Lazyfox Remotes

all right welcome back to another episode of out on the road podcast i'm your host tom linker today's episode is brought to you by slickman welding apparel nate makes the best gloves on the market i wear the hoodie every day wear the slickman burners every day used to wear the 820 plus but the burners have become a new favorite also brought to you by tnm welding supply taos and mary they have they have a welder's paradise out there in big springs texas they'll send you whatever you need um call them up they'll get you whatever product you need hoods welding leads jack stands rollout wheels you name it they got it also brought to you by pearl snap pimp johnny makes all the welding apparel uh shirts you know with the with the stuff on the back with graphics on the back and stuff they're great shirts great quality shirts uh he's got the golf swag now he's got the new fr shirts today i am joined by mason and jose of lazy fox welding remotes so so i asked at the you know the first time we recorded why y'all went with or why y'all got started with building wireless remotes yeah so the whole thing with us getting started with this is uh we were working out of town and then we get up a new construction job and you know how they be on those new construction jobs are real they're real strict about the cell phones and stuff like that and we're 300 foot in the air and you know once you start getting up real real high the wired remotes and stuff like that's just another thing to pull up so i started looking into getting a wireless remote and they were 15 1200 bucks 1500 bucks 1200 bucks and uh i thought you know maybe i can build this myself so i did a little research and figured it out i got one working and then a couple people started asking hey you know you want to build me one and i was like me and him we started building them at his house after work and uh we started the whole company with about 600 bucks and then it just kind of took off from there we worked and worked at work and then after work we would go to his house build remotes and we could only do about four a week and then it started to where we started getting we started coming out with the new style remotes we got a 3d printer we started making stuff well it started it started it started with with uh it got too much so we were when we first started initially we didn't plan to start a company you know we we started just we started just making remotes for me and him and then people started liking them and they were like hey make me one and you know we started making them and selling them to them you know and then it just took off you know what i mean we were pricing them right for people and they were just they couldn't believe the prices we were selling them for you know when we first started now they weren't like this they they looked a little different but we we just got so much work uh load that we couldn't keep up anymore you know what i mean so we had to get an office and we had to expand and luckily we were able to get enough business to where we could quit working and you know now we're doing this full-time ain't been welding for a whole year now yeah uh i remember when they quit welding for his first year of not welding how excited he was yeah i remember when they quit welding for his first year of not welding how excited he was you know when it passed by and um like i'm big buddies well no i won't say big buddies i'm good friends with logan ryan i remember when he quit welding you know and tyler nansen you know when people move on to do something else the way y'all are you know or nate has or damn with their music it's crazy to be like you know i hadn't welded for a whole year if i didn't weld for a whole year i think even if the even if i just quit welding and went to podcasting it would be the i don't know if i could make it a year i just i think i would lose my mind it's a scary process man for especially for for us you know we we've been working our our whole lives you know um while we're on the while we're on the subject how many years of peace do y'all have in the trades you know so i've got about almost three years about two and a half years under my belt uh of just welding and then 14 years total in the trade so i was a pipe fitter before and uh i did that and i've been welding for a long time and i've been welding for a long time and then one day i was sitting up at the top of this reactor and and i'm watching the welders sleep and kick the bucket and you know he was a fitter for for for a lot of those you're a really good fitter too yeah and i was and i was just tired as hell beat myself up and uh i see these welders on the edge leaning over the edge of this reactor and i'm just like why am i not doing this like what what am i doing i'm working so hard to where i think i have the talent to do it so you know i went home after that borrowed a machine from this guy and then i spent two weeks in my backyard practice that's how we met so he was my fitter and that's how we met he fit for me for for quite a while i i've i've been in the trade since i was 18 i'm 39 now you know i was a helper for maybe six months and they they kicked me to to weld and you know i was had that spark and they they wanted me to weld and i did it and i i stuck to it man so yeah um y'all was more the plant hand side of welding you know i interview a lot of popliners i want you know not only do i want to bring on entrepreneurs that's left the world industry you know also i kind of i kind of put myself in in a corner you know when i called the podcast out on the road you know because you think about the right away popliners in general you know but it's my fucking show and i can do whatever i want to do so uh i'm gonna try to branch out get more you know get more uh you know building trades kind of crap you know like i wouldn't mind having some you know you know some pop fitters that's been on for a long time you know i'm gonna try to like plant hand welders you know it's not there's a lot more to this industry i just i want to bring the light to the whole industry you know not just not just the right away which you know is my true passion has been on the right away but i want to i want to bring it as a whole lot you know to the industry you know the ins and outs and all that stuff uh so today let me look back at the notes this is and i may be reading this wrong but i want to look at it because it was crazy to me because i said i asked mason i said well how many kids do you got and he said five and he said jose had a student and i was blown away i was like maybe that's a typo you know no no couldn't pull out of a driveway yeah obviously obviously i see why you wanted to come home you know um y'all have a lot of y'all have a lot of experience combined experience in the trades you know as a whole you know like you talk about well we talked about before not in this this one we talked about before you know the i i was used to being around the true remotes and the miller remotes and i remember helpers having to stand up on the pipe and stuff kind of why i stayed away from for so long i wanted a wireless remote and you know i don't mind spending the money if i think the tool was worth the job you know if it's going to do me a good job like like i used the snake belly remotes forever because they was cheap if something happened to it you know it's pretty good about um getting them replaced pretty fast i know bernardo and um and they am so i could get the remotes pretty quick towels carries snake belly remotes out in west texas so there's a quick turnaround and they've been solid remotes you know but i am so tired of watching helpers roll up to attention cords you know so snake belly carries our remote suit yeah so does uh bernardo at uh rod shield yeah yeah yeah yeah those guys they're good guys i just so happened well like i got it i was on bernardo's website right on rod shield looking at them and then i was like well i'm gonna go check out their whole web page because i was i'd seen y'all's stuff like your tiktok and stuff and i'd already messaged you about coming on the show or whatever and i was like well i'm gonna go look and then i got on the next thing i know i just bought one and got off then got off the internet and i was like well got one now i just it was a it was an impulse uh buy i guess you know but i didn't get to try it yet can't give a review on it yet maybe uh maybe i'll start my welding machine in march i don't yeah i don't attend no wellness cold you shouldn't have any other issue it shouldn't be any different than than uh you know the wired remotes as far as our analogs go because they're just a zero to 100 they're doing the same thing you're just not stringing out a cord so for a while there's true remote and miller were the only option you know but uh you know as a couple years ago you know these other companies including ourselves you know we came out with these universal remotes that they're versatile and they're they're affordable yeah they go they work lincoln ready art let me ask you all this i mean i did logo it myself can't really see because the green screen but put my out on the row on it oh yeah so that's one thing that we do here that i think it differs us from other companies right so so we do a lot of the custom stuff you know we do custom colors we do name plates and we also do logos so mason here he takes care of all the he does all his cat work and he actually does some pretty uh you know complicated designs you know and they look really good you know if you look at uh rod chilled and snake belly you know we make uh face plates for them you know specifically for them and and that's something you won't see other companies you know do you know that's one thing we offer so yeah absolutely that that logo you got there we can do it i know y'all could do it but i was scared i didn't know how long i was going to be in ohio i didn't know how long i was going to be in ohio i didn't know how long i was going to be in ohio so i was like well if i add a logo to it is it going to take longer to get you know is that sort of thing let's talk about the magnets back here this is this designed to stay on the machine while it's charged as a whole you know or should you take it down every day you should take it down every day so this is an electronic device this isn't this isn't as robust as like it's not a dumb item right like the the old wired potentiometer remotes you know there's nothing you could soak that thing in water and it's going to work This has electronics in it. They're as weatherproof as we possibly can make it you know we're not apple we don't have billions of dollars and millions of dollars to invest into r&d so we do little changes as at a time we're a small company we focus on that like you'll see a lot of these other guys you know they're releasing new products and stuff like that maybe they haven't fixed some of the issues that were in their first products we want to fix any issues from our original products before we release anything else we want to have a solid product that is an affordable price and cheaper than everybody else but better quality than everything we take customer feedback very serious you know so anytime somebody says hey man I'm having this issue or hey man I wish you guys would do this different you know we take all those comments and issues and the consideration into bettering our product so man you can see our remote from a month ago and it's gonna be slightly different you know then I mean we make changes almost on a weekly basis whether they're little or big but it's always to better our product and even now from when we first started our original customers that bought that that that trusted us and actually bought from us you know those remotes you know they were very very new you know we were we were we were still learning the process all of those customers we've given them free remotes we've replaced the remotes for real cost just because they trusted us and and they actually you know spent the money on us versus other companies that have been around longer than us you know so all those customers we take care of them and even so now if anyone's unhappy with their product we'll do whatever it takes to make customers happy because we know that our company is gonna succeed through customers and having a good relationship with the people that buy from us yeah yeah but it's fun like leaving them out on the machines you can leave them out on the machine but you there's a there's got to be an understand that this is an electronic device this is something that you know you can't leave it in a hot car if you leave your iphone in the hot car what happens you get a temperature warning and it doesn't let you use it you keep doing that you'll actually damage the device so like that's that's something you know i know it's a tool and all that sometimes people don't understand that it is still an electronic device and they're designed to be weatherproof you could it could start raining you could be up in a scaffold you can't get to your receiver in time it's going to be fine we haven't had but maybe what one remote where somebody that was water damage that was one of our early early early months we've made changes since then too so i mean that we we just don't like to advertise them as weatherproof we like to say weather resistant just so you don't go dunk them in a puddle of water and i mean i didn't expect to get it i wish i would maybe i shouldn't use the green screen but that's the case if you can't see the case but oh there we go here's the case it's a nice case it is a really nice case you know so the case may work better on y'all i'm using the green screen because it's a really nice case it's a really nice case it's a really nice case i'm using the green screen so you can't really see it i should have got y'all to get one and bring in there but uh you know yeah there we go so we can show it off you know i thought i could move it back far enough to where i could go the black the black i think uh fades in yeah yeah so we got some of these back here trying to fill the prompts he's grabbing my case real quick but the cases are waterproof so you know if you got the case out in the weather you shouldn't have any issues with getting water yeah but as far as leaving them on the machine machines and stuff like that we get we get that question a lot a lot more than uh i anticipated so we put a lot of disclaimers and stuff out there for it in the in the in the instructions but they they'll they'll survive a rainstorm yeah that's what i that's what i was getting at like if it just all of a sudden come a downpour how would that go there we go there's the case yeah i've got a nice case so i mean usually the remote's going to be with you right you're going to be welding that's the the probably the the most sensitive one just because it has so many different spots for water to get in it the receiver doesn't have very many spots for water to get in uh you know we've taken measurements to engineer uh to try to get oh to try to make it more water resistant but at the end of the day it's it's got an oled screen that if you get it wet it can damage it and we went with an oled screen because if you get buckshot on it and you burn you burn the screen it's only gonna mess up that part of the screen where the buckshot went so we get remotes that people drop or they're having problems with it because they didn't take care of it and they'll send it back to us and it'll have weld slag all over the dang screen but it works yeah it works because it's an oled so i will uh destroy a helper over that remote oh yeah is that is that the one that got dropped like 60 feet yeah so i don't know how good you can see this but this is a customer's remote that fell on how many feet but this thing is about to yeah it's look i mean look at the back it's a split open so that works yeah but maybe it still works so you know they're durable we made this guy a new one the uh the magnets on the back i hadn't i didn't stuck mine to a piece of pop yet they're pretty stout 70 pounds 70 pounds so the one that you got yeah so the one so the one you got how long ago did you uh right before you left right before you left and you guys okay so yeah so yours yours already has a slightly bigger magnet like i said we're always changing little things and uh we recently went to a slightly bigger magnet just because we we had some customers say hey you know my machine vibrates a lot and you know i'm having issues with the with the receiver sliding down a little bit you know so so you know we made the change we we're always uh we're always open ears and and listening and seeing comments and seeing what people want what people ask for and and as soon as we see it we make those changes y'all think uh in the future y'all will make this pigtail a little longer so that's actually the we used to actually make them slightly shorter than that we we we extended them but yeah anytime anytime a customer wants a custom link that they if they add it to the comments or messages before we can definitely make them longer free of charge you know it's just that that link is pretty typical a pretty typical size for even other companies that's about the the typical link that everybody uses but it's not a problem to like i said i've never even hooked mine to my machine i hadn't been welding so i hadn't hooked it up yet what kind of machine do you have again i got a 300 mp lincoln 300 mp yeah so it reaches right there so you plug it in and then it reaches right to the side it's got the the metal frame the frame that's right there and you put that on the you just put it on right on the edge of the outside of your machine and and there has been a couple people that do that and they've been doing it for like he said the longer ones yeah it's it goes into a manufacturing thing so we meant we are manufacturers so we've got to do things in in bulk so we can't do everything custom so we've got to get a certain amount of pigtails made and we do them all the same length and we kind of we figured out a length that works and then if somebody like you said does ask for it we'll do it free of charge yeah yeah i just was wondering you know like you know people are weird some people like maybe some people want it on top of the machine you know you never know you know i like i said i didn't hook mine up to my weld machine i'll probably i'll probably do some practicing next week you know warm back up their old right arm and i'll use it then you know it's a quality product you know that that's the biggest thing you know is and i feel like you know i feel like y'all kind of went up and then y'all kind of leveled out and kind of went away and now y'all were going back up again you know as far as you know um social media and all that the hops coming back you know yeah definitely so that's one thing that we're focused on focusing on this year is is growth now so now we've pretty much established where we're at as far as like in the market and now we're trying to focus on we you know last year we added one employee towards the end of the year this year we're focused on growing our social media and then adding another employee and in growing our business you know we're about to overgrow the space that we're already in we already bought the or not bought rented the office next to us so now we have we had a double office now we have a triple office and uh i i'm focused on our social media right now to grow that and then add more people and just try to make this into a brand like lincoln and miller and stuff like that something that's reliable something that everybody knows what you're talking about when they bring us something that you can one day see maybe at an air gas or something like that something you know bigger retail stores like that that's what we're kind of shooting for um but yeah and that's hard to do with with electronics yeah believe it or not so like like we met uh before the we did the first one before the signal stuff started messing we met nate and all that we got to talking about business and stuff like that and you know our business is so much we have to structure it so much so i don't know how to say this right i sound all weird it's structured differently than a lot of these other companies right because inside of our remotes you know in each component there may be 10 000 things that could fail literally you've got components on these pcb boards that you know if one transistor goes out it could like ruin the remote so our quality control and stuff like that is super super important to us and growing too quick and adding too many people can ruin our company you know we're trying to do it as slow so at a steady pace yeah so we almost have to limit our growth because we have to keep quality control in mind so growing too fast is gonna we're gonna lack in quality and then customers aren't happy and then we start having issues so that that's one of the reasons we may have slowed down for a little bit there because we were just oh you know over the top uh with with you know with with our customers but we got help we're getting more structure around the company and and yeah now now we're definitely going to start to I hope y'all got Nate's number while y'all was, you know, while y'all was around each other. If not, I can share it with y'all. Cause he's a huge resource. He's a massive resource. A lot of people don't know this about Nate, but he will literally go into the shop and open up a bag of gloves and look at the color of them. He colors off. They go into the no good box, which comes to me most of the time. I wear a lot of them gloves, but like, like if the, if the brands slightly kicked over stuff, like he will, he will not sell them gloves. If you, you know, he's just, he's extremely, you know, but he's a welder. He has the welder's eye. Like y'all have the welder's eye, you know, like, or the fitter, you know, like you have a fit night, like you have that eye for that small detail that might be a little off, you know, or like when y'all do the digital printing and stuff, I'm sure there's like little stragglers on it and stuff, you know, or like maybe something just didn't come right out on a face plate. Our quality is super, super important to us. Just like you said, like both of us, we were, he's way more OCD than, than probably I am with a lot of things. And we, there's a big check and balance between starting a company with somebody and having that second head in your company to help you. Some people will just try to do it all on their own. And, you know, whenever I figured out how to do this, I instantly was like, I can't do this alone. I need somebody that I can trust. Somebody that's going to go, that's going to highlight, highlight my flaws and features and compliment me and I compliment him. So it's, it's just this reverberation between us that, that allows us to try to, to kind of build a better product because maybe he finds an idea is like, Hey, this is wrong with remote. And then maybe I have a solution, or maybe I find an idea and he's like, Hey, how about this? And it's like, Hey, that's a good idea. Let's implement that into there. So having two heads is a lot better than just trying to solo a lot of things. And for anybody that watched this, watching this podcast and you're wanting to start, and become your own entrepreneur, don't expect to get rich overnight and slow growth is what you want in a business, especially in something as complex as, you know, electronics and stuff like that. It comes with sacrifice too. It comes with sacrifice, you know, blood, sweat, and tears, you know, even though we did it for the last 20 years working this at the end of the day, this, this is worth, this is worth it. You know, just being able to do your own thing, be your own boss. I mean, it's, it's definitely worth it, but it does come with a lot of sacrifice, but any, any, any stress, anyone can do, anyone can do it. You know, speaking to Nate, you know, he, just like you were saying, you know, Nate, Nate told us that for the first year or so that he started his company, he would put on every glove that he would, he would test fit them. Right. And we, I did get to talking to him, you know, after some advice and he, he said, he said, social media is, you know, is, is, is, is an awesome tool. Right. And I guess that's, you know, I'm a little old school. Right. So I don't know much about the social media stuff, but apparently that's where it's at, you know, make videos and post them up, post them up. Nate rides my butt about, uh, social media because he's like, uh, like I do a great job with the podcast when I record, I do a great job with podcasts, but then I might go MIA for two or three months, you know, and not do anything. But I used to hit these highs and lows and highs and lows and highs and lows. Right. And I just, like, I would get so focused on the job or what I was doing. I would get so caught up in something that I wouldn't, I wouldn't sacrifice, my time to this. Like I should like today, I kind of procrastinated. I was like, damn man is a long day and now I got to go home and deal with this, you know? And I, and I almost was like, Hey, I'm gonna push this off till Sunday. But then I knew in my mind, I'm like, no, if I push it off till Sunday, then it's going to go again. So I was like, gotta get it done. You know, even though we had the technical difficulties, you know, at the beginning here, I appreciate y'all hanging in on that. Let's let me, let me, let's rewind. Let's get back to y'all's welding career a little bit here. All right. Y'all are your pot fitter career. Like the early part of y'all, y'all's career, right? Uh, in the trades. Uh, one question I like to ask everybody is what is one piece of advice that you got early in your career that you would like to share with the younger generation? Oof, that's a good one, man. So a lot of the times it's, it's, it's saying knowing when to shut, shut the hell up and just listen is, is, is that is, is sometimes, you know, you think, you know, and I'm guilty of it, you know, arguing and I'm wrong. And, and you think, you're right but you know it's there's there's times where you just have to sit back and sometimes you need to just let somebody else take the wheel and maybe you're stressed maybe you're in a situation trying to get a piece of pipe in the rack and you can't get it but somebody that's on the ground sees something that you don't see you know take people's advice and and try to try to be nicer to the people that are working around you because you may learn something from the dumbest guy on the crew yeah or you may be the dumbest guy on the crew you know it's just don't people are really cocky in this industry and they're like i'm the best i'm the smartest you know they have that mentality because you know that's what's got them this far in their careers is taking that initiative and being like i'm the top dog but but i've seen a lot of people getting a bind because of that reason with welding with fitting with being a supervisor you know don't ever be afraid to lean on people is i think that's probably my biggest point of advice would be yours yeah so um one thing that that i that i could say i picked up i guess uh advice that i got from from other people when i first started off was um you know i i was a helper for a little while you know about six months and then they i got kicked into welding right away and you know my dad was a welder and uh i kind of just followed followed his footsteps but you know i started off with a structure as a structure leap from welding uh structure to pipe you know that was scary for me at the time because uh not no at the time when i was learning nobody really wanted to teach me how to weld pipe you know they wanted to keep me at the bottom welding structure welding structure and you know after talking to some of the older guys that were willing to help because i've never been scared to ask for help you know even now you know 20 years then i'm still not embarrassed to ask for help you know i asked you know i i asked that would i still ask for advice you know like the social media thing you know like this is all new to me but i'm not scared i'm not embarrassed you know and i never was before so whenever i made the transition to pipe nobody wanted to teach me but there's always someone willing to teach you as long as you stay humble and uh my my advice that i took from that is just don't be scared to teach yourself because no one's gonna do it for you you know just you just have to have that that drive to to better yourself you know yeah they uh a guy told me the other day um you know gatekeeping is a is a huge thing in our industry all the way across the board you know like you're on a good job you don't want to share the phone number with the boss or whatever and all that shit literally some i don't remember who i was talking i was talking to one of my buddies but somebody had made a comment about me being a gatekeeper because maybe i didn't answer them back in a text or a snapchat or whatever you know like i don't maybe i don't get through all my messages i don't you know the like i don't i don't have to social media following is like jewel and um and austin the priest and i'm in certain aspects but when it comes to you know like the podcast is huge you know i'm in top 10 of the world um i get a lot of messages and sometimes i just don't answer people back it's not because i'm a gatekeeper and now you know being in the union i i don't i don't have the opportunity to help people the way i used to when i was non-union you know like i was in the know you know this job's over here this job's over there now you know i know about jobs but it's not like i'm like i can be like hey we'll call this guy you know you don't have a union book you know it's not the spain now like if i see on snapchat somebody's like i'm looking for a helper then i definitely scroll back through my messages and i'm like hey this kid's green but he took the initiative to write me you know he might give him a shot you know give him a fair shake now can i do that to 100 people you know a day or whatever no i can't do that but i can you know maybe a couple of months i can help you know get into get into it you know i always tell people go to the post and all this stuff you know which which is a lot of people do that but i can't do that because i think like like you were saying about the people getting this caught up you know uh getting held down in certain situations like you get a good helper and you kind of you know you kind of hold them back a little bit because you want to hold on to them i feel as though i've never been that way i've been extremely hard on helpers but only only to help prepare them for what's coming you know like um i talked to a couple of my helpers a couple times a week and you know like they they talk about you know they like even welders has been welding two years you know one or two years and you know they don't they don't they feel pressure where they don't feel pressure they're just in a situation and it's a lot of custom and a lot of ashtuans to get them to that point but everything you know i've never had a helper leave me that's a welder now come back and be like i don't fucking understand that they're always like i know exactly why you was the way you was you know but it wasn't because i was trying to you know hold them back in their career you know most of it come you know shut your mouth do your job further your life you know succeed so speaking that's that's that's something i really that got my interest right there going from a fitter to a welder that it is the hardest transition that anybody can make in their in their career because everybody that you're going to ask for a job all they know he has is a fitter so to them you're just a fitter like this guy's trying to be a welder you don't you don't know nothing and and it takes it took me 10 it took me a year or two to even just get out of the booth and get my first test and and like i'm really fast at like picking stuff up and like i practiced for about two three weeks and uh i went i found a crappy job that was paying terrible it's like 28 bucks an hour and like dollars a day per diem and i got that test and and i took it going in there and i was like man i'm gonna try my best probably gonna fail probably gonna bust this somehow i passed the test and then the guy comes over he's like i'm cleaning up my booth and i'm like all right he's fixing to come tell me i busted at least i tried that's that's one step that i took getting towards it and then he's like hey man you passed you're good go ahead and show up and i'm like what i passed all right i was not ready and the first thing i did when i got to that job is i walked up to the foreman and uh once they placed me where i was at we're welding 52 inch two inch thick uh heavy wall uh carbon steel pipe and we're taking the roots and man i i told him i was like hey bro like this is this i'm i'm pretty green uh you know if there's if there's anything that i can't do i will come to you first and tell you before i start fucking it up or or anything like that and he's like how green are you and i was like uh how long have i been here and he's like what so he put me with somebody and i told him i told that guy the same thing and man it looked like that first pipe i welded thank god it was a 52 inch because i could crawl inside there it looked like i spilled the rod bucket inside the pipe with all the coal wire i had but honestly you got me through that man and and those those people would woods was the was was shout out charles woods that guy good guy he helped me a ton in the beginning of my welding career and and he got me through that job and i have a lot of respect for that man ended up getting to work with him again so that was that was awesome and he acknowledged my improvements and and he showed me a bunch of things that uh i wouldn't have learned if i wouldn't have been able to just you know if i didn't if i held on to my pride and i didn't go up and tell these people and then i start moving on to trying to get new jobs and stuff and nobody wants to give you a job because they just think you're a fitter they don't know what you can do so whenever you transition there's a big there's there's a big gatekeeping there with the welding of knowing people in the trades and then them trying to transition into becoming a welder um one thing you said right there talking about the charlie fellow is probably because you showed up with a humble mindset you had initiative right you had a humble mindset initiative you know you said you know let's get it you know but it didn't say that you wasn't hungry to learn you know what i mean that that goes a long ways with a lot of people you know that initiative and being humble you know coming there because i know a lot of guys that pass welding tests and you know like we said earlier they got the american forces on their freaking truck and you know but they got that clapped out 200 back there but they got a damn you know eighty thousand dollar truck with fucking even if they don't have an eighty thousand dollar truck you know i don't uh dude as soon as i get in the truck shout out to top liners cloud i mean that's the only ball the only bone caps i wear but as soon as i get in the truck i feel like it's the most uncomfortable ball cap in the world or cap in the world i feel like it's the most uncomfortable i'll take them right off yeah you know i'm i'm the guy that wears it everywhere i'm a mo i mean i got some thinning hairs i ain't uh i don't wear a welding cap they uh that is highly frowned upon in the pipeline world you know it's we'll talk a lot of shit i'll it's got to be i'll wear colorful ones and stuff and everybody where's your white one and i'll be like you didn't even go to work today where are you why are you wearing a welding cap give me that one so i can do the rest of the podcast and it's behind that box getting in uh he's getting in the spirit you know getting in mindset yeah you're gonna feel the power coming into you we'll bring him up in a little bit are you uh let's see let's see how he puts it on oh he's an over the year guy i didn't know i didn't know see like if i'm just being over the year if i'm if i'm just a casual if i'm just casually wearing mine you know not uh not welding pop i do the normal low you know right to the front kind of look you know well to the front to the front yeah when i take my hood off mine automatically spins to the front you know it's just a shift to the side you know like a locomotive shift to the front like i'm conducting i can do the gerald dub you know but any anyways i'm not a big like as soon as i get done welding my my cap's off um but you know the kids they go in the the oho locos and all that stuff they gotta have the welding cap on because they think them girls all they're all right so touching the we're gonna touch in the middle of the career which i know we kind of hit we kind of hit the beginning of mason's career and the end of it here pretty much you know uh his welding career anyways uh the middle of your career can't be the same what is a piece of advice for the middle part of your career like something that's a job don't take it yeah there we go there we go we need a foreman over here and it's a middle of a turnaround worst thing you know if you're going to be a foreman and it's and it's you're you're you're kind of just getting into managing people and stuff like that um taking on something like that you need to be there from the very beginning you need to see the entire job scope before you've got people underneath you and stuff like that so middle of the career is is uh that i would say that's probably that's probably my thing is uh a lot of these guys is they'll they want that foreman spot so bad and and you know maybe it's their first time or their third or their fourth you know you really don't understand it until until you've done it for a couple of jobs like like you you've got to get some experience uh understanding that the way that you're talking to a grown man right you can't just tell them hey go up there and go do that you gotta ask these people things that's how i always approach it hey man will you go up there and take care of this for me treat everything like it's an important task treat everybody like they're doing find a spot for everybody in in managing your people making a a good work environment and treating everybody like they're valuable will get somebody will get the laziest guy in your crew to be valuable for you and and that's that's something that only comes with experience and understanding people because nobody wants to work for that guy that's just running everybody off or constantly telling you that you're a up or you're doing this wrong you're doing that wrong so that was that that'd probably be my answer for that for the middle of the career middle of my career i guess uh nine years ago ten years ago now i got a cwi so i i do i i do inspection too so but i i've never i've never uh i've never wanted to be a foreman you know i don't know i'm i work best by myself you know as a welder you're you know you deal with your fitter well us you know you guys on the pipeline y'all fit right y'all do y'all's own fitting and the plants you know normally can i normally they give us a fitter sometimes we gotta fit right but most of the times they'll give us a fitter so that's the only guy i really ever got to deal with after that it's put down and music on and i just always been a little ocd with my work you know my welds i take a lot of pride into what i do when i weld i i don't like working with other people i mean i work with my fitters and then after that he leaves me alone and i make my welds and i try to do the best i can but i guess the middle of my career whenever i wanted to make a change you know i was kind of bored of welding man i was already 10 years in and i wanted something different i i had turned down foreman positions i've never wanted to be a foreman because like i said i don't i don't i don't do well with trying to tell people what to do i just never liked it wasn't for me but as a qc uh i i enjoyed it too you know i i enjoyed it just because they give you a package and you go walk this package down you sell packages but again it's a loner thing you know you're you're by yourself you do answer to a boss at the end of the day but by myself i i strive on on on my own and i'm not working by myself i guess because of my ocd you know even now you know mason's got his office over there i got mine over here you know i ocd my own shit you know and i i did that so that's where i strive you know i i i that ocd that just drives me to to nitpick everything and not have anybody tell me that they don't like it or whatever because most of the times i i know i'm doing better than than a lot of other people just because i nitpick myself i i judge my own work more than other people you know sometimes i can make a weld and i won't like it and other people will say man that's a badass weld that looks good i always think i could improve you know as a qc when i started qc man i started seeing how bad welders can actually be you know what i mean because as a welder i don't ever you know us as welders you as a welder you know you don't ever really see how other people weld because you're kind of disrespectful well yeah hey what's the difference between you and me but whenever i switch over to qc man i started seeing like the lack of quality that is that is out there now man like welders most most welders i mean aren't that great you know what i mean i guess when i compare it to the kind of work i was putting out you know i always kind of felt like i could improve which i still feel like i can right but then you got that i would say five percent ten percent maybe even less of welders that are just machines dude you got welders that are machines after seeing those guys i think it helped me because i still will you know qc and i will so man after that i want to be that ten percent five percent you know what i mean yeah i can't just because some people are just talented like that but it gives me something to strive for right but at the same time it helps me kind of realize that i i am pretty decent you know what i'm pretty decent seem just the lack of quality man you know that i saw that i saw and as a qc i i I've never seen this before, just because, like I said, I was a welder. for 10 years before i started qc but i really enjoy it i really enjoy qc and i understand that not everybody welds as good as i do and i understand that there's a lot of people that you know weld shoots a weld shoots you know what i mean in that coming i think a qc needs to have welder experience instead of just somebody that's you know was was you know a hand and another craft for so many years and then they try to switch over to to qc another welded weld because whenever i was welding uh and a qc that didn't know how to weld came and criticized my welds that i knew were good you know i would take offense to it that's what you're like yeah whenever i started qc had welders hey man like you know what do you know about welding and you know i was never scared i carried my welding hood with me to my qc job and i'd be like look man like no disrespect but let me show you how to do it you know if i can or i would give them tips and advice and i gained a lot of welders respect based off of my prior experience as a welder you know and i fixed a few welds for a couple of those guys and you know i knew what was shoot you know ugly doesn't necessarily mean it's out of code you know and a lot of these qcs and the guys that don't that don't know they they would reject the weld that was well within code you know just because they feel like being douchebags you know they should regret it if i think i got i got a podcast coming up with keith bailey by the time this comes out i'll probably have it recorded with me but like going back i do agree that qc should be a welder 100 if you're going to be a pipeline cwi you're going to be in a plant qc you should be a b if you're going to be over welder you should be able to do that job now i'll tell a little story i'm not going to use no names in it but when i first broke out i was cocky i mean i was real car i was fast i thought you know like i got it figured out now i'm a mainliner i'm working for this outfit out in west texas and i get this inspector and he's like oh you know so and so i'm like yeah i know so and so he's like all right well he's back here on the firing line with us and i come across the bottom i'm talking but i'm fucking this thing up we were running them hippie rods and my orange hippie rods and i'm fucking this bottom up he comes over and looks at it i thought it was fast you know i was like oh that's good you know he comes over and looks at it and he said i ain't gonna cut it i said well if you can do better show me and i'll be damned thought somebody should walk back to his truck as well and come show me how to do it isn't that uh i mean i learned a lot right there i said i said hell yeah you know he showed me and then after that i took off like a rock i never had them problems anymore you know he's like this is how you do it yeah i said okay i ain't forgot i mean it's been almost 11 years ago now i ain't forgot it i'm not i don't want to put a target on on this guy's back either but um i got a phone call yesterday and we're talking about he's like man i try so hard to do a perfect weld every time and then this guy comes over here and puts the ugly bead and the you know this and it's just a terrible cap and it passes x-ray and he's all on blow or whatever i said well i've said well you know did did you tell him that stuff i was like what did you tell him did you tell him it sucked or you know just what'd you do about it he's like well i just ignored it it's i don't know i'm a firm believer in like if i was on a job and this guy was like look at my weld and it sucked i would probably tell him it fucking sucked you know it's just i mean don't ask for my opinion unless you want it and sometimes people got my opinion without wanting you know without you know like i might walk past your weld and see it and be like what the fuck was that you know and then i might say something about it when you're over there or we're out at the bar and you're acting like you're fucking golden arm or whatever then i might say something about it you know like i i made a tiktok a couple weeks ago maybe a month ago now i've probably done the only thing that no other social media whatever kind of welder that you want to call me done in their whole career i put it i put a busted straps on the internet i put fucking repairs on the app and never my welds they made somebody else's weld that i stole the picture from and i talked all about it i said hey if you want to be complacent this is what to get your money right here because it's happened to me you know i've busted tests because i went in there and thought you know i'm good enough fucking past it it's not a big deal you know let something slide that got my money so like i'm big on complacency i think like you get up in the morning you got this whole routine you know well one morning you fucking done something little you know like i'm not going to do it again i'm not going to do it again i'm not going to do it again you're like i'm not going to brush my teeth for the full 60 seconds this morning right well now you don't slack on it you know that that 60 seconds complacency could give you a cavity i don't fucking know you know i'm not a dentist but it could happen i'm just big on you know like preventative maintenance all these little things that that helped me succeed in my career like this motherfucker called me a uh a tiktok welder the other day and long before there was tiktok or anything else i still had reputation on the pipeline maybe not the best one but it wasn't because of my wellness because of my attitude all right i had that i don't my favorite word is i don't give a fuck that or my favorite statement i don't i don't care you know so another question i wanted to ask y'all so y'all talk about you know uh jose being super uh meticulous and you being a little bit more alike are y'all's offices you know mason's real messy and yours is you know perfect or or how's that how's that so i'm i'm the i'm the messy one i i uh i have order and chaos but uh that's that's i overwhelm myself a lot with things so it ends up just we get we get there's sometimes these orders just come in in these batches and it's just like a ton of work so i'm over here i've got a bunch of little things that that i've got a watch and stuff like that so i'm not too concerned about like my clippings and stuff going on the ground i'll clean it all up at once he's real he's real neat and you know he takes his stuff like he's so good mason we're we're we're completely opposite but that's why we work you know that's what works yeah yeah he his room is like his brain you know it is it's it's chaos but it's controlled chaos right yeah me even when it came to welding man like whenever i was gonna go work and make a weld if the scaffold was dirty i'm not gonna start welding until i clean it up or helpers clean it up i'm gonna get comfortable i'm gonna get my knee pads i'm gonna get my my my knee pad or whatever i need to get i gotta get comfortable i gotta get comfortable to make my welds to the best of my abilities and i will not start until everything is perfect i gotta be comfortable and my scaffold that'll be right or or whatever same for my office office area i have to have a clean area you know what i mean i won't i won't start until it's clean you know i keep everything organized i like knowing where all my tools are you know maybe because i'm forgetful but i like to know where they're at at all times it always has to be in the same spot because if not i'm never gonna find it you know and i'm my time is valuable to me you know if i if i spend five minutes looking for a tool you know to me that's lost that's five minutes lost you know so that's why i am the way i you know the scaffold that's the thing that bugs me a lot it's uh if you go up there and the fitter does have a mess like i i can't stand to weld in in a it's my scaffold too like that's one thing it's like whenever i want to weld whenever i was welding and i'm gonna go up there and make a weld like i want to be that's that's that's gonna that could get your job you know just having a dirty scaffold you being uncomfortable to make that weld is it could could get you frustrate you maybe you're maybe you're you're getting frustrated because you know you're jumping around a pipe you're tripping over your leads and then you know you get to a point to where you're just like fuck it like i can't take any more of this closing this thing up maybe i'm not even gonna look at it you know what i mean and uh that that with the scaffolding stuff like that i definitely gotta i gotta have a clean scaffold but as far as my room goes i i throw all my stripping wires and i'm they're going to the floor and i'm cleaning it up i'm cleaning it up later at the end of the day there'll be a big mess on the floor and and and i'll just you know work through it and then if it gets too bad i'll go and stop clean clean real good with the vacuum we got vacuums in here all kinds of stuff but he's he's he's a little meat freak i'm more of a i'm more relaxed and i'm more kind of go with the flow get the work done and then then i work on on the other things but it's just the goes back to what he says is we're two completely two completely different people uh and the way that we function in the normal day-to-day life yeah we view you know when it comes to business we have different opinions too but we we always meet in the middle and i think that i think it works you know i mean that's that's where i was going to transition to next was the business part of it you know um dealing with two different personalities you know uh being receptive to the other's thoughts you know that's for some of us you know if if you start the idea then you don't want to really be open to a lot of people you know like uh like a lot of people tell me about the podcast says like oh i don't want to hear this and i don't want to hear that well i don't give a fuck you know it's i'm gonna do whatever i want to do but you know um but i don't have a business you know i don't have another entity in this deal it's just mine you know like y'all two obviously different you're two different people you you know y'all may have some of the goals you know expectations and such we've had we've had our differences we've had our little our little fights and stuff like that but the thing is is we were good friends before all this started and our friendship is very valuable to us you know a lot of times they say don't start a business with with your friends or family but in this instance it works it works because if if he upsets me uh you know we can communicate it we can get to the bottom of it we fix it we figure it out and we move the fuck on yeah at the end of the day me and him have the same goal you know me and him keep the company above both of us you know that that's our main goal here you know keeping the company flowing you know the company first and then me and him you know that that's the way we both have that same point of view when it comes to that we do have our differences and we do dispute some things but we we just learn to compensate meet in the middle and keep the company above both of both of us you know whatever's best for the company because we both wanted to work yeah so it's just a difficult it's a it's a super difficult thing to manage uh you know you have to be able to let control certain things just just let control go of those things and then let have faith in the other person that you're with and it's it's something that not everybody can do because you know maybe you thought this person was your friend and then you go into business with them and then they're not the person that you you thought they were but you know jose is a consistent person i'm a pretty consistent person so we end up at the end of the day we can figure things out and if he doesn't like an idea that i have you know either maybe we won't do it and we'll revisit it later or he has an idea that i don't like maybe we don't do it or we revisit it later and uh it's worked out really well for us so far okay um now let's talk about this since we we pretty much just covered the welding careers and all that let's transition to the business part of stuff now all right so what's one piece of advice y'all would give as starting the business so if you if you come up with an idea or you see an opportunity that you want to do and you want to make sure that it's going to be a success it's going to be a success it's going to be a success you don't have to uh capitalize capitalize don't be scared uh you you you won't know if it's going to work until you try it you know you might not make it but at least you tried so with me starting the business there was there was three things that i thought were were very important it's like what what do you bring are you bringing something to the market that's completely new okay maybe it's not completely new can you do it better than everybody else okay maybe you're starting out maybe you can't do it better than everybody else can you do it better than everybody else can you do it better than everybody else can you do it better than everybody else can you do it better than everybody else can you do it better than everybody else can hey these remotes are 1500 bucks 1200 bucks and and and i think we can do it cheaper and then eventually do it better and then bring things to the market that nobody's brought and that's we've got some stuff that's fixing to come out can't really talk about it just yet but we're going to change the welding industry because there's not a lot of innovation that's going on with it and it's pretty stagnant as far as like everything goes is uh with really technologies and like like improving workflow and making things easier on people so we're focusing on that aspect of it we're going to add features to remotes that you know other that doesn't exist yet and then other products that don't exist yet that are going to change the the welding industry in the whole and all together some of your words yeah one thing you said right there like well the welding industry really hasn't changed over 100 years you know like there's been little things added here and there you know like uh like the which i've been talking about a little bit in the past and i've been talking about the new welding machines and the new welding machines and the new welding machines and the new welding machines and the new welding machines and the new welding machines and the new welding machines but uh take the new lincoln well but you can go out so miller never had the armature machine right they had their little whatever whatever the setup is for miller right we've always had armature lincoln well machines now that's obsolete you know we don't have them anymore they're done it's a done deal it's off into the sunset you know i i don't agree with taking something that's been around 150 years and getting rid of it you know i don't there's still 200 weld machines or 200 amp well machines that's been around for a long time and they're still there and they're still there and they're still there and they're still around since the 30s you know that's still well today around since the 30s you know that's still well today you know which which the pipeline industry you know which which the pipeline industry you know which which the pipeline industry is changing you know as a whole and it's is changing you know as a whole and it's is changing you know as a whole and it's they're going to do away with the 200s they're going to do away with the 200s they're going to do away with the 200s might be a 250 amp plus machine better might be a 250 amp plus machine better might be a 250 amp plus machine better you know but you know it but it's like you know but you know it but it's like you know but you know it but it's like it's been like little things for lincoln it's been like little things for lincoln it's been like little things for lincoln it hadn't been super drastic it hadn't been super drastic it hadn't been super drastic is what it is now you know what i mean is what it is now you know what i mean is what it is now you know what i mean like it like i mean which lincoln's a like it like i mean which lincoln's a like it like i mean which lincoln's a massive company when you talk about massive company when you talk about massive company when you talk about lincoln electric lincoln electric lincoln electric but they um you know it was like it but they um you know it was like it but they um you know it was like it took them a long time it's little things took them a long time it's little things took them a long time it's little things that they've done to build their brand over time you know what i mean kind of like what y'all were saying you know with a little adjustment to get to the final go or to get to a goal you know uh which i think is a great i mean it's a great business model i mean obviously it's worked for several different companies like you know we talked about nate uh let me throw this in there the one the sponsor i've forgotten one of the most important ones chris wobros.us wears welding shirts anytime i'm not wearing slickmans i wear wobros that i don't know if y'all have ever had any dealings with chris yet but that guy is a uh he's crazy when it comes to business because he reads all these books like he you know he's one of them knowledge is power kind of guys you know they know they they've done a lot of talking but if i ever started a business i would use those two to really help me get it going you know because um i'm not business soggy and i also have the also have a lazy bone because i you know i made it to a point in my career where you know it things go wrong and i'm not going to be able to do it again and i'm not going to be able to do it again and i'm not going to be able to do it again pretty good i mean i i weld most of the time when i want to weld when i don't want to weld i don't weld you know but that's different than starting a business or you know like um like the podcast i could probably do a lot better with the podcast but like i said like last year i wanted to release 50 episodes and i missed that mark completely but i had some personal things that went on you know blah blah blah but um i'm gonna try to do better this year you know i'm gonna set a goal like i said i want to procrastinate i didn't procrastinate here we are because i'm i'm the number one for procrastinator that i've ever met you know i'll say i gotta be tomorrow you know i bet i could give you a run for your money yeah yeah i covered quite a bit of it and you can't really talk about what y'all got going on let's talk about this let's talk about the home work balance all right you know mason's got five kids jose's got three kids let's talk about that you know we know what it is when you're oh two kids my bad sorry i was adding you one there when you're when you're on the like you know like when you're at a refinery or whatever we know how that life is you know i've talked about that a million times but i don't think one of the things i've talked about um is what the home you know when you got your business you know you come off the road so obviously you know you're used to working 60 84 hours a week right but now you're at home you don't want to work you know i mean you got to devote time to the business but you also got to balance that family life too yeah so with that first of all i am so grateful for everybody that has supported this business and supported our product because like you said i was working 80 hours a week i was working turnaround so you know you're working 14 out uh 12 hour days 14 hour days seven days a week and a lot of these i work for specialty companies so you know they're we're missing fatigue days a lot of times sometimes i go for a month straight get off of a job and they'd be like hey we need you in oklahoma i'm in uh tennessee now i gotta drive 12 hours across the country i just got laid off i gotta go to safety council i finish it and then i haven't slept and i gotta go into nights and you know that it's dangerous man pulling a camper down the road driving 80 miles 90 miles higher dragging the camper trying to make it on time uh is is just i cannot say enough that i'm so thankful that this business has has taken off and now to the other part of the question at home so when we started we were i have a like a detached shop kind of thing with an apartment in it at my house and then he had an extra room and i was like oh my god i'm so thankful that i'm and we were working out of the house and what was happening was is in the very beginning of the business we were super new it took us a lot longer to make these things with when it's efficient and we were working too well well i'm saying once once we once we did our last job and it started taking off and we started getting a bunch of orders i would be in that i would be in that back room all the time just i'd wake up i'd go in there i'd work work work i'd go in the house eat lunch go take a nap wake up and i'd go straight back in the office staying in there till one two in the morning yes and and uh it got to a point where it was consuming my life so for like the first two months like it consumed my life like that's all it was it was like i closed my eyes welding remotes 3d printer sounds in my ear and uh then we were like we need to get an office so we got this office we started with with a with a double office and we had four printers and and and it was real small it was barely anything in the office we didn't have enough stuff to even fill it you know but it definitely it was definitely worth the the separating home life with uh our new work life uh just because uh it was like you said it was consuming us if it wasn't work before my life was like man you're always working these long long shifts so you know i rarely went out of town but i did work the long shifts a long turnaround locally and uh if it wasn't work it was this you know the remotes i was consumed by work so that so whenever we made the decision to to separate the the office and i mean the home offices and get our own office we we it it totally it was worth it it was worth it it was worth it yeah we treat this place like this place is is we we're here seven days a week a lot of times it's it's no if we leave we leave at a certain time and we go home to our families every day now now you don't have to travel as much you know you still get to go home and if we need to do stuff we can we yeah now right thanks to our customers right yeah everybody that yeah it's it's it's man it's the home life has improved starting this business the home life has improved and we're still doing it and we're still doing it i haven't missed a single birthday in a year now so and i got five of them to look forward to every year it was five birthdays i got to i got to see everybody's birthday last year and got to watch them blow out candles and stuff like that and that's that's something that most people don't understand unless they're in a pipeline or they're working turnarounds and they're traveling and stuff like that that you know you get a lot of that oh it must be nice we have all that money buying toys and and it's like you you didn't see the sacrifices that that i had to make in order to the things I missed out in order to buy these things for my family and for me and and it's it's this business has not only taken us to a place where we're working for ourselves but like i said we don't miss birthdays we're home all the time man it's it's it's a blessing like i said i can't be more grateful that people have supported our product and all of our customers and that's why we have such good customer service and everything because these guys that are buying our products like you um you know y'all y'all are y'all are allowing me me and him to do these kind of things and and like i said we're just super appreciative the um so i i know y'all just went to the first y'all's first welding event the um what is that the american welding uh welding academy yeah there we go the american welding academy you know i do the big thing at arkansas elite uh this is our third year uh i'll send y'all's dates i'd love to have y'all up for it um you know it's a lot of it's it's younger kids you know we do it kind of different than the first year and then we do it kind of different than the first year and then we do it kind of different than the first year and then we do it kind of different than the first year i've done it we've done the tiktok welders and stuff and then some 798 welders now we do the scholarship for the kids you know when i started this whole thing i didn't know exactly how it was going to go i don't know i wish that everybody would go back and listen to the very first podcast because it i'll listen to it the other day just three years ago two gomers sitting in the truck it was so crazy to where it is now you know uh i've been fortunate that i i can pretty much get on to anywhere i want to or i i hear a name or something and and i remember whatever and i can pretty much get in touch with them and get them on the podcast and that it's a huge blessing for me you know uh you know i used joel welch and i used nate and i used all these guys to kind of build my platform austin to preach you know uh it's but it's it's helped me a lot you know it's i don't know i don't want to leave and not have made this industry better you know like i understand y'all you know like with y'all's welder remotes it's it's to make the thing you know for me it's it's very important sometimes i know a lot of people think it's crazy you know i spend a lot of time gone and all the stuff and i worry about my kids a lot you know and i worry about you know are they are they making good grades are they always making good decisions you know and all this stuff but also worry about the the welding industry as a whole you know taking any lower than it already has you know it's stresses me out i'm not gonna lie stresses me out sometimes but the um you know the future is looking bright with guys like y'all you know um that's one reason i want to have you on the podcast because we have to support each other in these endeavors you know like uh like nate and chris you know y'all ever it's house you know tn and weld supply bernardo at rod shield you know pearl snap pimps we're a community as a whole you know i know the market's kind of kind of saturated but you know we gotta if we push it there's all there's there's plenty of welding that goes on in continental u.s. that there's there's a huge massive market for it you know um but i feel like sometimes that gatekeeping comes between businesses too you know which i understand you know y'all y'all got with uh one at snake belly and you know bernardo and stuff you know we got to get y'all out there get y'all in tn and welding supply you know it's it's all the you know it's got to be an uplifting thing you know it's i don't know how to really put it but it's a come together thing you know it's not a it's not a you know let's push this guy off or push this guy off i'm sure y'all talk to other people that make this stuff and i'm sure y'all talk to other people that make this stuff and wireless remotes yeah we've talked to those guys everybody's been real cool you know it's just like you said man everybody has been so helpful and you know you still gotta mind your p's and q's because it's your business and you don't want to just be too open and then invite somebody in that could destroy it or anything like that but everybody as far as is uh nate or at slickland they were they were awesome jeff with copperhead or formerly known as copperhead now rockstar tigricks uh they're great um snake bellies and broadfield you know they they carry our remotes and uh they they everybody's just been super super awesome man and and going into this i thought it was going to be just everything was gatekept right everything was going to be like nah nah nah nah it's mine is i'm gonna make this my money and there's still some but but the majority of them have been great man they've all they've all been and and again back to back to back to what i was saying we're not embarrassed to say it you know we're we're new folks but we're we're we're striving to be better and and we're not scared to ask for help and we're not scared to to say we're new right so right i think that's what's helped us even uh down this new endeavor of ours uh being humble you know it's helped me throughout my whole career and i it's helping us here you know y'all keep talking about this new endeavor y'all keep talking about what's coming up and i want to ask y'all you know obviously you're not going to share it but mama sitting here spinning you know i'm like uh you know i gotta know because it's like um and what a lot of people don't understand about me personally about the podcast and stuff is i have like a journalist mindset i don't know where i get it from or whatever but i have to know shit like i gotta know about this i will call people that i i don't even care about what goes on non-human side but i've got to know about this job you know i want to know what's going on out there you know like people's stories i like to hear i like to do i like to get people to people's stories and you know i don't know why it's just a weird thing i like to know shit i don't like to know shit i'm not i like to know a little bit of shit about a lot of shit you know i guess that's why i broke my mouth this is no secret but i mean so so those those older machines are the real stat machine my my i had a rig too i had a welding rig my first machine was a 1954 lincoln uh short hood now it's a classic 300d but uh those those real stat machines our remotes don't work on this you know that they use a different a different a different style connector they they're different these these remotes don't work for them so one thing that isn't new i mean we've told people already you know through phone calls or emails uh we we do plan to release a remote that's going to work on on real stat machines so on you know on anything old short hoods sa200s you know even what some of the newer 250s yeah yeah so that that's something that that's going to come out that's not out yet we can talk about that but yeah that's just that goes back to the we want to make sure before we start just dumping products out on the market you you we need to we want to pour all of our focus and energy into what we already have making a perfect product because in the beginning our biggest thing and it it plagued us for so long was was charged being able to charge the batteries inside of these something so simple something so simple like we figured everything else out the batteries it went on for months and it's like okay we found a different manufacturer we'll use these we'll use these parts they worked great we didn't have any problems with like three four months and then bam we get a batch of them and all of a sudden these are doing the same thing and so we're like okay let's completely revisit this completely redesign the charging system get anything that can get it can get warm or fail or anything like that or need a heat sink let's get it out of the remote so we figured that out and now and then it's like then you have another problem it's out of nowhere and it's it's just it's like there's just so many components that go into making these that there's a lot of little failure points but at the end of the day we back our product so people that did have issues or or if somebody happens to have a complaint we fix everything and even when we get remotes for any other reason if somebody sends it in for a faceplate upgrade we will upgrade anything that we can to that remote even if they don't ask for it just because we want to have the newest of the new safest products out there right so so another thing that's going to happen is we're going to have to go back to the old way of using it and we're going to have to go back to our old way of using it and we're going to have to go back to the old way of using it and we're going to have to go back to our old way of using it and we're going to have to go back to our old way of using it and we're going to have to go back to our old way of using it and that's how we were confident that we had something we had something that was going to do good we had something that worked you know we we used it ourselves right now uh speaking on the like on our new our new that we can't talk about product we we we have we have a few units out there already uh people back to these guys we don't know these guys uh from we met them and they just happened to be super supportive super supportive of us you know they they bought our first remote you know the the they were terrible they're first of the first ones that we had they were they were we buy these black uh electrical junction boxes online and and his his main job was to cut these holes out of this abs my cd went out so it was so inefficient like i'm telling you we'd only built four a week and and man we we were we didn't know how to make them holes in those squares yeah but then on the inside of the remote we're using a ton of hot glue and stuff to hold everything down and then you know people are taking these remotes out and they're getting in the sun and the hot glue is getting soft and we're having issues and then and then we finally come out with like we're 3d printing we learned a bunch from the first batches of remotes and all those guys that bought those remotes we ended up just straight up exchanging for the new style for the for the for these types of boxes and stuff like that so we offered them we're like hey we'll give you an analog just straight up just bring us the old shit we'll give you an analog remote or if it's 200 bucks we'll just upgrade you to the digital because originally they were 300 bucks and man our first things we didn't know what we were doing that well so our our first customers man believe it or not wasn't friends or or or not really family but friends you know that we've known as welders for the longest time they didn't i mean let's be truthful they didn't want to buy from us and the people that supported those were people that didn't know the people that knew us didn't yeah so the people that supported us were were strangers to us you know and there was a few that were our friends. - No, there was a few, but the first guys were just completely complete strangers and we have a soft spot for those guys you know and those guys get they get free upgrades and and like i said there's there's a couple units out there that we have that that are the new new and so since we don't weld now we trust these guys so yeah they're out there testing and and doing the leg work and telling us giving us all the feedback that we need to make slight changes to the code or whatever and and they have they're out there but they won't be released just yet because we're still getting feedback we're we're gonna let them be out for another three to six months maybe before we actually start selling to the public because like like i said we want our product to have a good reputation and we want quality man that's what we strive for now every time we get a remote back that uh we don't get a lot of them back but like maybe something failed that wasn't necessarily to do with us it was a third party manufacturer that made a part for us and and you know we get it in here we do everything we have a whole checklist checklist of quality control stuff the remote gets range tested it gets tuned and calibrated um everything is gone over just to down to the packaging of it going into the box there's there's there's quality control checklists that go on these things and then you know maybe somebody gets their remote it works really good for two months and then they had one little little thing you know maybe it's it gives them a little hiccup and we're like hey you know send it in we'll pay for the shipping both ways we will make sure to fix any issues and and it's it's gone really good for us because we have a ton of products that are just people get them and we never hear from them again which is which is good and uh it and then when we do get one back that maybe something maybe something happened you know we do everything we can to try to do quality control and that we take it seriously and we take that to heart because people are spending their money on on our products and and they worked hard for that money and so i don't want to understand right i don't want to say the the year amount of the warranty but it adds a pretty substantial warranty as long as you don't dunk it in the water right yeah and even after that our earlier remotes you know we're we're warranting stuff you know that we don't even need the warranty it's like they they broke it or something like that they dropped it and they're like hey it doesn't work anymore what's wrong and i'm like well you know you dropped it send it back to us let's get it fixed and then like people breaking remotes we get a lot of broken remotes people dropping them from scaffolds 50 feet in the air you know nothing's going to survive you drop a walkie talkie you destroy it and uh you know if you crack a screen you know we we have a fair price it's it's 100 bucks to get it fixed and you destroy a remote we charge 250 for full replacement and other companies you know you're gonna have to buy a completely new setup for the full price so we're not focused a lot on our on our customer support and and just making sure that we're doing it right and building a good name and a good brand for us okay to uh wrap this up as a whole here to uh not keep y'all much later i'll touch on one thing i remember when nate first started slickman i don't feel like he sold a lot to his buddies like he started slickman and i started my podcast like maybe six months later now i remember when i got my first pair of slickman dude i was so i was so freaked out i've not wore a different pair of gloves since the slickman like i'm in the union they supply tillman's i wear slickman's and somebody's like well it's dumb to buy your own gloves well i'm gonna be honest i don't pay for slickman's you know nate sends them to me i might be i'm pretty sure that i might be the only uh sponsored welder on the planet that wears slickman's i'm pretty sure that's a that can call up nate and get up and get a box of many times he wants them you know the uh um to wrap everything up as a whole here we're going to get back to some advice here what is one thing that you're going to want to do in the future that you're going to want to do in the future that you're going to want to do in the future that you're going to want to do in the future like at the point of y'all's careers now that the youth should know to kind of bundle this thing up here the job you have now is the interview for your next job that's my biggest thing and i lived by that and and that's my greatest piece of advice to give anybody in any kind of industry whether it's pipeline whether they're electricians whether whether you're a fire watch but the job that you are currently at is is you are going to make a name for yourself and that's how you're going to be able to go to the next job because if you show up to these jobs and you're just half ass and everything you're going to your career in this industry is going to be short so going presenting yourself going in and in in clean shaving if you got to be clean shaven if if you got to wear frs making sure everything's tidy you know doing your jsa's to the best of your abilities and you know making sure that you're making a good name for yourself that's great advice you know for for for anyone kind of into the industry or or into starting your own business as a business owner you know you your your resume is what you leave behind you know your your every weld you walk away from is is is your resume you know i you know going back to the to a little bit of the of the qc work that i've done um i mean when i see a weld that that's a structure that i i see a specialty combo welder that's welding on this gas line you know or this critical critical line and then they have him weld uh structured the next day or the day before and they don't take any pride and they leave the slag they leave you they don't take care of that to me when iqc man i started off as i started off from the bottom i was a structure welder for many years before i was allowed well not allowed but i made myself a pipe welder because like i said it wasn't very much help but i when i see a specialty welder that can't weld structure to me that's his resume just you know going back on what you're saying that everything that you do is your your your resume for your next job when when i see a welder man i can't help but but next time i see that welder i just can't think of him as a great welder just because i know he can't even make a structure well you know he can't he doesn't have any pride in his work so yeah you're you're every job every weld everything you do in your life whether it's a weld or a business is your resume for your next venture in life and that applies with our remotes yeah and that applies every single remote we make is is potentially another sale because that person's going to be like hey man you know i paid 400 bucks for this wireless remote and it's no problems and it works great i get good rain made my job easier you should pick one up like like chris with the shirts nate with the gloves johnny with his gloves and shirts and whatnot that's repeat business because you're going to tear that you know you're going to wear that out in the field and it's going to come back to you know you you're trying to make sure that you're going to make sure that you're going to make a remote that's going to last years you know so you have to use that word of mouth you know like to the buddies and you know the cousins and the co-workers to get you know to get more remote so you know it's it's a different it's two different aspects of business really you know nate's building the greatest quality of glove he can that's going to get destroyed because a grinder you know or some welder's going to hold his hand the wrong way and all them bbs you know you know obviously bbs will get on y'all's remotes you know i'm going to beat the shit out of a helper if he gets bbs on my remote i expect to be unplugged every day back in the box the only piece of advice i'm going to give y'all are what i and y'all can y'all can take it or leave it it's the only this is the only thing i will say is i need to get i need to send y'all my buddy mario ramos rws welding shop and let him redesign y'all's bookers for y'all okay the only thing i would say dude i'm saying hey and every bit of advice is good advice and we take everything into consideration i can't i can't really show on here because the dog the thing green screen dude he makes some freaking he makes some badass stickers but like he yeah he redesigned yeah the the he redesigned my out on the road sticker dude and blew it out of the park man um you know everybody's got their own lanes so i'll throw in a a pitch there for mariano he's been a buddy of mine for eight or nine years he just started a sticker business probably seven or eight months ago you off a little bit um but he you know i mean there's nothing wrong with y'all sticker don't get me wrong i mean it's a i think it's a cool logo i just think it needs a little revamp that he's good with that cartoon stuff you know what i mean like he made a little money sticker because i had a i had a picture one time i i have a i have a grill and i i used to wear wigs and call myself a little money with big chains and stuff and i sent him that picture and he made it into an ai but there's dope it's pretty cool yeah definitely send me that number and all that stuff man uh i'll reach out to him and and yeah we are due for a read that that logo that you see right there uh our fitter he drew it on a scaffold plank in the scaffold scaffold and uh the little the little remote that's on there is what our remotes used to look like they used to have an antenna and they were just a little black box with a knob so so so this guy this guy is what started the whole where it was right there this little guy was started yeah so me and mason oh shit so we got the name lazy fox right so we just had that meme back and forth it'd be a hard day you know we come out of work yeah it's one of those so i already knew when he would send me that that meme i already knew man he had a shitty day or when i had a day i would send it to him so that's that's how we came up with lazy fox just because of that for years that went around between me and him just yeah that's cool originally i wanted to name it these nuts remotes i bet there was some brainstorming but well that's that's the only thing like i i haven't got used mine yet you know obviously but but the product itself you know looks quality feels quality i i can't like i said i've been a hardwire remote guy for the last 10 years i'm looking forward to using this one you know mostly on tie-ins and stuff you know and another thing talking about the wireless remotes what you're seeing more common you know you know especially in the plants where y'all come from is you know the wireless grinders you know you're already dragging two welding leads up there you know well not really i guess you can hook the ground someplace sometimes and then you're all you got to do is maybe just drag a drag a stinger up to the top you know it's same thing on that yeah you know what i mean you don't want to bounce to do a bunch of valves and shit you know what i mean but it's you know it's wireless you know so officially you only got two leads instead of having you know three or four cords down there with you whatever like i used to do i'd have four cords in the ditch you know one run the grinder one run a remote or two welding leads you know so i don't know i'm looking forward to trying it it'd be it won't be very much longer i'll probably uh go back to the pipeline i got i got a feeling you're i got a feeling you're going to be able to do it i got a feeling you're going to be able to do it i got a feeling you're going to you're going to have a change of heart you're going to like it because uh yeah they definitely yeah i mean yeah i can't wait to use it uh i really appreciate y'all guys time i mean i know we had the little technical we got started a little bit later and stuff but like i said i can plan everything out with the podcast i'm talking about down to a t i'll forget a sponsor i'll forget this i'll you know i'll we have some technical difficulties you know i didn't get the routers up right but it all it always seems to work out in the end you know it's it's because i get i get i'm i'm fortunate enough to get to talk to great people you know authentic people authentic stuff sells you know uh you know you're not just selling a remote you're selling what you believe every time you put out a remote you know the way i look at it like nate with the gloves you know a lot of people won't believe it but i have seen that man go through gloves one at a time i'm talking about i'm not talking about like one or two pairs i'm talking about a box just like a madman and one little thing he throws in this other box and then they come to me and i burn them up you know so i'm i'm not looking forward to when they come to the states because i know the quality control will be he'll be in that shop every day just nick picking i won't have as many gloves to tear up you know but yeah i appreciate y'all's time and i'll let y'all get on about y'all's business uh like i said this thing it'll probably be out monday or tuesday it'll be on the interweb i'll make sure to get y'all the links and stuff um is there anything else y'all got anything else y'all want to say no man if uh anybody's interested in picking up one of our remotes it's lazy fox dot com shameless plug and uh man it's really cool to get to talk to you ty and we really appreciate you inviting us and they have do y'all have instagram yes we do so we have instagram tiktok and facebook and we also have a youtube channel as well we also have a spanish uh tiktok tiktok lazy fox and total yeah there we go there we go i mean because because y'all are really in the part of the world you know back you know there's a lot of refineries down there a lot of a lot of folk down there i think that's why uh snake belly and bernardo exceeds so well because they can go to boat you know they they do they do a good job of you know at not leaving one side out inside in you know what i mean i think they they do a great job with that so yeah they're great guys we've worked with them it's been awesome and shout out to to all the people that we've worked with too man i mean jeff with copperhead uh you know snake belly rod shield um slickman all these guys that everybody's so good and and you too man we appreciate you inviting us on your platform and and you know every every little bit of exposure helps us out and we appreciate that too 100 y'all guys have a great night and i will uh i'm gonna be texting y'all get y'all up to arkansas and stuff 10-4 we'll see you later brother y'all take care