 We were at Phil's house shortly after you had moved in. Yeah, it was just good. We had a lot of nice new stuff around, and we tried melting our own plastic on his stove. We ruined his wife's pots. We didn't, we're pulling, we bought like melt, it was like a melt your own plastic kit, so we bought it and we're trying to melt it on the stove and burnin' the hell out of ourselves and pullin' a hot mountain of plastic and drippin' all over it. Yup. It was awful. And at one point are you guys like, all right, then maybe this is stupid. Yeah. A lot. Right, yeah. This is Startup the Storefront. Today's guests are Matt Adams and Matt Fioretti of QuickCord. QuickCord was born out of Adams' long career in the Marines, where using Paracord was a necessity that always came with frustration. Like so many other entrepreneurs, he told himself that there's got to be a better way. Together with Fioretti, they launched QuickCord on the back of a Kickstarter campaign that raised 350% of their original fundraising goal. So listen in as we cover everything from their original prototype using a toilet paper roll, their philosophy of always take the meeting and how they're taking inspiration from Camelback in order to win a military contract. Now, back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast. We're joining from the birthplace of basketball, Springfield, Massachusetts with two legends, Maddie and Fior, who just started QuickCord. How do you explain QuickCord to people when you give the quick high level of what the company is trying to do? The elevator pitch? Yeah. I'm gonna toss that over to you, that big guy. So QuickCord is a handheld emergency utility device that stores, cuts, and dispenses your Paracord untangled every time. As a bonus feature, it also has an emergency nighttime signaling device. For those of you that don't know what Paracord is, Paracord is used in the military, outdoors community, all over the place. It's used like duct tape, you tie stuff up, that breaks. The premise in the military is that you're tying something up because something went wrong and you need to fix it in order to move on with the mission, but you pull out your Paracord and it's a tangled rat's nest and you waste vital, vital time untangling your cord to get out of the bad situation you're already in. And you were in the military? And so you know this problem well? I know it very well, spent over eight years in the Marine Corps. Thank you for your service. My pleasure. And was that the whole thing? So for you, when you were in the Marine Corps, you probably dealt with this issue a bunch. And as soon as you got out, were you thinking like there's gotta be a better way to do this or what was kind of like the first seed into wanting to develop a product that would solve the problem? So the easy answer to that is there's tons of problems with the way the military and Marine Corps conducts business and that should take down to the lowest level. This is how we do it and that's how it's gonna be done. And Paracord is one of those things that everyone has to carry it, you know? Your squad leader tells you, your team leader tells you everyone has to have it, but there's no good way to use it. So when you get told, hey, get your cord out and you're pulling it out and trying to untangle it, it's just like, it's gotta, this sucks. It's gotta be a better way. And time is everything until you're, I mean, it could be life or death depending on the situation. And then when did you guys think about launching this company? I'll jump in on that one. So one, one, one, one faithful day Adams calls me up and he says, hey man, I've been thinking a lot and I, I got a great idea. I was like, oh, nice, what are you guys going on? He goes, well, he goes, I took a, I took an old toilet paper roll. You're like, okay, see you later. So it gets better. I took an old toilet paper roll. He goes, I, I wrapped the thing in duct tape and I stuffed some coordinate and poked the, poked a little hole in it. So the cord comes out. I was like, brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. That was like your first prototype. That was, that was the first prototype. He told me why he did it. He just, that was kind of like the, yeah, exactly. It was first prototype. Yeah. And he said, hey, what do you think? After he gave me the pitch about how the military has this problem with paracord and there should be a simple solution. So let's kind of develop that simple solution. I said, oh yeah, I'm on board. So his first question was, do you think we can patent this thing? And I mean, as of now, we actually have two fully issued patents on it. Well, the answer was, hey, can we patent that thing? And the answer was absolutely not. Right. Yeah. So the, I mean, the first, the first president where I went through the fun lumps and bumps is like we, we go through the first provisional patent, but before you do like a patent search and stuff like that. And it was the first thing I did. And it turns out there's things out there like a floss container. Floss containers basically the exact same thing as what we had originally thought the idea would be. Got it. And so if you write a patent, all your claims in your patent are going to hit that floss container and probably not get through. So we sat back down on the drawing board and kind of came up with something similar to what you're looking at now. And for your business, I remember we talked about this a little bit a long time ago, the patent is super important, right? Because if you want to get a military contract, the patent is effectively the only way to do it. Absolutely. Is that right? Yeah, getting a military contract, few scary things, but yeah, you want to have a patent. And the second thing is you want to have a working prototype. If you don't have those two things, they can actually take the product, say that's a great idea and contract out to the lowest bidder. Yeah, so that's like an entrepreneur. Sweet, thanks for the idea, we'll take that. As an entrepreneur, though, patenting can be something that takes a long time, can be expensive, slows down any company. Yes. But for you guys, it was like a necessary evil. And so what was like the first step in even getting a patent? You developed the prototype. Yeah, so we developed the first prototype, then we actually kind of... We rose more like our own kind of like focus groups with each other, like, hey, what else can it do? Because not only do you say, yeah, we need to get a patent and protect this idea, but once that patent's in, there's no adjust in it. So we really had to stare at the toilet paper roll for a long time. That sounds good. That sounds good. What else are we going to put on it? What else can it do? And then you run the risk of over-engineering and getting way off into the weeds and we wanted to keep it a simple, simple product. The good thing about us is we had a little bit of help. I worked for a company at the time who had done a lot of patent work, so I had a good understanding of the whole patenting process. In the engine world? Okay, got it. And then the other good thing about us is that my uncle happened to be a patent attorney. Oh, perfect. So that, I mean, that actually worked out really well. Yeah. Kept costs low, gave you a face. Very low. That's great. Gave me the old uncle nephew discount, which was nice, but it's still very expensive. For the first year. For the first, yeah. For the first year, yeah, that's it. After that. But then when we pushed up, we ended up getting the second patent. So as you're filing the first patent, what are you guys working on? Are you working on actually building the product, getting some deeper iterations of it? Yeah. So before we finished filing the first patent, we wanted to make sure that, well, while I was going through the patent office, we wanted to make sure that we could come up with a design that made sense and that we didn't let anybody know about as funny as that sound. Because once it becomes known, it becomes unpatentable. Sure. So we kind of tried to keep it as hush-hush as best we possibly could, but we started to run it through some tests. Any type of prototyping we could do. Remember we did prototyping at my house? Was the first? Yeah. Was the first actual prototype? That was... We started with the toilet paper rolls and we tried... That's so funny. We tried dipping toilet paper rolls into like plastic dip. We ended up trying the 3D print eventually, but before we even got there, actually... Wasn't strong enough, right? That resin is pretty thin. No, it was way too soft and if we were going to incorporate a blade into it, soft wasn't the way to go. We were at Fiola's house shortly after you had moved in. Yeah, this is good. Got a lot of nice new stuff around and we tried melting our own plastic on a stove. We ruined his wife's pots. We didn't... We're pulling... We bought like melt... It was like a melt your own plastic kit, so we bought it and we're trying to melt it on the stove and burning the hell out of ourselves and pulling a hot mountain of plastic and dripping all over it. Yep. It was awful. And at what point are you guys like, all right, then maybe this is stupid. Yeah. A lot. Right, yeah. So what we ended up doing was we said, okay, we definitely did help building prototypes and find the expert. So we ended up going through... We got into a program called Valley Venture Mentors here in Valley. Yeah, yeah. And just based on a concept, on an idea, on a AK toilet paper roll. And do they give you any money? Do they just give you guidance? What's the premise of being accepted into the program? So they just give us guidance is really what it is. But the best thing for us that came out of that program was the connections we made. We made... Networking on steroids is... I mean, if you can understand the concept, and we had this talk when we first started that, no matter what, we would always take the meeting. Yeah. No matter if it seemed dumb or it seemed like it couldn't get... Always... Take the meeting. Sit down and hear what people have to say. And yeah, maybe 80% of the people that we met through that couldn't bring any value to what we were trying to do. They had value, but just not for what we were trying to do. Yeah. But the 10, the eight to 10% of the people that we met through that program were vital in teaching us what we needed to know. That's great. Yeah. So anyway, so through that program, we ended up talking to a gentleman who said, hey, come pitch for this other manufacturing seminar we got going on and we went and did that. Okay. And through that, there was a gentleman there who said, hey, I think I can hook you guys up with a grant through Massachusetts to actually build a prototype. Wow. At this company called CCAT. Which we ended up getting the grant and then we actually... How much was the grant for? It was... It was $10,000 worth of, I don't know if it was just equipment or labor. But I mean, they're 3D printers and they have a 3D printer that are the size of a garage, you know? Yeah. Like the technology they have there and the printer that we were making our parts on us. It was ridiculous. Sure. Yeah. So that's great. And it helped through the director over there was a form of Vietnam Marine infantryman. So that helped us. You had a brotherhood with him. Yeah. Yeah, there's a kinship there for sure. Yeah, an appreciation. So that's how we got to the first now testable part where we could actually kind of run it through the ringer and see if people like it. And the patent's still moving forward. You're waiting on that. Yep. Okay. First patent doesn't get issued to 2018. Okay. When did you submit it? It was over. I think when we started, I asked the same question. I was like, how long does this shit can take? I think the pamphlet I saw was like 12 to 18 months. That shit was like over two and a half years before we got our first one. Wow. Yeah. It's incredible. But the same time. Are you guys going crazy during this time mentally or are you like, what the fuck? I figured it was gonna get issued. I mean, I was real confident, but we had so many other things going on. It was like, I'm glad we did that at the beginning. Right. So put that on someone else's plate and now we can focus on other things until someone else is gonna done that. Yeah. It took a long time for that first one to come back. I think the toughest thing from me on that was when it was just the fact that we were, we were building this product, but we're trying to keep it hush-hush. So we weren't out there trying to acquire funding. We weren't out there really pounding the pavement with it. We were trying to do everything kind of below the radar while we see if this patent can get issued. And the fact that it was taking so long, that's what was killing me. Yeah. Yeah. The momentum is so important for that company and when you can't do anything about it, like that would drive me crazy. That's something that drives me crazy. In real estate development, it's really slow. Some projects can take a year or two years and it fucking drives me crazy. Cause coming from tech, you just wanna, it's always like move fast and break things, right? And so you get used to this mode of just like trying, unfailing, trying and failing, but at least you're doing something. And so it's like, you have to learn some patience, which I for sure did not have still struggling with, but I heard that. Plus, Adams thought it was gonna take like, he's like, oh, he's like, this is gonna take two tries of prototyping. We're gonna figure this out on the first try. And if we're not, it's gonna be 99% of the way there. I was like, I know exactly what this product needs to do, what it needs to look like. And then we'd come back with a 3D print and I'd be like, well, but then, so we ended up, once we got the grant and we were working with the prototypes there, we got to at least where I thought looking at the part was 90% there, like some small changes maybe. We get invited to a program, I won't say the exact name of the program, but it offered nothing to us. We were sitting in the auditorium. He wasn't a fan. He wasn't a fan of the program. What the hell are we doing here, you know what I mean? Okay, take the meeting. Just take the meeting. What happened to that one? Well, that's why I said we're gonna take the meeting. Once I got there, I was like, oh man, this is dumb. But Fio ends up not paying attention to what's going on in front of him and chatting with the gentleman next to him who ends up putting Fio in contact with him because Fio helped him out with some of his patent stuff, gave him some good advice. So he hooked us up with this guy who turns out was the lead manufacturer for a piece of military equipment that I had owned for years, it's a fantastic piece of gear. And this guy that was this guy's engineer that sat next to Fio at this bullshit meeting was the lead designer. They're all throughout the military. So he puts us in contact with him. Incredible, incredible contact. Go out to meet it. Serendipity's hit. Find out this guy actually is making or developing the new Rucksack frames for all Army and Marine Corps. He builds holsters for specialized military units. He's the guy. He's the guy. He's the guy we've been looking for. The guy. And then we said, he's already got it. I explained it to him. I showed him the prototype and he's like, ooh, we got a lot of work to do. I thought we were 90 and he knocked me back to like 40% there. And then he went back to the drawing board with him and started using his expertise to actually make it up military spec. That's incredible. All because we went to the meeting. So it was good. It worked out. It did, it was funny. Did you leave the program once you met this guy? Oh, we left the program before I finished that day. I guess at that point, that's so what. We always tell people Serendipity is such a part of entrepreneurship. And it's like, you just, kind of to your point, right? You just have to take the meeting, take the call. You have to try. You never know who's uncle's brother's cousin can be passionate about your product. Absolutely. And that changes your whole, the whole course. So then you got involved with him and then he's given you guidance on the thickness of plastics. Like it's a much more different conversation I can imagine. Like there's specs on plastic. Smaller draft angles and, you know, everything from, you can see on that unit there, the amount of blade exposure that we had no idea about. That the military won't touch if it's a... When you say blade exposure, what do you mean? So the way that this, this bump here, obviously put your cord into there to cut it, it keeps other stuff from getting in there and being pulled onto the blade. Whether you're stuffing this down into a pouch. It doesn't get trapped. You're getting it reaching in with your hand. You're not going to cut yourself the blade on that. You can stick your thumb in there. We have an inferior product for people listening. Next to us, it's their competition. Oh, like right here. Yeah. So that could never be put in a rock sack, go back, things of that nature. Got it. It's tough to carry if you don't know where it is. But he's the one advising you. He's like very familiar with this. Took the basics of our design and then went back to the computer and almost started from scratch. And then delivered us what you see here now which is the manufactured product. Yeah. Prototyping flue. Once you made that. It went fast. Oh yeah. Because he knew exactly what to look for. He knew exactly what to look for. He knew exactly what plastic to build out of. He knew exactly how to structure the product so that it would fit in every aspect that we were asking for. And was he getting you guidance on like this is how the military buys also? So he knows, does he know to that extent where he's like, if you do these certain things. No really, he's more just the designer. Okay. From what we understand, they contact him and are like, these holsters suck, make a new one. He doesn't sell it. He doesn't get rich off of it. Got it. Mastermind. He's the go-to guy. He's the engineer. It was incredible. And then we'd send the, we'd still have some, by that point our grant with Seacat for prototyping had went out because, well, me and Adam for prototyping and that was painful. Running through units. Running through money, running through units. Or running through the grant money. So we ended up funding the last amount of it. And actually Adam's just the fact that him and the gentleman from Seacat had such a great relationship really helped us out in terms of cost. To get these final ones done. But it flew at the end. So then what happened? So once you meet him, well, first of all, are you spending a lot of money to work with him or is it reasonable? I would call it more reasonable than big money. I think he was, in terms of dollars spent, he was well worth the money. And I actually, I would pay more for him. Right. Yeah. He's clearly helping me out in a super meaningful way. Yeah. And then did he help everything? So he basically built this? To this point, to the finished product. Absolutely. And now it's time to buy a thousand of these? Is that mass produced? Much more. Okay. Much, much more. So now it's time. So now we just have a CAD design. Right. Now we have to do the whole... Which is super important. A lot of people don't realize that. You gotta have the CAD design. The specs are to the millimeter, I imagine, maybe more. Yeah, macro millimeter or whatever it was. But that way you can give it to any company and they can just make them for you quickly. They make the injection mold. So then we started looking at, there's new ways out there now of, you can actually make injection molds out of plastic that can yield 20 units. Okay. And those are very cheap. Well, not very cheap, but they're cheaper. You can make molds out of aluminum that may last you or you'll do 100, a couple hundred units. Interesting. All the way up to different levels of steel that gets you 500,000 units plus before you'll start to see any difference in the part. That's fascinating. It is. I would have never guessed that. So then you guys, what'd you go with? Oh, we sat down and he looks at me and goes, go big or go home. I go, all right. You might as well, right? Might as well. That big. So there's actually a thing that, again, we didn't know about called a mud mold. So if you picture a brick wall as your injection mold cavity that makes the part. You lost me already, but. They make a thing called a mud mold, which is one brick. Okay. And that brick can turn out parts as well. So that's actually what we ended up buying was a mud mold, which is a clip in for an injection mold. Got it. But it's still made out of the highest quality steel. Is it heavy? Like legit steel? It's like a. Oh yeah. Probably couldn't pick it up with one hand. Oh no, no, no. No, no, no, you couldn't. I'm literally thinking it's probably like 180 pounds, just one half. Jesus. We have two of them. So. So in my head, let me just make sure I get this. Is it one mold or is it like a baking sheet of a hundred molds? It's one. It's a single. It's a single. It's called a single cavity mold. Okay. Do they do the other version? Oh yeah. Like the muffin version, the six muffin version. The six muffin version is a family mold. Okay. That's what they call it? That's what they call it. This is so fascinating. That's so cool. And you guys knew none of this before, obviously. So you're like. No, I don't. Not again. Not again. We want the Costco mold. Oh yeah. Big learning curve. Best part about this. So you went big. We went big. Which is great. Which is great because, you know, if you're gonna bet on something. And you wouldn't change much anyway, right? I imagine. No, absolutely not. I don't think so. Eventually down the road. I mean, if we run into the problem where this mold gets beat down and starts turning on bad parts, what a wonderful problem to have. Right. Because we've solved a shitload of this. You have a happy problem. What's your relationship like at this point in terms of getting along? Are you agreeing on everything? Oh, we hated each other. But the good thing was we hated each other going into it. So. I don't think we. Is a husband and wife like? What's the? I don't think we've ever, we've definitely disagreed. But I think we've ever really let it get more than a, all right, well, we don't agree. Yeah. And we said at the beginning that if, at any point, no matter what it was about, if both of us weren't on board with it, then it wasn't happening. Okay. That's really important. Yeah. And I mean, there's been plenty of times that I've wanted to make moves on something and he wasn't about it. And the majority of the time that saved us some money. Some of the time I was right. But no, I just, I just think that we've always, You have that respect for each other. Like any good partnership. Absolutely. That's hard, man. That's rare. That's a hard part. I feel like we compliment each other really well. Like thought process at Adams is, you know, thought process in our relationship is that when I get asked a question I don't know, then you're expected to know that. No, yeah. That's the, that's the. I just get the pass. Right. Fio, Fio now is talk to our CFO. Yeah. But yeah, we're good. He's the, he's the hard charger. I'm the one who sits back and thinks too much about it. So we meet in the middle and it's, it's a good partnership. Yeah. So how many, when you first put in like the bulk order, how many units did you guys have to order? Or did you decide to order? We, we did, you, go ahead and you take it. You did some negotiating with our manufacturer. Originally we thought it was going to be tens of thousands. And we're like, holy shit, how are we going to pay for this? Right. That's big money. Got it down to six. Six thousand. Six thousand. Okay. And didn't have to. How'd you do that? We're going to, we're going to blow the fuck up. You have no idea. You're insuring future revenues here. Yeah. You got to sell them on the story, which is exactly. I think our story is, is unique enough and real enough that that's what people see the allure of this product. Yeah. If you get a military contract, it's gangbusters. Exactly. Yeah. And I think they, they see that and they're willing to take a bit more of a gamble. The other thing is that I know that, you know, they're trying to start a bit of a little, a little bit more of an outreach to get new companies in. Yeah. Which is, which is nice. We kind of walked in perfect time. Yeah. And, you know, they're used to dealing with the big guys. So we just had to taper their understanding that we're not the big guys yet, but there is this potential. So work with us. That's smart of them. Cause I'm sure they're running 100% capacity anyway. And so you guys offer them an ability to just do a quick side, side project. Let's call it, but then they grow their, their book of business. Side project in a like 1.8 million square foot. Yeah. Facility. Their facilities. Amazing. When we walked in there, it's actually, it's actually local over in the East Long Meadow, the Carter Monday facility. Okay. But when we walked in there to watch our mold be shot, we're walking by Candyland that's being shot on seven different machines that are as big as the house. You know? They do all the Hasbro stuff. And the Hasbro stuff. Or the Milton Bradley. So it's that. Yeah. I've driven by that facility. Got it. You know, walking forever through this massive, massive warehouse floor. And then we get to our machines, but now, quick closing was the coolest thing. Oh yeah. It's amazing. It's definitely a little side project for them. But it's our, it's our little corner in this massive, massive room. That's still, for now. For now. For now. Yeah. Candyland. Yeah, it's right. It plays that shit anyway. That's right. We don't. And just in case you wondered, the mold itself that we ended up buying is, I think, warranty for 500,000 quick chords. Okay. So we should. So you're good. So we're good. We're good to start. Yeah. When you guys, did you guys split the money up front? Did you guys raise the money in terms of, for the first investment of the 6,000 units? We went debt finance on that. Okay. So you go to the bank? So we went to the bank. Adams grabbed. Like an SBA loan? Or what did you guys, what did you guys do? So we actually did a simple line of credit. Okay. Really what happened is Adams grabbed the guy, I pulled him over the table. They were happy to give us money, you know, and. Do you know what I did for you? Yeah. You know how many tours I served? Are you sure? Exactly. So no, this is good. Simple line of credit. We did have a little strategy going in where we said, Hey, look, here's the plan. Let's debt finance this. So no equity and, and let's. Smart. You're keeping your company. Yep. Exactly. You thought this through. Yeah. Let's set up a successful Kickstarter and let's run it. And we're going to bank on the fact that we're going to have a successful Kickstarter in order to pay down that line of credit. And so far. And so far. Yeah. So when you guys decided to do the Kickstarter and how did you decide on the amount? Was it basically a line of credit or were you like, let's give ourselves some padding. What do we, what do we think we can raise? How did you. We found out that, and I've never messed around on Kickstarter. I'm not one of those guys. I've never. Nobody's one of, nobody. Nobody's one of those guys until you end up being one of those guys. Yeah. Yeah. So I just thought of like, when I, if I were to go on Kickstarter and see that a company's, you know, trying to raise, you know, 1.5 million. And I see that their campaigns at 27,000. I'm not buying anything from them. You know. It's a perception thing. It's the absolute psychological perception. How fascinating. So the perception. We ended up downing our ask all the way down to a, well, well under what we needed on that factor. And it was wildly successful. And it worked out. So what did you guys decide on? How much was the amount? We asked for 8,000. Yep. Okay. And we got just under two days left in the campaign. We're over 350% funded. What does that mean? 27%. Okay. That's great. Yeah. So congratulations. Oh, thank you. What do you think the secret is? So Kickstarter obviously helps you a little bit. They give you some guidance. But at the end of the day, I was just putting it out there to social media. Did you guys get picked up on any news outlets or anybody that, any military groups that picked it up and sort of ran it through their networks? Actually, we did get picked up, but we got picked up by American military news who ran an article on us. And actually. Did you reach out to them or was it a complete accident? We had actually reached out to them a while back. Okay. And when I say while back, it was when we were developing our prototype. We got our first patent issued. We were kind of feeling, I got you. Yeah. Feeling good. Exactly. They actually ended up running a quick just article as to, hey, expect something coming soon. Okay. A while back. And so we basically reached out to them again and said, hey, look, we're launching the Kickstarter. And they were more than happy to, to run a great piece on Matt and the product. That's great. Which was awesome. Yeah. And what was their distribution in terms of like, are they focused in, where in the United States? Everywhere? Is it like, did you see people making contributions from? Oh, California, Texas. All over the U.S. from that one. That's awesome. But that was really, I think, the only like media. Another small article popped up. Yep. On a website called Soldier Systems. Just a real quick bit that we could actually track some, some pledges coming in from that to the Kickstarter. But I think the main, main main thing was, and not by no means are we professionals at it, but understanding the power of social media. I love how you say that about everything. Yeah, we don't understand shit. But the power of social media to, to actually go in there and put a picture up and you know, on the palm of your hand on your phone, single out who you, who's face you want to shove it in. Yeah. It's insane. And the amount of Nat's ass detail that you can get down to is absolutely crazy. That's what we did. That's a technical term. Nat's ass? Nat's ass. Well, since you beat your goal by so much, were you like, we should have set the goal bigger? Where does your mind go? No, I think for me, our mind goes as to how we could have run the campaign better. Some nuances that. How would you do that? So for instance, I think that some of the pledges, cause the way the Kickstarter works is you come in and you pledge money, but you don't actually get charged it unless the campaign is quote unquote successful. Unless it wins, right? You gotta hit your total. Gotta hit your total. Right. Way too many at a massive price break. So there was no rush allure to, I gotta get this quick. Oh, there's no scarcity. You guys didn't have like, first win 100 people get, and then everyone else gets nothing. Yeah. So we did not create that incentive to buy. Okay. And to buy quick. And I would have rejiggered our pledges to make sure that we could actually have created some incentive throughout the life of the campaign. Did you make a decision based on some of the advice you got from Kickstarter or was it just? There really wasn't too much that we were going on. And there was no similar products. Right. It was Mr. Numbers over here looking at our margins. And. That's my legal name. I love that. Yeah, it was him looking at the margins and kind of what we could afford and how we could, you know, if you tell someone that, you know, the product's $14. It does a lot more when you say the product's 50% off. Right. If the 50% off is 14 bucks. Totally. So. The bigger number always wins. Right. Yeah. Right. So we did that, but the banks that we were creating were way, way too big. Yeah. So in other words, we said, hey, look, you get, you know, 50% off, but it's 50% off of the first 500 units, as opposed to 50% off of the first 100 units. Right. Because we, we went gangbusters in the beginning and sold like 250 to 300 of those original units in a couple of days. Yeah. And right then and there, we realized, oh. We messed up. We, yeah. And once you put those pledges in the Kickstarter and the campaign goes, they're locked. Yeah. Can't adjust them. Right. Rightfully so. It'd be pretty shady if you could go in there and change the show. Yeah. I was like yesterday there was 490 and there's only two. Yeah. But it's so funny too, because we would, you know, you can crunch different numbers into it and make it a different scenario every single time. But we ended up coming up and we originally had the right number. We originally had said, let's do 100 at a 50% price break. But then, you know, after waiting and waiting and waiting, as we're starting to put together the Kickstarter, we ended up getting it up to close to, you know, whatever ended up being through to 400 units at that price break or is it was 250, whatever it was? 250 and 500. Okay, it was 250 at that price break. We talked about doing 500 and 1,000. So good. Oh my gosh, yeah. So we were... That came up a conversation. We were like, that'd be a little bit different. I'm so glad we didn't do that. Yeah, me too. And are you guys shipping them out yourselves? We are going to fulfill them ourselves, at least for the Kickstarter. Yeah. Yeah, so they're going to be assembled at this place called Sunshine Village. And then they're going to either ship or we're still working on the logistics either out of Sunshine Village or they're going to come through a separate location and we'll handle the shipping. Got it. That's all in the process as we build out that supply chain. When you were thinking about the platform to go on, did you pick Kickstarter because it's no equity? Basically, you've retained the whole equity. Like you could have chose a WeFund or something like that. Did you choose Kickstarter just because you don't have to give away equity? Was that... Did you think about that? Yes, we did. It was either them or Indiegogo. Yeah, and the same business models for both, yeah. Actually, we're probably going to be, because we have enough time between when the manufacturing run is happening and when our Kickstarter and we're probably going to be running a campaign on Indiegogo like day after Kickstarter ends. Really? And just keep riding away. Yeah. That's great. How much will you set your minimum there? That's a good question. That is a good question. I would do 50. That's not a... Yeah. So we're working through those numbers right now as to the smartest play as we transfer from Kickstarter to Indiegogo. We don't have anything solid yet, but we're definitely shooting to lower quantities, higher values and, well, I mean, less of a price break on the product. Sure. And then as you're thinking about, so from the Kickstarter, I imagine you got a lot of attention, people coming to your website, and then we sort of talked about this earlier, people from overseas reaching out, saying they want to distribute for you guys. What's that whole process been like? Because what's interesting to me, in terms of your businesses, you clearly have a goal from day zero where it's if you get a military contract, it's you win and it's massive, right? Right. But in the process, the Kickstarter and even getting overseas is a beat-a-seek play, right? The business to consumer, you're trying to get these in the hands of anyone who just wants them. In terms of time, how does one pursue a military contract while pursuing the consumer, just your everyday consumer? That is a great question. That is a great question. Because initially that was the only thing we were focused on and there was nothing in the middle. It was, so are the paper roll? It's self in the military. Right. And there was nothing in between. Which is almost nice. I mean, it's nice. It's nice when it's that linear. Because you know, it's the way I think about entrepreneurship. It's like, you have to plant your flag and that's it. And the companies that get in trouble try to plant 40 different flags. They're like, we're gonna be blue and green and red and like serve children and parents and adults. And then it's just like a complete mess. Yep. Fio ended up actually bringing this up but the barriers to entry are so high to get into the note. There's so much red tape you have to negotiate. Yeah. And we used Camelback as a great example. When I joined the Marine Corps, not that it was that long ago, but it kind of actually was now. But we still wore pistol belts with a canteen on each kidney. Really? Yeah. Okay. That's how we did it in boot camp. Those are heavy. Those aren't. They're heavy. You try running and then it's just like someone punching in the kidneys over and over and over again. They're awful. Not to mention that when you get issued them, how many other dudes have owned this canteen? You know, they just turned it back in and then like this is awful. So, and then Camelback comes out. But Camelback didn't decide to make a bladder fill it with water and sell it to the military. They started going after the outdoorsmen, mostly cyclists. And their model was to just get it out there and get it in people's hands so that people start saying, this is a way better mousetrap. And that's exactly what happened with the military was they eventually would like. Gets you on the radar. Yeah. Yeah. So. That makes sense. That's actually pretty linear too. With us having the tunnel vision of sell the military, sell the military, we were completely overlooking the fact that the outdoorsmen community, the hikers, the hunters, the campers, boaters, fishermen, everyone uses paracord. Everybody does. And we weren't even focusing on that whatsoever. So if we can get that into those communities and drum up enough buzz around us, it's only a matter of time. That coupled with the fact that one of the main points of our campaign on Kickstarter was the more money we raise, the more we're going to donate to active duty military. So we're up to like 800 units that we're giving away for free. That's great. And we're going to throw them in my truck, we're going to drive down in Camp Blue Zoo, North Carolina. I'm going to call out my Marine buddies. I'm going to get on the base. We're going to have cameras. I'm going to make a big deal out of it. We're going to give out beer. And I'm just going to start. I'll be like, uh, like rock. I can see with the megaphone and stand on top of the truck, throwing them out to everyone, crowd going nuts and everything. It's like riots and it'll be great. It's great to answer that question of, you know, kind of getting the product into the military is this is one of those products that is, you know, nobody in the supply chain is going to kind of stick their neck out and say, Hey, you know, I'm going to buy 100,000 of these for the boys and see if it works out. So our thought process has been from the beginning, piggybacking off that camel pack is that get the boys to ask for it. Let's get the people in the military to ask the people in the supply chain to go out and get this. And when that happens, then we'll get our order. The inception campaign. The inception campaign is exactly how we plan to do it. So that's really smart. So when I think about what you just said, like the whole story around like, you know, camel, camel pack, you have a clear example. And so that story resonates in my mind with investors. It has to resonate. And so are you guys thinking, let's go raise some real money and sort of blow this out of the water? Are you thinking, let's just continue to do it to bootstrap little by little. And the way I look at money is it can accelerate a lot of things. And so you can, the way I think about it is you're going to get that military contract 10 years from now, or you can get a lot of funding and get it in two years. That's how I think about things. Are you guys, what do you guys think? Now that you're clearly seeing signals from the market, right? Right. The kicks are worked. Things are working. You're about to go do this amazing giveaway. That's going to create a lot of buzz, a lot of hype. I think in the interim, because essentially what's your government continent? It's the biggest wholesale order you're ever going to get. Yeah. A lot of cash needed. Huge. Right. But what is, you know, we never thought that this was going to be, you know, a successful company selling it retail on our Shopify website. The in-betweens was the other avenues for wholesale. There's literally a million and one gear tactical websites and stores out there. Okay. The subscription box companies, low customer acquisition costs. You attract the company, they pump out the new cool products to the end consumer. Yeah. So I think the initial short-term goal is to get rid of our 6,000 unit minimum order quantity as fast as possible. And the way we do that is on smaller wholesale orders. And then hopefully down the road, like you were asking about earlier, we get one of those family molds that one shot produces 50 parts, 100 parts. Yeah. Is there any desire to make other products? I'll circle back around to the original. Sure. Part of the question was like talking about do we want to bring on investors? Do we think it's a good idea? Yeah. Should we? Do we feel like it's the right time? The short answer is we're weighing the options. It's something that's constantly in the back of our head and we're trying to make sure that whatever we do makes the most sense at the right time, but we really love owning our company and we've already bet once on ourselves in terms of debt financing. And I think we're pretty confident in our capabilities after this run through that debt financing might be the way to go. And whenever we've talked about pulling on any type of equity player, we've always talked about pulling on a strategic equity player. Totally. Understanding that money is money. Right. But we've gotten actually a bunch of interest from people looking to pump money into us, which is nice, but we've always talked about the fact that it needs to be someone who brings more than just money to the table. Yeah. So... They can get you on QDC. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That'd be pretty cool. So that's how we think about it. Yeah. It's great that we're actually contemplating it now. Yeah, it's a happy problem. It's pretty cool. It's fun. And we're contemplating it now more than ever. It's cool because you can see it. So it's so clear in my head, right? A lot of companies that we have on the podcast, it's kind of like we love where you're at now. Things are obviously going well, but in order for you to scale, you have to do monumentally different things or more things. And then what those things are become huge variables that you don't know, they have to make the decision. With you guys, it's really clear actually. It's pretty straightforward. And that's like the simplicity to that is really nice. That's what I mean. One of the things about the project that was so alluring to everyone else too is that I am the target, the target market. Right. And I know exactly who it is, who else it is. You're solving your problem. Right, like I don't know. We don't have to go out and do any market study. I know. I know who they are. We do. We do it though. But yes, to his point, he's been a hundred percent on all of the outcomes of any studies we've done, so it's good. What's next for you guys? So the other question was like new line. Sorry, yes. Different products, anything in that? What we would, as I alluded to earlier, is that there's so many inefficiencies in the military. And as when I was a young private first class, Lance Corporal, I'd stand 18, 19 hours of post straight and get to know everything about the guy I'm standing next to five times over. And then you just start complaining about how much things suck and what do you think differently. And then you do that for seven months straight. Or maybe for some people, four years, you know, they're holding this one. But some of the greatest ideas that make things so much more efficient and better come from 18, 19, 20 year old kids from the backwoods of America. They have these phenomenal ideas in order to help a situation, but they have no clue how to bring it to light. Just like we didn't. So the value in our company, as an entrepreneur and always being ready to pivot, may not be that QuickCourt is a rock star of a product and an absolute hit. The value might be that we figured out how to take a bar napkin idea and put it through the pipeline and bring it to the military. And if we can do that, we can make one video and put it out on social media and I'll have a hundred more about this thing on the door and say, I got a great idea. Yeah, you can even start your own like incubator for military people. Literally. Right, you have the network now in some way for some of the things. Yeah, it's funny how many, how big of a network we actually have now, kind of because of the fact that we've probably made, you know, 400 billion mistakes. Yeah. Yeah, the mistakes are everything. I mean, the success teaches you nothing. Absolutely. But it's hard to swallow, right? It's like, God, did we really do that? Yeah. When you guys think about, so we're entering the new decade, 2030 is on the horizon, do you guys go into this place in your mind of like, all right, what is, you know, who is Maddie, who is Fio in 2030? And what does that mean to your business? Like where do you see QuickCord, I guess? I mean, not from a business perspective, but just when you think 10 years from now, what's QuickCord at? Is it a household name? Does every military personnel have it? Yeah, I absolutely hope so. It's not just that it keeps, you know, your cord untangled, it just, it gives you an ability that you didn't have before. You know, so often, and Marines thrive on it, but the cards are always stacked against us. It's nice to just have them tip a little bit more in your favor, and that's what the product does. And it's a powerful statement. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely want guys going to barracks getting issued a QuickCord. Yeah, 100%. It's a great product, super light. I love it. It's beautiful. Thank you. High quality. I'm a fan. I'm a big fan. Where can people find you for people listening? Where can they find you on Facebook, Instagram? Yeah, we got a website, QuickCord.com. We're on Facebook. QuickCord with the K? Yeah, QUIK. Remember that, remember that. QUIK, definitely. We've actually probably missed a shitload of emails and meetings because of the way we decided to spell our company name. Yep. Do you regret that? So the company, it's funny, right? When we came up with the company name, part of the, we looked at getting the just domain name and QuickCord.com at that time was like going for, what, like $2,000 or something like that? $1,000, something like that? You talking about the asshole that tried to Oh, no, that came after. But we really, yeah, that's good. That's another shit show story. But yeah, we looked at it, we had no money at the time. We were like, we're not gonna spend that much money. Right. Oh, let's quote unquote be clever and spell it QUIK. Because it's quicker. I kind of like it. You dropped the C because it's quicker. It would also be weird because then you'd have a C, K and then a C again. Right. That's the thing, yeah, that's right. And it fits. I don't know. I'm a fan, I'm a fan. I really like it too. Yeah. The website thing was funny though. We started, we tried to buy the domain name and we were very young at that point. Right. And we made a YouTube video, I think. Explaining the product. With the toilet paper roll. I don't know. Which we took down by the way. We ended up taking it down. But his brothers looked at it and were like, you guys are idiots, get that shit off the internet now. But someone found it. Realized the allure of the product, saw that it worked, saw that it was cool, tried to probably find out more information and saw that the way we spelled it, QUIK. No one owned the domain name. And we had already looked at it about buying it and we thought that whatever the price was was too expensive for us. So this asshole goes and buys QUIK.com. And we're having a meeting in my basement. Maybe getting a little tuned up and saucy. And we go back on to try to look at the domain name again and this dude actually emails me while we're, me and him are sitting in my basement and tries to sell the domain name to us for 10 grand. Wow. I was livid. I was livid. So we ended up putting that on the back burner and then he, it went another long time. Like maybe a year and it expired and he let it lapse. We got a notification that he let it lapse and we bought it for eight bucks. That's great. But yeah, it was pretty funny. That was great. It was heated. Oh yeah. Smart. Ooh, it says, don't take it. What a troll. It's shocking that people do that. Oh, absolutely. I'm sure it makes a business out of it. I never understood that. No value, you're just being a dick. We had just incorporated, like we went through the process by starting the business. And we had just incorporated it and that's when he picked it up. That's right. That's right. And we like, so we incorporated, we incorporated it like that night. We went down there to, you know, start to tighten up stuff. Yeah. Tighten everything up. Okay. And we're like, all right, let's pick this. I'm gonna tell this to you. Fuck you all. I'm paying you shit. I was like, that's it. Change the company name. We're going somewhere else. Fuck this guy. That's awesome. Your family's been like through this process. Has it been difficult? Is it people like, what the fuck are you doing with this hobby? And then at the beginning, right? I mean, people are like, what are you doing? There's a bunch of things. Say it was at the beginning. I was like, oh, why are you guys doing this? You really think you're gonna get it? And some of them are your friends, right? Yeah. Hell yeah. It's weird, right? But at least my family, my girlfriend, I mean, I got two kids, my girlfriend somehow I'm always getting into other stuff too. They've just been super, super supportive. I work, my full-time gig is a paramedic. So I work two 24s a week. I have a lot of other free time to do. Totally. Things for the company, things with my family. This guy works crazy hours Monday through Friday. Still finds time to do everything that he needs to do. He steals time away from his job. He's, you know, this is the guy making business calls in the bathroom, you know, with the door lock. You're not supposed to say that, you know, out loud. I don't know where you work. Just hit the media buzzer. You don't need to work there in the future. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel all the appreciation in the world. He, his wife has to be pissed off at me at the time because he gets home from a long day at work and I'm the first one blowing his phone up because I got 10 things that he needed to explain to me that I don't understand. I think both of our networks have been, our immediate family's been super, super supportive and they definitely needed it because it's definitely occupied every bit of free time that we've had. Yeah, my wife has been unbelievable through the process and my immediate family has been, yeah, just like Adam said, it's incredibly amount of support. That's great. It's so important. So I feel like on that question, I feel like we've gotten so much more, so much more overwhelming positive support and then the little negative ones that you see here and there pop up. It's been such a good experience. Support is like the only currency I need for anyone. Like it's the only thing that matters to me because it's so important, you know? Because what you're doing isn't easy. It's kind of crazy. You have your own moments where you're sleeping and you're like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Right? And so, but that's when the support matters the most. Thank you guys for being on the podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely, this is one. Let's end it with this. What tips would you give people that are like on the verge of trying to start something or kind of where you guys were a long time ago with the toilet paper roll and trying to take that next step? I guess my advice would be to find the balance that Theo and I have found in each other. Me being very, very aggressive could have wasted a lot of money for this company. But dragging your feet and being afraid to make decisions doesn't get you anywhere. And that's not just in business, that's in life, leadership, anything. So I would say find that balance of being out there, I'll go get her, don't be afraid to take risks, but don't be full of stuff. It's too big. It's a fine line to walk, right? Yeah, it is. But I'd say to piggyback on that, you know. Don't worry too much about the backup plan. You can spend too much time with the backup plan, but thinking about the fact that you need a backup plan. Yeah, don't do it. Put the energy somewhere else. Exactly, that's a good one. Take every meeting, don't focus too much on the backup plan. I love it. Thanks guys. Yeah, absolutely. This is good. We here at Start Up a Storefront would love to hear feedback from you. Reach out and let us know what you think, either through rating us on the podcast app or by sliding into our DMs. You can find us both on Facebook and Instagram at Start Up a Storefront. Our theme song is composed by DoubleTouch. If you want to learn more about the products and businesses featured on today's episode, check out the links in the show notes. And if you enjoyed the episode, consider subscribing, because we've got a lot more great guests coming up that you won't want to miss. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.