Mike Reese - Owner of Quittie Hollow/Topics: Makers, The Who & Bees - Ep.077

I would say it's the who. It's definitely all about the who. Welcome to the American Grown Podcast hosted by Austin Sullivan. The American Grown Podcast will focus on people from different walks of life and their journey to where they are now. Now, turn up your volume and settle in for a great episode. This is the American Grown Podcast. Recorded inside the ColorTech Creative Solutions Studios. Today, we have Mike Reese, owner of Quiddie Hollow. He's a maker of custom crafted products. Mike, welcome to episode 77 of the American Grown Podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so glad you could make it in. Yeah, absolutely. I know we've been planning it for a little bit now. I think it was, I think, Foxcress Farms. Yeah, that fall, that initial fall festival they had where I was set up right next to Matt there. And I kind of heard about you through him and stuff and saw his stuff that you guys did together. And yeah, next thing you know, you walked up and we were chatting. And shout out to Matt. I clean up coffee roasters. He is a sponsor of the American Grown Podcast. One of two, the other one is triggered 22 with Rebecca. But yeah, I remember going up to Matt because my buddy was there and his family. And I'm like, hey, this is the coffee guy I was telling you about because he's a big coffee drinker. And my wife saw your Philadelphia Eagles cutting board of the Sharkudary board. She's like, I really like this. So then for Christmas, lo and behold, I'm like, that's gonna be your Christmas gift, you know. So I worked out really well. Yeah, the birds going to the Super Bowl pushed a little bit of a, a little bit of a thing that people wanted a couple things for the tailgate or for the Super Bowl parties. So we kind of had those available and there's definitely caught some eyes that day. Yeah. Well, especially too with all the hype with Kelsey and Kylie and everything and then Travis with their, their podcast, new heights. I don't know if you ever listened to one of their episodes, but it's crazy. I've seen clips of it like online and stuff. It's definitely hilarious. Let's blown up. Yeah, it's huge. So yeah, that's how we first met and I just happen to be like, hey, here's my card. I like what you do. I'm a big like the table here, you know, live edge. Yeah, I noticed right away. Yeah. I'm so like, oh, for sure. I could agree. That's what my brain does now. I could engrave that right. Oh, yeah, that's true. Well, you couldn't grave this too. Some of this big. We could absolutely. Yeah, we could the R1 machine could have a format that it could fit that right in there and we could put your logo on there. Wow. Okay. We might look at something that yeah, six foot by I think like three and a half or something. Plus the American flag here in the studio is reclaimed wood from a barn down in Tennessee. It's an Etsy find. So for all those people out there that like Etsy, that's where the American flag came from there. It's a nice one. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I thought it was pretty cool. That's a little background. Let's hear like your story. Where did you grow up and what was your early childhood like? So yeah, I'm definitely local to the area. Our family is from Hershey. I grew up in Hershey, Humbles Town area as well. Went to Hershey High School, played hockey and a couple of other sports, tennis, and football. And yeah, there was definitely a good childhood there. Three older sisters learned Elizabeth Lindsay. My mom's family, Italian and Polish immigrants kind of. My Italian side is a little bit more in detail in my grandpa from Hershey. What your mom and dad do for work? So that's kind of what leads to what we're doing now. My dad and his dad had businesses throughout time, small businesses here and there. They were custom home builders. At one point they've done all kinds of different little things. And my dad always stayed in that housing business. He was project managing and renovating. For a long time now he's had his candy man business where he does renovations on people's houses and stuff like that. And that kind of thing is always in the mix of my dad and him always hands on, always doing things as far as outdoorsy people, cabin people, doing things outdoors and doing them yourself is definitely a big part of that. And then my mom's side, my grandpa, my great grandpa, they're very hands on gardeners, making their sauce and their stuff like that at home and all those stories. If you know the home grown Hershey Italian kind of thing and he worked, he was like a rose gardener, my great grandpa for some of the Hershey corporate people. And so he was like a gardener there. It's just a really kind of interesting little story where my great grandpa was like a sheet metal worker and he could do just about anything with his hands they said. So I feel like the creative part kind of stems from that with what we're doing. And then with my dad's side of the family being the Reese's and the candy company being kind of part of that heritage, the candy manufacturing and then them having their own businesses and stuff as I was growing up. I definitely was always interested in that world of manufacturing and stuff. So I was always making stuff for people, just kind of one thing or another in a wood shop and then it led to this. So what did you do in high school? So in high school I was really interested in this one class we had called engineering drawing. Okay. That's where a lot of some things kind of start. It was definitely a seed with this engineering drawing class and it went well for me. And that's kind of one of the first classes I was really excelling and quickly and the teacher was kind of giving me extra projects because I just loved CAD drawings and I was really, they weren't too hard in high school. But you're getting after it and you're kind of realizing, this is kind of my thing. And the other kids are asking me for some help now and that's not too typical for me in the academic setting. So that leads to the other classes which are like a little shop class. I think it was called manufacturing tech or something and then our architectural drawing. And those classes were just I wanted to be up in that part of the building and I had so much so that I would grab my lunch and go up there. Really? Yeah. And the teacher that was in that shop class, Jeff McNier, absolute child Jeff McNier, I had around and told him all this stuff, you know. But at that point I would go up there and my lunch and like I was allowed to run the machines but I was allowed to clean them and stuff. And like kind of organize a shop and like do all the little like kind of satisfying things that weren't cutting and doing that stuff. The behind the scenes kind of stuff that sounds like getting your hands dirty and learning the equipment. Yeah, he let me get everything all dusted off and oiled back up and looking really nice. And it was one of those things where he kind of gave me that space and then he asked me what I was going to do next. And I kind of was given in all these different options. I like culinary school because I work at the Italian lodge and I'm a cook there and maybe I'd go into the service or something. Like there's things going on. I'm going to go help. But you know, he's like here's the thing, you should really consider how much you really like this stuff. And there's this place called Pennsylvania College of Technology. I went there for graphic design a long time ago. Oh yeah, up in Williamsport. Yeah, yeah, I know. Exactly. They're one of our clients who do some a little bit of printing for them. Awesome. Awesome. Go out cats. So it's the cool mascot. Yeah. Absolutely. It was a good time up there. But yeah, he sent me up there on a, hey, go check this major out. Go check this school out. This is your kind of school. I said to my mom, I want to go toward this, you know, Mr. McNair said we should go do it. It sounds like it's for me. So I walk into this machine shop lab, which is just a room full, it'll fall, fall, fall, it's at the time. It would seem that way. Of just machines that I'd never seen before. Lades, mills, presses, grinders, just all these different kinds of those machines, just everything onto the sun and then CNC machines and robotics stuff and all these just different labs that were just calling my name. And I just remember turning around and turning around and looking at my mom just being like, yep, this is my place. This is where I'm going. Yeah. And she kind of, I think she probably had a huge sigh of relief because at that point, you know, I was kind of, and I'm probably always will be a little all over the place with what I like to do. And so it was kind of hard to, okay, we're going to get this kid here. All good. Yeah, all good creatives are, right? I mean, you know, what do you mean? You have ideas and you run with it and you, you pick this up, you learn this because you're passionate about it. So Mr. McNair. McNair. McNair, yeah. McNair. So, you know, he saw that you were excelling in, you know, really hands on and that's kind of where you would say you're, your passion for what you do now. Step. Yeah, that, that definitely, as far as my, you know, my family and stuff and growing up, I was always digging around. They were, they let me guard in the backyard. Okay. Yeah. Kind of tinker in the garage and there's definitely some amateur power of techniques happening, you know, all kinds of stuff like that. So, I was always just had my hands dirty with kind of like messing around with stuff and I think between that, just my parents allowing me and supporting me like in that way, just kind of being that creative mindset, they definitely allowed me to make messes and cook and experiment and do all kinds of stuff. So yeah, that, that piece and then, you know, the education system of, you know, doing its thing that kind of guided me there and that teacher though, just kind of like saying, hey, what are you doing? You know, that was, I think, a huge point. And when I did see him in the lows like years, years, years later and I kind of felt good about what was going on. I was like, hey, you know, hey, you're the reason I went to Penn College. You're the kind of reason I have this CNC and CAD thing going on and thanks man, because that's like, I really like it. That's phenomenal. Right. Yeah. Teachers can have such a positive or negative impact. I mean, I've heard some stories of like teachers that have just like, you know, a couple examples for the listeners. Tony Cinnico mentioned when he was in school. He had to fill out a form, you know, or it was on the computer, I guess, but it was like, oh, what your career should be? And he wanted to be a history teacher and teachers like, no, I don't think you should do that. I don't think you're smart enough to do that. And it's like, man, teachers like, especially early on can leave such a lasting impact. And here, oh yeah, I have one too. Yeah. I definitely asked when will I use this in math class? And it was like a trig class, which funny enough would kind of like sort of come back around in ways, but which is just great because he was, you know, I, but it heads, but I said, you know, when am I going to use this? Do not do not, you know, punky thing. Right. And he said, well, you're never going to end the whole question. Oh, geez. Because I was also a little hot headed. Okay. I'm weird. Yeah. I definitely had that stage and let's hope it's completely passed. But the, you know, they were probably whole of Jesus. That wasn't the, you know, nice comment. But I kind of took it to heart like, geez, I guess, he's, you know, what's he saying? But anyway, that teacher has that lasting memory. And then there's the guys that did complete opposite of the school where the, the, those guys we mentioned earlier with Mr. Magnere, so I encouraged you. And then so what did you do? After college, did you immediately start Quiddie Hollow or how did that come about? No, I definitely did. What some people would call the victory lap at Penn College. I took a little extra time to get that done. Yeah, it was, it was all around really good, really great place for me to land there. And then afterwards in that long journey, a little extra long journey, I did do some, I cooked a little break and worked and kind of realized, okay, yeah, I like this manufacturing stuff. I like being in these shops. But let's go finish the deal, get this manufacturing engineering degree and like get into the next level of position instead of just where I was able to go get a job quickly, you know, when I took my break. So get out of school and doing some random stuff here and there. I was landscaping type of guy and did kind of odd and then jobs to help my dad out and, you know, help him flooring or, you know, demolition. I'm really good at demolition. That's probably, I imagine that's probably pretty cool. Totally tear things apart. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's for sure. But I would meet my now wife at Troog's. I would, what? I would kind of start to make friends there. They would tell me, just get your foot in the door if you want to job here in Manufact, in the, you know, at Troog's for packaging or something to do with the manufacturing of this beer, right? Yeah. And I would work in this because this is a manufacturing facility, right? So cool product. Yeah, cool product. Blowing up. Yeah, awesome place to work. Yeah. Cool facility, right? Awesome girl that I'm meeting here. This is a full circle package here. Yeah. Yeah. So I get my foot in the door getting a dish washing job there. Okay. And I'm working in the kitchen, working with those guys, great guys back there. And a job opens up in the packaging line as just a packaging operator and I go take that job. And I end up getting a supervisor position that I wasn't quite ready for, which is a, what kind of the hindsight at all that is, is like, okay, I just wasn't quite ready for that. Position let alone their shift. So, man, yeah, definitely. Quickly took some turns on me. And what also took a term is that my wife got her massage therapy license and had this really cool opportunity up in the poke nose to go to the logic woodblock and do massage therapy there for them. And I was kind of like, yeah, I'm along for the ride. Let's go. Yeah. There was some really neat, really neat, just kind of like things that were, we're leading to it. Like, we're going to live up in the poke nose. Like, there's these people say they can kind of help us find a house nearby this place, which is just a little remote up there. So it was all kind of leading to this cool situation. And we went up there and we spent a couple years doing that. And I was a hiking, pretty much a hiking outdoor guide where we would, we would take people on hikes and mountain bike rides and teach them how to fly fish and stuff. Well, me and a couple of guys were fly fishing guys, so we would teach that class and I've never done that. I heard it's got to get out there. Some people say it's really easy, but then I don't know. I fish before but never fly there. Well, yeah, it's definitely a little bit of an art. Some of the pieces of it are a little bit of a, a little bit of a learned art, but it's, my job is to make that easy when we were teaching how to do it. So we did a pretty good job of getting people on a little sunnies out the little lake. People were actually catching really good. Yeah, okay. It was a good time. So we were up there for a little bit and it was a good time, but it was one of those situations where you're like, well, we're really family people. We're three hours away, you know. And maybe, maybe you'd be fun to get back to where we were and try and make things a little bit, a little bit bigger, maybe start a family in a little bit here and we're just family people. So another thing that kind of happened was my grandpa passed away a little bit unexpectedly in a way. It was kind of a quick thing and that led to my dad taking his property over, which is where our shop is. Okay. Where Quiddie Hollow is and that property is Quiddie Hollow to kind of get back to Quiddie Hollow. Yeah, yeah, it's a comfortable circle, right? So, yeah, so we move home. He's in that new position at that property. There's a shop there that he kind of used as his home base for his renovation, Doug Rees Handyman business. And I kind of was bouncing around helping him, doing landscape, sort of throwing around some ideas of what to do for a business for myself because I was starting to think and feel like, you know, I really feel driven, but I don't feel like I'm being used as much as I want to be, like I really want to make something out of this time here on earth, you know. So, like, let's just go for this small business, this self-employed thing, like let's give it a go. And my dad was really supportive of the idea in any capacity. Like, I'll absolutely support you with this and I'll join you if I can. And he had some really good ideas and they led to us partnering up, making some agreements and buying some machinery and one of the things is that big laser that I said could probably engrave the desk. Yeah, sure. Definitely engrave this desk. And so, with his ideas and my drive of just wanting to kind of just bite into some apple of whatever kind, like I just would really hungry, it just led to Quity Hall being this like conglomerate thing of, you know, we have our balance of skills between the two of us, we communicate really well. Like, let's dive in. And with the CAD and the engineering type of thing with the CNC machines and all the stuff that we learned up at school, I would really ready to apply that in like a more creative fashion. And I mean, at this point now, it's definitely people are like making a lot of money just making things on the internet as makers just visually. They're not even really, they're not even really, they're not stocking shops. They're just making really cool stuff. Right, yeah. It's awesome stuff. And so, just that whole, like, just lore of, wow, people are really making things, but like, this is really accessible. I'd like to take what people are kind of doing and try to like scale it up a little bit and do this like local manufacturing thing and use different skills, different materials and kind of like, root it all in like this local community thing and see where we can take it. And that's kind of, that's kind of like how it leads to, to their, you know, from college in some short way, I guess. Yeah, it's perfect. So shout out to Doug. I mean, shout out to your father. Yeah, yeah, everybody, the whole family is extremely supportive. I, I will say that. I mean, Doug is extremely supportive. His wife, Katie, is extremely supportive. My mom and Bob, my mom, Leslie, her husband, Bob, super supportive. And my sister's always bouncing stuff off of them. Lauren is my, are there our accountant? Okay, yeah. Got a good account. We have Elizabeth is extremely creative and like, has a good eye for things like with this type of stuff, so I can bounce stuff off her. And then Lindsay has a really cool job where she actually works with like product safety and like things that like, you know, all kinds of different product safety things where if we get to that point, she'll be really, really useful for some advice. She'll have me covered you. Yeah, she'll make sure we don't get ourselves in too big of a hole with anything. But yeah, so everyone's extremely supportive. And then to go on that to my wife is Becky, Rebecca Smith. She's a Anneville Cleona Gow. And that whole family, that whole system is super supportive. And yeah, and I know our 10 little, 10 month old little baby anesthesia. She's super supportive of the business. She brings a cute aspect. Yeah, she really does. So come home from a long day. That's our daughter. She's a year and a half old Parker. And she's the, somehow she's the point where she's walking and everything. And it's like when you come in the door, it's like, that's makes it all worth it. I feel like in life, especially owning a business to have, and I've mentioned this so many times, like what I call it a rock. Like, it sounds like your father, your wife, I know my dad, my wife are huge, like supporters. You know, to have that base of like people that no matter what you say, like I want to start a podcast. Some people be like, Austin, you're crazy. Like, why would you want to do that? You know, and no, we're not, we're not going that route. Or, you know, why would you want to get into what you're doing with bees and honey and everything. But to have that support, people that believe in you and will support you in back, you no matter what I think helps not just in business, but in life. It really, it's, yeah, it's like the, the life of like kind of what allows me to push this as far as I hope, hopefully can, you know, and that's like definitely grateful as can be about that opportunity that just life has given me. And I think, you know, I have it on abundance kind of mindset, I try to anyway. And I think that the abundance is just opportunity for me that I have. There's just a lot of different ways that little opportunities just keep presenting themselves. And sometimes there's just opportunities to learn, you know, it's not always, you know, these crazy big opportunities. There's a lot of little ways to just take, take what everyone has to offer and kind of apply. And it's just, it seems like everyone's got my back and, and yeah, I got a awesome, an awesome support system. For sure. Oh, gosh, it's definitely a big piece of it. Like I said, when I came to pick the, the Eagles cutting board or Shrekudu board up to see your dad there, Doug was like, man, that's really cool. I mean, to work with your father, because some, some times, you know, I mean, I'm thankful for a good work of my dad and my grandfather's 86, you know, but some, yeah, I know, but some families don't get along well. Yeah, my grandfather, yeah, he comes in every morning. Yeah, every morning is 86 years old. You know, they broke them old with him and no filter, you know, all this good stuff. And he kind of, you know, devils the employees, but they, you can tell they appreciate seeing him. And it's like a morale boost, even though he's just so left field. God bless him, but yeah, he still comes in. That's what they're good for. Yeah, he ride exactly. So he used to do sales back in the day and he's very good. You know, in his heyday, he was close to three million in sales. And yeah, he had clients like, like Hershey, Hershey Chocolate, you know, Hershey Entertainment, Giant, US Foods, ride age, you know, all these big name brands. But yeah, so it is nice that I still have him to run ideas by and talk to. But yeah, like you and your dad, you get along great. It seemed like. And there's definitely like this cool balance between things and he definitely, you know, if I, if I have an idea, he's going to listen to it. And that's, that's a really cool thing. I definitely have seen the other side of that for people where there might not be as much as that, you know. So that's, it's a huge, hugely grateful for that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, and I think it's like if you have an opportunity like this to work with them and have, you know, the property where you can have a small business start, start up and hopefully, I mean, hopefully I can grow to a point where I needed a bigger building or something or expand the building or whatever it may be. But just to have that ability to start something and give it a go is, is huge. Yeah. And yeah, it's a quality time too, because that's the one thing you can't get back, right? So having time with your dad, you know what I mean? I mean, we were laughing really hard today at the point. And I just, in that laughter, I was like really like kind of like, oh, that's, that's what it's that. That's what's all about. That's about 100%. And also like just kind of letting, yeah, letting the things that we both like kind of be alive in the business and I'm a little bit dominant when it comes to like some of my ideas or my opinions. It's a, it's always like he's very good at like silently keeping me in check in a way. It's like you won't ever shoot me down, but I'll know when I need to like reel it in or double think that or how you just say, yeah, he'll let me know without, you know, like derailing me with with anything with anything. So yeah, it's, it's cool. We don't bash heads like like some people might. So I've heard horror stories too of like, yeah, some family businesses where it's a son, father or son and yeah, father, grandfather. Same thing. It's a person at each other. You know, you don't know this. You're an idiot. And it's like the tuddled. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Oh, he used to watch a show all the time. It's kind of chopper. Yeah, but not if it was your real life. You imagine if that was real. Yeah. That's no fun for anybody. But yeah, he used to love that show. Oh my gosh. When you imagine that, I was like, wait, oh yeah, we had a reality TV show. It'd just be more goofy and we probably had to censor a bunch of things. But yeah. So in the shop, do you listen to like any bluegrass? I know your big bluegrass family. Absolutely. Yeah. So there's a, I definitely get DJ Mike going a lot and sometimes I overdo it. But yeah, bluegrass is definitely one of the. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, it's because I listen to a lot of different stuff. Very eclectic mix of music. And sometimes, yeah, like there's one thing Doug might say, you know, I'll say, do you cool with this? He'll say, well, maybe not today again. Not feeling like it. Not feeling like it. Or something, you know, that ADD kicks in and you're just playing the same song over it. And he's like, how many times? No, it's, it's, bluegrass is definitely in there. We play a lot of classic rock. We play a lot of like I'm like a reggae kind of person where I like the, the, that obviously classic reggae is great. But like the California reggae stuff or revolution is one of the things I really like and stick figure in the movement and all these, those guys like that, just kind of a beat stuff fun, baby stuff, but even like Cugben, stuff like that, like I call it cool elevator music. Cool elevator music. Yeah, like just like zone in and there's no lyrics. Yeah. Cugben. Okay. So what about, so I have a good buddy that listens to the podcast and he's a big bluegrass fan even though his wife is like, not so much, but it happens a lot. Yeah, what's like, so what's like a song or like a band? I don't even know, I guess they're bands. I don't know. I don't know what bluegrass goes by, but like if you had to be like, this is the, this is the group to listen to. Yeah. So absolutely, have to say, it's an obligate, as my best friend Steve Leonard, I have to say serene green or anything. Okay. Steve Leonard does is the greatest now, just kidding. But I would say if there's anybody that Steve's gotten me really into, because Steve Leonard is the reason I listen to bluegrass, four sure 100%. Great band-aid player. Serene Green is his band. Okay. Serene Green, awesome band. But he and I really love Bella or Bella Fleck, B-E-L-A Fleck. So Bella Fleck and the Fleck tones. I mean, that stuff's all over and it's just, oh man, that's some really, really great music, really highly skilled stuff. So I'd say, if you don't know about Bella Fleck, you should. Bella Fleck, okay, there you go, Shep. I know you're listening out there. So appreciate the listen. I'm going to drive album by Bella Fleck, go for it. Okay. Yeah, he's a huge fan. I mean, he's big. And he's played a little bit around me and I'm like, oh, I'm like, so I, again, all kinds of music, but I never really grew up or heard bluegrass. So then when I heard him, I'm like, oh, all right, I can dig it, you know? It's got a really, yeah, there's, there's something really deep about the bluegrass that's kind of neat for me. I just, you start to learn about like who's playing it back in the traditional kind of like, I don't know, Appalachian type of music. Yeah. That's where it started, right? I have this vision of like an old timey type of thing, old timey entertainment, you know, with bluegrass and people who are able to play those strings at the end of the day and put some really good emotion into the voice and like put some, you know, and then there's like really fun songs too. Like Jim and Jesse and old slew foot. That's another one if you don't know. Okay. No, I got to look at it. Yeah, Jim and Jesse and the Virginia boys, man. So now you got me all, I got the bluegrass in my head. Yeah, yeah, and you're, buddy, I'm sorry, my name. Steve Leonard. Steve, I was going to say Steve. Banjo Steve Leonard. Is, so banjo Steve Leonard. Is he a local to like, Levin and County Blank? He's a guy too. He's a guy too. Oh, wow. Well, hey, the podcast is always open. If you're ever wants to come on, it can bring his banjo and play. Oh, he's, he's, yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's so cool. He'd probably all that. He'd probably want to bring somebody along with him so they could, so they could do over. I got the second mic. Yeah. Oh, that would be neat. listening out there. Let's take a quick apricate, by the way. Yeah. So you had to to pick by Body Hollow away the name after it was your grandfather's property, his shop, and there's actually a creek, a Quittie all right Quittied the proper term. Yeah so Quittied are que has sort of Quiddip Elah Quiddip Elah Quiddip Elah Creek flows, like 3Lo B and Adville Mocliona and everything and then into the swati and we the property that our the shop is on is on the Quittie. So that's kind of where the name comes from. So Quittie is the local creek where fishermen were outdoors people. We are definitely nature guys and it's just a unique local word Quittie. Yeah it is. It's like it is. It's like you know kind of what the Quittie is and everyone loves the Quittie. You know you go kayaking or float down it, Quittie Park, trout fishing, all that good stuff. So because my grandpa had had that property for however long it kind of became like a nice little place by like I could go out there with my buddies and we'd have a fires and things and you know tool around in the woods and do all kinds of stuff out there and the way it's laid out is that the house and the shop are kind of up if you will and there's a hollow or a little valley that leads down to the Quittie. And the hollow part is obviously the little feature, the little hollow that leads us down to the Quittie is there but the word hollow is kind of cool because we just kind of sticks. My grandpa used it a lot and my dad kind of grew up using it with like the different places where they'd hunt up in Tyrogue County. There would be like butternut hollow and like all these different hollows of different little games. And so like that kind of just brings us this like whole thing of nature and just like what we really like to do in life which is kind of get out to a cabin or a fish or a hunt or something. So the Quittie and the hollow and it all kind of lines up with the hollow that is there that I hunt in today which so at all yeah it all kind of comes together and the name kind of also came from my dad being really good at like making these this like these brain dump like lists. Like he can create these lists of really good ideas like lists of them. Yeah. You're like pick one kind of thing you know it's like okay this is all awesome names for the business that we want to go for here and I kind of saw Quittie and it was like Quittie something that wasn't hollow and then you know something hollow and I was like I like Quittie hollow. So it was just really another like hey he brings the material and I kind of threw it together and we got Quittie hollow and yeah it all kind of has a little bit of meaning which for me a little bit of an overthinker I love all the little bits of meaning so. Oh I love it yeah and it rolls off the tongue nicely when I think of a Quittie it's like okay you know like you said you're tube and you know get a bunch of friends together you're going tube and you're your fish and it's a small you know almost like stream like I don't know Quittie it's just and I feel like it's very pencil-fitting in term maybe not maybe it's more used but I just feel like I don't know. It's a dutchy thing around here. I don't know there's a stick. I hear you it's it's a stick. It sticks and it rolls off the tongue as far as when you know you know what the Quittie is you know what the Quittie is and with like my in-laws like they were a big part of that Quittie Park they had a house on a house on Spruce Street down there on the Quittie so like my wife grew up on the Quittie like I grew up playing on the Quittie now have that business that's located there and you know it's just like how could you not use Quittie in your name? Yeah. You look looking back you know it's like oh it makes sense perfect yeah exactly right yeah yeah yeah so now what would you say the focus is of Quittie Hollow? So we we have a pretty open gate with the things that we do that and we can do and we have done but we kind of try to use our creativity our tools and our technology and our craftsmanship and kind of our just our level of attention to detail and quality that we like to go for and we we hope to just use that to make you know making craft things for people businesses and just use all those things together to find you know what people need and with what machines we have and things we have made it seems like it's gonna kind of keep changing a little bit. Things that are kind of trendy as far as you know you could name a couple of TikTok trends like I don't know I don't know if it's really TikTok trend necessarily but like the leather hat patches. That's something we can agree it's blown up yeah it really has and it's great stuff I mean it's a it's a it's a great way to put some material together and put your logo out there and so stuff like that will only be around for so long and now we don't know where the end of like a Yeti engraving where the bottom of the barrel is for that but we do a lot of that and that's something that you know eventually you have to imagine something. I see what you're saying yeah people won't buy. It won't be as popular as it is popular. Now do you do real quick do you do Stan Lee's as well because I know Stan Lee's are like the huge thing right now. So we have done some some custom Stan Lee's there's like a little bit of a thing there where I think if you're gonna be reselling and like doing large amounts you're supposed to be on a approved list of people who are doing them. Okay. So I did some testing for some good friends like put their name on theirs but yeah all Tumblers are kind of game unless Stan Lee makes some rules up so I don't really do Stan Lee. Yeah I got you got you. Yeah but I'm working on that too hopefully we can get on that list of people who are allowed. I guess that's a thing in the decoration industry with embroidery and all kinds of stuff you have to sometimes have your some red tape a little bit of stuff. Yeah. Which we're gonna respect that at a you know someone brings it in and says throw a laser beam at this and like I'll do it but we're not gonna necessarily two thousand of them which we've done thousands of Yetis and thousands of polar camel tumblers and hundreds of other different types as well and that was actually kind of how we cut our teeth a little bit. There was this one year 2020 where we couldn't do anything. Yeah and we started in 2019 like we really just started right before that all went down. I actually have a box still somewhere of these little magnets that said keep it at local. It was a Pennsylvania shape. Wooden Pennsylvania shape it engraved keep it at local little magnet. I was gonna walk around to different businesses and just talk about what we were gonna do and offer and that same week when I had them all glued up ready to go the world shut down. Yeah. Literally so we kind of like started spinning our wheels and going hmm I guess it's time to do R&D and just keep keep things going and as much as we can but then one day we got a phone call and it was really random like I just I kind of I love it because I didn't see it coming which is the neat part but got a phone call and the guy asked me if I could do like thousands of yetis and I'm standing in the middle of another event where I'm kind of I have some products to here and I'm kind of showing them to a person and I'm kind of waiting in between things and all the sudden this guy is kind of giving me this huge opportunity and I've never done thousands of yetis before but yeah I'll do them yeah absolutely we'll figure that out. So what went through your mind with the one you call were you like okay like you serious like you want thousands of yetis or well this guy is definitely serious okay this guy like I knew about this guy having potentially like beat this guy could potentially be a connection for us just to do more work but it didn't strike me as something that would go like that fast so it was really neat and it went really smoothly and well and we we you know got our ducks in a row he gave us the pricing and everything of what we were gonna do and there's one of those situations where I need it yesterday and it was for the holiday season so my dad and I kind of like well I don't know maybe I looked at my dad and said we got to do a lot of work here and he said all right yeah we did 14 hour shifts overlapping and graving yetis for like days and days and days and days. Just not stop. I'm all alone. It was take because yeah yeah at that point yeah that's as fast as we could go and it is what it is so we we did that and that was one of those things that like we'll see you know how many thousands more we do yeah that's one of those things that definitely kind of like is something like like cut our teeth I would say because we stepped right into manufacturing thousands of something or decorating thousands of items for somebody and that was where the other light bulb went on where we said okay so if this guy needs this kind of work this this could be a thing like we could we could find plenty of people who need our laser engraving service and that's kind of what it is turned into now and that's if to kind of try to re-align the focus piece is like just to to provide a high quality you know local as well as you know decent reach I like to say like a premier laser engraving and cutting service on the east coast like one of the top is what I would say I'm striving to maybe get to one day and I'm going to let the wind get me there in a way I'm not gonna not force that oh no you can't yeah it's gonna it but so far so good and it kind of continues to do its thing which is cool yeah I believe you put something out there like in the universe and I mentioned this again on other episodes and and you strive to be the best you can every day you know that it'll kind of see itself through you know kind of handle itself now of course it doesn't happen like magic obviously got put the time and put the work like if you say you know you want to be the the premier you know up and down the east coast then it's doable anything's possible I think yeah anything's possible and I appreciate that because that's one of those things that I think that energy is needed there's a lot of no energy in the world so yes positive kind of can do is definitely my my vibe and I think like when when something tells me no out enough I'll listen but I'm a little bit stubborn when it comes to like if I have a little bit of a vision and I kind of have a little bit of like a I think I see something there like even just like a little project at home you know just something small even I kind of like just got to see it through and my other my buddy Mitch and I were chatting yesterday and about like how we can't just do anything's like like simply we have to like go all in and like see like how many we can grow like or how many like he grows like lots of like flowers and vegetables and stuff and he's just you know he's good at it and he just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger it's awesome so there's just a lot of that like positive stuff like between all the people that are around us that I think it goes a long way and hopefully we can continue to find these find these different projects and people who need our need our our service and just keep keep growing the the web because the the great vine was kind of strong before we started with like being local people and having businesses before and having lots of contacts and stuff so the great vine kind of started ready to go and now it's just growing in this direction with this laser laser engraving business and it's really cool to watch like where it goes and like meeting you like it's just it's just nuts how that's what I mean I mean you know had we knock on to that festival I don't know if we are past what have you know I'm sure some people would cross because my wife and I you know we do love to go to like vendor expose and things like that but like if you ever go on back then to revisit you know back in 2019 right or COVID like because I feel like you you should and maybe you maybe you have go to like local businesses and leave them like you're saying a magnet or like a business card or something because I feel like you're a pretty good kept secret here in Levin County like I really do the products you put out are fantastic and I feel like if more people knew locally they would you would use you I mean I'm sure they might not do these large runs but you never know you're trying yeah I think that's I think that's what we're we're starting to realize where where our strengths and weaknesses are and I think that's where like the future is for us is to to that broad gate we had wide open to do all these different things we realize what's good what's bad and what's kind of definitely don't do that again kind of stuff yeah yeah yeah what's in there yeah but we're gonna just do what anybody does which is you know see what works and and try to repeat it and do it do it again and with the local thing it's it's tough doing one-offs and and stuff like that it becomes a little bit you sometimes the passion kind of overtakes the profit and you end up spending like way too many hours on a $20 something and you're like wow man this is not gonna that's not sustainable but when you take a few years and you're where we're at we're like okay we know what we should be doing we should for people what we can do efficiently you know some of this stuff that we're gonna be we're we're gonna be relaunching our website and we're gonna have a little bit of a limited selection of things that we're decent at and some examples of things that we're good at and just one of those things where there's a lot of a lot of things that we can make for gifts and people like in that realm but there's also a whole lot of things that are like riveted to the back of an air conditioning unit on a roof you know that's an engraved tag that they need 200 of when they make those units okay so there's stuff like that that we kind of really industrial yeah more industrial jobs and stuff like that where you have that kind of behind the door stuff people don't really even think about most of the time and then you have the stuff that you're we're looking at here and you know bottle openers and key chains and you know the tumblers and the yetis and the shakudiri boards and all that stuff that's the kind of stuff that people see and what we've realized is that's the stuff that gets this visibility and that's the stuff that gets the conversations rolling and then it gets the person in the door who needs those air conditioning tags that I'm talking about and that's now that puzzles in place and hopefully he and it not hopefully he continues to connect us to more people and that just is like it grows and just yeah absolutely exponentially yeah for sure and now you know you work with some some large clients and in particular you know I see all over your Instagram troves and you brought a sample of of troves here and Hershey so like man how did how did you come across how did that I knew you used to work to tell us how that happened so that workout that was kind of was timing as well as who you know not what you know okay and I think that's definitely a huge piece of Quiti Hollow is the who the who you know leading us to getting getting the fire started and we got engaged my wife and I got engaged and we came to troves to have a celebration gathering and good choice one of yeah of course and and one of our old coworkers who has you know worked her way up a little bit in that in that business she said congrats and I just kind of knew she knew a little more about the gift shop then the guy who just just gave us our beer so I kind of jumped up and said hey you know I've got this thing going on it's just started and I have this little idea I just want to bring it by for the gift shop and I just would just want to see your idea you know and she's real cool so she's like yeah man like yeah maybe a little closer to gifting season because it was like made a little summer I said no problem so I made the one that's sitting here this this is the one that I literally walked in there with and said this is the idea this is the prototype it's a little wooden bottle opener and she's like this is awesome yeah this is great you can do this just you make these I'm like yep we make them we cut them out we engrave them and then we pretty them up and assemble them and and that's that and they had magnets in them and there's a couple different renditions of them in different species of woods we made them out of and that led to little cheeseboards and that led to little magnets and that led to little leather lanyards that we do now and other versions of the cheeseboard and displays for magnets and displays for lip balm what really we don't make the lip balm but we made the displays for it yeah so there's just like this cool little opportunity there where just kind of who you know and then having a little bit of a like I guess motivation just go just say something and just like see like I definitely throw a lot of stuff at the wall and in my head yeah I throw even more at the wall and so I think as time goes on I'm more willing to just throw it at the wall and see what there's what someone's gonna say in this particular realm of business for sure and that just that landed well and it grew and that was like our first kind of merchandise situation and it definitely it went well and we have little leather keychains little wooden magnets for the fridge and I think we still have some cheeseboards in there right now there might be some other items still in there but yeah we that's one of the ones that was a who situation and then we got to be doing some of the other large companies just through the connections you know these guys work with these guys and now you're putting you know little little candy company logos on things that are pretty big and you're doing stuff like that and you're like wow this is neat I might not be sitting in that corporation office making the sale but yeah I get to throw this I get to put this stuff through my computer through my machine and polish it up and say yeah look at that that's gonna go to a fortune 500 companies employee for their for their corporate gift that's pretty cool so yeah the more of that the more of that the better and there was also you know we did we did some stuff for Hubble Hubble Hubble is like like the telescope but yeah I'll just say do like electronic instruments and stuff and like little stuff like that stuff are like Hubble so the but that's the who my mom's connection no hiding is here you know my mom's my mom's husband is you know connected in in that world with GE and Hubble and some stuff there was able to he able to say hey you want to do a gift for us I have a great team that could use a great gift and you make stuff that's cool and he's like a cook guy so he he wanted me to do a cheese board so he's like a cheese board so that was cool but yeah that's it's it's I would say it's the who it's definitely all about the who which makes me want to plug the book Who Not How which is okay part of part of my little bit of audible listening who not how who not how is a is a really great book for anybody who's out there trying to figure out like hmm I need to be able to get a little more done here it's it's all about the who about the connections of the who and stuff like that who's gonna do it how who's gonna do it not how you're gonna do it so it's it's definitely a powerful thing wow what's what's the saying is a carpe diem sees sees the day sees the moment like because you went up somebody a troge I mean some people wouldn't have the the gumption or but you believed in yourself and your capabilities in your product that much be like hey you know we should partner we should work together yeah and it's cool because you don't expect like you kind of like I think a lot of people you kind of like expect the worst in a way you're like ready for them to be like nah not for us or who are you or something like that like so it's definitely a weird phase of small business kind of like you know I did have a phone call like recently where the person's like who are what's your name and I'm like oh they didn't really remember me huh so you know what they were all cool so they didn't quiddie hollow if you're listening yeah they didn't really know they don't know the quiddie I guess so I have given that but like oh who's this oh the honey guy yeah okay that's right so it was you know it's one of those one of those things so yeah it's about to who yeah it's about the who so it should be the title of the episode it's the who I like a lot yeah you know what would you say you're if you had to pick maybe what are your top like three most popular items and like people order for sure the tumblers are like a constant thing we actually partnered up with Jonah waste hardware out in Jon's town really early on to supply us our yetis and then we offer the engraving service there so they can they offer it to the customers they you know if they want their name or their logo or something we'll come pick up one we'll go engrave it we'll go drop it back off right there at Jonah like you know kind of for them so yetis are a rolling thing and then between all the functional items that we do like the bottle openers and the coasters and little wooden things like the functional items are kind of a big category that we sell a lot of because statistically I don't know if you sell more bottle openers or sugary boards what's gonna ask yeah it's like it's so I would I boil it down like functional wooden items because the wooden items are definitely of the majority and then the tumblers just are always happening and then really from there the honey and the that kind of has really started to take off and jars of honey are selling more and more as things go so that's a perfect segue because I was gonna say let's talk bees that's the next point I have so you know you brought a jar of honey what is it like and how did you get into beekeeping and I think a bees as beekeeping I picture okay you got like the mesh hood and outfits you're not getting stung you know the full long sleeves I maybe gloves and you have a is it a like a smoker to keep the bees calm how do you get into beekeeping and what is it like I mean that's a huge jar honey have here yeah that's a two pound jar it's definitely one of our top sellers for sure once people like our honey they seem to come back for the two pound jar so funny enough when I pulled in I saw courtyard of honor on your on your yeah Randy so Randy McKillup heard us talking about wanting to keep bees me my dad and my stepmom there we were interested for years we've been interested in trying to get into beekeeping and it was one of those like mentioning it to Randy turned into what we have now long story short but he introduced us to Mark Bogrett who was you know a bee geek known as a beak a bee so so Bogrett Bogie's bees he he came out and just absolutely mentor us to the point where I got addicted to it and I couldn't stop I kind of like just couldn't stop like making more bees and trying to just like manipulate them to to do the things that you know beekeepers do which is make more bees make honey and there's a whole lot more that goes into it and when you say let's talk bees my brain goes oh boy that's a huge can of worms or bees or whatever you want to call it because it's it's such a really really deep world of like of a hobby industry all those things that it is because you can keep one or two beak colonies in your backyard and really enjoy that and you can also have thousands of colonies and ship them across the nation to pollinate all mintries in California that just got finished and then they come back to the east coast and kind of land in Georgia and Florida then they make their way all over the country to pollinate everything else and as far as fruits and stuff go and that's like a huge commercial end to be keeping like forklifts and freight trucks and huge tanks of sugar and stuff like that and then there's so it's just really really there's not too many things that span where you can have one or you can have 4,000 and you can all bee beekeepers so we would be considered sideline beekeepers because we have between 40 and 120 hives at any given time I peaked out at 115 colonies last year and then holy cow right now we're working on probably about 50 60 colonies okay so when you say like I'm trying to picture when you say you have a what do you say like 120 125 colonies is that individual like the picture in the boxes what they know like skinny boxes and see sort of those are colonies individually and each yard she's had a hundred you've had like 125 of those at one point yeah and they they're all spread out and now granted those those hundred some are not all full blown honey producing production colonies and some of them are just doing the job of um drawing out more comb and drawing and doing prepping for next year um okay sort of sadly enough not all of them are going to make it through winter one way or another um but if they kind of all have their job and they all do it they all do it really well these bees are amazing creatures and we got into it you know I got one hive my dad got three hives the next thing you know we learned that you know bees make more bees oh yeah that's how nature works right and the next thing you know we've got they've got nine I've got three next thing I mean it just went blew up it just kind of blew up that way and we kind of maintained that by starting to sell the honey you know finding outlets for the bees and like my buddy could buy them and sell them and and and do things like that and it was just that little community of beekeeping and beekeepers is is really me and we've met some other guys John Tiddles and a local commercial beekeeper that we we've kind of been partnering with and getting resources off of and bouncing ideas off of and everything and I mean he he was calling me about kitchen stuff and I'm calling him about you know supplies and whatnot and yeah so we got into it because Randy knew a guy basically and then that guy was just as crazy as me and the next thing you know we're we're calling it like a side gig but man it really takes a lot of time and effort and you know every week I'm running around up to some more bottles of honey and these different retail locations we're growing to have and it's really it's cool because it's the office of a beekeeper for me anyway when I'm out there even when there's other guys around or whatever like my dad or anybody else around there's moments where you're really like just submerged in their little world and you're just kind of observing a really really interesting little thing and these beacons for some reason agree with me and I don't feel the need to wear all the I was gonna ask you to check the pool all the time yeah so no so like yeah there's just this real comfortability I agree to have pretty quickly with it and I I just really like it it's it's it's hard to say like I wouldn't say I'm a natural at it but it went well you got a knack for it kind of got a knack for getting in there and having fun with it and like there are days where you know the bees really boss you're around a little bit and they'll tell you to get out or the whole stinging or or you know some today yeah sometimes they don't do what you want them to do you know you kind of manipulate them to help them out and grow and they don't really do you know sometimes sometimes there's those natural things that don't work out but for the most part really really the most part done really well in our percentage of overwintering which is like how many you get through winter it has been above the Pennsylvania average which is great which is great yeah so we're we're able to maintain our good population healthy bees and our honey seems to be really well-liked by people and we're pretty convinced we're at this point pretty sure that it's because we harvest our honey a little bit earlier if we can because the early spring nectars that come in are absolutely just delicious they're they just for us are the premium and locust and clover and a few of the other early early nectars just create a super super delicious light colored floral flavored kind of like there's some fruitiness in there sometimes and it's really turned into the the honey people want and they're like man that was really good um I want to I really like that it's not like the stuff from the store and although it is all honey we we really take pride in the fact that we try to we try to snag that spring honey if you can for the bottles for you guys in your kitchens because it's really it's really good stuff so slowly but surely with Matt Zeckman you know like we kind of said earlier plugging me up with that with his kitchen with his old kitchen his little tiny kitchen that he started in became my starter kitchen because as a beekeeper you can sell your you can sell your honey off of your property called like farm stand style okay um you can do that for as long as you want you don't have to have a kitchen but when you harvest over two thousand pounds last year you kind of have to really two thousand pounds well yeah well yeah it was a good year it was it was like for me yeah I will say I took a gamble early on in the year and said I'm gonna push this spring honey thing and see if it doesn't bite me because or sting me because I you know we really love that honey and it's just it's worth it and there's a lot that goes into like why that's risky the early season bees are really ramping up they're really growing fast and to make more bees they split into and they swarm so they swarm out of the box basically the old queen leaves with half the hive and the new queen that they're creating is state you know that just emerge stays behind and takes over and it can happen multiple times you know in a year at a time so if you are if you're if you're kind of pushing them to fill up these boxes to the brim and not creating more space for them the way we kind of do one to do that they they will swarm on you and you'll very quickly kind of lose out real quick like there goes it's just like half of your printing shop just walking out one day and like just after like start like we're like like like however many guys are up there I don't know yeah you you know half of them literally just walk out and they take one of the managers now it's like devastating yeah the right because if the queen's not there then the well they make a new one so it's still a little bit off there but yeah they they that's what's so it's detrimental if that gamble doesn't go out doesn't pay off yeah yeah it can really really hurt the harvest and beekeeping being an agricultural thing it's it's a little bit of you're you're depending on other nature's blessing to you know gift you that harvest of early spring conditions last year the locust trees had blossoms on them for like I was just I lost count I was so excited yeah I was like this is awesome these locust trees just won't drop those pedals which is a great thing and then two years prior it was like hey look there's here they're there the locust blooms oh there's a frost in a wind storm like they're gone yeah so like it you know it all depends on all the nature's yeah so you're really walking the line with these bees like try I mean it's that would be slightly dramatic from me but at the same time it it's an investment so if it goes wrong it really yeah it can be a smaller harvest which supply and demand the 2000 pounds of honey yeah it was yeah I don't mean to cut off but what does it take to make it the two-pound jar here like how much is that like two hives together is that one hive I don't know so last year I was saying I had about 40 honey producing colonies and to get to 2000 pounds they would all have to average 50 pounds there so yeah I was saying just about 70 ish about 70 pounds of hive was what and that's the thing there's there's some whatever they're going on there's smaller hives that donate to that harvest that I wouldn't call one of those 40 and some of those 40 are going to produce 30 pounds and some of those I mean very literally some of those 40 colonies are going to produce like a hundred some pounds of honey wow so the average being 50 to 60 70 pounds of honey for 40 colonies that gets us to guess us that over 2000 pound number and not all that 2000 is the premium spring honey so we do have this what we call summer honey and we do some other stuff with it we we do sell it to some bakeries we do sell it with flavoring in it with natural flavors and then we also do what's called spun honey or some people know it as creamed or whipped honey what where it's like a controlled crystallization honey it is like a smooth spreadable honey product which is really just honey that has a certain you know granular crystalized honey mixed in there at a certain ratio and then the rest of the liquid honey takes that same form yeah solidifies like that not like the big chunky crystallized honey you get out of the cupboard that you're like oh man this crystal lies it's all kind of chunky and like shards of honey in here it's it's like a really nice smooth spread like my spread yeah yeah it goes really amazingly on toast and stuff so we do that with some of the honey and yeah it's it's it's pretty wild to like some of these colonies you just you just you just like you're in awe like at this part of the year you're walking up you're expecting them to probably not have filled that box yet and you pick it up in here wow okay that one's full get another box and then you know at the same time you're you have these little colonies you're nursing them along and you're trying to get them to a position so that they're ready for winter and there's just this kind of ever-morphing like population of bees that you have at our size operation and it's it's a really fun time it's I'd love to I'd love to have anyone who's interested you know come out and and put a put a suit on and and check it out it's it's a really cool time I would love to I'd love to do you know and I know my stepmom is into this too like instructional you know experiences and stuff down the road maybe when we have we have some things in in line but you know have people out put some suits on get a couple hours out there an hour to to experience it and get educated and that'd be really cool yeah be really so yeah cuz I mean and bees are so important to to life I feel like to to the world you know they I mean I feel like the bee population in general isn't it like on a decline I don't know I feel like that somewhere yeah there's so there's which isn't good right so there's kind of so honey bees are like the captain of the pollinator team okay in the world they kind of get all the spotlight of like being the ultimate pollinator or something like that in a way in in reality I think what most and now I'm not a like biologist or entomologist where I know insects to the next degree but the pollinator population is what's on the decline and the all of our bees are kind of on the decline in a wild and natural sense so in one sense I'd say there are probably more bees honey bees in backyards than ever before at some point of the year you know some point of the time here because like the pandemic kind of sprouted a lot of backyard beekeepers and people who can stay at home now and stuff so that's great but the reality of it is a beak is a certain size with a certain size tongue and it can only pollinate so many of the flowers and the fruits and the vegetables in the world the rest of the pollinator population which survives extremely you know on its own wildly is being decimated by the pesticides is being decimated by you know the kind of the habitats being ruined in a way you know if you go back years and years to this you know area you would see a lot more hedgerows and tree lines and thicker brush your stuff in between properties and it's all been bought knocked down and made into more fields which it is what it is but those types of things all around kind of deplete the habitat for those bees and there's solitary mason bees there's all different sizes of those kinds of little bees and they're probably the ones that we need to you know if you really want to do your thing and do your part those are the types of efforts you want to put save the bees towards me and the rest of the beekeepers are going to keep making bees and we're going to have tons of honey bees I really have a there was a scare when there was something about bees can all colony collapse disorder but that's kind of not as much of a thing right now so yeah I think the native pollinators need a little bit more attention and it's it's simply because they all have a little spectrum job there and the bees the honey bees that we all love they can only do so many of those jobs and they can only pollinate all so many of those flyers so yeah shout out to Randy so Randy this all is the vector Randy I caught your out of honor that's crazy and his episode actually comes out I think right before yours is coming out it's right before yours I told you I stream all over the place from thought to thought so it's perfect yeah yeah take it back to Randy shout out to Randy shout out to Randy McEllod wow that's how you got into the bees so now what do you see is the future for Quiddihalo so I think we're going to continue trying to offer our service of engraving and cutting and we're going to we're going to try and narrow in on those products that we manufacture in house and just have this this nice menu that'll kind of morph and grow with time but take what we know from the last five-ish years of business and and narrowed in and scaled up and what's really nice is that we are finding those relationships that we need to diversify those jobs and those projects from embroidery and screen printer guys who want our hat patches like genuine leather hat patches and stuff like that to the guys with the air condition tags to somebody who needs a corporate gift and needs you know five bottle openers for their guys or a hundred bottle openers for you know their whole office of people you know whatever it might be so to take what we know and and take it farther and keep just kind of giving giving it what it deserves as far as you know a local brand trying to do quality stuff going a little bit extra a little bit extra mile to get a little bit higher quality maybe a little bit do something that's just a little bit extra cool or special or just and I think that's what we do is we try to keep the ideas flowing the future is just to let those ideas kind of be what we do and and and just and and let the scale go up we have a small we have an intern really yeah we have a school high school kid Donovan he's about to graduate and he has gone from like you know not really sure what to do when he gets there to like he has his little tasks that he maintenance tasks and he can he's really good on the drawing on the computer and so scaling up that way with the young crowd that's really good with the computers and the tech is one way that we want to try and see the future go and yeah we're just going to keep making relationships and and and selling honey and shooting later beams that's awesome shout out to Donovan that's so cool you got an intern and you know you're doing great things and I'm sorry if I was driving you nuts sending you the logos for the American real podcast because I'm not a good like I didn't design it we have designers here color tech you know so when you were asking me questions like oh crap I don't know no I'm talking about wife I was like what should I send Mike you know I was like I don't know but tell us a little bit about the items you brought there will be photos up on American real podcast Facebook and Instagram but yeah what do you got so the shrugs bottle opener is just the the OG bottle opener prototype and that just kind of is one of those like that's like you see the first dollar stamped on the wall kind of thing that's kind of like that for us you know that's one of those first products but the rest of the things you see here is one of our are more what would you call it so it would be like our I want to stage an Eric but it would be our standard standard yeah yeah our standard bottle opener which is just our bottle opener puck it's the same size as a hockey puck we are hockey fans which is it's also turns into like a replica hockey puck and if needed if needed which it has before but anyway it's a little bottle opener and it has your last name on it so it's a gift for you thank you that's awesome made out of walnut so we cut that out on the CNC router and we can personalize them put logos on them we've done a lot of those puck style bottle openers with the hardwoods cherry walnut maple are the three that we get into the most but that's an old stand by definitely the little puck bottle opener now sometimes we go and we add magnets all over it so it catches the cap and sticks to just about anything like that so that's the one thing and definitely definitely something we've seen a lot of in the shop that another thing is your logo on a piece of cherry and yeah what's cool about this is that you with the logos we were sending me and my inability and my lack of skill to be able to like do what I needed to do because you sent me good files you really did were they okay because I didn't I wasn't really good it's a you're it's a heavy file or it's a big file for me with a lot of layers a lot of colors and it's kind of a 3D and you got the little highlights on your cheeks and your shirt and there's little things in there graphically that are kind of work against the laser software so what was cool is that you kind of pushed me to say I was like hmm if I'm gonna make this I want to make a sample for him I'm gonna have to learn something new today so oh wow I kind of dove into how am I gonna make this a highest quality you know image for laser engraving on the softwares that I had and YouTube did it again you know it gave me a few answers and my university yeah really seriously I was like okay that's cool because I've had a couple logos come through where I really struggled to get what I wanted out of them so yeah the the cherry block and this leather coaster have your logo engraving on them and it's cool just because the the path to getting that logo to look like this was just a little bit of another another learning thing and it's like it just another opportunity where I could say hey man I can't figure it out or like hey I want to be able to figure these out because every once in a while it happens so yeah this is a leather coaster genuine leather and we've done a handful of those do them any shape this one happens to be a circle but we can cut the leather any shape we make leather key chains we make some other like leather bottle opener things and so this is one of those in the hat patches that I'm trying to think of yeah so there's a few leather items that come into play and I thought I just really like this color leather so yeah and as I knew you talk whiskey and beer so like he'll probably use the josephus yeah definitely so coach the body opener and then this little block of cherries kind of like what I call like a logo block so if you have like a logo and you want like a backdrop little prop or something in your office on your shelf on your windowsill it's just kind of something we've done for people really simply like I just want my logo on something so I can so that's all that is and cherry shows up real nice so we have that and then of course the big bottle of honey and uh yeah so thank you Mike I appreciate it and Doug so I'm sure he helped out and uh you know it's neat that to see it like it looks cool in the fact that you were like instead of me like no awesome I can't like hey you know you can't give me the right file I'm just gonna turn it down you went like out of your comfort zone learn something new that now you can carry on for like other clients other other opportunities yeah it's cool yeah that just naturally continues to happen too and that's that's like what I was saying earlier with the abundance of opportunity like it just seems like I can't it's it's weird because some days I could definitely see it as like things work against me yeah and like like there are harder days when you're like man I just can't like I can't help it drops everything I touch or something you know like clumsy days but yeah it's like always sort of where I hope to just remember there's there's always like that opportunity and so like I'm frustrated with a logo but I'm like it's a really good logo like I really want to be able to engrave this logo so there's there's uh there's neat things that'll just come out of each relationship and that's I definitely appreciate that this time with like not expecting it once again like that's where certain things like you can tell they're just organic you know don't expect it teaches you something good gives you something cool opportunity to record a podcast with you yeah neat neat little nerve acting experience for me but it's it's fun we're in and out we're in a full swing now you know and uh yeah all because of in this case Foxcrest and stopping there um you know like I said I love live edge anything would my my wife knows if she's like you're nuts so when I saw you there I was like I gotta talk to this guy I gotta go introduce myself and that's one thing I'm not uh I used to be shy and scared of the dark when I was younger but I'm not anymore and it's like everyone's probably well that's really red but you know I'm not afraid of what people be like hey here's my card my name's Austin I have a podcast you want to come on and like share your story like I don't know I'm not afraid to make new connections um and like you know just it's cool to hear what other people do and like what makes them tick and then to learn something new like the bees with the honey and and everything you guys do you and you and you and you know you and your dad yeah yeah it's it's a cool journey it's very multifaceted and there's a lot of I think that was part of the struggle for me to like as we thought about what how I would explain myself or what we're doing it's uh it's hard because there's like I said an open gate of things we have done and can do um but at this point we're we're humming along with with the machines that are doing a lot of the work and the bees that are making great honey and it's it's yeah it's definitely huge blessing I haven't I haven't uh gone a day without being like man you just just keep going because like you have the up you have the opportunity and that's a lot more than then uh some people can say so the the amount of the amount of like giving back I would love to do eventually is is huge um I think there's so many really good like celebrity or like local and public figure type of people who are really good at giving back and showing that like you know it's not it's not it's all it's not all about the dollar sign for them it's about giving some of that back and you know we we have our little idea of hopingly hopefully giving back to the Quitte in a way um and doing our little Quitte cleanup stuff and doing I kind of have this little idea of doing a bluegrass and cleanup day called pick the Quitte so you pick the Quitte you pick in pick and trash picking bluegrass at the end of the day you know a little event maybe ends up at Quitte Park or something maybe a food truck or something like that and yeah that's something you know maybe not this year but you know as we get the get the munitions to kind of get that together and and give back to the community that way it would be awesome and then you know growing up like watching hockey players go to like you know hospitals and do cool things with people and like that kind of energy you know just being able to give back is huge so you know hopefully we can that can be a part of how we grow to is to you know be known for that as well so yeah it's the who that's his connections that you then make because because you give them back and and you know it grows and expands your brand one of the things I've again mentioned on another on previous episodes is like one day I'd like to get some sponsors but I'm not doing it for the money I'm doing it to meet new people make connections learn what what others do but like I always thought man it'd be great to get some sponsors and then be able to go like if nonprofits have a golf tournament boom an American on podcast is sponsoring the golf tournament or whatever it may be you know doesn't even need to be like a something that you get credit for but to give back to the community like you're saying because the end of the day money is a tool that you you can use to maybe make connections and then that leads to the other opportunities you know and that's why I look at it yeah I think that's if you know sitting here now after talking a little bit and thinking a lot about what I would say to you and on in this recording it really is about for us it's really using the who you know to to grow what we've grown because funny enough we haven't really used much more than social media and word of mouth to get where we're at so it's almost like we haven't even thrown that much gas on the fire yeah as far as things go and I think as we mature to find the that sweet spot that I'm talking about and that focus of the wide gate kind of narrowing into this few lane highway we know we're good at we can offer quality products in these realms that's like that's like the I don't know where I was I just got to lost my train of thought there but that's kind of the the oh yeah that's just like the all of that kind of leads back to us just being able to talk to this guy and talk to that guy and always have these connections and it's just it'll never stop amazing me the connections that we make and then how we make them like yeah none of the good ones were forced I'll tell you that yeah like none of the good none of the good connections are forced and it's really neat that way and I think that's like what just fills fills up the small business person is like you know like when Matt and I start nerding out about coffee there's like this is like really neat like just like agreed upon kind of excitement about what he's doing and you know I mean I try like to pump his tires like he'll I don't try I definitely do like he'll come out with something or whatever and it's just like do that's awesome like we're you're like he's just and we're just good at bouncing each other off of each other like that and there's and I'm just using Matt because a lot of people know him oh yeah podcast and stuff and he is definitely very relevant like that but there's a lot of people like that for us where like even today like a friend of ours who works in the promotional items industry he stopped by to pick up his son's project for his business and then we talk about a few more projects and it's just this like ever ever rolling ball that is hopefully snowballing in a good way and I I feel like it is so yeah I it's all about just the who for me and that's it's so funny that it keeps coming back to that it's yeah it's all about the who I love that I'm gonna title this episode it's all about the who because that's that's what it is and yeah Matt's episode is within the top five most downloads for the American podcast yeah it's a good episode yeah yeah he's got it he's got a very he's got a cool story and he's good at telling it for sure so now how can our listeners connect with you and follow along on your journey so Instagram is definitely my most active account at Quiddihalo we also have a facebook at Quiddihalo or Quiddihalo custom products so those two social medias are are definitely the most active thing and the Instagram is where I like to have a little fun and do stuff that way we have a website quiddihalo.com but it is we're rebuilding it right now we're kind of changing the brand of website that we are using and we think it's gonna definitely help like the purchasing and stuff like that that we didn't really have set up before so yeah at our quiddihalo.com will be refreshed very soon so you can check that out and test out our test out our ordering and see how see how it works for us give us some some trial runs here soon it'll be in a few days honestly it'll be hopefully beginning of yeah beginning of April here it'll be oh wow so by the time it's yeah this episode should be should be on so okay yeah quiddihalo.com and at quiddihalo on Instagram are the two best ways before we close out is there anything else you'd like the listeners to know no not really I I guess I just say thanks for thanks for listening yeah yeah oh for sure yes thank you for listening and if you'd like on Spotify Apple Podcast or iHart Radio or Amazon Music you can follow along leave a rating if you enjoyed the episode or if you learned something new about bees or quiddihalo in general so I'll close it out Mike Reese owner of quiddihalo on the American Real Podcast and the Color Tech Creative Solution Studios thank you for joining me if you enjoyed this episode please subscribe and leave a review to see photos of today's guests and more content just search American grown podcast on Facebook and Instagram if you'd like to be a featured guest on the podcast please direct message or email Austin at American grown pod at gmail.com this episode was brought to you by these sponsors Cleona coffee roasters is a small batch coffee roastery and coffee shop veteran and first responder owned community oriented and roasted fresh to order now open inside 911 rapper response andville pa go to cleona coffee roasters.com to order online see updated hours and find where you can buy it close to you triggered 22 LLC a veteran owned apparel company by purchasing a t-shirt hat or hoodie from triggered 22 you're not only supporting 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