Product Development for Screen Printing with Ron Sievert Inventor of The EzGrip Squeegee
Cam: (02:35)
We have a very, very special guests. And the reason he’s special and the reason I asked him to come on is because, um, I am, I’m personally just, I guess I would say I’m a creative person. I’m interested in creating products and developing products. And you know, whether I want to take them to market or not, I’ve just always been intrigued by the process. And this gentleman has, he’s done a handful of products, but today we’re going to talk about one product in particular and how he went about building it and what he did and what to look out for, what’s the good, what’s the bad, all that kind of stuff. So without further ado, let’s introduce Mr Ron Seaver. He is the creator of the easy grip squeegee, the easy group squeegee. Ron, welcome to the show, my friend. Thank you for coming on.
Ron: (03:42)
Real pleasure to be here with you cam and your viewing audience.
Cam: (03:46)
Thanks dude. So, uh, what’s new with you? What are you been up to these days? Oh, you know, same old thing. Try not trying to market this new invention. Yeah, man. All right. Time consuming project. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I, I guess I’m going to give a little bit of backstory before I start talking to you just about the easy squeegee. So I learned about the easy squeegee from a co, uh, a friend of mine who is also in the screen printing business is named Jack. He runs Jurassic prints and he can, he comes up to me one day and he goes, dude, have you seen this new thing that’s the advanced screen has over there and I’m on nowadays. He’s like, this is new squeeze. You brought us like super lightweight. It’s very affordable. It’s really fun. Cool. And of course me being the guy that just likes to test out any new product, especially if it’s affordable, I go running over to advanced screen, I grab up a couple of them, I bring them back and we start using them and it was awesome.
Cam: (04:39)
And then, uh, I put it in a video. Right? Just completely, it was on my own, my own accord. I had no intention of ever reaching out to you, but I did the video on it. And uh, shortly there after is how I actually got in touch with you. Right. Cause you just called to say thanks for doing the video. Um, when you’re, when you, or what did you do or what, what was happening when you decided, hey, I need to make this cause this, this thing just simply does not exist. What does the story behind that?
Ron: (05:13)
Actually, it’s pretty simple. I started working in the print screen industry as a printer and it wasn’t, but a few weeks after I started printing that I realized that, um, this most crap the squeegee could use an improvement and primarily from the a aeronomics standpoint as well as several other benefits and features that were missing with the would squeegee. You know, the squeegee, we really had somebody who knows 100 years ago, uh, picked up a piece of wood through a piece of rubber in the bottom. Said, hey, I got a squeegee, but never, they never started from scratch. And I don’t know if anyone has, other than myself, sat down and said, what does a squeegee need? What or what, what do we, what are we looking for in the squeegee? We need something that uh, is going to be good on your hands, good on your body, something that’s not going to fall in the ink, something that’s easy to change, blade something that FCC to clean. Um, and so I made a list, but what if I were going to with Venice, squeegee, what would I want that product to be and I don’t know, made my lip and I went to the uh, you know, research and development and started well at my research and development was really ace hardware and Anna would squeegee, I took a snugging, took ISACA Downer with Squeegee, put a couple of brackets on it, put some rubber handle grips on it and started adjusting to develop the right angles, the right with the right pressures, the right height.
Cam: (06:56)
Yeah. Cause with that squeegee, the first thing that you notice when you put your hands on it is like is the angles of it, right? Like when you first pick it up you’re like, wow. Like it makes sense. But I would assume in the product development process, there was a lot of kind of back and forth on really trying to find that ideal angle.
Ron: (07:13)
Oh the hell. There was a bat. In fact, when I first did it, I didn’t put an angle. I used to have like the handles can be straight up off the rubber in the same plane as the rubber. So I took it, I pole on it. All I did is they pulled it over and here, boy, I’ve got this great invention, right? This, this thing’s going to fly around the world and everybody’s gonna love it. And on my first pole, it just, just pulled the, the blade stayed in one spot in the handles came for me. Now wait, this isn’t working. And then I started to understand the principles, the dynamics between ’em uh, you know, angle pressure and um, delivery and yeah. And then yes, it was, it was tough because having that right angle so that women, especially in novice puts his hands on a squeegee for the first time with the easy grip. All you have to basically do is hold it up, right. The angle of the blade for printing is preset into the design of the, of the squeaky handle itself. And that’s really an important factor.
Cam: (08:23)
It is. It’s the first thing that I noticed having pulled wooden squeegees for a very long time was just that simple fact that like you just grab it and like intuitively it gives you the right angle. So it’s almost like you don’t even have to think about it, which is a Vegan, which is very rare cause when you’re trying to teach people screenprinting right, or whatever it is, uh, the angles and all that stuff or it’s Kinda hard to drill it into their heads. Well this thing just kind of seems to do it automatically. And the question is to me is like, how did you, it’s that’s, that’s I guess part of research and development. How do you, how do you figure all that stuff out, man? Because it’s the, I guess you’re just prototyping it over and over and over. Is that the beginning stages when you’re trying to create a new product? Lots of prototype
Ron: (09:06)
stats it, Yep. In my case, I would bend it millimeters. I would take the eye. I mean, I just had a flat bracket that I had screwed to the wood and then bend it from there at the top of the word, bend it towards me. I burned them. I sometimes would have one bed further than the other and one side so that they weren’t equal to try to determine which was best. I just don’t weeks develop in that aspect. Just the excellent angle because they had to be perfect cam. I put out a product and it was art. Well, you know what, this is a plastic injection more than product. So we’re talking big, huge amount of money to develop the mall.
Cam: (09:53)
Right. And I, I do actually I want to dive into more of that here in a little bit because I actually have a lot of questions about that process. Right.
Ron: (10:00)
So you have to have it right before you, before you go into the process. Gotcha. I was just research development
Cam: (10:07)
and that’s going to apply to really any product. The R and D in that first prototype is where you’re going to spend the most of your time and you’re, and probably you probably spend a big chunk of mine. It depends on what it is, but you could spend a lot of money on prototyping, right? Maybe you didn’t have to in this case, but
Ron: (10:23)
no, but you, if you, you have to spend what’s necessary. Yeah. And, um, and then of course that gets into money. Of course it is. Yes, it does. And you know, so when, when you would ask, we were talking about product development, the um, uh, the beginning of product development, a lot of people think is an idea. Yes. It’s having the money, right. And having three times the amount of money that you think you’re going to need, whether you the cash or you have a drama. If I’m a family member who’s promising it, um, just ask him when he promises, which they show me the case, show me, cause I’ve heard a lot of promises, but you’re gonna need money. If you run out of money then then, then your is all, yeah.
Cam: (11:15)
Yeah. And not to just talk about myself only, which is what I have a tendency to do. But W I, you know, I’m, I’ve gone through two different products that I’m attempting to develop. One of them was the press, which is pretty straight forward, but the, the software, what I found was even even if like you’re having a contractor or something like that that you’re working with and they give you a quote, you still have to add 20 for some fifth, sometimes even a hundred percent to that quote to get it to where you have it in your head. [inaudible] that’s been my experience. It’s never what you originally think it’s going to cost. It’s always more
Ron: (11:48)
always. And 100%, maybe more, but then there’s all these other expenses, so many expenses that you don’t know of in the beginning, it leaks back, but they’re real and they start to drain the bank account and then you make compromises and that’s, that’s where you don’t want to really end up. And I got Ya. So, um,
Cam: (12:13)
if I was to come to you, right, right, right now, whether I’m a s and maybe I’m not even in the screen printing industry, but I was to come up to you as, hey Ron. So I have this really great idea. Um, and uh, you know, maybe, maybe I’ve even done a few little prototypes. I’m pretty sure that I’ve got it. I’ve got it. A pretty good product here. What, what do you, what would you say the first crucial step is in the process of bringing a product to fruition?
Ron: (12:40)
All right, so you have a widget, right? Which are this an imaginary product?
Ron : (12:45)
Okay.
Ron: (12:46)
My first question, you would be, um, who’s going gonna want it besides you?
Cam: (12:55)
Interesting. So you’re literally stepping outside of even creating this product.
Ron: (12:59)
Well if you, you know, if you don’t have your sales, well yeah, sure. If you don’t have your sails set up, if you don’t know who’s going to buy it, why they’re going to buy it, how much they’re going to pay for it. Are they already buying? Is it actually a new product or is it like the easy grip, which is just an, you know, a better most trip I, I made the best mouse trap, but it’s still is only a better mouse trap. So with the easy grip, I could go to a printer who says, well, why do I need the easy grip? Which squeegees working? Understood now, now that’s my first obstacle. So where I’m using the easy grip, I love it. My friends use the easy grip, they love it. Everybody’s convinced me how much they love the easy grip. So I start to fall in love with the easy grip.
Ron: (13:45)
And then sometimes you lose your objectivity. When you get too close to your own product, you start not hearing the criticism because you don’t want to hear the criticism. You’ve got this idea that’s going to set the world on fire and you don’t want anything to stand in the way. I’m kind of like buying a a a sailboat and all you have in mind is sitting on the deck of the sailboat on a beautiful summer. But in fact, when you get the sailboat, it’s raining for the entire, um, you’ve got to kind of remove yourself from your dreams and your aspirations and become the customer. And do I need this product or do I want this product? If it has a true need and you can establish that, then you, that’ll look at competition. Somebody else, they’re out, they’re already building anything like it. So what, what are, how are you going to enhance that particular product to bring the customers to you is Gotcha. Cheaper is going to be better. Yeah. There’ll be a greater quality. What’s going to drive people to your product over someone else’s product?
Cam: (15:01)
Well, so, so as you’re saying this, like I’m kind of, I’m, I’m getting split between two ideas and I think I’ve even made a recent video about this idea of d.
Ron: (15:13)
In your opinion, would you
Cam: (15:16)
almost develop the market before you develop the product or make, I mean, would you,
Ron: (15:22)
yeah. Yes. Hmm. See if there’s, okay, well, I don’t know how, let’s see. What’s the best way to say this? Um, if you don’t have, if you don’t have a market, you don’t have a product. Right. You know, I feel like, you know, if you don’t have a need, what is it that you’re fulfilling? Because by the time we’re making something to make money, if you’re doing this, if this is a hobby and it really doesn’t matter if you make money, you’re doing it because you love it, um, then then fine. Do what ever you want. But if you’re going to enter into this, if you have a wife, children or, or aspirations of, of, you know, making a success, financial success yourself, then you’ve got to determine your market. Gotcha. Sure.
Cam: (16:18)
That’s, I think that that’s, I think that’s invaluable advice.
Ron: (16:21)
I think right now, I’ll tell you what I did. Um, I, I called every distributor dealer supply house. I’m going to call them dealers, but it’s, it’s like AST, never fucking company out there. Uh, Becky’s a great gal. And um, so, um, I called all of the dealers, all the supply houses in the United States and asked them how many squeegees they sold. So I established what my potential market could be before I even spent it. Well before three old money. Yeah. All right,
Cam: (16:58)
so, so you might, so it’s not to say that you weren’t doing a little, a little bit of like homebrew product development, but once you kind of want you to kind of set into your mind that hey, I may actually put some real investment into this. I’m going to do some research first.
Ron: (17:12)
Well, yes. Now in my case, I needed to, um, develop funds from, I didn’t have the money, all the money that I needed, so I had to get some investors. Well, how do, how do you convince an investor? Because we’re back to you bringing a Wicha to me. I mean, my first thing is how are you going to sell it? Who are you? Who can, where are you going to sell it to? What’s your cost? What’s your profit? Who are you selling it to? How many are you going to sell because you’re borrowing money from me and I want you to pay me back. All right. Okay. Yeah. I mean if you think of it from, like I said, more objectively or outside the box, just think of you as the, you asking for money, reverse the situation. Somebody is asking for money from you and that all of a sudden you get a little more critical about the idea.
Cam: (17:59)
Right? And that’s what you were saying earlier about removing yourself from it. Don’t fall in love and just put yourself in the other’s shoes. That’s a real big part.
Ron: (18:07)
It’s the biggest part, I think. And it’s, it’s, it’s hard. Yeah. Because it’s your baby. Uh, how, and uh, and you think everybody’s going to react to it the same way you do. You’re taken out. Show it to your first, uh, customer, or you’re your first, um, um, victim, you know, and the, and the, what the hell is this? Why do I need this? You know, you get deflated and you go, well, why didn’t I think about that? All right. You know, that’s, I get it. Yeah, you’ve gotta be prepared. You gotta be able to have an answer for that person. Lots of people don’t want to look at it negative in developing a new product. The most crucial thing to do is rip it apart. Sit down and just, just why won’t this work? You’ve added a be totally honest. You gotta be totally critical and make sure that you, you’re gonna, you know, it’s like, it’s like you’d been in a debating class, you know, taking either side of the debate, but if you can’t say why it will work, you won’t see the flaws in it.
Ron: (19:13)
And if you could come up with valid reasons why it wouldn’t work. Now this is back to being married to it yet gotta walk. It’s like being in Vegas. If you don’t know when to walk your, it’s over. Yeah, I’ve got no one to hold them. Know when to fold them. You’re just going to, you’re just going to save more money into a bad idea. Right. So those are these, those are the first stages, which I love that man. That’s great advice. Back up on money. Make sure you’ve got some really valid reasons why your product is going to be successful. Okay, perfect man.
Cam: (19:49)
Um, let’s, let’s just say we’re, we’re talking for the sake of argument here that the, um, you’ve done that part of it. You’ve done all your research. Um, you’re convinced, uh, based on the research from the, the clients are from the, the potential market, that it is something that the industry needs. Um, what are some, early, what are some early roadblocks that you, that you may run into in regards to taking it from like a, an early prototype, a homebrew prototype to, to whatever manufacturing process you’re going to use. Early roadblock.
Ron: (20:25)
It’s um, money. Goddamn money always comes down to money. Yeah, sure. You got enough money, you’re going to be able to do a lot. Yeah. You know, you’ve tried to avoid mistakes because mistakes are expensive and okay, so you know, and that’s another factor of when you said you need a 100% more. Well that’s if it all works the way you had planned it to work. And my doubt there’s a glitch or in my case with the easy grip, I, I’m a very complex tool from the makers, from the factory standpoint of trying to make that tool. We’ve got three dimensions going in every direction. And uh, it was an extreme challenge. So I could have gone is that this is what I want. They could have turned around and said, well that’s not possible. Right. And in fact, when I was searching for my move makers, several of them told me they could not make it accepted several pieces.
Ron: (21:25)
I said, I don’t want to piece three piece tool. I want the simplest tool. That’s another, another genius aspect of the easy grip and one piece. There’s no assembly. These are really important things when you start thinking about your labor costs. No Assembly to this. Yeah, no parts to be lost. The consumer doesn’t have to assemble it. There’s um, you know, that’s really important. If I had three parts, who’s going to put them together? Who’s going to put them together? Who’s going to box it? Who’s going to ship it? How’s, how’s that all gonna be affected? How’s my packaging material? How’s await it? I mean there’s just, there’s so many little details that you’ve,
Cam: (22:11)
and when you, when you were developing it, I mean, you know, like let’s say you’ve decided it needs to be one piece or did, did you always know it needs to be one piece or do you start figuring out like, oh, if I don’t make this one piece, I’m going to have to deal with all of this other stuff. Which, you know, did the chicken come before the egg or did you learn that it needed to be one piece as you were going? Or did you always know, well, this is
Ron: (22:34)
my first squeegee Rodeo, you know, uh, sure. One piece is one piece better than multiple pieces. Yeah. Yes. If I, well, and in this particular case it is, um, if, if I don’t make it one piece, and this is now we’re going to jump just a little bit here down the road, but once this out on the market, somebody wants to copy your idea, so you’ve got to come out with the best idea that the most complete and rephrase it that with the most complete. Um, we’ll talk about the easy grip, most complete tool with the most complete features. If I miss something, I leave something out that’s an open door to the competition that behind me and improve my product. So, so yeah,
Cam: (23:24)
I guess I kind of want to, uh, elaborate on that concept and just kind of get your take on it. So, uh, as you know, I’ve, I’ve been just kind of kind of messing around in the software world recently. And one thing that I heard from some like, well, you know, these big VC guys, they kind of tend to claim to just get a product to the market if it’s not perfect. Uh, you know, so I guess there’s almost like two sides to that. I guess maybe it depends on the market. I don’t know. Yes.
Ron: (23:55)
Yeah. You have to say, you know, every product is going to be different. Okay. Well what, tell, tell me why would you want to take a product to the market if it isn’t in a sense finished or complete or,
Cam: (24:08)
I think really the only reason is, is would it would kind of circle back to that market research, figuring out if you actually have a user base for it. I think that’s really the only reason that you would actually go to market without a, with a crappy or like a less than perfect product would be just to see if the base is there.
Ron: (24:26)
Well, in my mind, uh, I’m, I’m not sure what you would mean by market though. You know, I, yeah, it would be a test market, right? A limited test market. Um, then you’re going to be picking that test market. You’re going to be choosing that undergrads or those types of conditions. I can understand why you would do it if it needs, if the tool needs to development that, that it requires hands on and a lot of input from people who, you know, I got, I’m sure will the right product to use here as an example. But um, if it’s required for your product, then then sure. I mean, you’ve got to do whatever is required, but you’ve got to make that determination in advance and if that’s going to be required, then know it in advance because that’s gotta be part of Your Business Plan. Gotcha. Okay.
Cam: (25:19)
W what’s your, what is your take on, on some form of a business plan when it comes to is, is it a crucial
Ron: (25:24)
yeah, of course. Yeah.
Cam: (25:27)
Oh boy. I think, I think many of us are like Layla love. Fuck that. But everyone says it. Everyone who’s ever done anything worthwhile in this business, they would all say that the business plan is a crucial element.
Ron: (25:42)
Well, you’ve got to know what’s ahead of you. I mean, would you, would you start, would you go into a baseball game and not know how many of your needs are going to be played in the game?
Cam: (25:53)
Well, you could do it, but you may not. Yeah. You may not do very well. Yeah. You won’t understand what’s going on.
Ron: (25:57)
Right? So if I don’t understand what’s going to what, what, what obstacles are gonna be ahead of you, what’s going to be required? How can you, how can you be efficient? You know, don’t overcome those obstacles because it’s, it’s all about really overcoming problems. Right. And, um, like with your software, you know, when we were talking earlier, you were telling me that unforeseen issues that came up,
Cam: (26:29)
one of the big ones for me was just on like one of the things that I’m running into and I literally, it was the complete opposite of what I expected was the on is the onboarding process, but taking them from whatever it is they’re doing to ours, there’s technical issues that you have to work out. So for me, if I’m, if I’m considering myself an inventor or a product creator, my first obstacle that that is kind of the process I have to either I figured out how to overcome it or it’s, you know, it’s not going to get worked out for you. You have to figure it out. But had I done a business plan, I like a legit one. I may have a, I did like a pseudo one, but I may have understood that that was going to be a problem earlier on and I could have planned for it differently. I think.
Ron: (27:15)
Well, and, and a lot of people right now are wondering, well, what the hell is a business plam I, yeah, these guys are saying we’ll have a business plan. Well, fine, what, what, so what’s that? You know, how do I go about developing a business plan? Well, go to Google, go to Google, look up anything like your product idea and start looking up business plans. Look up the outline to a business plan. Yeah.
Cam: (27:41)
Yeah. To interject. There’s that. There’s, I think it’s the sba.gov. They have literally got a business plan, uh, uh, step by step guide that will walk you through writing a, uh, it’s a baseline one, but it’ll, it’ll get it done for you and early stage one.
Ron: (27:57)
Well, um, yeah, so then you have to put it in your own parameters for your own particular product, but it, um, um, research. Yeah. Don’t be afraid to research and continue to research and don’t think, because you come up with one answer that if that’s the final answer, you don’t read one business plan and say this doesn’t, this not applicable to me or this applies and this is all I have to do. Rate 20 of them. Look, you’re developing a product. You can’t go down the road and get it out there and find out you screwed up. I did the big times in first fall. Well, how do I know how to do a business plan? I’ve done many of them and I’ve made mistake. You know, it’s trial and error. I, I’m not a kid anymore. So I’ve had the experience to be able to, you know, some of this is natural for me, very, you know, from everything from setting up, uh, your business entity or you gotta be a sole proprietor, you gotta to be an LLC, you’re going be a corporation. How does all of that impact your taxes or impact? You definitely don’t spend up. Don’t, don’t give other people your money in advance to [inaudible]. You know, there’s, I don’t know how to express which step is important because each time it’s different. We were talking about patterns for instance.
Cam: (29:22)
Yeah, I did. I actually wanted to talk to you about that. Let’s go right into it.
Ron: (29:25)
Okay. Yeah. So a patent lawyer wants $15,000, 10 to $15,000, just to even basically do a preliminary, uh, uh, draft or luminary patent. Does your product need to be, what’s the advantage of happening? So if you, if you go out the first thing, you spend your first $15,000 with an attorney and then he, and he come back and, and, um, and you didn’t need to patent it or couldn’t be patented. The idea isn’t novel. Where’s your $15,000? It’s sitting in the attorney’s bank accounts sending his daughter to college, you know?
Cam: (30:07)
All right. And, and I was picking your brain about that, that concept of a patent earlier. And I mean, you kind of come to the conclusion like, although I feel like they probably are important, um, but all it really does is it, from what you were telling me earlier is it gives you the power to litigate, but if even if you, even if you have that power, if you don’t have the financial backing to, to push, right, the enforcement of that patent, it’s basically a useless filing if you can’t back it up.
Ron: (30:38)
But that is cam, that’s 100% correct. And what what, what you mean by that? People don’t quite understand it. Yeah. Um, you, if someone steals your idea, you have to sue them for the profit that they make off, that you would have made, not just the profit they make, but it’s the business that they took away from you. The litigate something like that is so nebulous. There’s so many gray areas and uh, a federal attorney and patents or us, uh, federal law. So you need a federal attorney. A lot of people think you can go get an attorney to said a die a, I used an attorney before a couple hundred bucks to retain a federal attorney for a patent lawsuit. You’re looking at anywhere from 150 to a quarter million dollars. That’s just to retain it. That’s for something like the easy grip. That’s simple. Now you’re in software. How do you prove it’s like a song? How can I prove that, that these 12 notes in my song I stole from somebody else and that I didn’t think of it myself?
Cam: (31:56)
And that’s what you mean by gray area, that you have to have the power of the team to prove this. What’s ultimately a gray concept in a lot of ways.
Ron: (32:03)
A totally great and yeah, and you don’t get to go talk to a judge, you know, this is all, this is all behind the scenes, all your money you spend up front before and long before you ever get to court. So trusting my advice on this, and I’m not gonna tell anyone not to get a pad. Patents have the purpose, especially, you know, especially for something that would be in the software or maybe the electronic or digital, um, uh, inventions versus a utility patent. Your, your screen printing machine that you put in the box, that’s a utility. The easy as a utility tool, something that’s not tangible is a lot harder to, to litigate, right? And so for me, what I wanted to do was be the first, because no one had invented this, be the best, be the cheapest. Those are the three important qualities that someone else.
Ron: (33:04)
So if somebody wants to steal the easy grip idea, and for everybody out there right now thinking I’m going to steal easy grip, I fit, make a better one than me and make a cheaper than me and get the will, take the loyalty away from my dealers that look that loyalty that they’ve extended to me because of my customer service, because of the, um, uh, the benefits that that product has brought to them. So when you’re talking like a 25 minute easy grips, 24, 98 without the blade, yeah. Um, somebody’s going to come in and, and underscore that financially, you know, price wise, whether they’re going to knock it down to 20 bucks, right? So, um, if they do that, where’s their profit? What, what’s their game? So a lot of people would say, I should’ve charged $40 for these scripts. And then, and my concern was no, because that gives somebody else the room to come and sell it for 25.
Ron: (34:02)
So don’t, don’t try to make $1 million. Try to try, try to be with, try to be your customer. What would you pay for that thing? Well, yeah, fair. You know, not what you need. And now here’s another issue. Back to the money. It’s always going to come back to the money. But if your product is costing you, if it costs the $20 to make the easy grip and I wanted to sell it for 25, I’m not going to work. Is it more, is the dealers going to make pass to make kids profit? I have to make my profit. So, um, you know, you’ve got to, this is part of this business plan.
Cam: (34:39)
Yeah. And so you have to understand your model. Like, so if you were the guy, it may be feasible if you were going to go direct to consumer as opposed to go through a distributor network. So it all, that’s why it all comes back down to that plan on how you plan to get it into there and what, what you need to make that plan function.
Ron: (34:56)
Yes. And a business plan is just, it’s just, okay, let’s say I’m going to get in the car and drive, um, you know, drive to drive somewhere for the, for the night. Yeah. Before I walk up out of the house, what’s my business plan? Well, my business plan is do I have my wallet? Do I have my money? Do I, do I have a map? Do I have water, food, enough gasoline? This is, that’s all a business plan is. It’s just figuring out in advance every aspect. So if I’m a W W we’ll use the scenario. If I, if the weather is bad, then part of my plan includes an umbrella. So all you do is sit down and you think from, from from the moment of conception to the moment of use or or clean up or whatever, you know that from picking up the tool to putting the tool back onto the shelf, what’s every little aspect that’s going to be done or how that tool is going to be handled. You have to think, thinking is really hard.
Cam: (36:06)
Hey [inaudible] preaching to the choir buddy. So I already got a headache.
Ron: (36:10)
Yeah, just thinking about it. But what you do that’s an and at every little detail. So this is back to putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and just like planning a trip in a car, you do that automatically because you’re used to doing it all. Your life has been done. You get in the car with your parents and you watch what your parents bring in so it becomes a natural course of events for you. When you’re developing a new product, you’ve got to, you’ve got to take yourself out of the box, sit down and just think it through. Think it through. Think every aspect. That’s how you develop a business plan. They’re not some mystical thing that other people know that you don’t know or somebody went to school and you didn’t go to school. That’s all bullshit. Yeah, it’s just common sense and I love it. Most people that have common sense didn’t even go to school. So that’s a good point man. I love it. Yet a lot of God damn out of people that have to object to that. But uh, you know,
Cam: (37:09)
well yeah, but you know, this is all opinion based stuff. So we take it with a grain of salt. But I think that a eight, it really does get you thinking. And I think the important topic of this conversation so far is just that the person is thinking about putting this product out there, that they understand how they’re going to get it there. And it’s beyond just the creation of the product. It moves into how you’re actually going to sell it. And what you’re going to do to sell it. So I think it’s extremely useful. I think you’ve given us a lot of Info so far. But I would like to harp on the patent thing a little bit more and, and here’s why, man. I get, uh, you know, like when the prep, when I did the press thing or when anything I’ve ever kind of really done and people are always like, well, did you pat in it? Did you patinated it’s always this concept of, of um, everything will be okay if you just get the patent and everything will be just fine and dandy if you just patent this thing is, I know you’re not a lawyer so you can’t give actual legal advice, but is that is not necessarily the case. Like we were saying earlier, the patent is just a tool to allow you to enforce it. But should people put so much of their concern in the patent, I guess is my big question. Well,
Ron: (38:18)
patents are very expensive. Um, all right, so wait,
Ron : (38:28)
no.
Ron: (38:30)
Yeah, I don’t think they should. If you don’t know where your product’s going to go, if you haven’t, um, it’s back to money. If you have the money to hire an attorney, if you got $15,000 that you want to blow on it or your investors won’t go forward with you without the patent application, you know, there’s reasons for it and it does give you the right to litigate. It also gives you the right to scare people. You know, you could send a letter of cease and desist and they go, well, you know, he’s got a bad ending or he’s got a patent issued so he could litigate it. And yes, it has. It has enforcement power of course.
Cam: (39:10)
But the big boys, the big boys that have money, they can just, they can, they can just, they can just annihilate you by running you out of cash too.
Ron: (39:18)
Nice word annihilate. Yeah, because that’s what they do. Yeah, it’s right. It’s all pre trial motions. Pretrial motions costs thousands of dollars. Each one and the other attorneys will want to perform 30 of them. It’s $90,000. Well that’s the way it works for potion. You have to respond if anytime during at, well, I won’t say anytime. Many times if you are in litigation and you decide you’ve run out of money or you need to drop the case, you’re going to be countersued you understood for all the attorney’s expenses for any damages you might have cost them, any, any expenses that you cost them. So you don’t get to walk away. It’s not a tight, you start the fight, you’ve got to go the distance. I love that. Yeah. Right. So
Cam: (40:19)
it’s a big game. That whole world is a very big game. So if you’re going to do something, you, you told me this already, but I kind of want to make sure that everybody else hears it. You have an idea for a product.
Speaker 6: (40:31)
Uh,
Cam: (40:34)
what do you, what do you do? What do you, do you have an idea for a product? What’s the best product to choose? He’s, he’s, you kind of told me this earlier, but a speed guy didn’t understand. So if you’ve come up with an idea for a product, um, is it something that like you’re like, okay, well these guys are also doing something very similar and maybe I can get the patent for this, but I feel like this is important enough to make it, or you can, you can do kind of what you were telling me earlier where you just pick something that you feel that your competitors won’t be as inclined to push for is to some degree or something like that, right?
Ron: (41:11)
Uh, well, no, not necessarily. I wouldn’t, I w I wouldn’t avoid, well, I would, you know, without talking about a specific product, it’s Kinda hard here because there’s so many kids realities and sometimes they apply and sometimes they don’t. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t, you know, if you can’t get, if you have competition, why are somebody’s record? Why somebody going to buy your product over somebody else’s? And I wouldn’t do it from, hey, they, they got world’s greatest idea, so I’m going to patent it and then I can go annihilate them and take their business away from them. A, first of all, who says it’s going to get patented? Who says it’s going to get approved? Right. Okay. Your attorney, the Bernie that took $15,000,
Cam: (42:04)
it’s a, he’ll always tell you, you’ll get it.
Ron: (42:06)
He is going to get approved and then, and then, uh, the patent office goes back and says, well, we need modifications. We need more information or this, this needs to be changed to a certain way. Your drawings aren’t right. Um, though you go back to patent attorney, well it’s another 10,000. Well, you didn’t tell me that in the beginning, you know. Well, they didn’t, we didn’t know this was going to happen in the beginning. You know, and the attorney’s not going to come up front and say, well it could, well again, they may have it makes it, yeah. They may say, well, if 15,000 starts to process, it may be 100,000 before we’re finished. Gotcha. Litigating. Okay. So, um, and if somebody else’s already has it and they don’t have it patented, why don’t they good? They already go down the road that you might be going down to find out that the idea’s not novel and the patent won’t be issued. How long does it take to get that patent?
Cam: (43:04)
Kennan, inventor figure some of these answered these questions for himself or five years for you. Huh? Maybe four tours to even have the patent reviewed. Interesting. We can, can, can up potential invent or at least do some of that early stage foot work to find out if it even is patentable himself.
Ron: (43:21)
Yes, I did. I actually wrote my own path. I applied to Japan. It’s pending. Um, and I did all my own research, but I’m not a patent attorney. You know, if I was that good, I would be a patent attorney. You know, I’m not making the big bucks or, um, I, I, um, yes, there’s a lot, there’s, there’s a lot available online and if you go to the United States Patent Office website, they, they is a very easy and very convenient search. Uh, they have a search tool for searching existing patents. Okay. You could put in a word like I, for me, I put in Squeegee, screenprint, squeegee to handle squeegee. Um, and, and all I came up with four squeegees were, would squeegees but then because I kind of knew that nobody else had anything like this, but then how did I know somebody in 1940 didn’t invent it and never took it and patented it and down and then died, or the war started.
Ron: (44:26)
And so any cat killed in war and the patent and the idea just to the wayside. So, um, you know, got the, the research, that’s the first thing a patent attorney would do. So that’s the first thing you’re going to pay him for, is to research to see if you can even move forward. Gotcha. But if you can do it yourself now for you with your software, that would be impossible. You could not happen a utility patent. Uh, it would be easier because it’s mechanical. You can see drawings and you can try to analyze them. But if you then in your research, you start reading these patents, Greek, if oh great, you have no idea what the hell they’re talking about and, and it’s, and it’s not in plain English so you can read it but you won’t understand it. I surely helped in that guys and I did also spend the a hundred dollars by the way, to get through one of the classes on mine already.
Ron: (45:34)
$90 write your own patent and yet, uh, two hours. Yeah, it took me six months of research and study and I work daily. I mean, I can’t tell Ya, you know, my pattern was like 20 some pages and I can’t tell you how much, um, you know, uh, uh, the nightmare complexity and how you word something I was telling you the other day about contain this contains red, white, and blue. This includes red, white, and blue. What’s different that, what is the difference? Well, contained means that it only has red, white and blue includes means it has red, white, and blue, but it can’t include other items. So you’re not being finite when you say clues.
Cam: (46:23)
Right? Finite. Seems like your ERC. Uh, so a little warm, like couldn’t, it took me weeks to understand that word honestly, for you to hear. Yeah. Well, and that’s what, that’s why you’re hiring those attorneys. They speak that language, they get it, but they charge you for it.
Ron: (46:38)
I may try. That’s right. That’s all the therapists, you know, they’ve got it. And that’s why they use the old English language a lot is because we don’t, we don’t know how to do it and they do. And so they get paid for it.
Cam: (46:49)
Okay. And I think we’ll, we’ll move on from the patent thing after this, but I think the final question for me is, because it feels to me like what you’re saying is if you have an idea, just g do what you’re gonna do, do your research and if you feel like there’s a market for it, get it to market. Uh, and that’s, I guess kind of where we’ve ended up. But what would happen if you, you did bring something to market and you, you start selling it, but then at a competitor of deep pocket competitor comes through and attempts to patent to could, can they sue you for revenues lost at that point even though that, okay. Okay. There you go. Then it’s beautiful.
Ron: (47:30)
Yeah. It’s get the damn thing out there. You get it out. Yeah. Try to be first. I mean, um, it’s not a secret to me that somebody might want to steal the easy-grip concept. Sure. Uh, but, um, um, so if it happens
Cam: (47:51)
then, then, then it goes back to what you were talking about. Yeah. You know, so it’s the brand loyalty and all this and that, that comes along with it. Yeah.
Ron: (47:57)
And how are they going to do it? But if, if somebody successfully did that, ah, what, that’s part of my business plan. How, how do I, how do I react to that if it happens? Understand. Um, a lot of times this is waived. A lot of times you might just have to walk. Yeah. You know, sometimes, uh, what was the fish? Oh, this goes back so many years. Nobody will remember that fish. Remember the talking fish that it came out of a plaque on the wall.
Cam: (48:27)
Oh yeah. Yeah. I do remember saying to you and shit,
Ron: (48:29)
he came, he sang the song, be happy. I think it was uh, you know, 70 came out with that, that idea was stolen right away, but he made his money. He made what he could make up front before it got stolen. If you knew that was going to happen, then he would have delivered it to the marketplace possibly differently than if he thought he was going to capture the market over a long term period. So guy’s product is going to be a short term shot because of the competition. Bass part of Your Business Plan. This is, ah, I was just thinking it through in advance and not being married to the project to say, well, mine sell good. Nobody else could ever improve upon it. Interesting. Easy grip is so good. Nobody else is ever going to.
Cam: (49:15)
But I felt, yeah, I agree. But I do feel like that that would be something that a lot of people that get married to a product, they, they tend to romanticize the idea of running it long term. But sometimes you shorten up the market time, try to hammer it out and make your money on it and then get out of it before it gets copied. So there’s other options too, to creating a product I think is what we could take away from it.
Ron: (49:38)
Yes. And then it’s also how long does it take to get it out there if it’s going to take three years for you to, for the marketplace to become aware of your product. Yeah. If it’s not a mainstream product, if it doesn’t have a TV advertising, radio, TV, print advertising, if you’re not, uh, or you know any other kind of electronic advertising, if you, if it’s going to be a three year delivery, you have three years of exposure.
Ron : (50:07)
Mm.
Ron: (50:07)
And within three years, if you know it’s going to get knocked off then, then your delivery time takes too long now. Yeah. Probably your ideas. No good.
Ron : (50:16)
[inaudible]
Ron: (50:16)
and you’ve got to be able to say, well hell, I got the best thing, but I still, it’s not gonna work for me. Gotcha. You know, and then onto the next one, another idea will come. This is back to learn when to walk. And I, and I’m not trying to discourage anybody because nothing’s more fun than owning your own business, being your own boss, calling your own shots. But it’s, you know, cam, if you don’t want to work Sundays, then don’t be your own boss. You don’t want the night when everybody else is going to go out and have fun and you have to do invoicing and, and you’ve got to get the invoices out. You’re, your helper didn’t come in that day and they have to be out then that’s what it takes to be your own boss. But a lot of people in this industry, uh, are their own bosses. So they’ve, they’ve already kind of assume that role of, of working harder and longer than any of your employees. And a lot of times you worked for less money than you pay the guys working for you. So self sacrifice is a big key. And in running your own business. I agree man. It’s great advice. Yes. Not for everybody, but it, it has, it’s has great rewards.
Cam: (51:32)
Beautiful. And, and we kind of touched on this a little bit ago, but maybe we can elaborate on it. Just what in regards to selling the product once you’ve created it, once it’s out there, what can you like, what can you expect as some, some early roadblocks when it comes to actually selling a product? Because I know for sure they exist, there’s going to be a lot of things, but what are some early roadblocks that a product could expect to run into when it comes to selling it? That was a very long question. Said it twice too.
Ron: (52:04)
Well, your business plan is going to tell you that. So that means you’ve already gonna think it through for your specific product. Uh, where I live, somebody started a winery. Hmm. Now he’s out there trying to find liquor stores or district wide. Yeah. Liquor stores. Well, liquor stores don’t buy wine from you. They buy wine from a distributor. So you’re selling your product to a distributor. How you going to compete against Miller? Highlight the WHO’s, who’s got tons of Promo material, uh, tons of support, tons of brand name. You know, why are they going to try yours over somebody else? So how the biggest obstacle is bad. Well is sales. Okay? It’s all, it’s all going to be around sales. So what, what’s the obstacle and sales competition? And I needed product, a too costly of a product. Um, uh, well those three would be enough to blow you out of the water any day.
Cam: (53:08)
Yeah, right? Yeah. That’s the big three right there.
Ron: (53:12)
Or, or you worked on yours for three years and you come out with it to find out that uh, you’re soft and this wouldn’t apply to you, but I’ll use it as an example. Uh, you’re developing your software and because of your limited resources, it’s taken you longer to get it established and again, worked out. And then the computer, true. The complete computer platforms change. So it even go into windows 10 now they don’t have a driver for your software. You’re going to be. So you had a lot of outside forces that can influence you, that you can not foresee in your business plan that that will, that will wipe you out or you’ve got enough money to, to overcome it. Right.
Cam: (53:59)
But that’s the nature of it too, about being able to just, you, you do everything that you can within your power. But then when it, when it finally becomes, that’s the end of the road, you just have to veer off. You can’t get to bent out of shape about it, not working out. At the end of the day, you’ll get bent out of shape. Trust me. You’ve been there before. Your wife will show the divorces in your near future. Yeah. Right.
Ron: (54:27)
You get that. I mean, we’re all emotional animals and creatures, so, um, nothing’s worse than disappointment or rejection. And it’s back to, um, if, if you can get that prototype of pact AST, if you’re watching Becky. Um, I took my, my prototype, well no, I actually went to product with it and I took the product to AST so I broke my own rules. And um, and in my case it didn’t have a flood handle. And which you brought to light in your video.
Cam: (55:02)
Yeah. The first one. Yeah. Cause I bought it from AST and it didn’t happen.
Ron: (55:04)
The never of the center of the flood had what we’re talking about. The flood handle is this right here? Can you see that? Yeah. The center piece. So you can flood with one hand. Right. Well I some I didn’t make the perfect product I had, but I had no, I was able to go back to the mold maker. It was a simple fix. Simply quick fix. It was, um, so you want to talk about being deflated? You have, Hey, hi, this is so great. And because why can’t flood with one hand? I don’t want it. Right? Yeah. Hi. I don’t know what, oops. Um,
Cam: (55:43)
and in some products, cases, not yours, it was you. Fortunately, it was a fairly simple fix, but in some cases that could be detrimental having to make a huge change like that
Ron: (55:53)
after the money back in the reserve after having more than a hundred percent more than you need. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t have because now you’re stopped and now somebody else can see that idea and pick up where you can’t go forward. So now you help somebody else become a millionaire, you want to live with that for the rest of your life.
Cam: (56:15)
Yeah. That’s another interesting thing though too because the products are interesting in that like, um, you know, like with the squeegee, you know, you’re still, it’s a squeegee. So like even if they come out with one, like there still is room in markets for like different kinds of products, which is cool. Right? It’s not too, it’s not so like if someone does a variation that yours won’t still do well or whatever. And I feel like it’s the same way with the software world. Like even though there’s different offerings out there, they can all exist in the same space.
Ron: (56:47)
I think there, I think you’re really kinda talking apples and oranges. I, I understand what you’re saying. And in principle you’re right, but I wouldn’t compare, you know, our utility tool to conceptual software. Gotcha.
Cam: (57:02)
Well, so within the, within the utility tool, like let’s just say we’re talking about tools, then there’s still room for different kinds of a similar tool that does the same job, but they’re, they’re different, right? Like you, you, um, can also see the use for a wood squeegee. Like, like granted, they may use the easy squeegee most of the time, but they would also use the traditional squeegee for certain applications
Ron: (57:24)
I used with squeegees. Yeah, yeah. Um, four pockets. Right now I’m not going to put a 13 inch blade in to do a three inch wide image. Right? And, and, and I had to choose with the easy grip, the width, because even though they use the easy grip is 13 inches wide. And you’ve told me that you put 14 inch blades in there and they worked fine. Yeah. But what, so people have said to me, well, when are you going to come up with the larger point? I had never, if, because what’s the, I’m covering let’s say 85%, maybe even up to 90% of all images with my 13 to 14 inch with, right. You know, so when somebody says this, the easy grip way to replace the word squeegee, no, it’s, it’s an alternative. Yeah. Is it a turn alternative for a whiting or for most jobs and uh, that’s all. I think it’s a great option.
Cam: (58:25)
And did you know that when you were creating and when it was coming, when you were kind of putting it together, like you understood that part of your plan was it, it, it was, it was going to be an addition to correct it, right? Yeah. And that was part of it. But you understood that going in.
Ron: (58:39)
Yeah. Even though it’s good, even though it’s a superior, um, tool cause it doesn’t fall on the acre as a quick way changing system that doesn’t require screws and bolts or, or any other type of contraption. Um,
Ron : (58:54)
um,
Ron: (58:58)
yeah. Where were we going with that? Talk about some times and I just forgot what I was talking about. Hey, welcome that. A lot of ideas in there though. We will come out sooner or later.
Cam: (59:13)
Right man. Um, you know, I, I’ve been kind of just browsing the chat while we were, while I was listening to your information and there’s some, there’s stuff in here I just kind of
Cam: (59:22)
want to bring up. Sure. Um, first off, you, you don’t ever, you’re not obligated to answer anything, but I’m just going to bring it up and we’ll see what they say. Um, was this, did you have this out before that big heavy chunk of whatever the action engineering has put out? Was this before or after the same time? Ish.
Ron: (59:41)
Good question. Yeah, I’m not, I don’t know. Well, well, um, somebody from Ashford engineering was listening to this podcast cause I’m really careful in what I say here, right? I saw I, yeah, I did release my product before action engineering released a product I graphic prototype on the shirt board for and ask people what they thought of that. That was July 4th, 2016. I saw the product there and uh, responded by saying, Hey, um, this is what I have at that. I didn’t approach it by saying, Hey, you’re no good. I’m better. I just came out and said, well, this is what I’ve done. This is what’s on the market. Did you have rockets? They were surprised to know. No way in, you know,
Cam: (01:00:41)
did you have a little poopy? Oh Shit. Every time I see competition I’m like,
Ron: (01:00:46)
I shit myself a little bit. Fuck, okay.
Cam: (01:00:49)
Even when I see other competitors, like when I saw yours I was like, oh shit man. You always fill the kind of is a weird anxiety about it.
Ron: (01:00:55)
Well, not with, you know, action is a large company. They have a lot of products. This is just, this is just a side side product. And uh, somebody, I’m sure, what are their engineers, what are their printers? That action said, hey, why don’t we try thrown some, some handles on this because I bet it will be a better Eric economically beneficial. And, uh, and they have, from what I could tell at that time when they went on the forum because they had the graphic prototype rather than an actual prototype, um, I think they were just putting some feelers out there, which is, which is a good thing to do. Now there’s a risk and this is what a lot of people that invent a product, they don’t want to tell anybody about the product because they’re afraid somebody’s gonna steal it in advance. But action, um, ash has got a lot of, you know, big company, they’ve got a lot of money.
Ron: (01:01:49)
If, if I had been, if that reverse that situation and I saw that action had put something out before me and, and it was self-standing see, actions is not sales standing doesn’t have the same play changing system. It’s a, it’s not one piece. It’s, um, made out of metal reminders made out of lightweight nylon plastic. So I would say that I have advantages over the action tool. Just physical advantages over the action tool. Yeah. Um, so I had confidence and if we had reversed it and they had the self-standing product and I didn’t, then I would have said time to walk. Gotcha. And if I had made that mold and advance and my world was up to $70,000, we didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t really talk about that. So that’s a, it’s a big investment. Yeah, because it is, it’s a one piece. It’s a, is it injection molding?
Ron: (01:02:47)
Injection molding. So what that means is you have a cap, you have, you have two pieces. You see my hands, you got two pieces and let’s say one half over a block, cut it down the center. This side over here, we’re going to form an apple. So this side over here has the right side. It has the uh, concave design of an apple on the right side. The left side has the concave design of the left side of the apple. You put the two pieces together, you inject plastic into that liquid plastic into the cavity. It cools. You pull the two pieces apart. Bingo. Bingo. They got an apple. All right. What that’s done under 25, 20, 25,000 pounds of pressure. It’s done under height. I’d mentioned liquid plastic. Well, how’s it get liquified? It’s fine. That’s how it gets in there. And, and your mold is supposed to last for hundreds of thousands, but yours isn’t that simple.
Ron: (01:03:51)
The way yours was done, you couldn’t, I can’t even imagine how they would pull it apart. They can’t, it can’t just be two pieces. No, nope. My mind goes together and then has other pieces that come into it. So they call those slides. I am for additional pieces that slide into the part before they start shooting the plastic in. It’s a really complex tool. You would have to understand mold designed to really know why this tool is so hard to, to, to make. Yeah. So, um, um, to be sweet to see it done like in a video or something. Well, you know, I, I’ve got pictures, I’ve got a video of it, but I don’t share that because that would tell other people how to make my move and fair enough and that, that part is best my secret. Fair enough. Yeah. Um, by the way, the Mo, the mold weighs around 600 pounds and it’s only a block about this big, it’s class C steel.
Ron: (01:04:55)
So it’s not just normal steel. This is, this stuff is, is, I mean, just that, you know, when he told me, he says, well, we gotta buy the block and it’s going to cost like $7,000 for a block of steel. Now I will, God, I can go down to the hardware so I could melt steel for less than 7,000 doubts. But would you have steel that would not war, right? You put the under 25,000 pounds of pressure and high heat for 10 12 days in a row part after part after part. I don’t make, I don’t make, you know, millions of parts at one time. What if I was successful? What if I was trying to make millions of parts the world as to be capable of that? So yeah,
Cam: (01:05:37)
and there is one thing that’s very noticeable early on, the quality of the mold on it, like is a very high quality. You could like, you know, when you’re actually investigating the product, it’s very, very nice. So whoever did it did a bang up job.
Ron: (01:05:52)
Acme plastics in Phoenix, Arizona. You notice? Yep. Right here in my own hometown. Yeah, just off Peoria and 17. Yeah, they nailed it, man. Add the toolmaker. John made it by hand. Oh really? Yes. It took one year. That’s another thing they told me. How long would it take or took them a year. John, you know, I love you but you’re always hell and you do good work, but let’s pick up the pace a little bit. John [inaudible]. So I mean he actually did it by hand with, with drill presses.
Cam: (01:06:28)
That’s amazing. It’s totally amazing because it looks like he lived, he got in there and he was like fine filing it and like adding texture to the handles is pretty impressive. Um, did Ryan at knock it off? We were talking about that earlier. Did Ryan at knock off the easiest squeegee? If someone’s asking that right here?
Ron: (01:06:45)
No, no, of course. That Ryan, it buys from, from me. So you just give him, he’s a, one of my distributors, he’s, he’s my latest distributor, my new distributor. I don’t think Ryan personally is that type of individual. I don’t think I’m, he runs up there to meet that would, uh, try to knock it off and take business away from, uh, uh, take, take the business away. They don’t. Yeah, they’re good like that. No, Ryan, I did approach Ryan,
Cam: (01:07:14)
but it’s a custom color. You did you say you made them like that green color? Yes.
Ron: (01:07:18)
Oh cool. Well that was awesome. Yes. They, well, you know, green is his color and he’s branded everything in green. So I mean, he’s got green emotion. He’s got green masking tape. It’s natural for him to put a green squeegee in the screen. So that’s as just part of his branding. Um, and uh, you know, for me, I would actually, I would have preferred to have had only yellow squeegees. It was never my intent to make more colors. It’s that that can become a nightmare for me. Uh, because now I’ve got an inventory green ones. I got a inventory yellow ones. And, uh, and why did I even choose yellow? Yeah. I wonder why did I choose yellow? I Dunno. It reminds me of like, I don’t know why because that’s one of the easiest colors. It’s one of the fewest colors we print with.
Ron: (01:08:12)
So when you go to clean up, let’s say I had a black squeegee, how would you find the black gay kind of squeegee to have cleaned it off? I had a weight squeegee. Same thing with waiting. I needed a color that was going to be in contrast with the most common colors used in printing. So that would, it’s just just common sense here. When you clean it, you could see where you needed to clean. So that’s where it good. Thank you. Now why I chose green and fortunately that color also shows the contrast for most colors. So it makes it easy to clean.
Cam: (01:08:46)
Yeah, it looks good. I like it. Um, hang on here. I’m, I’m kind of reading through some of our questions here as I’m working through this. Okay. So this is, this is more of a statement. This is from able printing graphics with a medical background. And years in anatomy and lab and then working in a bike store comparing the economics between a mountain bike and a road bike. The easy grip is like a road bike. Interesting statement that because yeah it is. It’s an ex. Absolutely. That’s a great parallel. It’s more like riding a road bike than a mountain bike. Um, let’s see what else. Better for it. Yeah, there you go. And he says it’s better for long distances, easier and better on your body. Engages the correct muscles. I love that. So we’re turning into an easy grip pitch machine now, but I’m cool with that baby.
Cam: (01:09:35)
Oh that, that was a able printing and graphics. So thank you for the statement Abel. We appreciate it. Yeah, I’m on board with the thing man. Like I don’t know, it’s not really a commercial to me because I just think it’s cool. I think it’s a very cool product. I don’t think it’s a full replacement, but I think it’s a, it’s a beautiful addition and what we do is bounce between them and it makes, it makes for different muscle engagement, you know, depending on which one you’re using. So I think it’s awesome. And I will tell anybody and you guys if you have any more questions, submit them. I did, didn’t I? I’ll tell them again and again and again and again if you have any more questions for us, hit us up now. Um, in the meantime, dude, we’re, we’re already well over an hour here. Uh, so before we actually get outta here, if someone submit some questions, we’ll ask them, but before we go, do you got any plugs, anything that you want to share, social media? Are you involved in any of that kind of stuff?
Ron: (01:10:32)
Ask the question to get
Cam: (01:10:34)
what kind of, uh, what kind of stuff do you want to share? Websites, social media or anything?
Ron: (01:10:38)
Yeah, sure. If, um, if you’re not familiar with it, go to Ron Sievert, uh, Facebook and I have a DZ grip, but under the name Ron Siebert, I can engage with you. We can have conversations. Um, that would be for Facebook. I, um, I would say part of my business plan was how do I get to the consumer? I don’t, well, first let be plugged something. Sure. All right guys. I don’t want to forget this blood. Lots of philosophy. Where can I buy? The easy grip answer is simple. Ask Your supplier, call your supplier up and say, do you sell the easy grill? If they say no, say why not? Everybody else is selling it. Everybody else is using it. There’s a superior product. I read about it on Facebook. It’s loved by everybody. Why aren’t you selling? So that’s the best place to go to find my have defined the product.
Ron: (01:11:37)
Or You could go to my website, the easy grip.com but I’ve been able to capture the a Google search engines in the degree that you can put an easy grip squeegee, a, you’ve probably put in easy squeegee, but that’s not my name. You might put it and it’s still going to come up. Now I’m going to niche market. That’s another thing. And you know, when we’re back to this product development, um, I, I, I got into this because it was a niche because I knew that the marketplace was, was it low cost availability? I could reach the full market place without much money. There’s not a lot of trade shows, there’s not a lot of things. And I thought, do I sell direct and this is this, we should touch on this too. Sell direct to the end user. Or do I sell through a dealer network?
Ron: (01:12:34)
If I sell to the end user, I’ll make more money because the dealer won’t be taking his profit. But what does the dealer do for me? And that in this case it’s essential to go through a dealer. I’m not Ryan yet. I mean, what’s Ryan net selling power compared to Ron saver selling power. Right? So by getting a dealer who then take the dealer takes it to the trade show or me. So I don’t do trade shows. You know, some of these guys spend $80,000 for trade show booths. You know, they crazy good west GSG SVSI Ryonet those guys got big presence at the shows. Well, it’s, it’s phenomenally expensive. Yeah. So, uh, I could never possibly do that. So how, that’s part of my business plan. How can I push this product? I can’t, how can then, what’s my next step? Get somebody else to sell it for me?
Ron: (01:13:34)
How much money is there enough profit room in there to put another step into the process. But by doing that, I’ve got a factory that makes it boxes and ships and for me now that’s that every manufacturer’s screen. So it takes you out. It tastes all the work out of it for me. Otherwise, what would I be doing? What I have a warehouse, what I have to individually buy back individual boxes, individual packing material. Would I have to have employees to package a each one? Do I pay rent on the building? Do I pay electricity on the building, gas on the building, water around the building. I, if I own a property tax on the building, insurance on the building, right. So I shifted all of those expenses over to someone else and in essence I probably come out the same but I don’t have to do as much work. Gotcha.
Cam: (01:14:31)
Yeah. And the, and especially in 2019 those kinds of scenarios are fees there. You can find that option very often with numerous different products and offerings if you do the research and make sure that you,
Speaker 3: (01:14:43)
uh,
Cam: (01:14:45)
I don’t know where like where the fuck I was going with that. But yeah, if it’s possible to do that kind of drop shipping scenario to some degree as well. Right. Especially in today’s market
Ron: (01:14:54)
possible. Yeah.
Cam: (01:14:57)
I mean, you’re doing it.
Speaker 3: (01:14:59)
No, I’m not.
Ron: (01:15:01)
Oh nevermind. Then fuck it. I misunderstood the dealers doing the drop ship. Okay. So, um, we’ll use it,
Cam: (01:15:12)
but you fold your, you fulfill, you use your manufact I maybe I use the wrong words, their you fulfill to them, but you don’t have to, like you were saying, you’re not warehousing all of that. You were able to create a scenario to where you don’t have to deal with so much of that stuff. Like even the inventorying and the warehousing and all that stuff and people that are inventing a new product can often find a similar scenario to what you created.
Ron: (01:15:35)
If you put, if you put a distributor ship network together where you would know their step between the manufacturer and the end user. Yeah. Then you can create that. Now. Yes, I do drop ship, but I drop ship 50 I sell it 50 in a case and I drop ship one case to a dealer. The dealer within breaks the case apart and ships them out individually or two or three or four at a time.
Cam: (01:16:05)
Yeah, and it makes sense because there are, they already have the infrastructure in place to handle all that
Ron: (01:16:09)
kind of stuff. Right now I sell, I have it on Ebay just just to have it there to get Google ranking and they have something for the search engines defined. I, I sell it for the same prices by dealers. That’s very important. I don’t undercut my dealers. Sure. You know, why would you do that? They’re my friends. They’re my buddies. I’m married to my dealers. That’s another thing. You’ve got a, you’ve got to have a strong relationship with your distributors if that’s the route you’re going to take because they are your sales force. If, if they don’t want to sell it, you’re not going to sell it. So you’ve got to support them. You’ve got to be there for them. And they got a IQ, you know, and on it. And it’s hard to be like, sometimes I ask my wife, you know, so, uh,
Cam: (01:17:00)
I love it man. Yeah. So, and d but uh, they can find their local distributor that is carrying it on your website, on, on the, the easy grip.com.
Ron: (01:17:10)
The easy grip.com has a dealer’s page and it lists which dealer that sales the easy grip.
Cam: (01:17:16)
And like you said, if you don’t, if your local dealer isn’t carrying them, make sure to talk to them and ask them why not? That’ll help. It’ll help this man out as well.
Ron: (01:17:24)
Well, yes, it will do well. We’ll help you out. It will help the user out. There you go. I don’t walk in flat. Look, if I’m buying from AST for instance, and I don’t want to go to another distributor, all of my can get all my product from them. I’ve got a great relationship from with that company. They supply me, they know me, they know my needs, they get it out the same day. I’m happy with them. I’m happy with their prices. Um, uh, so I don’t wanna I don’t want to go somewhere else. Good point. Yeah. So that’s, that’s a really good reason. And I think, yeah, I don’t know how many printers.
Speaker 3: (01:18:00)
Okay.
Ron: (01:18:01)
I can’t say, well, I’m not printing now, so I’m not buying supplies, anything,
Speaker 3: (01:18:07)
but, um, um,
Ron: (01:18:10)
and I can’t favor one dealer over the other, you see? Sure. But I would imagine most printers buy from only one supply house, you know? Yeah. I would say really big. And you’re buying 144 feet of rubber or uh, you know, uh, 78 screens, you know, and so you buy 78 screens at a time from that screen guy because he’s cheaper and that will make a difference. But if you’re gonna buy one cord of emulsion or gallon of ink at the time, uh, you want to consolidate it, you wanted to make it easier for yourself to place an order. So that’s why I asked why. Yes. Ask Your dealer, ask the guy you have your relationship with. Tell him, tell the the person on the phone and, and they may say, well, I’ve never heard of it. Well tell them, spread the word, be the person to tell them, be the, the, the visionary to bring them a new idea and then ask them if you’re in the ability business is selling this product. W W why don’t you know about it? Don’t you want to bring the newest and latest product to the market? Do you want some here? If I was this dealer as supply house, what I want my customers calling me up and, and telling me about something I don’t know about. Oh, I’m supposed to be the one telling them what’s good and cool.
Cam: (01:19:35)
Yeah. This is literally right here as a clinic. This is the, it’s funny, this actually goes back to marketing because, because you’re, you’re showing us right now some of the things you would need to do to get your product into distributors. Uh, it’s a clinic right here. You’re showing us how to do it if we had a different product. But ultimately, uh, you got to get the dealers on board and a lot of times it comes to the consumer to getting the dealers to pick up what it is they want. This is a clinic right here, baby. Well, I love it. You know, consumer,
Ron: (01:20:08)
that’s my dealer’s customer is the consumer God. So the way I talk about my distributor, my dealer, I, my the, the desired relationship I want to have with them. That distributor wants to have that same relationship with his customer. Gotcha. Very quick customer. He’s got it. He’s got to be able to serve that customer or he’ll lose them.
Cam: (01:20:31)
We’ve got another question here and I, this is, this is just someone asking where you can get the easy grip in Europe. Are you distributing, uh, out of the U s yet? And do you have any distributors?
Ron: (01:20:40)
Um, go to my website and um, and asked me that question on, um, draw from through my, through my website, the easy grip.com. You can message me, you can email me, ask me that question and, and I’ll tell you which dealer. I do have a dealer, uh, that sends oversees for me and, and I don’t, um, you know, I love my dealers. I can’t, it’s just like children. Can you favor one, one daughter over another, you know which one is your favorite kid? Well,
Cam: (01:21:18)
yeah, yeah, it makes sense. You got, you gotta be very careful on not, not a just endorsing one. Here’s another question for you
Ron: (01:21:26)
around the world. They understand Pakistan, India, Australia, France, Germany, Belgium, England. Yeah.
Cam: (01:21:34)
And Yeah, so guys, you know for thanks to thank him for coming on here and uh, and also just because you want a few of them, just make sure that you do hit your dealers up. Make sure that, that, that you’re, that you’re getting them to pick up, pick up the easy, the easy grip in their store. Now I have another question here because I feel like I knew right away, but sometimes people just don’t realize, is this thing designed for a push or a pull stroke?
Ron: (01:22:00)
Push your pole. Right? And I didn’t know that. I assume. No, this is, you know what? You know what the word assume all guy. The assumptions, baby danger. Danger. Get means, assume makes them, makes a ass out of you and me. That’s another word for assume break. It makes it a ass out of you and me. I assumed everyone would know that and I put it out there and now it’s an all of my pictures. So all of my literature and once you put a picture on, uh, out out there on the Internet, it’s there for life. You can’t go into Google and let’s say Safeco, all the earlier pictures out, I want to put the new ones. No, this is going to be there for life. So I’ve changed all of my, my photo shots to include pushup bull. But absolutely, I, I, you know this, I invented this.
Ron: (01:22:59)
I’m a pusher so I actually invented it for pushing, but the angle of the blade remains almost the same whether you’re pushing it where you’re pulling it. Yup. And so it’s a natural that, yeah, you can hold under this just like a witch squeegee, push it forward or pull it back. Most people see the product and think it’s supporting product. So I’ve had a lot of people on Facebook say they would love to use it like their pusher and they can yeah. And, and, and well, try it. Yeah. Give it a shot. If you don’t think it pushes, try it and then you’ll go, oh, well, hell, that’s easy.
Cam: (01:23:43)
That’s what’s so intriguing to me about like, um, in any, any product, like the, I guess it’s just the way I am as a person. But, uh, you know, like when I heard about thin thread Mesh, you know, no, none of that, no one was selling it locally or whatever. But as soon as I heard about this thing that would allow inc to flow through a screen easier, I’m gonna try it. I just, I don’t know. And when I heard about the easy squeegee, when I hear somebody say, Oh dude, there’s this new thing, and it’s like, and I was like, well, Shit. Yeah, sometimes the tips of my fingers hurt. Let’s try this new thing out. I think at the very least you have to try new products to see if they work better for you.
Ron: (01:24:18)
This gets back into human nature. We don’t like to change. Right. Um, a lot of people out here will remember any of these comparisons. But, um, like, like the typewriter when people use the typewriter and then the computer came in to word processors, a lot of people went, no, I want to continue using the typewriter. Yeah. Are some, you know, you want to use white out and not really old joke that secretaries used to use white out on the computer screen.
Cam: (01:24:51)
No, that’s not, that couldn’t have happened over right. Cause it’s a joke. So
Ron: (01:24:55)
you used the change unit with whiteout. Um, so, um, seatbelts, everybody resists change. It’s just nature. We develop our habits, we’re comfortable with our habits, habits. Our comfort zone is a really important thing to human beings and are hard to break that habit. I like to use the example here of a, you’re painting a big wall and you’ve got a three inch wide paintbrush and you’re stroking up and down and oh by the way somebody says, well can you stroke up or can you only stroke down with the easy group, right? Yeah. You can do them both. Excuse me.
Ron: (01:25:39)
And I invented the roller. So Cam your, you’re at your store and your your painting and I come up and they say, Hey, I’ve got this new product. It’s a roller. It’s three times wider so you’re going to do more, more application with less effort. It’s going to lay down a smoother a application. It’s going to have less strip and because dad taught you how to use a paintbrush, you’d tell me to take no, I’m good. Daddy showed me how to use this. Yeah, I don’t need that roller because this is working for me. So this comes down to it comes down, you and I like to try new products. A lot of people, I mean the easy grip is 25 bucks. I went to Walmart and bought Charmin ultra soft 24 rows. It cost me 25 bucks. That’s what I’m saying. I asked with it versus $25 for an easy grip that you’re going to use every single day and easy grip is faster to print with the easy grip and even if it takes, if it speeds it up because with normally with what squeegee, if you don’t lean it against the far end of the frame, the woods, could you false in the I’m the easy grip.
Ron: (01:27:03)
Where’s my images and we’ll see this in the, can we see it? Yeah. Okay. I have these, these rides right here at these rods making cell standing so you see how I put it in the screen. You see how I keep the ink over for the images, why this stuff goes back to my design stage. Why are we spreading from one end of the screen to the other? Because you have to because you don’t lean it. There’s going to fall over. I invented a tool that says you don’t have to put it out there anymore, but you did didn’t shoot you. I will admit that that design feature alluded us for awhile. Yeah. That’s one of those things you just have to educate people on. But now we use it. But yeah, we were like, Huh, yeah. Well, what’s that for? I’ve seen people, I know printer that actually cut those rods off because they got in the way when they leaned it against the frame and her.
Ron: (01:27:56)
Right, but he, that was his habit. That’s okay because that was his habit. But look at how little UK think I used in the screen. I watch videos, I see classes from some of my dealers. Even t they put a gallon of ink, it seems like into the screen. Why am I screaming? Mess? You’ve got ink everywhere. Why not? Yeah. Why not minimize why used more than you need who? Yeah, I’m with you on that. It’s your screen now. I was a small printer, so I cleaned my screens with mineral spirits. That paper towel. Do I want to clean, screened 24 inches long? Where do I want to clean 12 inches of a screen? I save and mineral spirits. I save in Labor. I save in frustration and if you drop, who doesn’t drop? The squeegee and the ink is just part of life right now.
Ron: (01:28:47)
Take, you know, how long does it take to clean up that squeegee? So if you’ve got seven, seven minutes of downtime, I mean one time I was printing and I had ink, we can’t see it, but let’s say I had any care on my shirt, but it was further down and I, after about 15 shirts, cause every time I picked up a shirt, a group of shirts, I put it against my body, I got tap one got ink on it then then I put another one on top of that. Right? It’ll get buried. I ended up going through about a hundred shirts and about every 15 shirts had ink on it because it was coming off my shirt up one shirt, you know, they ain’t gets back here or on your finger that you don’t see it, you’re transferred. All that downtime costs a lot of money. And if you ruin the, the, the, the, the shirt, well then you throw that away in a class even more still true. One of the benefits of the easy grip is the fact that you can set it there that makes it a quicker print press, print cycle and of course less cleanup and all the other things that I mentioned. So that’s a feature that’s, that’s one of the, uh, uh,
Cam: (01:29:55)
yeah, it is. It’s a, it’s a feature once you get used to it, but it’s one of those things that that’s where you definitely have to educate people on the purchase so that they know, they just have to see like, and I think that you have like these brochures that show them, right? Like it’s kind of very similar to what you have in the background there that just shows them, hey, you can sit it in the screen buddy. Yup. It just needs a little education. Yeah, Dude. Um, I’m just seeing if there’s any other stuff here. Okay. Yeah, that’s pretty much it, man. I feel like we got some real good information on the idea of, or just the process of creating a product and I’m also seeing stuff here. Like you’re, you’re using the opportunity to, to help people understand it. This is, this is all what goes into creating and then taking a product to market. So I really appreciate seeing the whole process.
Ron: (01:30:42)
Yeah, it’s been really interesting talking with you today. I’ve really enjoyed it a lot. Thanks for coming on man. And one little thing I’ll pass on. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared to take a chance. Don’t be scared to do something that you don’t think you can do cause you don’t know who you are until you try. But don’t be stupid either.
Cam: (01:31:03)
What about, what about the idea of waiting w what would you say to people that are like, well, I’m just going to wait until this or are you ever, it comes a time where it can fill too late, right? You need to do it as quickly as you possibly can. And
Ron: (01:31:18)
I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t put an emergency, I wouldn’t put a timeframe on it like that because if you rush yourself, you can make mistakes. But uh, I wouldn’t procrastinate at all. If you’ve got a good idea, start developing it. Even if, even if it’s just on paper, even if it’s going to the computer. And started seeing what other products there are or reading the business plans or looking into patents or something. Do something, get, keep yourself moving forward in that direction, you know, great advice. And um, uh, Eh, yeah. So, you know, I don’t put off weight, you know what I don’t like doing in my job with my business, that’s what I do first. In the beginning of the day, there’s, there’s things, you know, no one, if you’re a sole proprietor, as I, I have to invoice, I have to, I have to do it all. And there’s still a lot of it. I don’t like assistant. This would be a downfall for a sole proprietor at they think if I, if I, there is no 90%, right, you’re running the business. There’s nobody there to catch what you don’t do. It’s all up to you. So, so start the hard job first and do a little bit each day.
Cam: (01:32:38)
Love it. Great Advice, man. Uh, and I’m trying to think if I have any other questions for you that I didn’t answer. I mean we crushed, I think I really wanted to just to elaborate on the, uh, the patent stuff and I feel like we got that out there. So I would say you’ve answered all my questions and you’ve answered everyone’s questions in the chat. So thank you for coming on. My friend has been very educational. Absolutely. I got one question for you. Hey. Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah man. Where can I buy an easy grip? Well we, I as far as, well they have Ryan it, you can get ’em on Ryan. It first of all what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to wow. Okay. Here you go, buddy. Alert. Ask Your dealer and they will get them in for Ya. Thanks. Okay. Hey Man, I did.
Cam: (01:33:22)
I do a really good job answering that question. I answered it like a champion guy. You showed your a thank you so much for coming on though. Dude. I know you’re a busy guy and I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks buddy. You are so welcome and everybody thank you guys for hanging out with me. Um, like I said earlier, make sure to pop in after this video is over. Pop into the comments not to chat into the comments and just let us know that you were here. Let us know that you appreciated it. If you have a question that you didn’t get to ask in the chat or that I missed for some reason, ask it in the comments and either Ron or myself, we’ll pop in and answer it for you. Um, and I make sure to check out the podcast. Make sure to check out Ron and the easy grip squeegee, either@easygrip.com or you can check it out in any of the dealers and make sure if your dealer is not carrying them, take, tell them to carry them because you want to use them. Thank you Profan for hanging with me. You’re the best. We will see you next Wednesday. So 3:00 PM.
Ron : (01:34:21)
Okay.
Cam: (01:34:22)
I will. I will tell Jesse that you said Hi. We’ll see you guys next Wednesday, 3:00 PM mountain standard time. Thanks Ron.
Ron : (01:34:29)
Mike.
