Transcript: PODCAST INTERVIEW: All Things Grundens with Curtis Graves and Jim Kershaw

S6, Ep 20: All Things Grundens with Curtis Graves and Jim Kershaw

Grundens' Curtis Graves and Jim Kershaw talk about durable fishing gear design on The Articulate Fly. They focus on repairability, sustainability, quality, hands-on experiences, digital marketing and industry collaboration.

2024, Marvin S. Cash
The Articulate Fly
http://www.thearticulatefly.com

Curtis Graves and Jim Kershaw from Grundens discuss their design philosophy, product journey and customer connection approach on The Articulate Fly podcast with Marvin Cash. Curtis highlights intentional career decisions and overcoming the fear of failure in his journey as the Director of Product at Grundens. Jim shares his background in industrial design and previous work experiences that led him to his role as the Design Director. Grunden's entry into the fly fishing market with the sport fishing collection, featuring durable, value-driven products inspired by their commercial fishing heritage, is discussed. The duo describes Grundens' meticulous design process for their Boundary waders, focusing on problem-solving, consumer-centric features and product differentiation. They emphasize key aspects such as repairability, mobility, suspension system and gravel guards as part of their innovative approach to creating functional gear for anglers. The conversation delves into the intricate design process of creating versatile and durable fishing gear, particularly waders and boots, focusing on future-proofing products with repairability, sustainability and quality materials. Specific features of the Vector and Bedrock waders are compared, highlighting their use cases and design aspects. The discussion then moves to rain gear and wading boots, emphasizing thoughtful design choices for durability and functionality. The focus remains on comfort and performance to enhance the fishing experience for anglers of all levels. Curtis shares insights on field testing fishing gear in challenging conditions like heavy rain, stressing the importance of gear quality and comfort. He recalls a scenario where immediate design changes were made after discovering a leaky jacket before field testing. The importance of hands-on experiences in selecting fishing gear and the dedication to quality control, such as water-beating performance without harmful chemicals, is emphasized. The impact of digital marketing versus personal interactions in retail is discussed, highlighting the value of personalized service at local fly shops and American-made textiles in places like Old Fort, North Carolina. The unique culture of Asheville, NC, and the role of community support in the fishing industry are explored. The episode concludes with a focus on industry education and collaboration to advance textile engineering. The participants express enthusiasm for sharing experiences, educating consumers and creating quality gear for outdoor enthusiasts.

Generated Shownotes

Chapters

0:00:03 Introduction
0:01:48 Early Fishing Memories
0:04:51 Curtis and Jim's Journey to Grundens
0:32:03 Building Future-Proof Waders
0:44:06 Designing for Different Angling Needs

Long Summary

Curtis and Jim from Grundon's share their design journey and philosophy with Marvin Cash on the Articulate Fly podcast. Curtis, with a retail background, and Jim, from industrial design, emphasize rugged, durable products that solve consumer problems. Their intentional design process focuses on creating enduring products, as seen in the development of Grundon's waiter line. The team intricately details their approach to design, considering repairability, mobility, suspension systems, and gravel guards to meet customer needs.
Jim elaborates on future-proofing waders, stressing consistent fit, repairability, and sustainability for long-lasting gear quality. Curtis highlights the innovative wader construction for comfort and mobility, drawing inspiration from climbing harnesses. The duo discusses design variations between Bedrock and Vector waders, addressing diverse angler requirements. Rain gear and wading boots are meticulously engineered for user comfort, featuring double storm flaps and waterproof leather for durability. Curtis outlines the wading boots' design with Vibram soles and enhanced hardware attachment to elevate user experience.
Marvin joins the conversation, expressing enthusiasm for the thoughtful product design. The focus shifts to finding the right gear fit for fishing conditions, prioritizing comfort and functionality in wading gear selection. Curtis recounts testing fishing gear in extreme conditions, highlighting the necessity of rigorous testing before consumer release. The conversation explores outdoor gear technology evolution and the importance of anglers supporting local fly shops. Marketing strategies centered on authentic customer engagement over social media are discussed, along with the craftsmanship revival in textile production in North Carolina, emphasizing quality and personal connections in the outdoor gear industry.

Brief Summary

Curtis and Jim from Grundon's discuss their design philosophy on the Articulate Fly podcast with Marvin Cash, focusing on rugged, durable products for anglers. They detail the intentional design process behind Grundon's waiter line, emphasizing repairability, mobility, and customer needs. The duo explores innovative wader construction, design variations, and engineering in rain gear and wading boots for user comfort and longevity. Marvin joins to discuss gear fit, rigorous testing, supporting local fly shops, and authentic customer engagement in marketing. They touch on outdoor gear technology, craftsmanship revival, and textile production in North Carolina.

Transcript

Introduction

Intro:
[0:04] Hey folks, it's Marvin Cash, the host of the Articulate Fly.
On this episode, I'm joined by Curtis Graves, Director of Product, and Jim Kershaw, Design Director at Grundon's.

[0:15] Curtis and Jim share Grundon's design philosophy, discuss new and upcoming products, and share their refreshing approach to connecting with customers.
If you want to understand what makes Grundon's tick, this episode's for you.
But before we get to the interview, just a couple of housekeeping items.
If you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating and review in the podcatcher of your choice. It really helps us out.
And check out our Patreon community. It's a great way to support the show and our partners.
We have everything from discounts on time materials and guide trips to small group classes.
And a shout out to this episode's sponsor. This episode is sponsored by our friends at Norvice, and their motto is, Tie Better Flies Faster.
And they produce the only vice that truly spins.
The Norvice team continues to rack up the miles. Next stops are the fly fishing show in Pleasanton and the Texas Fly Fishing and Brew Festival in Mesquite.
You owe it to yourself to drop by the Norvice booth to see the only vice that truly spins for yourself.
Not going to be in Pleasanton or Mesquite? No worries.
Norvice's entire 2024 show schedule is up on their website.
Head over to www.nor-vice.com today to see if the Norvice team will be coming to a town near you.
Now, on to our interview.

Marvin:
[1:37] Well, Curtis and Jim, welcome to the Articulate Fly.

Jim:
[1:40] Thank you. Thanks for having us.

Curtis:
[1:42] Thanks, Marvin. It's really exciting to be here.

Marvin:
[1:44] Yeah, I'm super excited to have you guys on. And we have a tradition on the Articulate Fly.

Early Fishing Memories

[1:49] Lie we like to talk about uh having our guests share their earliest fishing memory and i guess you know i'll kind of traffic cop this a little bit i don't usually do a two-person interviews i'll say curtis go first and then jim can go unless you guys want to change the order no.

Jim:
[2:01] That's what that works good night curtis.

Curtis:
[2:03] Okay well um my earliest fishing memory i think, i i grew up in eastern carolina and uh not not far from not far from you um and uh my first memory was catching bluegill on cut hot dogs with my granddad and uh it was pretty interesting when we had uh there was a dock kind of down near the house it was like neighbor's property and there's a pond and we just go out there and you know like like grab a grab a hot dog put it on a hook and fish it under a bobber and um kind of from that point never really looked back you know here we are like 40 some years later yeah.

Marvin:
[2:41] That's pretty awesome that's uh pretty similar to me i've got I've got actually a picture here in my office of fishing for trout on a cane pole with my grandfather in the mountains of Virginia.
And he's got one of those old school aluminum worm boxes on his belt.
And he's wearing like, we didn't call them wellies because they weren't that fancy back then, but basically knee high rubber boots.

Jim:
[3:01] That's awesome.

Marvin:
[3:02] Yeah.

Jim:
[3:03] That's awesome.

Marvin:
[3:03] How about you, Jim?

Jim:
[3:05] You know, um, that's a, it's a good question. I've, I've been racking my brain on it a little bit.
Um, you know, I, I'd say probably my earliest was actually surf fishing.
So surf fishing with my dad, um, and my brother really just out probably the most, I guess the area where I would think most is kind of out by Edisto Island.
Island. So I grew up in the Carolinas as well.
Um, and just, you know, putting on blood worms or shrimp and just tossing it out there and hoping for the best, like trying to, trying to go, you know, at that time, you know, waist high for, you know, going into surf was like, it was treacherous.
It's like, Oh, I don't know if I can go any, any deeper than this.
And you weren't really casting that far.
Sometimes dad would cast for me, but just the excitement of just watching that, that rod just kind of, kind of hit a little bit and trying to determine between, you know, um, a wave and a, and a strike, um, was just always awesome. And that's been a tradition.
You know, we try to, we try to do, um, some surf fishing or get together ideally once a year and have been doing it since.
And, you know, it's been awesome to be part of an industry that we love to, you know, do stuff outside which is great yeah.

Marvin:
[4:21] It's always funny because i think you know people in the western part of the state you know it's always easier for us to get to the south carolina coast than to like do that like eight hour drive all the way out to the uh kind of what is a kid growing up i thought of as kind of the traditional part of the north carolina coast like atlantic beach and emerald island places like that um and it's interesting too you know i know both of you have slightly different paths on your in the way that you got to grundon's and you know curtis do Do you want to kind of talk to us about kind of like, you know, how you ended up being the product design guy at Grendon's?

Curtis and Jim's Journey to Grundens

Curtis:
[4:52] Yeah. Well, back to back up on the bloodworms. I remember having a distinct fear of bloodworms as a kid.
And we'd go down to Rudy Inlet and my dad had this Zebco stainless steel Zebco 33.
I think he probably still has it, but it's a I would not touch a bloodworm to save my life when I was a kid.

Jim:
[5:08] Terrifying.

Curtis:
[5:09] Yeah, terrifying. I was like, this thing can eat me. But but yeah, I think on a journey, you know, I guess.
Um i so i guess to clarify i'm uh i'm a product director i'm more of the strategy guy jim's on here because he's the design guy he does he does like all the hard work um the uh um and i'll let him cover himself but i guess you know like i this goes way back to working in retail for me when i was you know i worked in the bike shop in college um and like i really worked in a bike shop from the point that you could have a job and i was old enough to like sweep the floor and um put put beach cruisers together.
The, uh, the, I met, uh, the Trek product manager at a, at a clinic one night, the rep, um, the rec, the rep brought in, uh, uh, uh, the, the product manager for, for the, one of the bike lines.
I can't remember exactly which line it was at the time, but likely it was like a mountain bike line or something.
Um, but there was a chance that there was like, it was basically an eyeopening moment of like, this was a job like that you could do as an adult.
And for people that worked in, in the industry, there was a path to get there um.

[6:15] So I guess from that moment on, it was like, this is what I want to do.
And I even changed my major to go get some background in economics to be a little more business savvy coming into this thing.
And from there, it was like, just figure out a way in the ground floor at a company. And, uh, I started out answering the phones as a temp at Solomon, uh, in the ski industry, um, because it was fairly adjacent to what we'd been doing.
And it was, it was a, it was an open role that paid.
And honestly, it paid like 12 bucks an hour, um, with no health insurance benefits in the job, uh, ran from November or sorry, from October, uh, first through April 1st, essentially.
So it was like, we knew that April 1st, there'd be that you you're out of work, but you had essentially six months to make a and build relationships.
And, uh, I guess from that point on, um, I turned it into, uh, you know, like basically a full-time customer service job.
Then into like the product role for the guy, you know, helping the product guys out by tuning skis and going to demos and just kind of, kind of doing the, doing the grunt work for a few years there.
And, uh, um, the company relocated and when the company relocated, that was kind of my, my end as a, as a product manager.
Um and you know i guess from there uh a little bit of a long-winded story but it's but it's relevant here um i went to black diamond kind of from from solomon to get closer to the r&d process.

[7:36] Um and then the door opened up at sims fishing and in bozeman montana and it was like montana was on the table and a and a product job in fishing and it was like wow this is like kind of the stars aligning for like the you know like the the foot into the fishing world so that that's that's honestly where I picked up all of my apparel, you know, like experience.
I've been a hard goods guy all the way up to that point. And, uh, um, so I put, uh, put a few years in, in Bozeman and, um.

[8:04] And then you know like i had always known who grundins was you know just from you know just from you know i guess the industry and and also just kind of seeing their stuff on the coast and um when uh when the crew at grunin's reached out it was really interesting you know like wow these guys are building a a sport fishing collection there's an opportunity to come land at this brand and go build something and i was beyond stoked you know to to go take that opportunity to jump on board and, and, you know, like, and basically take this brand from, you know, where it wasn't, you know, we've tripled the business almost since 2017.
Um, when, when I joined the company.

Marvin:
[8:41] Yeah. And so you left probably what, about three or four years before the Vista acquisition of Sims?

Curtis:
[8:47] Uh, well, that's, I mean, I guess closer to like five.
Um, I guess that, I guess the, like, I've been, I've been at Grudden's five, six years just that last month. month.
And I think that deal went down last year. So yeah, I mean, I think when you work inside of a company, you're really acutely aware of what's happening, I think, from potential, transactions and you're always trying to get things in shape, right? Like it's your task.
Our job is tasked with the health of the business.
So we have a little more visibility into what's going on in the long haul, or like kind of the bigger picture behind the scenes, uh, with, uh, with management and just, you know, general and generally just kind of how companies are funded in, you know, in the backend.

Marvin:
[9:33] Yeah. Very, very neat. Kind of, if you got to talk about bloodworms, I'll tell you that my first mountain bike was a Trek 930, uh, that I bought with a, uh, I think that probably my first tax refund for my first real job out of school, I went and bought that bike.
So that's awesome. Yeah.

Curtis:
[9:51] There's some kid out there that put that thing together, you know?

Marvin:
[9:54] Yeah. Well, it's still hanging in my garage. And then I, uh, I graduated to, uh, to a Lamond road bike, which I barely rode because I moved from Atlanta to Charlotte and was afraid I was going to get killed in the traffic so um but uh but jim how about you how did you uh make your way to grundon's.

Jim:
[10:10] Yeah yeah that's a good um you know it's i guess kind of in in some ways a little a little similar of trying to navigate my way so um you know i went to school up in the, appalachian state i had no idea what i wanted to do up there i love to fish um kind of went up there initially for sports tore some acls and and decided to this time to focus on a career so i ended up um stumbling into this major called industrial design and that industrial design i really just wanted to take metal shop and blacksmithing and it was like in order to take this class you need to pursue this major and i'm like cool great um so it was really about you know there was kind of this cutting my teeth on what design was um from a traditional sense You know, Appalachian state's very good at, in, in, in a furniture sense of school.
And during my time, they're kind of some of the guinea pigs of, of first coming out for product. And.

[11:12] We had a little bit more of a sponsored studio program with Irwin Tools, which was based out of Huntersville at the time.
And that turned into an internship, which turned into a full-time role, which got me cutting my teeth in hard goods from a design standpoint, but also focusing on tradesmen and the construction environment.
So it was all about durability. It was all about performance.
It had to live in nasty conditions and it was all about field research and that kind of, that experience there kind of influenced how I approach things, um, all the way down, down the spectrum.
So spent time there and realized like, you know, I've got a passion for the outdoors.
I don't know how many jackets I have. I don't know how many backpacks I have, but there were a lot and there still are a lot. And I knew I wanted to get into that, but I couldn't sew.
I didn't really know much about fabrics at all.
I couldn't tell you the difference between a nylon and a polyester or what a woven versus a knit was.

[12:17] And so this opportunity came up to move to Baltimore to work for a brand called STX for lacrosse and ice hockey gear.
And it was a great opportunity to blend what I knew from hard goods and creating durable gear with learning how to do soft goods.
And so I focused mainly on protective equipment there for a few years.

[12:43] For both uh stx and nike and it was a great way to kind of cut my teeth into soft goods.

[12:51] And then from there i realized hey this is great but i didn't play lacrosse growing up i played soccer mostly and and some football and realized i wanted to kind of get back to something i really enjoyed from a a rude standpoint and kind of found my way all the way up here in in vermont at orvis service.
Um, and it was a great time to join the crew there.
You know, we built a lot of, a lot of great stuff and I, it was really where I kind of to Curtis's point where I really picked up on some of the more technical elements of, let's say, you know, construction and, and waiter and, and jacket and footwear and all that sort of stuff.
Those, and I had a really strong passion passion for that.
But then, you know, through that, spent my time there.
And then, you know, with similar to what Curtis mentioned, there's this opportunity at this brand that was, you know, it kind of combined the two ends of my spectrum, at least from, from the career path.
It was developing this really hardcore rugged gear for people that work at sea and that work on the water.
And then also the passion for fishing, uh, which I loved growing up.
And it was something, then it was an opportunity to build something special.

[14:09] And, you know, with that is just kind of how I think I ended up here.
I look at it from, yeah, I mean, I can't explain it really any other way other than it seemed like the right time, the right opportunity.

[14:26] To go build something special for a new brand, let's say, in fly, but, you know, with almost 100 years of heritage and just grit.
You know, from whether you're watching deadliest catch or something like that, or no commercial fishing, it was really cool. So that's what, that's what brought me here. I've been here for, going on almost two years so still fresh.

Marvin:
[14:48] Yeah it's very neat too listening to your stories about you know and it's it's uh it's interesting because i've talked to other people that have kind of gotten into roles like yours or similar roles in the industry they're not a lot of them and it's always amazing like how you have to be really determined and grind it out it's kind of like it reminds me like getting rebounds in basketball you just got to keep staying around the rim, uh and and be relentless about it absolutely.

Curtis:
[15:12] It's very intentional and i tell and i tell people that that all the time you know like like you know like we're we've actually posted a posted a category manager role over the weekend so like my inbox is going to be blowing up here kind of in this next week but you know like the i mean i guess if anybody that's applying for that job's listening to this thing it's you know it it's intentional and um and you know and it's it's not something you just kind of accidentally find yourself doing one day it for sure is like wow like you have to to be you have to you have to be really i think just engaged with like wanting to do it because it it there's a lot of hours and it's i mean there's a lot of work and a lot of meetings and a lot of like um you have to be really comfortable with failure you know i think and that that's that's been the biggest part of like you know like a you know the the kids that i've seen come into this this role or the younger folks that are younger in their career the ones that have gone on to be wildly successful are the ones that aren't afraid to fail and um and and not they don't see their failure is actually like a personal failure they see it as a as a you know a part of the process that that like actually makes better product in the end yeah.

Marvin:
[16:17] It's interesting you say that because i have a 21 year old and a 15 year old son and i'm always coaching them to learn how to fail faster right yeah right um and so you know curtis it sounds like you were kind of at ground zero when you know grund has decided to enter the fly fishing space you can you speak a little bit to kind of you know the opportunity that they saw in the industry and kind of the the problems that they wanted to solve.

Curtis:
[16:40] Yeah. And I'll back up even one level on that.
I'd say go a level higher of SportFish. And our brand launched into SportFishing in 2015.
And I would say it was a pretty rocky start to that category.
And I attribute that to the head of the product team was also the owner of the company.
And he uh he had a commercial fishing background he was in this business because he loved commercial fishing and he also sport fished you know i think like his hobby was to you know go down to ba and spend a ton of time fishing down there and he saw the he would he saw the opportunity to take the brand it was it was it was like an owner of the company saying hey i want to invest in this path but i don't really truly know how to do it um and you know he was he mike was for sure uh uh Uh, and like he, like if he, if he didn't know how to figure it out, he was going to, he was going to pick it up and carry the company on his entire back to get there.
And that, that was just a style and the way it worked. And I think, you know, we're, we're better off for those first few years in sport fishing today.
Still, we learned a lot as a brand and like, and I think we're still learning a lot as a brand on like how, how to nuance this brand in that space, uh, around, you know, like when, when we, you know, I just came out of a, I came out of a strategy session last, last, I guess, what was it last Wednesday?
And we put up on the board, we put, you know, like, we win when we do Grendon's right. We fail when we chase competitors.

[18:10] And that's kind of become like, and it got actually thrown up in an all-company meeting. And I was like, wow, I didn't realize that that was so sticky around here.
But yeah, I mean, I think like just trying to...
Trying to understand what it is that the consumer, and it really truly isn't about us going into sport fishing.
It's the consumer wanting that product from Grunitz that has to be consumer-centric, consumer-led, like fundamental shifts like this.
Otherwise, you're going to spend a lot of money and you're going to fail.

[18:39] So there were a lot of people that did believe in us as a brand.
There's a lot of crossover, I think, from guys that have worked in the Bering Sea to folks that take. They'll come out of, they'll come out of Alaska with a pile of cash and their money, and they're going to go live in Mexico for a little bit and they're going to fish the way they want to fish.
Um, and you know, I think like the, the heritage there for sure kind of led us to a, you know, there was a path forward for us in sport fish and that was around building rugged, durable goods.
Um, and building, you know, like just enduring lasting products that, that people could get out of value and really kind of resonated with the blue collar angler in a lot of ways. is.
Since then, we've tried a lot of paths, a lot of different price points, a lot of different solutions.
And like what tips typically has been, the products that have been successful for us are the ones that kind of check the boxes around rugged, durable, really great price value relationships and a meaningful product for the consumer.

[19:35] And I guess, you know, like we were selling, you know, like we had Rainwear, but it wasn't, you know, It wasn't, I would say, pinnacle product in the market that we could go and put out in the marketplace and realize that this was the best product that we could possibly produce.
And it was rather expensive for what it was.
So we engaged Gore-Tex. That was one of the first jobs that I had here at the company back in 18 was to build a proposal to Gore and go get a trademark license. license.
At Gore-Tex, you have to be licensed as a brand to be able to purchase the laminates and work with a certified factory.
We launched the Gore collection in 2019.

[20:19] That was the moment where there was everything before the Gore launch and everything after the Gore launch.
It was a true inflection point in the business in SportFish for us.
It really got a lot of eyes on the brand.
It enabled us to engage new ambassadors and new pros.
Um it enabled us to open up new dealers um and kind of at the same time we launched we we basically expanded footwear in a sport fish so it was like a one two like punch into the market um and i would say that that the gore launch and the footwear launch opened up enough doors and opened up enough new dealers and enough new buyers eyes on our brand that that the requests started coming like like, Hey, like you guys built great product.
You build bibs, you build Gore-Tex jackets.

[21:06] We want a waiter from you. And I was the last one that wanted to go build a waiter.
Like honestly, I was like, guys, we have these product roadmap meetings and strategy sessions.

[21:17] And waiters were talked about for four years before we ever launched them.
And it definitely turned into... For me, it turned into like, hey, let's get this right. Let's not race into this market.
And I think Jim and I know enough about making waiters to know that the quickest way to to fail in business is to go make waiters um and uh and we we needed the we needed i guess we needed the momentum like and i and i held i guess intentionally held the launch back of waiters until i felt like that we had there's you know there there was a tipping point i think around around number of a number of dealers that were on board and a number of dealers that were asking and i would say just you know also just a general level of frustration with the competitive set out there that we were, that we would have to go.
We knew we had to go take somebody, somebody off the wall in every single account.
And that's a, that's a hard proposition, you know, to think, to walk in and say, all right, this waiter is the best waiter in the market.
And what I need from you is to take one of those slots on your wall and give it to us. And, and I'll prove that we'll perform there.
Um, so that, and, and there's a, I would say there's a lot of accounts that we're all in on that out of the gate and we're still making that request, you know, to a lot of dealers out there. And it's a hard proposition some days for some accounts.
The whole idea here is that we need to be accretive to the business.
We don't want to come in and divide anybody's revenue up by another skew.

[22:44] We need to show up, we need to perform, and we need to prove that our waiter resonates with the consumer and sells through.

[22:52] But yeah, I guess at the end of the day, it truly was a dealer-led led initiative for us, like where we were getting the, the requests were loud enough and frequent enough that we, um, we decided to kick off a, like an R and D project in waiters.

Marvin:
[23:07] Yeah. That's super interesting. And as I hear you talk about that, I can certainly hear kind of the, the commercial fishing background of the company kind of coming through in the design philosophy about, you know, uh, durability value driven.
Cause I mean, these are blue collar guys out there making their money on, you know, crab boats, boats, fishing boats, and if you can get them something that doesn't cost $2,000, that would be great, right?

Jim:
[23:32] Yeah. I mean, that's the plan. And, you know, to that point from a, you know, design philosophy standpoint and, and harkening back, like our core is commercial fishing and we want to continue in that we kind of run everything through this, this filter of sorts and, you know, always ask the questions of why, you know, why is it important that Grundon's has this product?
Why are we making this? Like, why are we being asked for this?
And, you know, we have to check ourselves often. And to your point earlier, it's about failing fast and making sure that we have something that we can be proud of.
And what we try to do as well is we think of it more of, it's not necessarily timeless, but creating product that we know is going to outlast and outperform. form.
Um, and, and that's, you know, running everything through that filter checking, not afraid to push it off to Curtis's point earlier, you know, in, in making sure that, you know, it checks the box of, you know, really being, uh, rugged and durable enough, but also approachable.
Um, it's, it's, I don't want to say it's easy to design the really high end expensive stuff.
You want a $2,000 waiter? Sure. No problem. I can make that.
It's the, the it's the product that comes at that perfect balance of performance and value uh that's the hard stuff um i don't know if there's anything you want to add there curtis yeah.

Curtis:
[25:01] I mean a $1,500 waiter to be a fun project i mean like if like if we could go build spaceships like with you know with with government money on it that would be fun but but it is every every single detail is considered around how much does it cost um and how much how and and i i've pushed you know i guess i push the development team a lot around you know like there's a lot of great ideas like in a in a design i guess just in a in a design process of of any product um the the question comes down i mean the question that we all kind of have to hold ourselves accountable to is like does that add value for the customer and and in a lot of ways it's like a cool looking you know a cool feature that's like yeah that's like really innovative or very unique but is it something as an angler, that i believe that the customer needs or is going to make the angling experience better or somehow help you catch more fish or stay you know stay out and fish in worse conditions um and unless you can answer those questions it's like that that feature has to come out and um you know and it causes a great source of frustration with the team sometimes but i mean i do think that like Like when you, when you, when you get everybody pulling in the same direction around, Hey, we're, we're building consumer centric products here.
And like, we're like, these, this is not art you hang on the wall.
This is like a functional, you know, this is a functional piece of gear that you need to put on your body and go fish with. I think it really starts to, to resonate.

Marvin:
[26:26] Yeah it's funny you say that i've got some stuff if you could see you to my left i've got like my tying table and all my video stuff and you know i have a handful of products that i would say are solutions looking for problems it's like you're kind of cool but like you look at it and you're like gosh like i just don't understand the use case for this you know yeah that happens often yeah we.

Curtis:
[26:49] We're really prescriptive with that though i think you know like we have a guy you know the The briefs I alluded to this morning were like, I owe Jim those this week.
Jim and I work closely together in identifying who the customer is.
When an idea goes into paper, before we ever spend a single dollar on it other than our time, when an idea goes on paper, it's like, who are we building this for?
What problem are we intending to solve? And why does the customer need that from us? And that's the important one, because I don't want to go build products that exist in the market today.
Because I know if I was a retailer holding my open to buy dollar back and I've got whatever it is on the wall that's performing for me and putting money in my register, then I don't want to stop doing that and go do something else just because it says Grunitz on it.
You know, I want this to be like every single product that we produce has to solve a problem or bring a unique value proposition to to the buyer at a retail store and ultimately to the customer.

Marvin:
[27:52] Very neat. And you mentioned earlier that, you know, you're kind of waiting for the kind of some pent up demand to embark on the waiter project.
You know, how long did it take you to bring the boundary waiters to market? Okay.

Curtis:
[28:05] Well, I guess there was one day, and it was specifically mid-June of 2021, where we went from talking about making waiters to making waiters.
And it was really specific, and it was a board meeting.
And that's a point where folks at Jim and my level of the company actually get to interact with the guys that own the company and have real skin in the game through financial investment.
And, you know, like senior leadership, they interact with those guys like daily, once a week, whatever.
We get these moments of board meetings that where we get a like, you know, like we're requested to show up, show what's in your pipeline, talk through the next like talk to the next 18 months of like innovation.

[28:54] And it was I remember a very specific directive. You know, it was like, hey, it's time to make a waiter, guys.
And we had I mean, I had like 24 hours to put a plan together.
On what, how much money we needed to kick off this project. And it, it wasn't like starting from scratch, right? Like, it's like, I've been thinking about this for years. I knew kind of what we needed to do.
Um, we just kind of got greenlighted on it in a, in a, in a, we got greenlighted on it on a Tuesday and by Wednesday we needed to have a really concrete, well thought out plan.
So, um, that was a long night and, um, we came back the next day at the day, day three of the board meeting and presented, presented a roadmap, a strategy and a plan and, um, um, asked for more money than I thought we needed, um, because I didn't want to go back and ask twice.
And, uh, we kicked, uh, we kicked that project off and I would say within the next 60 days we had, you know, we had design firms engaged. This is prior to Jim working here.
Um, so I was, I was kind of flying blind with a designer at the time.
Uh, we had a design firm that made a lot of our apparel, but, um, we wanted to go, you know, truly bill to truly engage somebody that could, you know, could get into the engineering side of, um, these laminates and, uh, the engineering side of like the design of waiters.
And ultimately that waiter projects, the way that we were able to engage Jim, you know, it was like.

[30:10] The rights the right order of operations would have been like hey we know in six months we want to go build a we want to start a project so we're going to go hire the right designer to join the team and uh we for sure like we had you know carts pulling horses for a little bit there but it all worked out great yeah.

Marvin:
[30:26] It's like i say you build the car while you're driving it right.

Curtis:
[30:29] Yeah well this one's more like trying to try to fix an airplane while you're flying it because if it crashes it's way more of a like like it there was no there was no chance of failure because i knew I knew that the product team's credibility was on the line on this one.
And hard work gets rewarded with more hard work sometimes.
And that was a moment of like, hey, we've got to go get after this and we've got to get it right. We have one shot to launch these waders. We can't fail.

Marvin:
[30:56] Yeah. And it's interesting because I guess I first saw them, it would have been probably last June, at an event that Davidson River Outfitters had.
Right. And Bob Clowers was there. And, you know, I had known Jeff Furman for a thousand years because he'd been a guide with Kevin and really got a walkthrough.
And I think, you know, it's interesting because you can talk to a lot of people in the industry and you guys probably had this experience too.
And you can tell who knows what time it is and who doesn't. And like walking through what you differentiated in your product design was really impressive to me about like thinking about the problems. problems.
And, you know, I thought it'd be interesting if you guys kind of walk through those.
Cause I mean, I, you know, I don't think everyone's had a chance.
I mean, if you, you know, we're halfway through show season, so people have gotten a better chance, right.
To put their hands on the waiters, but you know, there's just so many things.
I don't know if Jim, you want to speak to this, you know, and I kind of, you know, off the top of my head, I think about like the repairability issue.
Uh, you know, I'm a big guy, right. I'm six, three. Um, so mobility is awesome.
The suspension system's amazing.
You know, the thought process and the gravel guards, all that stuff is is awesome.

Building Future-Proof Waders

Jim:
[32:03] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, part of, I think, behind building this assortment in general in waiters is really trying to future-proof it.
You know, our developer, Kristen Chandler, she did an amazing job working on really getting that movement out of the waiters.
And we wanted to make sure that that translated throughout the whole assortment.
So I'll kind of touch base on some of the DNA and then we can hop back to boundary, you know, specific features.
But to your point, you know, it's we wanted to make sure that if you if you fit into a boundary or a vector or a bedrock that you're getting the same fit.
You know, I think I think that's something that can get missed with with other brands in the market right now of just, you know, changing patterns, changing fit just a little bit, tweaking it here and there.
And you don't necessarily know what you're getting between the previous wader that you had and the new one.
And so, you know, we focused big time on mobility, making sure that you can get in and out of boats, up and over logs, making sure that you didn't have any issues or binding regardless of the material laminate thickness.
The repairability is a huge one. You know, I guess, you know, we all know that, you know, within the industry, there's waders that leak and waiters that don't link yet.

[33:27] And we really wanted to build this from a future-proof standpoint to say, hey, you know, we've got this repairability program.

[33:35] Based in uh seattle and then also based in the carolinas and with the ability to kind of send it in for repair um whether that's a patch um you know let's say puncture booties that's a big one that we wanted to focus on is having modular neoprene booties um so we have this nice gusset down there that actually allows it to articulate on its own reducing the stress along the seams, but it also allows us to be swapped out.
And, you know, really the thought process behind that is to keep you on the water longer, but also, you know, a lot of times you'll see that, let's say you get a hole in your booties or something happens to the neoprene on the booties and you get swapped out later.
You know, we want to, we want to make sure part of this whole initiative to building durable product.
And then also the sustainability aspect is just keep your gear out there.
It should be a little bit more of a badge of honor.
It's interesting that it's not, you know, you look at, let's say climbing as an example or anything, outdoor, ski, snow, um, and you know, you get a patch on your jacket and it's like, wow, that's cool.
You, you really wore that thing in fly fishing.
It's not the case. It's like, oh man, those are beat up. I need a brand new pair.
And we have to shake that as a, as a mindset within the industry.

[34:53] And so I'm going off a little, I like tangents. I'm going a little, little off there, but yeah.
Um, you know, repairability is important. We partnered with some amazing, uh, neoprene out of Japan, um, companies called Yamamoto.
They built some of the best triathlon suits, um, in the world.
And we, we work with them on this, um, titanium alpha neoprene that kind of cascades throughout DNA.
So, um, what that does is it helps regulate the temperature inside of your booty, keeping you warm, keeping the cold out by using two different titanium layers. layers.
And so you've got warming neoprene booties that solve a problem, right? Feet, cold feet, they kind of suck.
You go in there, you've got ice blocks, you're, you're on the water less.

[35:37] We wanted to solve for repairability. So we have that with different, not only how we launched this wader with, you know, two different centers and the partner that we're working with there, but also through, you know, the repairability with the, the, the booties and how we're thinking about the construction from a suspender standpoint and then um you know mobility and those are three kind of dna features that kind of cascade throughout all of it back to the boundary we also really wanted to focus on suspension um and i'll actually let curtis kind of hop in on this one but it was really inspired from uh a climbing harness construction um and curtis you kind of lead lead the charge a little bit on the the construction of that and how that kind of cascaded it through.

Curtis:
[36:24] Yeah, I guess the harness design, the suspension system design that we built in here, I mean, I guess that came from my personal frustration with everything I'd ever fished in.

[36:35] I thought that there, I thought there was an opportunity to really, you know, to innovate in an area that was probably the most important point of contact with the body.
And you know beyond beyond like getting your pattern right having mobility built into like the way that the the wader the actual wader itself articulates um the the one the one piece of this thing that you're in contact with all day and it really has consequences for how the wader fits your body as well as how it fits with your layering system your shell and the fact that most anglers fish with some form of a pack either backpack sling packer you know or or even you know a lumbar pack slung over the shoulder so like like it just really wanted to get kind of that part of it really right and it really like it saw it as like i guess that was the chance to really innovate you know beyond you know like gore-tex does their innovation you know kind of really in a silo you know like their r d team um that like they give us a proven land and there's no there's no like second guessing that but but i think like with our ability to like the things that we could focus on in this to really make a massive difference around how the consumer perception of comfort was really going to be, you know, in the suspension system.
And it's also kind of in the belt loops where those are placed.
It's in how the, it's in a lot of the details of where those seams land on the body are really around, you know, like.

[37:58] Um, there's a lot, a lot of like, I guess, just like fit theory that went into, it went into the entire kind of top to bottom system there.
But, uh, um, but yeah, we, we took, we bought a couple of climbing harnesses and we cut them up to see kind of what was going on on the inside, you know, you know, having worked around the harness world for a little bit, things that, things that changed a lot in the last 10 years.
Um, and, uh, and just really understanding how, like, we thought that the climbing harnesses were being constructed at a factory.
So it was like, Hey, let's take this apart to understand how they put it together and then try to replicate that, um, in a, in a very opposite way.
So like we, you know, the climbing harness is very static. It's designed to hold your body weight in a fall.
Um, we needed something that moved with you and be more dynamic.
So, um, we flipped the script on a couple of materials that are on the interior of it.
And, uh, um, and really it was about like, Hey, how, how can this thing be constructed, essentially inside out and then turned into its final, final form.
And it was a, and it was more of an exercise of like trying to instruct a factory how to build something that they had never even seen before.
Um, but yeah, I think, I think we got it right in a lot of ways.
And I also, um, the ability to really place that suspension system for and aft up and down on the body was really, really unique and, um, not something that, that another, not something that had ever been solved for in a pair of bibs or waders or any kind of lower garment ever in, in the world.

Marvin:
[39:22] Yeah. It's amazing. Cause I mean, I know, you know, you know, when you feel hunched over at the end of the day, cause you basically had like kind of traditional suspender straps yanking on you.
Um, it's, it's an amazing thing. And I would say too, from a thoughtfulness perspective, I was blown away at the Kevlar gravel guards, right.
And the thought process about how that eliminates stress on one of the major leak points and the kind of the, where the waiter joins the the booty.

Curtis:
[39:45] Well well i guess the back we're not kept we we were testing a kevlar gravel guard early on um it was so cost prohibitive that we couldn't pull it off um so we that this and we actually found a way better material um in there so it's a um the the stretch woven that's on our pocket as well as on our gravel guard um material comes from a supplier that i've worked with for the better part of a decade they're our best supplier that we work with because they're they're always willing to innovate for us.
And we threw the problem on the table of, hey, we want to take this stretch, we want to submerse it for eight to 10 hours a day.
And it's got to hold up against the following list of gremlins out there that are trying to take you down. And they kind of laugh for a moment and.

[40:31] Ran with it and we got a great material. Um, and, uh, and, you know, on the testing side of things, you know, like we use, uh, we, we use like, you know, a Martindale is a kind of an industry standard, um, test fixture.
We like, we use the Martindale and we use the Tabor to test a lot of, a lot of our, the Tabor is like a tiny record group record player that's abrasive.
Um, and, uh, and you know, like typically like, you know, 20, 25,000 cycles on a Martindale is, is, is, you know, it's, it's kind of getting there.
It's not quite, you know, what we need, but it's a, it's a, it's at least a step in the right direction.

[41:05] We, uh, we ran that, um, we ran that gravel guard to 200,000 cycles and shut the machine off and said, I think we got a winner here.
Um, so, so yeah, like just having a, you know, like when you're, when you're at the, when you're at a list of five or eight textiles that you're trying to, trying to whittle down to two and you want to do an AB field test, um, that's the, like that, you know, like you kind of have to fail fast in a lab.
Otherwise you're going to be field testing forever and you might I missed something.
So, you know, it's like, and to, to this day, our field test waiters are still out there.
You know, I think that's a, that's a unique thing. Like we got, we've got a number of field test waiters that from that initial field test that are still going strong.
Um, and you know, like, like asking it, asking a field tester to test to failure, um, especially when the new waiters are in the market or they're like, when can I get one of those?
I'm like, when you break the ones you got, you know, you can have them.
Um, so, so yeah, it's a, it's a, There's a lot of, I guess a lot of the, you know, like maybe I'm probably jumping into the test side of this thing too fast, but that's, I guess, a little more of the process behind the curtain.

Marvin:
[42:04] Yeah, no, it's super neat. And my understanding too, is that material is a lot less grabby than neoprene. So those days of like wrestling with dropper hooks and things like that are maybe a little bit behind us.

Curtis:
[42:15] Well, you can still snag a hook in it. Um, uh, uh, like the, our head of sales got a steelhead hook, a steelhead fly hooked in his, um, and it turned out, uh, that thing might've had a barb on it.

[42:30] Uh, no, I don't, I'm, I'm, I'm joking. I'm joking. Uh, like we, we pick, like, he got a good snag out of it. I was like, Hey buddy, like, like that's not a barbless hook.

[42:38] Um, but, uh, but he, he swore it was, and I, you know, I trust him.
He's a good guy. But, uh, but like we, yeah, when we go through, um, the field testing, a lot of that stuff shows up, you know, and, and, uh, it's the, and I do agree.
Like a lot of the, kind of the, like everybody in the world out there, I guess the two problems that I saw with, with gravel guards were one, one was like, if you're a shell fabric and you hop out of the river, it's like a bucket on your ankles and it fills the, it fills the drip boat up pretty quickly.
And by the end of the day, you got like, you know, you got at least 10 or 15 gallons of extra water floating around on the bottom of the boat.
Um the other is you know like a neoprene gravel guard is kind of the industry standard out there so it's like let's just not do that because that's that's what the world expects us to do and uh and like in in using that as an opportunity to innovate and um what we i think what we gained out of this was you know a more snag resistant a more pick resistant gravel guard it's not obviously it's not impervious to like the world out there but it it's better than i think what the industry what you would expect from our peers out there um and then secondly it allows us to build it closer closer like we can build it closer to the boot so it's a better boot to to weather your interface and i think that helps just over the long haul keep a lot of the you know like river gunk and um and you know just sand out of your boots and it the whole idea here is it's to you know to give you long life use of your your stocking piece.

Designing for Different Angling Needs

Marvin:
[44:06] Yeah, absolutely. And I do know, you know, saw, I think some of these at the shows and I was actually talking to my buddy at TCO and, you know, they're, I guess, on the, on the cutting edge of getting some of the new waiter lines and now you're coming out with, you know, the Vectra and the Bedrock.
And I was wondering if you guys could kind of tell us a little bit about kind of what the design differences are between, you know, those two lines and the boundary.

Curtis:
[44:28] Yeah, I'll let Jim take it because Jim actually, like, like that was, you know, Jim's first round of waiters with us here was the, was the first order of business was go design three waiters.
And, and it just, I think it also just speaks to, he's been here two years and those waiters are just hitting retail now.
So that, that's kind of the, that's kind of the runway, like to give you visibility into how long it takes to actually get something from an idea to, to in a consumer's hand.

Jim:
[44:53] Yeah. And I would say that was still a fast time mark, you know?
It's it real quick on the on on that on that timeline element, you know, we do vary from a from a standard, you know, depends on how how far out projects are, you know, and if we're being asked, you know, if it's something that we can get there faster, you know, it can take 24 months. It can take 12 months.
It can take nine months, um, 18.
It just depends. So, you know, those, those, the vector and, and bedrock waiters for us, you know, we really wanted to take a step back and think about, you know, if someone were to, if someone were familiar with the commercial fishing side of it, the talking bedrock initially at first, or sorry, vector, um, we wanted to approach it from, you know, the ingredient.
That make up the waiter you know design don't get me wrong love design um but really if you don't have a good base and a good foundation from the material and the laminate and really how you create that it doesn't really matter you know how how many bells and whistles and whatnot you have so.

[46:06] We wanted to build something that was rugged and felt as if it were good enough to stand up on a commercial fishing boat, to give you that sense.
So the vector, what we did was we kind of created this unique laminate that we're really proud of and is really special.
It gives you this really supple, softer hand, but it's a very dense, puncture-resistant fabric.
And so if you were to think of it, maybe from a, let's just say like an apparel standpoint, it's like buying that fresh pair of, of jeans and versus having a worn pair of jeans.

[46:42] And you're always going to go back to that worn. So we wanted this, we wanted to create this fabric package that felt like it was already broken in, um, which a lot of times when you go with those heavier, more puncture, more abrasion resistant materials, they get really stiff fast.
And so, starting with that, again, we wanted to bake in the same DNA, so we knew that we wanted the warming neoprene, we wanted the repairability, we wanted the same fit.
It and then from there it was really trying to figure out what what was the right level of feature benefit and you know not creating stuff just to not creating features or pockets or details that you don't necessarily need and that's kind of the how we work from both both the bedrock and the vector.
And when the unique element of it is I call them T-Rex arms, but.

[47:42] Almost all of the, all of the, um, stocking foot waders out there have a horizontal zip, you know, to kind of access you kind of every dump pocket, but you go in and you're, you're, you're really looking at, all right, let me fish this out of the corner and let me get that.
Um, and you kind of can get stuff lost in there. It's a great way to do it, but we thought about it a little bit differently and said, Hey, you have, you were in a jacket.
Most jackets have a vertical zipper. Why not put a vertical zipper down the front?
And in all honesty, it was pretty polarizing. at first when we got it into the field testing um and it was like whoa what is this this looks really strange and and as you know the industry as far as fly fishing goes it does move relatively slow so um it was a little polarizing but the idea was that hey you have ambidextrous storage you can go left you can go right you just have a straight vertical zip you can store fly boxes is anything you need kind of in that center section.
And we wanted to create that as part of the DNA element.
And so, you know, hand-warming pockets, we've got adjustability.
We took the suspension system from some of our sport fishing bibs and we implemented that.
So again, you have this, we're thinking about suspension differently from a vector.
So make sure that it's comfortable. But, and then we also have these really low profile, um.

[49:10] Knee pads in there because once you, once you kind of wear, it's kind of like wearing a zippered weight.
Once you wear a wader with knee pads, you kind of don't really want to go back.
And it's, it's really, it's less about kneeling on gravel, um.

[49:25] And, and, and, you know, rocks and landing fish.
And it's also about getting in and out of boats and, you know, you know, leaning up against a gun or something like that and really making sure that, um, you've got that.
And, and we want our waders i think in general vector and bedrock and i'll touch on bedrock real quick um the idea is that these transcend beyond just fly fishing too you know i think that's one of the elements that um makes our brand unique and so we want to make sure that it's not just built for a river and it's not just built for fly fishing and so the bedrock carries all of that same dna but does it in a more you know a really tried and true uh four layer laminate um as well and it doesn't have the i would say it's a great blend of the mobility the comfort and the um breathability that you might find from the gore and having a little bit of that shared ruggedness from the vector and creating this really great value proposition.
And really, the bedrock's the first handshake for us, you know, in viewing the product in that way of saying, hey, you know, if someone's new to the brand, they want to try us, they don't necessarily, you know, want to...

[50:49] Invest in these different tiers or maybe they're not as rugged or they don't want the the premium features that are that show up in the gore tax then this has to perform it has to be good on fleets it has to be good for rentals um you know it's the waiter that you know shows up at a lodge and you've got 15 of them on the wall and it's just for people to to wear if they don't bring it um and we approach it that way so similar kind of features you know as far as storage pockets pockets go not as, not as water resistant from a storage pocket standpoint, but, and no, no, um, knee pads.
So it's a different type of use case, um, where the vector is really built for guides and rugged, you know, briar busts, and I don't care about what I'm wearing.
And then the, the bedrock is really built for, um, more of an all around, uh, approach to to angling and um you know helping that let's just say like more of a weekend warrior or a um, you know yeah i'd say weekend warriors is probably a good one what do you think curtis for bedrock i mean it's really it's a great waiter.

Curtis:
[51:58] I've been put at the at these fly shows that we've been hitting recently i've been positioning that as a 10 day 10 day a year angler you know and i think there's a lot of people out there that really appreciate good gear they they they have a million other hobbies right like they might be playing golf they might be like the the you know might be surfing whatever you know whatever it is um but you know fly fishing is something that they've just gotten into or they do it when they when they take their annual trip to montana or they do it when they you know get together with family on like you know like on you know on a week at the the lake or whatever.
So, you know, and like we wanted to, we wanted to kind of make the range approachable.
So, so obviously, yeah, that's, I mean, it's, it's built for, it's built for hardcore use, but, but the total number of days that you will get out of a bedrock relative to a vector vector is built to be, you know, the, the 200 a year day guide.

[52:49] Um, the ultimate in durability. We, we also take that vector chassis and we build a special model for, um, for rental fleets as well.
So if lodges, you know, like in our, our, our primary customer, you know, that does the rental is, uh, a lot of, a lot of Alaska lodges, um, really will, will dive into a rental waiter program.
Cause I think a lot of people, a lot of people like look at like, Hey, I want to go to Alaska fish and, and they end up, um, they may, they may be a great fly angler they may kind of just have gotten into it and and not they don't have the gear and you know they they've left the box store with their 129 pair of waders or they've got an old pair of neoprene waders that they you know think work great until you get to kind of the hardest environment on earth to go wait in and uh um and that and alaska rivers are brutal i mean i think like that's and that's that's a different kind of it's a different frontier up there of like what you need to bring to the to the party if you're gonna if you're gonna have a successful week at a lodge up there um so yeah we we've been we've had a lot of a lot of a lot of uh interest in a in a rental program from us and i think you know like shops are like retail shops are going to slowly get on board with that as well like hey we can we can offer a really great experience for somebody that's coming to spend a day with us you know on a guided trip and you you know i think a lot of people just show up with old gear and it's like you know hey today's a great day to try something new and you're gonna you're gonna get better at casting you're gonna get better at fishing and then you might as well have a great experience doing it.

Marvin:
[54:17] Yeah, I think the great thing too, not just for waders, but it's to have the gear get out of the way, right?
Just like let you fish and, you know, not have a bad day because you're in swampy neoprenes or you've got old gear or, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I would love to just know that places that I wanted to travel to to fish had it so I didn't have to pack it and keep it up and spread it out and dry it all out when I got home.

Curtis:
[54:38] There's nothing worse than flying home with wet waiters and boots.
You have a great week, but then you finish, you ultimately want to get that last morning in before you have to leave.
And you always end up packing a wet pair of waiters in a bag and everything's really gross when you get home.
But maybe that's the defining moment of a trip of like, I got every minute out of this that I could.

Marvin:
[55:04] Yeah. I always take several black trash trash bags with me for exactly that purpose.

Jim:
[55:08] There you go. You know, and real quick on the, I guess, our ethos and design really behind that and our products in general, it's a lot of people plan for the worst, but we build for the worst.
And that's really the approach and how we filter it through.
And those waiters are a good example of the evolution of that.

Marvin:
[55:29] And I would say too, you know, looking at your products and talking to some of the guys in the booth in Denver, you know, I can see the same thoughtfulness in the design process in your rain gear and your wading boots.
Uh, and I was wondering if you guys wanted to kind of talk about a little bit of that.
Cause I thought some of that stuff was incredibly neat. Like the thought around, you know, like the double flaps on the zippers and things like that.
So that, um, you know, just shows kind of an understanding of what the elements will do and how they create problems for you when you're on the water.

Jim:
[55:57] Yeah, absolutely. Curtis, why don't you take that one? Um, I think you'll have a good bit to add there.

Curtis:
[56:02] Yeah, so the double store flap, it's been a, I guess it's been somewhat of a non-negotiable.

[56:09] Design feature for us on on outerwear um it goes i guess it dates all the way back to the fact that our um our commercial jackets the the brig jacket was has been around since the 60s um, and it's had a double storm flap on it since then and the belief is that you know like the our belief personally from not just making this up but from testing is that the only way to really keep somebody dry on the inside is to have a storm flap over a zipper it's um and you know like if you're if you're standing if you're standing in a river and it's raining you can get away with an exposed zipper you're never going to notice the difference but like when you take this thing kind of to the next level um and you're running in an open console boat you know for a gore-tex outerwear line um if you're a guide running in a in a jet sled in bc canada um or you know or anywhere that's raining hard and you've got you've got motor driven rain you're gonna get wet to that zipper so we we we take the design approach of saying our our our have to have in this jacket is a is a storm flap and then just let's just do that in a very elegant way so it doesn't get in doesn't get in the way it's easy to access in and out of and you might you might not even know it's there the only thing you'll know is that you're not wet um and then with the with the boot program you know like Like, you know, I, I, I guess we just really, we just, we just saw the insanity in the waiting booth world, like kind of like, like the leapfrogging of technology and price points that was going on was like kind of getting out of hand.

[57:37] Um, and you know, you, you sit around and you're like, what do, where do we want to be and how do we want to define this brand within waiting?
And, um, and I, you know, I, I guess I thought the way I thought through it, you know, from a, from a, Hey, what are we going to build here?
Is, you know, like metal hardware was a have-to-have.
There was going to be like no chance plastic hardware was going to make it anywhere in the wading boot line.
But it had to be corrosion resistant. And then we just wanted to build a really well-reinforced classic leather boot.
And, um, and, you know, leather presents a set of problems in the river, you know, like old, old school leather boots shrink and, you know, even leather boots from, from 10 years ago shrink.

[58:20] Um, so we went through, you know, the process of identifying a waterproof leather, um, that, that could be submerged in water and go through wet dry cycles, you know, like throughout the life of the boot and not, you know, not give you the, uh, uh, an experience of where that boot's going to shrink on you.
Or you have to like oversize the boot with the whole idea that the first time you wear it, it's going to shrink up on you.
Um, and then we partner with Vibram on the, you know, kind of midsole and outsole chassis, um, kind of lower, like the lower unit on that boot is, is all Vibram.
And we, we designed it to accept, uh, you know, our, our hexagrip, uh, hexagrip stud and cleat pack.
Um, so like basically just give you one solution to, to completely stud that boot out for traction on like slippery river.
So, um, yeah, you know, I think if you, if you get a chance to look at our waiting boot, you'll notice that it's got a lot of like burly, um, burly rubber overlays on there that come out of the kind of the mountaineering and climbing world.

[59:15] Um, the leather on it's really nice. Like we, we over-invested in leather on there just to make sure you would have a good quality new buck that holds up for, you know, the life of the boot.
And, um, even in the going as far as the taking all the hardware and embedding those on the, you know, basically the, the, the hardware attachment points are all internal in the boot.
Um, so there's not, you know, rivets or, um, you know, attachment points like on the inside of the boot that wear through your stocking foot faster.
Um, so yeah, thoughtful design for sure on kind of how that executed.
And, um, you know, and I think the other, the other thing is like, we really tune the way that boot flexes in the water.
So not trying to build a replica of what already existed in the market from a very almost, Herman Munster boot, if you will. Yeah.

Jim:
[1:00:02] Yeah.

Curtis:
[1:00:02] I mean, it, it, it's, you know, the, the flex profile is, is, you know, is really well engineered into it.
So, you know, the feedback that I've gotten from, um, from a lot of dealers and a lot of testers on it is it's, it's the most comfortable boot to wait in because of the way that we, we engineer that the ball break of the foot and, um, engineering proprioception, which is basically your brain's ability to feel kind of what's under your foot in the river.
Um, and it kind of just helps to, to drive the, just the natural balancing process that your, your, your body does.

Marvin:
[1:00:31] Yeah. It sounds like it would make for a better waiting experience.
I mean, cause at least for me, like, I mean, I'm a big guy, so I wear a size 13, right?
So I feel like I'm Frankenstein when I'm in the water and I don't always feel like I have a really, like, it's not that I'm not in contact, but I don't feel like my feet are seeing like they would normally see if I was wearing another type, you know, another type of shoe and I wasn't in the water.

Curtis:
[1:00:54] Yeah yeah we need to get you a pair to test like i think you'll like like that would it would be interesting to do a follow-up to this podcast of like like wear our waders and boots for for another like wear wear them for a season like at the end of the summer come back and do a follow-up yeah.

Marvin:
[1:01:11] It would be cool it's funny too because i was talking to your guys in denver and um about whether i'm an xl or an xl king because of your the way your suspension system works, and, you know, had a long kind of philosophical conversation about, like, I'm a, I layer on top of my waders because I want to capture that heat, right?
I also don't want rain to, like, I don't, I don't, people can do whatever they want to, but I've never understood why you would wear a rain jacket underneath your waders so that you were just catching all that water and letting it run down into your clothes.
But just trying to kind of, you know, calibrate that out and think about, like, I fish anywhere from, you know, trout in the Carolinas, which both of you guys know is not, like a super cold water jam except for maybe two weeks in february um you know up to steelhead fishing which is the coldest i ever am in my entire life so.

Curtis:
[1:01:59] Yeah, and we're closer to the steelhead, I guess, world because that's home base for us out in the Pacific Northwest.
And for better or worse, a lot of the testing gets done out on the Olympic Peninsula.
I got a great picture of Jim wearing a jacket that's coming out next year.
And you want it to fail on the internal team first before it even makes it to a field tester.
So like he had a, he had a pretty rough day with a leaky jacket that we, we made a lot of, we made, we had a lot of learnings out there, but it was, it was raining like two inches an hour.
Um, and for sure, like one of the rainiest days I've ever been through on the OP.
Um, and you just, there's just not enough pair. You don't have enough gloves in your backpack to make it through the day.
And you're just, you're just like constantly rotating from like the, from the wet gloves to the wet, the less wet gloves that are somewhere in the bottom of the pack.
And um and it just you get to the end of the day and you're like jim takes his jacket off and he's like wow look at this i've got stripes um and we uh we ended up uh we ended up making like an immediate design change that even you know that before these things even made it to like a sample that a rep gets and something that we do kind of advanced field testing but but those learnings you know are fun i i enjoy especially when i'm the one that's not getting wet and um and the designer is.

Jim:
[1:03:21] Yeah it was that was a good one um and you know i mean to that point it's it is we have it's failing fast right it's like hey we just got this prototype in let's go get it on the water it was a monsoon um and you know within 10 minutes i'm like oh well this sucks i've got another six hours of this like let's we'll figure it out but glad we found out.

Curtis:
[1:03:45] It's not an exaggeration It rained 12 inches of water that day out there.
It was, I mean, like, that's, until you experience it, you can't, like, even comprehend because it almost sounds like a tall tale.

Marvin:
[1:03:58] Yeah. But, you know, the amazing thing is, you know, Curtis, it sounds like you and I are maybe roughly the same vintage.
You know, when I was coming through scouting in Virginia, like, there was no Gore-Tex, right?

Curtis:
[1:04:09] The military had it, but you for sure didn't have it as a scout.

Marvin:
[1:04:12] I mean, yeah, the doctor's kids didn't even have it, right? So, like, it didn't exist. And, you know, the idea of like having those like super heavy hiking boots that you put the snow be water sealing on.
And, you know, back then the Boy Scout way was to wear a pair of tube socks with a wool sock on top, you know, and I like my boys complain now.
I was like, guys, like you just have no idea how much better the materials and the gear are today than they were, you know, 40, 50 years ago.

Jim:
[1:04:40] Oh, yeah.

Curtis:
[1:04:42] I vividly remember going to, like, a, um, like, a camper-y out on the, uh, it was in Virginia Beach, and it was out on, like, I want to say it was, like, Fort Story, kind of out, like, on the north end of Virginia Beach.
Like, we, we drove up for that, and it was a, it was a pretty, like, those scout days were a miserable camp experience.
I, like, I feel bad for anybody that didn't, like, personally, like, there's probably a ton of kids that just never went camping because they, like, their experience in scouting, um, with mediocre gear was just, like.
Wow this sucks but um but i made the commitment to my like to my family is like we're gonna have great deer we're gonna have a good time and we're gonna over invest in making sure everybody's warm and dry and comfortable when we're on the river and uh um and it's made a big i think it's made a big difference from you know i've got three boys between one the youngest turned eight today and the oldest is 14 and uh they they don't know what it's like to to go through um a rough night night of camp in a in a you know a cotton filled sleeping bag and being wet and cold because they've always had great gear um and maybe maybe i'm starting to sound like a curmudgeon now and you just don't know but i just don't want them to have to go through that because i i want i want, the outdoors to be such a good experience for them it's something that they they fall in love with and they want to do um with with their kids down the road um and and i guess maybe it's also selfish i just want to hear him play yeah.

Marvin:
[1:06:05] There you go you know one of the interesting things is you know obviously you you know grunge has moved into fly fishing but i would say probably one of the interesting opportunities is your fly anglers have become aware of all the other products that were in the grunden's universe and i was kind of curious you know, what are the favorite kind of traditional grunden products that have made their way into the hands of fly fishermen they seem to really like and buy a lot.

Curtis:
[1:06:30] Well, I, I think the notion of the fly angler is, is it's, it's somewhat manufactured by the industry and, and, and I'll go down the road of like, cause I think everybody like, and they're great.
I do get, there's people that are fly only like dry fly or die guys out there.
And I, and I, I salute you.
Um, but I, but I think the majority of the people out there are anglers first and they've found, they found a love of fly fishing because of its challenge or because of the unique kind of you've arrived at an.
You've arrived at a level of angling by fly fishing because it's, you know, it's going to test your skill as an angler.
But ultimately I think everybody presented with the opportunity to go catch and harvest fish.
Um, they're going to do that. And, and I, and I think, you know, like the opportunity to say, Hey, we're going to go on a tuna trip.
We're going to go, um, you know, like we're, we're going to go and we're going to be in Alaska.
We're going to go harvest halibut because I love to eat halibut and I'm up here and I get a fly home with like a hundred pounds of fish and it's going to be amazing.
Um so i do think the catch and consume angler um out there is really our core customer in a lot of ways and um and and they may be fly for that and in that same that same person that same you know like they they may they may be swinging a barbless hook on a you know on a tube fly for steelhead.

[1:07:45] One weekend and um and and also you know out like trolling for salmon in the in the columbia river, and you know and and like we had a we had an internal joke of like knowing when to bonk them um and it's like you know when when to keep a fish wet and to treat it like you know it's it's like a revered species of like hey we got to let this guy go and not not not hurt it at all because you know like it's it's got to go spawn it's got to go make baby fish so we can you know continue the cycle and then when it's like hey there's an abundance of food fish here unless you know like Like this fresh salmon is going to provide protein for the family.
We're going to, we're going to, this one's going to the table boys.

[1:08:22] But, but I, and I guess I digress a little bit there. I do think that like a lot of our, a lot of our PU and PVC is kind of how we got into sport fishing.
You know, like just like if you need blood and guts, impervious material, rubber pants are the only way to get it.
And it's, you know, stain, 100% stain proof. proof.
The world's been talking a lot about PFAS in the last 18 months, and it's going to talk even more about it in the next 12 and the next 24.

[1:08:48] We're the original kind of PFAS-free brand with our PVC and PU-coated materials.
They've never had PFAS in them, and they don't rely on PFAS for water-beating performance.
So that's a unique thing. Building gear that really is hose down, rinseable, and allow you to let go and process a fish or catch, you know, catch a nasty fish or actually use, you know, live bait.
Like it's kind of, well, it'll make your fancy bibs really gross, really quick.
So we'd like, we have, we have both, we have the really nice Gore-Tex for you.
We also have the, the really basic, uh, PU coated stuff for you.
Um, and I, and I do think, and I think beyond, like I would say that world, um, you know our uh our our tough sun solar series that that's that's launching here it actually it'll be available in 10 days um it's been the best pre-booked solar program that we have it's upf 50 you can get about five days out of it on the river without it starting to stink because of some performance finishing we use um it's the only sun shirt on the market with a with a 100, no questions asked lifetime guarantee um because we believe in the durability so much on it so um Yeah, there's a lot of stuff out there that's that's adjacent to our fly category that really resonates kind of on that next ring out of anglers that really are the broader community that we want to we want to like speak to.

Marvin:
[1:10:11] Yeah, and I really like your your deck boots, right?

Curtis:
[1:10:14] I totally forgot deck boot. Yeah, and you're you're absolutely right.
I probably should have led with deck boots because that that is the one.
I mean, I think deck boots are deck boots of the deck boots have become invoked in a lot of ways.
A lot of people just wear deck boots these days and I'll see them in the city a lot of like, wow, like we somehow found that customer right there and didn't, they would have never found us any other way other than searching for rubber ankle boots.
And like when you get to the details of why we beat the competition, it turns into a sale.
But we do sell a lot of boots. Like our boot businesses, it started like five years ago.
It was a tiny piece of the business. It's grown to a significant business unit and would be a standalone business or brand on its own from the volume of boots that we do. And it's pretty rad to see.
I mean, I'm just happy because I know every person that buys a boot from us is going to have a better day on the water.

Marvin:
[1:11:09] Yeah, that end-of-the-day solution to me is always something I'm always trying to figure out.
Like, you know, when you're in the parking lot in Montana and you want to go and what's the quickest, fastest way and all that sort of stuff.
And so, you know, love the boots. I've tried all kinds of different, uh, solutions around that.
And, um, you know, it's great to just be able to, uh, it's important to get off the water and start drinking beer as quickly as possible. Right.

Jim:
[1:11:30] There you go. Boat to bar.

Curtis:
[1:11:33] Boat to bar. It's, uh, well, I think if you, if, uh, do you ever fish in Madison river?

Marvin:
[1:11:38] I do.

Curtis:
[1:11:39] Well, we have a, we have, we actually have a new, um, well, I don't want to let the cat out of the bag yet. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to park that at that.
There's a product name and it's, yeah i'm i'm i'm over sharing so i'll stop at that fair.

Marvin:
[1:11:54] Enough but i'll make another pass at you you've got you've got sun shirts coming out here in the next 10 days any other things in your development pipeline you want to share with our listeners before i let you guys go.

Curtis:
[1:12:03] Yeah um we have we have a series of rainwear fly jackets that integrate with the waiters really well um uh even you know so the jacket's called the portal um it's a portal because it's like you can you can pass through to the, to the next level of warmth, um, achieve a higher level of, uh, of comfort out there.
Um, but it also allows you like access. So the whole idea is this jacket is gore.

[1:12:27] It's got the dunkable cuffs from our, you know, from our buoy X line.
Um, and our, you know, it's, we learned a lot of things with the gambler project for the professional bass anglers.
And we kind of married the two of those up in a way that just really, uh, we took kind of the best of both of those jackets and we built perfect jacket for, you know, for somebody that's in the river.
Um so 100 waterproof you'll get our you know our tried and true uh storm flap system but then there's a pass-through pocket inside the hand warmer pocket to keep your hands warm and that and this was specifically what leaked on jim last year 12 months ago was like you know getting that right was really detailed around like drainage and the right zipper in there and the right zipper angle for diverting water away um and with all of our gore jackets um we we have to send them to to uh we send them to the rain room for an extreme and extended wet weather test so they have to pass a standard of 22 inches an hour it's something that like hunt and fish from gore have to you know like we have a higher level of of of test parameters than say an outdoor or snow sport company hits um so we we hit the extreme and extended water um the the rain room test on everything that we produce as cortex um i mean we learn a lot along the ways that you know they're They're a massive development partner for us, you know, to be able to walk out of a co-development between Grundon's and Gore-Tex and say, you know, this jacket's guaranteed to keep you dry for the life of the garment.
That's a powerful statement to tell a consumer.

[1:13:56] And we're really putting our money kind of where our mouth is on it.
And uh but it but i you know i i'm comfortable saying that because i know the work that goes into the design and development of of of the details and the nuance of of the you know like the tiniest detail on that jacket is scrutinized yeah.

Jim:
[1:14:14] Absolutely i'll throw in there the we've got a good mid-layer coming in hot as well.

Curtis:
[1:14:20] Yeah yeah good.

Jim:
[1:14:22] Good system coming in probably more obviously Obviously within the fall timeline, but you can expect that.
And it's just a great layering piece, layering system that will keep you warm and comfortable without getting too bulky.
You know, that coupled with the portal is a great day on the water.

Marvin:
[1:14:43] Yeah, very, very neat. It's funny you say that because I have one of my favorite pieces is actually an REI down vest. But if you get wet, you're kind of screwed.
So, you know, good to see that there's some options coming out.
And I guess, you know, we're probably roughly depending on where you are about halfway through show season.
You know, Curtis, are you guys going to be kind of still racking up the frequent flyer miles hitting the shows as we kind of come into the home stretch of March?

Curtis:
[1:15:07] Yeah, it's been, it's been really fun. Um, I, you know, like we have, we've been trying to divide and conquer as a team, um, not only from a, not to try to grind any one of us to, to a pulp throughout like January, February, March.
Um, but also just to give other, other teammates the ability to go and, and interact with consumers. Cause I think that that, like those shows the most, the reason that we're there.
I mean, I, I think, uh, if you're showing up there as a brand to try to push a product to a customer, you're, you're there for the wrong reason.
And, um, my, my, my wholehearted belief is like, we're there to talk to our customer and to learn.
Um, and we do that through obviously like what looks like a retail environment, but like, it's pretty interesting.
Like we don't transact at that show. We don't sell it. We don't sell a single thing. We give away stickers.
We give away hats. We give away advice and we're happy to like kind of partner with dealers there.
So, you know, like you mentioned TCO, like TCO is a great partner up at the Edison show.

[1:16:06] You know, in Denver, we had Blue Quill. We had Ed's that were both selling waiters in the Atlanta show.
I didn't personally make the Atlanta show, but Kristen, our waiter developer, did along with our sales crew and Fishhawk, Alpharetta and Davidson all had booze there and they were all selling waiters.
And it's great to see, it's great to see how, how, like, I also love the fact that like, you've got, you've got everybody in one room and you get a really, as a consumer, when you go to these fly shows, they're super valuable because if I was going to go buy a waiter, I want to be able to go hit everybody and understand like, who's going to support me as a customer, who's going to support me as like, as like, I'm, if I'm walking up to you with $900 to spend on a pair of waiters.

[1:16:47] That's a lot of money. We're all fairly advanced in our careers.
None of us are wealthy, but we're not struggling anymore at this point in our lives.
But a $900 purchase is a lot for me.
And it's something that I'm going to do my research. And I want to know what I'm getting. And I want to know the company is going to stand behind me as a customer.

[1:17:13] And we show up to these shows to really say, hey, we're new to this.
I know you may not know who we are, or you may think of us as the orange bib brand out there, but it was a really impactful consumer interaction.
I mean, there are hundreds of customers I talk to personally.
And we kind of went through this whole process that we've gone through here in the last hour or so around why we do what we do and how we do it differently.
And then I think the feedback that I've gotten from our dealers is they're really appreciating the effort that we put forth at those shows. So, um, those shows will be a big part of our strategy going forward.
You know, I think it's a, it's a, it's a chance to engage your customer at a one-on-one conversation and learn something, you know? And I think like the moment you stop learning in this job, um, the moment that you, like, you're either, you're either growing or you're dying.
And like, we're, um, we're here as a, you know, as an entire organization to go like, to listen to the customers.

Marvin:
[1:18:08] Yeah. I would tell you from a consumer, uh, perspective.
And I mean, I know I live in a weird place as a fly fishing consumer because I've done other stuff in the industry, but it's very compelling to me when you see a new brand and you talk to someone and it's not like, hey, this is our high-end, medium-end, and low-end waiter, this, this, and this. It's like, here are the problems we solved and let me show you.
And this is like, I see you, this is your size, like you would be an XL king or maybe an XL.
It depends. And you literally walk through all these features and you're like, for me as a consumer, you take that away and you're like, holy shit, these guys have like really thought about this a lot, right?
And I think to make that investment, that makes it a whole lot easier, at least from my perspective, when you have that kind of interaction and feedback.

Curtis:
[1:18:49] And that was what we're going for. You know, I think it wasn't accidental to show up there kind of with that approach to waiters.
It's, you know, it's, you know, it's a, we've got a great, you know, Ben, our VP of sales and I work really closely together.
All in on the marketing side of things um we all were really well aligned going into this thing.

[1:19:10] Around you know like supporting retail engaging consumers give it away a hat um and you know it's hard it's hard to put a you know and like it's pretty interesting too you know like that the other you know like in the digital world um the the marketing is is very different these days you know in the digital world you spend a lot of money to to engage a customer and yeah but you can spend between $6 and $8 to have somebody land on your website for 90 seconds maybe.

[1:19:40] And the return on investment on that spend, I mean, obviously there's guys that it's a full-time job to track those metrics and return on ad spend, return on investment of digital activations and things like that.
Our approach on this one was like, hey, let's just go analog and let's give a hat away. way.
And that hat's going to cost us roughly $6. And that's less than what I would pay to engage a customer as, you know, as a brand to get somebody to go to our website and spend, you know, whatever amount of time they're going to spend there.
And I think that, I think in the long run, it's going to pay off from a, from a, like, yeah, I mean, that the cappy hour process that's going on across the country is a massive spend for us.
Like we're, I mean, we're with like, um, but at the end of the day, I think it's going to be that it's, you, you have a qualified customer that's standing at your booth and they're interested in who you are and what you do and like there's no there's no better way to take somebody for 30 seconds while that press that press cooks and say this is what we do we're you know we're anglers you're angler too and like this is this is why we do the things that we do and um it's for sure the long-run investment for us like in those shows yeah.

Marvin:
[1:20:52] It's funny you say that because i think and we could do an entirely different show so i will stop after i I say this, I think that analog approach and kind of this new AI digital noise world is going to become more and more powerful.

Jim:
[1:21:05] Absolutely. It's a human element, right? It's like, let's be humans and let's talk.

Marvin:
[1:21:11] Yeah. And it's kind of crazy, but I think that's going to be the superpower, right?

Curtis:
[1:21:16] Well, I mean, digital devices are the new smoking.
And I think we're going to see the consumer recoil back from that.
It may take five years. It may take 10 years.
I already see it with my kids. You know, like, you know, like the, just the anti-social media, like that, that the younger generation is engaging.
And if you're building a brand around social media engagement, like, like right now today, you better be figuring something out for the future or else you're, you're, you're going to, that, that's from my seat.
I think that's the, that's the, the losing battle over the long haul.
It's paying dividends now, but if you're trying to set this thing up for long haul, it's, you know, it's really these, it's really these kinds of moments of moments that matter with with the customer.
And, um, I don't, and if we could have poured beers at those shows, we would have, you know, I think that that, you know, like you're a little bit handcuffed with the, like with the, the exhibition center there wants to sell you a $9 beer.
Um, and, uh, and if we could, if we could have given away a beer and a hat, I think that that's like the kind of the most core that an angler, like, like what angler doesn't need a beer or a hat.
And you, both of those things kind of go hand in hand with fishing.

Marvin:
[1:22:27] Yeah, absolutely. We'll put this to the side. Maybe I have to do a marketing or a digital media series.
We can come back and talk about some of this stuff because it's one of my obsessions in podcasting about how to be authentic and respect your listeners.
And I think it flows through with whatever you're selling, right?
And I think it's – and I'm kind of a weirdo, so I'm a Gen Xer.
So I live in a world where –, I love technology, but I didn't have it around all the time.
And so I have a very different kind of thought process around it.
And, you know, Curtis, to your point, it's interesting watching my kids navigate this.
And, you know, I've literally seen them when they were little sitting on a sofa texting with the person that was sitting next to them. And I was like, guys, this is crazy, right?
Yeah.

Curtis:
[1:23:11] Mine are a little younger. My oldest is 14. But there is a time where they all sit.
In the corner of a room together playing minecraft together on separate tablets but faced i'm like guys it's i mean i guess for me like it was battleship right like when you got electronic battleship you were like you were like that was the that was the moment you had arrived as a as a um as a you know as a gamer in the 80s yeah.

Marvin:
[1:23:37] Well that that's even before you get to old school dungeons and dragons but you know we could talk about like risk and stratego oh yeah it's.

Jim:
[1:23:44] Ego oh Oh, man, sign me up.

Marvin:
[1:23:46] And Monopoly, but I'll pull us back from dropping into this rat hole.
Maybe we can continue the conversation some other time. You know, guys, what's the best way to check the show circuit?
You guys are going to be, I'm sure, doing the rest of the Foremski shows.
I would imagine you might be at some regional shows as well.
You know, what's the best way in addition to that for people to kind of follow what's going on at Grundon's and kind of stay in the loop?

Curtis:
[1:24:10] Well i i'm a big advocate that our retailers are the best way to find out what we're doing um i and and i say that and i'm probably will get called out for the statement um uh but i do think that you know i do think that like a brand's uh a brand's digital reach you know as a as a as a retailer only goes so far and especially in equipment when it comes to fishing um i think you know like fly shops are the core of the community in this market and and if you like if i want to go buy a new rod i'm you know i think you've got to walk into a fly shop you've got to be able to cast it and i think this there's no difference for like trying on gear or trying on a pair of waders the fit of a waiter is such a nuanced.

[1:24:53] It's, it's like buying, it's the nicest suit you own in your closet.
Like I don't, I don't own, I don't own a suit that's $900.
It's just, I mean, I have a blazer. That's kind of like the extent of it.
But, um, but I, but I do think that the, you know, the level of, the level of, of service that you get out of walking into a shop to try something on and be able to experience that.
And then just to be able to get the knowledge of like where to go fish as a angler, the fly shop is still the cornerstone.
And I think it's what makes fly fishing so unique is the reliance on, on brick and mortar retail. tail.
Um, we, you know, like we have, we have a dealer locator on our website to be, to enable you to go find our waiters.
Um, you know, you know, like, I guess, you know, if your listeners are primarily Southeast based, um, you know, the Atlanta market would be, um, uh, Fishhawk, Alpharetta, Davidson river, kind of up in, up in the Asheville Pisgah area.
Like those, those guys have bought into our program deeply.
And, uh, and I, you know, I would encourage you guys to go, to go spend time to go at that shop.
Cause they're all really good people. um and i think you know like when i when i in my experience there too is you know like just like even as a vendor to those guys um when you i was at that i was at that davidson river event and uh.

[1:26:03] Um you know we're talking to customers there but the next day like kevin kevin howell was like hey man like go fish go fish our water you should go check it out and just the ability to like go and give you like like they have like such special experiences that are that are attached there that Like if you, if you go and get the, you know, like get their, their pay, their day fee, go fish their water.
It's, it's a really beautiful piece of water that flows through Pisgah.
And like those kinds of things are really amazing to me.
It's like, like you don't, you don't really get that in, you know, in like the large box experience of fishing.

Marvin:
[1:26:34] Yeah. Kevin does a phenomenally good job. And I think his private water is awesome.
And it's not like some of the zoo water in North Georgia.
Um, and then I would say my, my insider secret when I go over there, fish is a yo to yourself off to go to, uh, the Sierra Nevada brewery and, uh, sit outside and enjoy some beers and some food. That's a really cool way to do it.

Jim:
[1:26:55] It's a great spot.

Curtis:
[1:26:55] We might've done that three or four times on that trip. It was, it was, it is pretty cool though.
Cause they do have, they do have beers that you can't get, you know, Sierra Nevada is like kind of nationwide now.
Um, I was really impressed with the, you know, I grew up, I live in Bend, Oregon.
We we're like kind of West coast beer capital out here. I was super impressed with like how Asheville has kind of grown up since I was, you know, I was going there in college to mountain bike a lot.
The beer culture is so unique and so good. Like if I had to pick a city to live in on the East Coast, it would be hands down Asheville in a minute.
There's not if I told my wife we're moving to Baltimore, I'm probably I'm probably quickly getting served divorce papers.
But but Asheville, I think, is a really rad town. and we we went through there with family this past summer and she was like wow i can't believe, like how cool this place is now and uh the restaurant it's got a vibrant restaurant scene it's got a maybe i sound like i'm pitching asheville more than my waiters but uh um but uh but it it is a really cool place and i think it's like if you're an angler and you live on the west coast it's worth a trip out there because i think it's such a unique fishery and you know take the three weight and go fish dries on some you know brook trout water or um or if you go on kevin's water you better be packing a six weight there's some bruisers in there um yeah good.

Marvin:
[1:28:11] Small mouth and good musky too i would also say we'll do we'll also this will be my last ashville pitch um another thing to do is if you uh if you like live music if you can uh do uh fly fishing a show with the orange peel and you can eat dinner before at wicked weed which is just across the street that's a pretty uh pretty good way to spend a few days too oh yeah.

Curtis:
[1:28:31] Wickawee's beers are amazing i mean they like they're like that was probably one of the more impressive breweries i walked into just like good food kid friendly great beer yeah so that's fine i.

Marvin:
[1:28:44] Think we we've got that figured out and i know we've kind of uh we've kind of dissed a little bit on social media but i would imagine that you probably do you know you can throw out your url i'll drop it in the show notes but i would imagine you're probably on instagram and a few other places too.

Curtis:
[1:28:56] Yeah but i mean i'm my name's curtis graves like at curtis graves on insta um and grunitz you know grunitz we do have a social presence. I mean, I guess it does...
See, it is more about inspiration, inspiring people. Our brand is about inspiring people to go fish and providing kind of updates to folks on new product intros.
I think... And we obviously run a... We run a business direct to consumer too.
But I mean, I intentionally...
When you said the best place to try on waders, I do think that the regional, your local fly shop is the spot. You're going to get the best fitting experience.
You're going to have somebody to, when there's a problem, you've got an accountable person to go back to and say, hey.
And we're here to, we obviously have a really robust warranty program.
Our warranty center is not far from Asheville. It's in Old Fort. Pretty unique.

[1:29:54] For another show but the but the investment that's going into american-made textiles and um and american-made cut and sew apparel again at old fort's really really interesting that the um uh the state of north carolina and and the city of old fort put a lot of um a lot of dollars behind trying to bring bring back kind of the craftsmanship of apparel making in america there and it's um it's getting off the ground but i i mean i would i would speculate in you know in the the next five to 10 years, Old Fort's going to be a household name within the outdoor industry.

Marvin:
[1:30:27] Yeah, which is very neat. And for listeners that don't know, in addition to having a vibrant furniture industry, North Carolina has been known for having a very, very strong textile industry, which obviously has really suffered with globalization.
But to your point, people have either been trying to resuscitate the industry or repurpose the buildings and the facility so that's kind of an interesting part of uh the tar hill state.

Curtis:
[1:30:51] Yeah and nc state it's got the you know like north carolina state has the best hands down the best textile um you know continuing education um you know undergraduate and bachelor's degrees or under in master's degrees in textile engineering um some of the best people in the industry that i know that are like at the top of their game and textiles have um either gotten a degree from nc state or have gone back for continuing education programs.
And it's sponsored heavy by Cotton Incorporated, a lot of dollars.
It takes philanthropy to have a program like what those guys have, and Cotton Inc. has done a really good job of supporting them.
But they do get out into technical textiles as well.
And myself, our materials team, materials team at competitors that we've talked about out all have spent time at those at those uh that kind of in continuing education courses there and it's really cool to walk into uh it's really cool to walk into a class as a competitor and not know who's going to show up and there's you know there's a you know there's a person from black diamond there there's a person from sims that that's that's across the table from you and you you go through this as you know like you realize at the end of the day that nobody really none of of us have this figured out, right?
Like we're all constantly learning, um, uh, what, what's happening and, and how to, like, how to, how to get an edge up on the competition through material science.
And the best way to do that is go educate yourself, um.

[1:32:20] And it's, it's pretty rad. Um, it, we're a small, it's a very small industry.

Marvin:
[1:32:24] Yeah. It's the niche of the niche of the niche. And, you know, guys, I really appreciate you taking some time out of your work day and Curtis, I super appreciate you, you know, getting online with me at eight o'clock in the morning, kids or no kids.
Um, I, I appreciate it. And I've been really looking forward to this interview for a while and, um, uh, you know, look forward to our paths crossing, uh, at shows and hopefully on the water sometime soon.
Have a great rest of your day and, um, tight lines.

Jim:
[1:32:48] Absolutely. Absolutely. You too.

Curtis:
[1:32:50] Thanks, Marvin. Thank you for having us on.

Intro:
[1:32:53] Well, folks, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
Again, if you like the podcast, please tell a friend and please subscribe and leave us a rating or review in the podcatcher of your choice.
And don't forget to head over to www.nor-vice.com to check out Norvice's show schedule and all of their great products. Tight lines, everybody.

Marvin CashFebruary 23, 2024Comment