kind of surprised myself, my ability to eat a lot of crap and not let the world know or see. Um my wife just started actually working with us at the business. Um, our youngest daughters old enough to uh go into like daycare, starting school. So now she's able to come into the shop and she's starting to see some of the highs and the lows. And she's like, holy crap, how like, how do you do this? Because this is amazing. We got a million dollars in our bank account. And it's like, no, we got like 1.5 in bills coming like over the next six months between the inventory we have ordered, like this. We're we're behind A-ball here. And I think it's I think I'm most proud of my ability to deal with stress. I've dealt with stress as an employee, but whenever you leave, most of that goes away, and it never can go away when it's yours.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

You want to see Scott squirm a little. Scott, what are you most proud about you?

SPEAKER_04 38:40

About me?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

The co-host of the deal podcast. Why would you do that? Because I love you.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

That's what you do to the guest.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

I know. I make them sweat a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 38:51

Man, well, I guess because Brian's here, I'd say I'm just proud of all the people I've met over the years and connections. And like when I first met Brian, I was probably honestly just looking for help with like how do I sell more of my product? And um you end up becoming friends with with people and sharing stories. And um, the podcast specifically has allowed us to do that, and I'm proud of that. I think that's fun. Yeah, Scott, your superpower is definitely drove here to see us, which is like how far of a drive is it for you, dude?

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Uh it's almost two hours. Two hours? I'm actually heading to Texas, so it kind of worked out. Oh, never mind. I take it back. It's just on the way. Well, I changed I changed my route. I changed my plans, okay. Yeah. I trained, I changed my plans.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Specifically for this.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

What what part of Texas?

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Uh around Lake Jackson, Freeport.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_02 39:42

South of Houston.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

My son was born in Grapevine at Dallas.

SPEAKER_04 39:46

I'll add too though. I'm not proud regarding me, but proud of people like him who I've met through my journey that have made it. Survived at least. So here.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

They hadn't been TKO'd yet. Yeah, if this is making it, I'm not positive that I want it.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

No, it's been fun. It uh there's light at the end of the tunnel, though, because every story we've heard, I'd say so far from successful entrepreneurs, they've had a version that was like not fun.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

That's the kind of thing. I haven't I haven't met one that doesn't have that. That's kind of the part that's frustrating, man. It's like uh kind of like when you're younger and you hear about when you turn this age, your insurance might drop. Or when you get married, your insurance might drop. Well, when you start a business, they're like, oh, most people don't make it past two years. And you get to two years, you're like, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Like, oh, most people don't make it past five. Like, here. It's like nobody makes it past ten, like one percent of one percent, or whatever the number is. Like, now I'm starting to feel why. I understand completely. And uh to be blunt, I couldn't have done this all by myself. This is this is a lot of uh a lot of good decisions by me, um, some bad decisions, but this is a lot of help from people that believed in me and uh my wife being a complete backbone. We have four kids, so we have as busy or hectic of a life as I can put on paper. I mean, it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Dude, you just got some brownie points if she listens to this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

I don't even need no more brownie points, bro. I got them stacked. I've been saving them.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah, save them up until you cash it.

SPEAKER_02 41:17

They expire.

SPEAKER_04 41:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

So you got this text message from Mitch.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Right? Mitch was the guy who sent, okay, cool. That's your brother.

SPEAKER_02 41:24

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Uh one of them. Yeah, you got a lot of them. What is your superpower? What is Mitch's?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Hmm. Well, I told Scott my superpower is uh responding to people three weeks later or something like that. Um, like eventually it comes around. Uh uh man, I don't know. That's that's a good question. Mitch isn't actually that involved with the business. Um, he has a really good career built with uh Shell, and he early on it was literally his living room. So when we first started, I'm living in a camper. I think I was in Chicago, maybe Houston area. Um, but him and uh his wife were doing like all the deliveries, like dropping off to FedEx and dropping off to UPS and dropping off to the post office or running local packages around. Um yeah, I couldn't have done it without them starting. I think his his superpower for this specific thing is just ha coming up with the idea, like thinking outside the box, because he was in a similar spot. He was uh it was Thanksgiving 2016, he's offshore, his relief doesn't show up, so he's stuck offshore. And he's like, Man, this sucks. I need to do something different to where I'm not always chasing the rainbow up offshore. Um so let me sell some coolers and pay for pay a car off, pay a house off, something. And you know, he had the ability to look for something like that and see an opportunity and start the process. I just I guess was happy to be there at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 43:04

Outside of coolers, outside of business, what do you do for fun for you?

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Oh man, not a whole lot anymore. Um to be honest, I mean, in a business owner, yeah, man. Uh we've been going through it with with sports season, so we have you know softball and flag football. I personally I think I work for fun, to be honest with you. I really enjoy it. Uh a personal goal of mine is to find the right person that can run the business enough to where I can step away enough to get back into uh playing guitar enough to be confident enough to sing and play with like Brent Cobb or Adam Hood or one of those guys, like some people that I love in the music industry, um, when those opportunities arise.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Are you any good? Because I have one right here.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Like we could sing us a song. I I could sing some smelly cat from friends right now. That's about it. I do enjoy it. Um, but man, it's been forever. And I think uh when we bought the property we're at now, yeah, advice from outsiders uh, man, you really need to build a team because if you get hit by a bus, we are so screwed. Like, well, that's fair. So we started building a team, and I don't that is not my superpower. And um, I think that's where I struggle the most personally within the business. And to be honest with you, I think it's because I'm looking at it to where like you need to hire somebody to operate so you can keep working on and not in. But I really enjoy working in the business. And that's what I'm really good at. So I feel like I need somebody that can work on the business and I can continue. Like you filled a bucket and I'm gonna empty it, and it's gonna be emptied awesome every time. I I don't know, it's it's really hard for me to replace that.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah, I get it. The the saying goes is in case I get hit by a bus, are there really that many bus accidents where they like that many founders are getting hit by a bus? I think it's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

I think it's uh in my case, I think it's their nice way of saying we don't really trust you completely by yourself, but they didn't want to tell me that. So I was like, no, look, just in case if you die, that's it. Like, uh, yeah. Just in case we alp you. Yeah, in case we vote you out of your job. That could be a thing now. Like now that you have a board that you know can boot you out of your seat.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Yeah, man. Yeah, we we had a conversation with uh twins earlier, and that that's part of their story. Um, tune in to listen to that. But you know, Brian, as you um as you progress through life, how old are you?

SPEAKER_02 45:47

37.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

37? Yeah, okay. When was the first time you shaved your head, right? Because you you got a really cool beard, yeah. Bald head shaved.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

Uh man, this is a really funny story. I should have shaved a long time ago. You were holding on too long? Holding on way too long. Uh that's my wife's fault. She's shorter than me, so she it never was an issue to her. It always looked okay. Um, no, honestly, uh my mom was hospitalized last year, and my oldest brother has a shaved head, and we always joked around with her about shaving my head. And um, kind of as a thing, like, you know, it doesn't gonna cheer her up or or really piss her off. I don't know. Um, we shaved my head one night and showed up the next day. I had a hat on. Like she had a stroke, she couldn't uh move her left side, she couldn't really talk, but she was kind of giving us some hand signals and you know, squeeze, squeeze my hand. I got a surprise to show you. If you want to see it, squeeze my hand. And she squeezed my hand and I took my hat off and she started squeezing it, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. Yeah, like what in the world? Um Yeah. And then um special. And then I went home and my kids started crying. And I don't remember which one said it, but one of them is basically like, Oh, you look so mean now. I'm like, all right, well, I could do that. I could I I need to look a little mean.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Um, and now I I either have the option to get fat or to start working out.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

Yeah. So which one are you gonna go for?

SPEAKER_02 47:10

I'm not right now, I'm just going the fat route.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

Either one is good.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

Yeah, one's way easier than the other. Yeah, man. But like you if you're bald, you can't just be mediocre. You gotta either be you gotta go it all in on the fat or all in on the buff. True.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Because both of them would look good. But somewhere in the middle, you're like, ah man, choose a side.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Two slacking, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know where I want to go, but it's been a few months now. Yeah. Yeah, I think it it's it's kind of like it.

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah, it's you got a good bald head, bro. Thanks. Yeah, you appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

My wife was really nervous that I'd have a bunch of dents in it. That's honestly.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Did you play sports growing up?

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

What'd you play?

SPEAKER_02 47:45

Everything. And I have four brothers, so we fought all the time at home. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Do you have any dents in there?

SPEAKER_02 47:49

I don't think so. Some scars or something. A couple little ones, yeah. No, that's good.

The Naming Strategy Behind "Gatr"

SPEAKER_01 47:53

That's you're the first guest I've ever complimented their head. Thanks. You're welcome, man. Very good. Thanks. So back to uh gator coolers. Uh, why'd you guys drop the O?

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Oh man, again, you want the truth or the sales pitch? You're gonna give the truth. That's your move. Yeah, go for the truth. Because Yeti had four letters and Arctic had four letters, and I'm like, there's gotta be something to this four letter thing. So I'm like, all right, well, let's do gator. And it makes sense because it still spells out right. It's still it's not like you have to convince people that it says gator, it's obviously gator, and it just worked.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Bro, that's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

It wasn't a whole lot to it. I was just like, Yeti has four thing then, too, though, right?

SPEAKER_04 48:34

People were starting to drop vowels and like that was kind of the yeah, dude. Yep, that was kind of the thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

Less things to type into your phone when you're trying to find a company, right?

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Yeah, it embroiters better. No, I don't know. That was that was pretty much it. Oh, suck. Yeah, they're a struggle.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Can't draw it. Um dang it, Brian. Um, what is your favorite thing about what you've built so far? Now you've talked to us about what you're proud of, but like when you look at your product, like what's a product that like you're like, man, I designed this for me. I use this all the time. This is the feature I like about it. This is like, man, this was for me.

SPEAKER_02 49:14

To be honest, I don't even really use our products that much anymore. Um, I don't have a need to because I literally just work. So um you're always carrying it around. I I mean it's the thing that I'm really most proud of is our customization and the level of detail that we got onto that. And it's really strange, but like it's hard to explain making somebody cry with a cup or making somebody cry with a nice chest. And you know, the first couple, the way our website's built is do you want to customize it? Yes or no? If you say yes, there goes through a sequence of questions, um, upload your photo or logo, and and the first couple times you get a photo, it's like, oh my gosh, bro, can this be hey, can y'all do any photo? You gotta be careful with saying yeah to that because you get some one pixel. Oh my gosh, like at an angle in a picture frame with the light reflecting, and you take a picture of that, and it's and we make it work, but it's not super easy. And I remember making a comment about a specific order and a specific photo that got submitted. And then when the girl came pick it up, she immediately took it out the box in front of me, which that always kind of makes me nervous. Like, God, just go over there and open it. Like when you bring somebody a present, like open it up in the other room, don't do it in front of me. Um, except for Scott, he just opens the bag and starts eating it right there. Um but she started bawling crying right in front of me. And first of all, I I've got one feeling left, and it doesn't get hurt, and I'm not a real emotional person. I have four brothers. We grew up in a kind of rough to the point household. So I don't know how to act when somebody's crying. And she is like losing it in front of me. And this is when we first moved into the warehouse we're in now. I was the only person working, and we're in this place. Like looking around, like somebody come help this girl, and I I'm I'm the only person in there. Yeah, but it ended up being her sister that passed away. And that was the last photo she took with her. So while I'm over here, like, man, this pic sucks, they can't pick a different picture. And now I'm like, wow, she cared enough, like she uploaded that photo to be on one of our cups forever, yeah. And you know, or you you'll get the photos um that people make groom's cakes with our coolers being the groom's cake, and like that is like how awesome. You could have picked anything in the world, and down here you could have picked LSU Stadium, right? But you picked our cooler to be made into a cake for your wedding. That's wild to me. Or seeing uh launching in Bayou Black and just going ride in the boat, and seeing somebody driving the other way and they got one of our coolers on the boat, or or pulling up to a boat launch and seeing that, or um in the first few rounds of stuff, I specifically put different stickers and different products. That way, when I seen the sticker, I knew what product they had. And going into a store literally in Beaumont, Texas, like I didn't even know anybody there, but I pulled into it and I seen the sticker on the back glass of a truck. I was like, that's crazy. He has this product, and um, it was parked in an employee parking spot. So I asked him, like, one of y'all, is that one of y'all's truck? And it was one of the guys there. I said, Oh, how do you like this product? And he's like, How do you know I have that? So I saw your sticker on the back. Oh, it's awesome, it's great. You know, I just found them online and blah, blah, blah. I get super excited about stuff like that. Yeah, I do. Not necessarily something for me, but we're not asking someone to trust us with um, you know, like$2 for a new pencil or whatever. Like you're giving us several hundred dollars for stuff. We're asking people, especially early on, when you don't have a following and you don't have word of mouth and you don't have the photos out there yet of like real people using the real products. The fact that people trusted me enough to go online and give me a few hundred dollars is huge. Crazy. But that I think that's the most exciting thing to me.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

Power of community too, huh? Yeah. You you truly built a community of like loyal customers. That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

And it's also really strange when you're in a kind of small town, and not that I'm I'm not like a famous influencer type of person. I actually love that most people don't know who I am when I go to the trade shows and stuff, or that I own the company. Um, and I usually just play the role of the sales guy that got picked to go to the event. But I went to um Academy not that long ago, and the girl working looked at me, she's like, Oh my God, like, what's going on right now? I'm like, what are you talking about? She's like, You're in here, and uh at the same time, Cajun Ninja, uh Jason, Jason was in there. He's like, Cajun Ninja's in here with his family. You're from Gator. I know you. I watch you on Instagram. Like, listen, I'm literally just trying to get these sunflower seeds. I'm going to a baseball game with my kids, and they had the um, I don't know, whatever the the new sunflower seeds are, the churro flavor ones that my kids like. Oh they're really good. So, but she's freaking out, freaking out. I'm like, it's a little bit creepy, but it's also really cool that people care enough.

SPEAKER_01 54:31

It can be creepy and cool at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Yeah. It is creepy the first few times, and it's it's it's a little bit weird. Um it gets creepier when you realize, like, man, they recognize your wife or kids, or they recognize your house. Because when you first start, I I'm at my house going live and everybody see, and I have a very distinct house, and I'm in a very distinct part of town, and I'm the only house in the field at the time. So there's a monument in the background that you can only see from my house. So now everybody knows where I live, and I don't think about that stuff until it's it's too late, it's out there. And uh it is creepy and very cool at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 55:06

Yeah, man. Scott, uh, one of the things that we like to do on this podcast, which is funny because I I went to go open Dominic's to read it to Taylor Davis, the last guest, and we got distracted and Dominic never wrote down his question. So I made one up. I opened up his card and I was like, all right, I got a question from Dominic, and I opened up in his blank.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

I was like, You had to make one up.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

I made yeah, nice well. We got carried away with conversation. Well, Dominic, he was a great guest, and he's so like he's so smart, dude. It's a good episode. But let's do this. We've got a question for you for Taylor. I made sure we got it.

SPEAKER_04 55:43

So we're gonna read that. All right, let's see.

SPEAKER_00 55:49

Can you read it?

SPEAKER_01 55:55

All right, so I'll set the stage. Taylor uh Davis. He um he works in the world of life insurance, uh succession planning. He's constantly helping people kind of plan for things. Go for it.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

That makes a lot more sense, actually. All right, Brian. What happens when you die?

SPEAKER_02 56:19

What happens as far as just in general, or that's all it's said.

What Happens When You Die

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Take it where you want.

SPEAKER_02 56:27

You know, my mom unexpectedly passed away last year. So uh go in for what we think is gonna be a routine surgery, ends up in uh ICU for like a month or so and never comes out of it. And what we learned through that experience is my dad didn't have a clue about bank accounts or insurances, or she handled all that stuff. So um that made us think, you know, like I travel a lot. Uh we do life is risky in general, you know, there's always dangers. So if I died, my wife Emily wouldn't have a clue. She don't know the insurance guy to call. She don't know first of all, she's got way more money then than she does now because I have probably way too much insurance. But if I die, man, that's hard to think about. My my wife and kids have a a whole different life. Uh my business, I don't know that it survives. I think uh we have enough insurance to cover the liability so everybody's in you know protected that way, but I don't know that we have anybody maybe Mitch would be interested to come back in full time. Maybe not. I guess we never really even discussed that. I have a different answer.

SPEAKER_04 57:49

Okay. I think your business would survive. I think you've got customers who would demand that product was still available. Yeah. They'd find a way, I think. Yeah. I guess I have to talk.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

I have to go talk to my last loyal, long-standing employee and say, hey, bro, if I die, this is yours. Someone will figure it out. Don't discount what you've built. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

That's a tough one. Yeah, we tied that into the proverbial, you know, getting hit by a bus. Man, this is not a show about death, but hey, you know, it's a it's a common reality for deal makers and business owners and people who are building things to ask that question. So thank you, Taylor, for uh asking that question. Brian, you're gonna have an opportunity to write a question for the next guest next time I'm in studio uh here in Lafayette, Louisiana. Um, as I as we kind of round out towards the end, are there any questions that I probably should have asked you? You're like, Josh, are you freaking kidding me? You didn't ask me this. I screwed up.

SPEAKER_02 58:47

Man, you know what, to be honest, um I swore off podcasts a couple years ago. Me too. So yeah, and uh not really sure why I took this one to be honest. Um actually, whenever I was leaving, because I because I harassed you endlessly. Probably um because all of them became boring and it was the same stuff over and over, and it became literally because I'm kind of like Jim Carrey on Liar Liar, like I can't I have to tell the freaking truth. It's kind of sucks. So people ask me these questions. How do we dump on it? Right. Um I'm basically giving some of these crabs in the bucket around here a playbook on how to copy everything we're doing, and that's what I realized it was turning into. So you have one set of guys that are asking, like, hey, where do you get this from, or how do you do that? It's like, well, here's where and here's how. And then you have the guys that are, well, why did you do this for this customer this way? And then, well, here's the playbook and the reasoning behind all that, which makes perfect sense in a conversation. When when you're recording it and making a playbook, and you got the guys that are literally in their garage that don't have employees, that don't have employees that are getting married and having kids and buying houses and doing all these responsible things that they shouldn't be freaking doing because it's stressing me out even more. They don't care. They'll they'll do it for beer money. And uh, when I realized that's kind of where it was going, and then you'll have the guys that are uh I'm the token Louisiana guy. So what is a rue? How do you make a rue? Like, bro, I I haven't I'm just the dude that eats it. I'm not the big cook. Like, I'm my brother's, he'll cook it, I'll eat it. So I'm like, uh podcasts are kind of I just don't do it. But I listened to a few of them. That's why it took me a little while to uh respond.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

How many times did you go? F you, Scott. I'm not coming on this show. All right, I just ignored them.

The Next Five Years for Gatr Coolers

SPEAKER_02 1:00:41

That's a superpower. I just ignored them until I was ready. Yeah. Um, but I listened to a few of them in this like thought-out questions. And uh it's more of a conversation there people can learn from, not learn how to copy or belittle or you know, damage what somebody else has built. So uh, and I appreciate that. Um I don't remember where I was even going with that. What question should I ask you? Yeah. No. Um if I had to say anything else that we were going to very generally, not specifically speaking, um, plans for the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:19

Cool. Why don't you tell us your plans for like, you know, next five years?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

Hopefully I survive. Great question, Josh. Hopefully I survive. No proverbial buses. Yeah, no, no buses, no none of that stuff. Um last year was almost impossible. So January inventory arrived in August. May's inventory still didn't arrive fully today. And we just started getting that within the last two weeks. So I have uh two more 40-foot containers that are arriving this month. That will be last year's May inventory. So we basically just survived last year. Um, and it's really easy to sit at home and say, well, you should have just done this. But we did everything we thought we could at the time. We're living in some insane times right now. Um trying to move the manufacturing backstake side. I don't know if it's gonna be possible, but that is definitely uh uh on the target list. We have several new products. I would say probably seven, maybe eight products that we've been through, you know, the the design, testing, prototype, finish. Like we have a product that I'd be happy selling that I think is gonna help change a lot of things for us. But with each new product comes$100,000 a piece. So let's see how the manufacturing stuff goes. And we also have uh two new products that we're gonna be bringing to the market soon that I'm not more excited than the coolers because it's you know the coolers of my baby, but we have one specific that should be coming out really soon. And uh it's not just a product for us, it's a product for anybody that has a cooler. So in any cooler, not just a gator cooler. So really excited about those things. So within the next five years, if I had to pull out my crystal ball, we'll have manufacturing in the United States. Um we'll possibly be able to stamp it, you know, certified Cajun, certified Louisiana, whatever, whatever that means. Uh I a big goal is to uh continue to well a goal from the start, if you listen to the very first podcast I ever did, our goal was to help change the skyline of Thibodeau, as if there's a skyline in Thibodeau, but uh, you know, diversify our economy and not just offshore, not just you know, fab shops, stuff like that. Um coolers don't have a season, and we're not just reliant on local business. We ship all over the country, so and multiple countries. Um huge changes. We got a couple whales on the line. I just need one of them to bite. One of them to take that bite. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:03

Scott, close this out, bro. Yeah, man. Awesome story. Um thanks for coming on, first of all. Making the is it a drive if he's passing through? We'll call it a drive.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

A detour. Like a stop. Thanks for making the stop.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:20

Hit stop. Uh I need it to pee anyway. We have good bathrooms here. Clean bathrooms. Yeah, just appreciate the honesty, the transparency, the the outspoken. Follow him on all of his social channels if you want some.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:31

I'm so much better. It's I'm getting so much better.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:33

It's such great entertainment. Um, it's authentic, genuine. It was my word. Um, yeah, man, keep doing what you're doing and uh keep us posted on where Gator goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Thanks, man.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Appreciate it. Thanks for uh reaching out and thanks for poking me a few times. Yeah, man. And if anybody needs coolers, go find Gator online.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

We finally have some in stock for the first time in like a year. So we've already sold out of a lot of the SKUs that we offloaded on the last two weeks, which kind of stinks, but you know, part of the game.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Ladies and gentlemen, as always, reach out to our guest. Go buy a cooler, by the way. Uh, the contact information and link to the website will be in the show notes. Now, if you have a middle market business and you'd like to sell it, man, I would love to look at it. Head over to thedealpodcast.com, fill out a quick form. Or maybe you have an awesome story like Brian does about building and have some nicks and bruises and uh a limp from the world of entrepreneurship and business ownership that you would like to share with the community to not only inspire future generations of how to make better decisions, but also, man, there's something really fun about connecting with our guests through the questions and the community that we've developed here. So I hope you're having a freaking awesome day. Subscribe, and we'll see you all on the next episode. Cheers.