Episode 26: How PacAPit is Sparking a New Era of Campfires

00:08

Hey, my name’s Leon Hitchens. This is the marketing boost. And today I have John from PacAPit on today. Yeah. Good to be here. Thanks, Leon. Like I said, in the start of the podcast, we’ve got some history. I’ve done some mentoring. We’ve talked a lot. I’ve seen your journey from when you won the geeked-um money all the way to actually like building the business and everything for the listeners though. want to like rehash that and also just kind of hear the start of PacAPit and how it’s all kind of got going.

00:35

Sure, sure. Yeah, I’ll back up a little bit even further than that. So I  come from the tech sector. I was with Apple for a fair amount of time, about 10 years, and then with an Apple reseller for another five in New York, and then a Blackboard, a learning management company out of  New York and doing that. Then we opened a restaurant, and that’s when I became an entrepreneur. understanding that process, that was in 2013 after Hurricane Sandy. Opened that restaurant, got that process going.  I found some…

01:02

some very good success in doing operations and some efficiencies in back a house and getting the business doing well. Took that,  realized my parents were getting older and I wanted to spend the last years with them. So we moved back to San Antonio. This is where I’m from. Oh, so San Antonio native. San Antonio native.  I didn’t grow up in San Antonio,  but Lakey is my home  where my first steps were on the,  the Frio and at the HEB foundation camp. So HEB is this grocery store chain here in San Antonio.

01:32

And my dad was the director under Mrs. Butt to start that camp. so camping has been a big part of my life and has been an experience kind of imbued into who I am. I started that. when we came back to Texas, I was doing some consulting  and  COVID hit during that time. And so my wife and I were sitting in the river  and it started getting a little chilly. was summertime about this time of year. I was actually in June and we thought, as the Cyprus.

02:00

shadows started showing up. like, it’s starting to get chilly. Is there a way I can build a fire right next to us and we still can still sit in the river? After that, was how do we build a fire on top of water was kind of the joke of it. And over time we built something that really worked out well with three points of contact that are stable. As long as you have those above water, you can build it pretty much on any kind of ground surface. I can even build a fire right here and do that. So we’ll talk about that.

02:28

the littlest one that I have, but I have four sizes, the grande, which is about 36 inches. That’s the bigger one. The Medio, which is a medium size one has a grill. Both of those have grill and the Picano, which was my hiking version, backpacking version. And now I have a Chiquito, which I’m launching on Kickstarter. And we’ll talk about that more too. Okay. And you know, all framing, I love the storytelling. You like, I’ve always talked to you and every time there’s a story and I love that. You know, all the way from the roots, it’s, it’s starting.

02:58

there and the Freer River down to Texas. And then now, you know, on, the water with your wife and everything,  it’s a really good story to frame kind of like, to some degree, a little bit of a commodity, you know, fire pit. there’s a lot of competitors out there there. And we talked about it. It’s the solo stoves.  There’s a bunch of them out there. They’re just the cheap ones. Like what, what makes your fire pit different? And you’ve framed it a little bit, but what is it?

03:27

Well, I didn’t, I didn’t invent fire. It’s been around a while. I didn’t invent the fire pit. That’s been around a while. There are effectively three categories of fire pit. There’s the burn barrel, which is a solo stove style. When I was in high school, we made, there’s a regasifying and they’re very efficient and they work really well. And you can scale those back and forth and those are pretty cool.  Um, but you don’t see the fire. And so you see a burn barrel. And so we imagine.

03:53

In New York, people would set fires in  oil barrels and watch that. They’d see the classic dystopian future of things.  Yeah, it’s fine and it works, but it doesn’t really do. Particularly around children, children don’t see the fire. So they see a very hot, there’s a very hot thing and is it, I’m gonna touch it and do that. So that’s one category. Another category  is  kind of the pan style  that…

04:16

You can get at Home Depot or Lowe’s or other places that are just kind of upside bowl. Yeah. The dish. And so those are wonderfully good at mosquito trapping and rusting out and over time. There are some really well made ones that are made out of  end caps for oilfield and they’re very  really nice and they work in the capacity that they need to work. They’re bulky. They’re heavy. So the burn barrel is bulky. You’re transporting air. The heavier one  is, the bowl type is also

04:46

bulky  and either very heavy to be able to take the water or very cheap and they rest out and they have a problem on that. They’re disposable to a large degree. And then there’s another category where they’re collapsible.  There’s probably a fourth category in the sense of box styles are starting to show up. So Brio and some other companies like that that make something, but they,  all of them don’t look like a campfire.  My biggest competitor is a Rox.  Rox has been around a while and

05:13

people put their rocks around their fire pit and  have something that looks really interesting. What I do, there are flat packing types. so pack a pit is a flat packing type that assembles together. I’ve got one here. We’ll go ahead and put it together in a second  with three points of contact. So rocks being my competitor, this is the smallest one. this one’s we’re doing on. this is the one on Kickstarter. is the one launching on Kickstarter. ends  on the Kickstarter campaign ends on.

05:40

August  31st at midnight or Olympic. Okay, so there’s still be if you’re watching us, there’s still time we can get your fire pit. So  doing it. So this was designed to be, you know, for backpacker to carry it around very easy to carry around. This is a complete fire pit right here.  They all are the same size. So three individual points that are tab and slot.  What makes mine different. And again, like I said, my competition is rocks. I built this with the idea that it looks like stones.

06:10

that you would gather and put around. And so it has that aesthetic of a campfire. Okay. The triangular shape, there are several factors. One is it’s stable. So if I put it here, it’s always going to be stable.  It’s always, you know, if it’s an unneveled surface, I can find one point and level it out. And it works out really well. Ability to put pan on top and cook on it. Three points of contact. It’s always going to be stable. It finds its home really nicely.  I’ve got something here. I’ll show you in a minute.

06:40

This  is a fuel  that’s no longer made. Uh, and it was a,  uh, it’s a,  gel fuel. So what I wanted to do is create something that allowed for multiple fuels to work out. Um, putting that in  the, uh, the, different types of, you know, fire pits are also like jet boil, but they’re not really fire pit. There are, are a  burner. Okay. So like you’re carrying your stove, but this fuel works really nicely. It looks like.

07:10

clear toothpaste. Um, doesn’t even look like it’s going to burn truthfully. Like I’ve seen it before, but every time I’m kind of like, is this really going to burn? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a chemical reaction. It’s all organic chemicals. It’s a diethylene glycol, which is a chemical strength. Um, but it’s not manmade. It’s just the way chains are. we have, are different types of that. And then fume silica, which is sand. Okay. So it’s combustible, but not flammable. And the difference between the two are.

07:39

Paper is combustible.  Fuels like Sterno or gasoline are flammable. They tend to burn very quickly. They put off a gas. This one doesn’t, but this one actually burns a bit hotter. I don’t know if you can, you see it on the camera? Yeah, you can.  And  it burns at 1,350 degrees. we can put- Perfect for cooking something. Yeah. Yeah. So I can even put a pan  on here and I’ll put a little bit of water in.

08:07

Just for kicks. That’s icy water. We’ll just see what it does as we talk. So it’s going to burn, you know, it’s, still burning on that and we’ll see what it does as we talk. I like being able to boil water. can see, I can see it start to go. It’s starting to simmer out and that high temperature. is stainless steel. So you don’t want to really cook on stainless steel because it doesn’t, unless you get really hot, which this will do that. It’s already starting to boil off a little bit pretty damn quick. you’ve got the Kickstarter going. You’ve sold some of the other parts of the, the

08:37

The bigger, the bigger two, essentially you’re selling those right now. Yeah. E-commerce. you in retail? think you’re in a few stores. I’ve got a few micro retailers. They’re a specialty boutique. So our market has focused on overlanding and scouting are kind of the two categories. And overlanding for everybody  is, like the RV campers, anybody kind of exploring, like I went to the beach and you you go out there and camp, but you’re, you’re in a.

09:04

you know, an SUV or a truck or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s kind of interesting. Overlanding people say, no, we’re not RVers  there, but they’re really glorified  car campers. And it’s not to diminish it. If you talk to overlanding  community, the overlander journal and other program, that’s what they describe it as. But it’s essentially have everything you need right at your ability and to be able to go on some very, uh, rougher terrain and off road.  Um, so Texas

09:30

has very little public lands.  We’re mostly privately owned. State parks are great, but state parks have trail systems and things like that.  We do have Sam Houston National Forest, which is you can kind of go wherever you want  in that through, and there are that are fire trails, but that area, but in New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, California, Idaho, Montana, there are things called BLM, Bureau of Land Management Properties. And those people,

09:57

That’s where overlanding really sings because you can just go out into the wilderness. I was in Utah last year about this time  and it was fascinating to me to see driving on the interstate and there were signs that say this is your land  and people would just drive off the interstate and go out into the wilderness. Particularly I was on the Bonneville salt flats area  and I drove out probably 15 miles into literally the middle of nowhere. There was nothing around, nothing a frame of reference and it was

10:27

So those that type of customer, but they also have a very high conservation bent to them. They really want to make sure that things are taken care of. And when I built this, the idea was that it’s a leave no trace product.  Um, this fuel that I’m burning right now, the only by-product will be sand on that.  if you’re hiking in, that’s something you can leave behind. always say the take what you brought, but  that part, it’s not right. Ashes. can actually leave the sand behind. let’s say doubles river, um,  uh, natural area.

10:56

You have to pack out any ash that you create. have to pack out your poop. You don’t forget to pack out your urine, but you do have to pack out your poop. You have to show them a bag. So it’s kind of a, you know, they call them a ditty bag or something like that. And that’s, know, a lot of places leaving no trace and, and you’re, human biology can, can affect it in a certain way, particularly if we start doing that. The other reason why I built it this way is so you can build it on top of a campsite that’s already existing and you’re not building on top of.

11:25

somebody else’s trash, even if they kept it clean and they cooked meat on there, animals are going to come and take a look at that and get in there. So overlanding and scouting and scouting is another community of.  Conscious of the environment and working in that. So,  you know, building those kinds of environments, working on those as a marketing  niche that to focus in, they have influence to a larger,  a larger scale. you’ve got your two ICPs, which. Yep.

11:53

the first step really in most of the business is the marketing and everything is ICPs. You’ve got those two defined. They’re similar in a lot of ways, but also different. How are you reaching them? Like what is your way to like go out and say, Hey, I’m doing marketing. it events? Is it email? it something in between? it’s a little bit. this is the end of, this is the little bit of smoke that’s in there. So it’s kind of interesting. This is the same kind of smoke. If you were in a smoke machine.

12:20

Okay. It produces the same kind of stuff. The fog or whatever. Yeah. So it smells similar. Yeah. So I’m going to, I’m a diverge a little bit. I’m answer your question. So diethylene glycol  has been used as a sweetener in food products. Scary.  Well,  there are a lot of chemicals in our food and those are kind of things. And some of them are bad and some of them are not bad. This one’s not, I would not recommend eating this. I’m glad it’s not in food product. It was in wine, fume silica.  It was used as a sweetener in wine. There was a great

12:49

a wine scandal between Austria and West Germany that they were sweetening wines with diethylene glycol. It happens periodically and it’s so it’s, it’s not, it is toxic. It is dangerous. It is not, it’s fuel. So don’t eat it. Don’t drink it, know, but you’re going to do the same normal stuff, but for what it does, but it’s not, it’s not poison. it’s, you if you touch it, it’s going to hurt you. in doing it, what’s kind of cool about it is that fires out and there’s my sand.

13:18

Yeah, you can touch it and yeah. And it’s just sand in that. anyway, so back to your, to your, am I reaching my customers? So those customers have a very good profile. Leave no trace as a component to it. Right now I’ve, spent, uh, May at a scouting conference, uh, in Orlando, talking to 2000 scouts, uh, and scout leaders, primarily not the boy scouts themselves, but the scouting leaders, they represent about 1.5 million people.

13:46

that are actively in there. Those people have those children,  young adults, have  parents and  interested adults that are part of that community as well. That’s another 3 million potentially in there that are part of that. Then there’s alum programs of Kickstarter campaign or not Kickstarter of scouting programs that are 50 million. that’s big  population, especially because scouting is  one of those.

14:16

experiences in life. Like if I meet somebody that’s, that’s handy outside, I’m like, are you a scout? I always ask that. Majority of times I would say like 80, 90 % of the time, if they’re handy outside boy scouting or some, some, some youth program that was an outdoor program. Almost always. That’s a really big one. think. I was not a scout. Um, no, everybody pegs me that way. But I, know, so when I grew up, uh, scouting.

14:44

was right after the Vietnam War. And there were some challenges in that. And I have very good friends that were in that program and I have no ill will. It just was not for me. But I grew up on 25 acres of land that my parents had and I lived in a cabin in high school and a little bit in college. It’s in your roots. It’s in my blood. And yeah, it’s in my roots. And so I like making stuff and I like creating and doing that. I’m also an artist.

15:13

and creating and painting and sculpting has always been a big part about it. So creating something aesthetic back to your question of how am I reaching these people? So largely it’s influencers through Kickstarter or through Instagram and through YouTube, Facebook. I’ve done farmers markets. That’s really how I started in a 10 by 10 tent. Not much bigger than this, not smaller than this booth here selling through that.

15:40

various farmers markets around San Antonio and around central Texas and south Texas area that gave me some really nice exposure. I’ll really call that customer research than anything. it a valid validation?  I hear a lot of people go to farmers markets, especially in physical products. Like  most people are talking to, you know, the SAS founders and these people that are doing services and stuff, but the physical founders, right. A lot of times is that farmers market did like

16:09

that research, like I suppose the talking to a customer that just walks by, like that’s, that’s a unique thing. nowhere else do I really think you can get that. Like unless you walk in and you’re able to secure an ACE hardware or like the Lowe’s like, you know, REI, those are hard things to do, but the first place is. Yeah. I think about it. How many times would you go to a farmer’s market and expect to see a fire pit?

16:33

One of those rare things, I’m looking for the vegetables, I’m looking for the jams, maybe some meats, but. But you’re also kind of curious what’s out there.  And it’s, and it’s more an afternoon or morning discovery.  And so, yeah, you want to get some carrots or some eggs and some salad. You may want to pick up some kind of trinket or something like that.  Probably leans a little more like higher income too, I imagine. Could be. I mean, there’s some markets that are,  it’s a very diverse community.  So, you know, people like to be outside and that’s.

17:00

So introducing people to a fire pit and saying, you want to see how it works is really my question. So I do the assembly like I just did for you. And inevitably, it’s kind of a fascinating part about that. people are not going there to see what they have seen before. When you go into REI or ACE Hardware or Home Depot, you’re kind of going with an agenda. Yeah, some of us walk in with an attention. I’m just going to kind of wander around and see what I see.

17:27

And you know, the old adage, I came in to buy four bolts and I ended up with a lawnmower. You know, it’s that kind of stuff. But, and that’s, and people comes, I came in to buy four, a dozen eggs and I left with a fire pit. That happens too. Um, I’ve always joked that I, know, the old adage of you can sell an ice cube to an Eskimo in December. I can sell a fire pit to a Texan in July. And this thing is viable and valuable into people and seeing that. So it’s.

17:56

It doesn’t take much to sell it. It’s more of just exposure and doing that. And so to those hard goods, those consumer goods, it really just to show it to people, because it’s not something people have seen. Nobody has seen anything like this. I’ve got two patents on it  for the design on it. Again, I didn’t invent fire and I didn’t hit the fire pit. So I couldn’t, I couldn’t claim a utility patent on the fire pit, but the design I can in doing that. But yeah, that’s it’s validated the customers. That it’s,

18:24

It’s a great way to do the validation of the customers. And then it also gives you a great way to test out. imagine like how to talk to them,  how to position it, like the overlanding versus the scouts. Like those are very distinct profiles.  Outside of that, you know, events big any, any other sort of marketing that’s really helped. Like  we can talk into the Kickstarter now. Sure. Yeah. So other programs that have participated, anything that’s, that’s a  conservation or youth oriented program I’m happy to participate with.

18:54

So if it introduces youth to the outdoors,  by all means reach out to I imagine that demographic right there, pretty similar to scouting. Probably the parents,  they’re liking outdoors, but also they’re like, oh, I got to lug this stuff around and I got to deal with this. I got to store it in my house and that packs flat. Like I have the bigger one, the 36 inch, which is the  grande.  And I just, we brought it to the beach.

19:20

put it in there. I slid it in. It was smaller than the chairs. Like it was, it was so easy to deal with. Do you take pictures? No, I did not. Oh, you know what? My wife did. I’m going have to send them. Please do. Yeah. was, it was such a nice thing because we’ve never been able to do it or you bring a fire, uh, an actual grill or something. Sure.  And transporting air.  it’s so heavy and it’s such a hassle to do  and packing everything in a car, no matter, no matter how you do it. And we were having SUV.

19:47

There’s just not enough space, right? Like no matter what, and you know, you’re going for a few days. having something out there, have an inch of width. can pretty much squeeze that anywhere. It is so flat and then it pops up and everyone was like, the first thing everybody said was like, this is a lot bigger than I expected.  Like I’m kind of impressed. Like, you  know, and then when we took it down, they were like, okay, that’s, that’s really nice. Like the sand didn’t do anything. I wasn’t worried too much about the sea water.  Like  it was a good experience in that. then, you know, the leave none because we were.

20:17

We’re in a state park, so we have to make sure we pay attention more. you go to Mustang? Is that where you were? Yeah. So we down to Corpus Christi, down to the Mustang and like, love it. There’s no cell signal. You get an escape from everything and do it. That’s like the type of people I think of all the time. I see them. They’ve got the pickup truck and they’ve got the little camper on the back. those are overlanding and it’s a very gear centric community. It’s a lot like golfers. It’s a lot like other.

20:45

They like the cool stuff and they like, imagine it’s a big economic like footprint too. 6.8 billion in that community. It’s massive. Yeah. So even if you take a small slice, you know, a couple million a year, like that’s a huge push. It’ll work. know, it’s, it’s, it is a, you’re when you said out of the cell phone part, I’m going to grab your phone here for just a second. This is what we use as our social network now. Yeah. This is the original social network and it’s.

21:15

when you can get away from the screen, doesn’t mean that that’s bad. I’m not disparaging because I use it a lot and I spend a lot of time on it. But having the ability to sit and be with a fire, you did something when I started this fire, you looked at it and you spent some time and we were talking over a fire. There’s some value to that. And if we can teach children, the next generation that this is something that they can build, they can assemble and allow it to be

21:43

non impactful to the ground. I think there’s a story there that they can continue on and doing that. So having that experience that you just described, that it was easy to put up, it was bigger than you thought, it provided for your family something interesting  and  no cell phone signal. it wasn’t, we’re all sitting here looking at our phone, but we’re enjoying time. the kids love the fire. They, they like to help put it  up. They, know, how do you dispose of it? We, we had,

22:13

They’re like fire bags, essentially. You just put them all in there.  But  all of those experiences is like,  normally you don’t, you don’t do that even, even anywhere else. Like if you put a fire up anywhere, it’s like, okay, great.  Or people are like, I don’t want to be smoky. This, you don’t really deal with a lot of that. There’s less wood. There’s all, all of it. So I see the, the huge appeal to it. And I can see all those overlanders drive by beautiful vehicles  and yeah, they set up and.

22:43

It’s like, boom, like they take all the chairs. They’ve got the, the yetis, they’ve got everything. It’s like a very specific class of, of people.  it’s, it’s also engaging  a community that’s that again, wants to be out and explore and find something. So  those overlanding communities, they also do a lot of  conservation things. So we’ll do the pens, Padre Alan national seashore  in November.  They do a big beach cleanup. We’ll be part of that.

23:10

And be down there. We’ll have a couple of fire pits down there with,  uh, with, um, uh, there’s a retailer here in town, base camp provisions, and then also with, um, Calvary overland out of, uh, out of the Dallas area that we’ve got some connections to. I,  I now like full circle.  seeing that the influencer way is the best and easiest way. Cause you can, you know, you could run an ad today for fire pit, you’re to be competing in solo stove. You’re competing against,  um, that other competitor. Yeah. There’s a bunch of them.

23:40

It’s a, it’s a harder thing to like look at an ad and go like, Oh, I want this one or that one. But on an influencer basis, it’s like, I want to show you how easy it is. I set it up. I’m going to, you know, put the fire here and break it down and put it away. That with the storytelling, I imagine is a really good pairing to build that brand. And then, you know, that one pushover it’s like, okay, Hey, let’s run some ads. Like we’re in a retailer or we’ve got enough notoriety out there.

24:08

Yeah, and it’s, you know, as a solopreneur on this thing, solo entrepreneur, engineer, those three things combined together as part of that, that opens up a challenge to how do I do those things and budget is always the issue. And so it’s a problem with marketing. Yeah, there’s this is I haven’t invented the problem with money either. That’s, you know, that’s been around for a while as well. finding those influencers, those who are interested in participating, and it’s not so much that they’re not interested, it’s they’re bombarded with

24:37

hey, come look at my product.  it was interesting, I was looking on my  Facebook handle today, this morning as I was coming in and  it popped up that I’m a digital creator  now  and I didn’t put that on there,  on my personal one.  It’s like, in the world, you know, and so it  explains why I’ve been getting these hits of, we love what you’re doing, come look at that. And it’s probably largely because I produce a lot of content for this on  my Instagram.

25:06

personal Instagram, the professional Instagram,  my Facebook, I’ve got three. Have you seen success from that sort of content or is it kind of like a necessary evil sort of like? I would call it an evil, but I would call it a, it’s,  I don’t have enough traction to say it’s measurable to say I’ve had success.  I don’t think it’s a failure at all.  It’s a product of process. So.

25:33

You know, you got to keep working at it. You got to keep chipping at it. And it, I’ve always taken the attitude of make something it’s going to be broken and it’s going to be wrong and it’s not going to be working correctly. But then you’ll learn from it. If you do nothing, I mean, when it was a Wayne Gretzky says you, miss a hundred percent of the shots you don’t take that type scenario. Um, you know, keep producing something, um, in marketing that can be dangerous because you can produce crappy content and then.

26:03

your name is associated with practical. You never upgraded and take the steps. We all see it out there.  You start a little bad and then it progresses better, better, better. But then you occasionally see the one brand where it’s just like, wow, they haven’t gotten better. Well, or even, or even people see an old  ad from a long time ago. mean, how, how often do we talk about Coke  and  new Coke? That was done in 88. That was before probably most people you’re listening to this podcast were born.

26:29

I actually was 83 and I worked in the radio station. I remember when that came out, was like, this is awesome. And then I tasted it. like, this is terrible. But people still remember that being a big blunder. It’s just like a fruit fruit, uh, fruit loops. They 2015, they got rid of all the artificial dyes and nobody loved the taste of it. Everyone like hated the muted colors. They ended up doing big marketing push and having to roll it out again. thing. Skittles actually.

26:58

But Skittles turned that into an I’m sorry campaign.  turned it into where they was good.  They really did a good job. called and they would say, Leon, we’re sorry that we discontinued,  uh, you know, pink raspberry flavored,  I don’t eat Skittles, but whatever the flavor was that, know, and they were, they were addressing people in there. so taking an advantage of a mistake and honoring that mistake honor, you know, acknowledging that and say, okay, we’re, improving. I think we’re all human. And if we can trade on that.

27:27

that and so back to the packet 16 iterations to get to this a lot of customers.  This is a product of customer request. Okay. This is not a product of I mean it was a it was something I wanted to make initially but it was like okay well but I don’t see if it’ll do that but at  $50 if you get it on Kickstarter it’s  I think right now it’s 34 or  something like that still very inexpensive.

27:50

For what it is, what is it to be full price? Full price will be 50 bucks. Okay. $50 and that’ll be, um, and then we’re adding the fuels and some other things  as add ons.  really love the fuel thing because if you’re going like, think Appalachian trails, like there’s, there’s that sunset one and then the one in Arizona, the desert one, like Pacific Crest, Darrell, there you go. There’s the three that everyone like, just opened one in Texas. It’s the trans Texas trails.

28:17

think it goes from Beaumont to El Paso, but it takes you up to Palo Duro to actually down to, uh, through the piney woods up through Palo Duro, all the way down to big band or up through big one way the other. it’s a market. of those things in my life that I’m like, I would love to do, but the time commitment’s huge. And I’m like, one of those, uh, you got to take a sabbatical and just disappear. Yeah. If you’re going to do it solo, I mean, if you can do it all at one shot, but they’re nice thing about the Pacific coast Pacific crest trail and the Appalachian trails, can segment them.

28:45

I am not a through hiker of that, but I’ve done segments of it. and that that’s enough. mean, that’s,  I’m, I’ll be 60 in a couple of days and it’ll be like, yeah, as much as I would like to say, I would do that. The reality is it probably won’t, but I can acknowledge and enjoy what I have done. And again, it comes back to that, that  marketing process. And that part is you just got to do something and you live it. I think a lot of founders and a lot of entrepreneurs don’t.

29:14

go to their customer. They don’t solicit that feedback. They’re not their own customer. Like I’ve watched you set this up probably 300 times. You’ve got it down to a T and your pitch is so good. Everyone comes around and it’s just like that social network. And there’s always one or two that are like, okay, this is kind of cool. And then they walk off and then there’s always that one person that’s like, Oh, I want this. We do this with my family or there’s always something. So I definitely see it now.

29:43

On the Kickstarter part. Yeah, let’s talk about that. You’ve got the Kickstarter going. You’ve sold some like, want, I want to hear like, how did you get to Kickstarter?  That’s, that’s always a fascinating one because Kickstarter is their own little beast these days. Beast is a good word.  Um,  it’s, it’s, it can be very friendly and it can be something you want to, you know, pet around and sometimes like it leaves turds everywhere and like, how do I deal with this? You know, it’s all those things we started. So,  uh, again, as a solopreneur building this thing.

30:13

doing it by myself and you and I’ve talked a number about this and we’ve talked to, I’ve talked to lots of people about this and finding somebody that can run with this show and say, that’s your bailiwick. That’s what you’re going to be focusing on and that’s what you’re going to be the best at. Finding  on a Kickstarter campaign, finding something, someone that can own that.  That in its own right is its own product and package  in doing that. There’s a whole relationship to doing that. So John Garcia helped get that started  and he’s

30:42

my product manager for this to get that, that ball rolling and has done a very good job of doing that. I love the photography. He’s done a great job. all of that and I was blown away just, know, at the setup, like Kickstarter’s are, uh, they’re almost like a piece of art. Like they gotta look pretty to the, to the community. It’s well, again, it’s, it’s, it’s presentation, it’s marketing. It’s like, this is what it is. And, you know, fortunately, this is a beautiful product. I’m very pleased with the way it looks.

31:10

So it photographs well. It’s a very photogenic product. It’s not a jar of something. It’s not a can of something.  It’s not an ethereal product that is software that you really don’t know what it is other than imagery and trying to draw something. Video demos. so  those things work. Kickstarter, going through that Kickstarter campaign and driving that  was…

31:36

What’s the message we’re trying to communicate? So what’s our market? So for this thing, defining our market is the ultra light hikers, minimalist campers that we’ve tried to follow that it has  broader appeal.  I’ve had people getting this and they’re saying, I’ll put a citronella sticks in here.  Now I’ve got something that’s kind of a cool looking central part. People are starting to marshmallow with these things, you know, getting the marshmallow on the tabletop where we just did a tabletop here and to be able to roast marshmallows quietly. Some of the videos that I’ve produced in the past week have been

32:06

in my backyard with my grandsons and just settling down and just being at a campfire site. And that’s in my backyard. I don’t have to be on a trail for this kind of stuff. But at 85 grams under three ounces,  it’s exceptionally light, takes up no space, being able to pack it in. So being able to communicate that story to Kickstarter. Now, when we rolled out Kickstarter, we got declined on the first on the initial push out.

32:33

Cause they said, well, you’ve been making this product. How’s it different than anything else you’ve made? Well, wait is one thing that, but we weren’t conveying that really well. So I will commend Kickstarter in the way that they responded back. They were very responsive. Once we made our corrections and adjustments, they approved us within 10 minutes. reasonable, interesting to hear that they’ve got a filter system. These days, like for a long time, know, anybody can kind of launch, but yeah. we’ve, so we’ve sold about 800 of these things are the bigger ones.

33:03

different, you know, the different flavors of the bigger ones in all 50 states, 17 countries, six continents. The old joke is we’re adding, we’re trying to figure out how to put Antarctica in there, but there’s not much firewood in Antarctica.  Um, but getting that,  so they saw it as it’s the same design. And so I’ve talked to a couple of attorney friends and other folks that says, long as you  adjust it by three to 5%,  you could call this a new product. And so obviously we, we went from three pounds, four ounces being our lightest one to

33:32

Under three ounces being our lightest one. So that’s a big change. This one does not have a grill. I don’t think I’ll have a grill for it because it’s just too.  I love that, that little blade, especially if you’re just out, you have that in that plate. Like you could do so much. Yeah. So I’ve got that. then  as one thing about Kickstarter, I didn’t know about what we could do is that you can do add ons. So this has been seasoned. That’s why it looks kind  of. It’s the best way. That’s how I know.

33:59

When something’s been like seasoned, you see it and it’s like, no. this is called a paella pan. So pie is a standard. And when I built PacAPit, that was the thing I wanted to work it on. Um, I have a smaller one that somebody sent to me from Spain. A friend sent me, it was tiny. would not fit in there. So it’s like, there’s gotta be, so they make pie pans in lots of different sizes and we’ve got these and I can get these and these will be an add on, but that’ll fit really nicely on there. And again, to cook into here, I can fry an egg. can cook.

34:28

bacon in here. There’s a Micho  Machaca, Michato, which is a shredded beef, Mexican shredded beef.  That’s, that’s dry. It’s like jerky, but it’s been,  it’s been pounded to where it’s almost like cotton candy  texture.  So making that  into a stew or into rice, adding some dry ingredients that you can do that. So you’re not eating crappy bag camping food. You’re actually cooking something pretty interesting on this. so.

34:58

back to the Kickstarter, they  allow you to do kind of bundles and other kinds of things. this is one thing that we’re to add  as an everybody that did the early bird special.  We’ll get this as a at a discount.  So I think we’re going to do this at 10 bucks.  Addition  for a little pan that looks really cool. It won’t be seasoned. You’ll have to season yourself, but it will come with instructions,  but it fits  nicely on that.  it works really well. So

35:24

Again, you can have a campfire experience. really liked that little, a little pain. Like I could see some, lot of uses. also liked the idea of the citronella in it. Um, that was just like, blew my mind there for a second. was like, I buy the stupid citronella candle. And so you have something that’s, know, you don’t have the candle, you just put the incense type things in there. I have friends that put incense in here. They have resins that they’ve done that with it as well. So this fuel works really nicely, but you can do a charcoal fuel, uh, like for hookah and things like that. There’s a charcoal full that works. This will also burn wood, burn regular.

35:54

chunk charcoal, know, smaller versions of it. I like that really efficiently. on the Kickstarter, you guys have been selling, is there any other promotion outside of like Kickstarter? Like I saw, I’ve seen all the emails. I love that you guys have been doing marketing. I think that’s great. And then I’ve seen the social media, any, anything else like to push that? I a lot of podcasts. So I’ve done, I’m doing this one today. Yep. Yep. So I appreciate you doing, thank you for inviting me to do this. I did one with my attorney, my patent attorney, what’s called perpetual motion.

36:24

Michael’s glins out of Austin and Yeah, and Collins, but they’re gonna come live until maybe October so it’ll pass the Kickstarter But you know, we’re promoting as much as we possibly can press releases trying to get as much traction on it We’ve had some good traction. We’re at over 34 35 percent Not even a week into it, which I would like to have seen us hit our goal ahead of time but

36:50

There’s still some room to hit that goal. Yeah. And so it’s, again, you keep trying, you keep pushing at it.  Um, and like you said, people will gather around this thing and not, I still have customers that call me a year later and say, I saw you at such and such. And I, I’ve been, it’s been on my mind. So I wanted to get a pack of pit and doing that. So this has some mental stickiness to it.  Um, and trying to expose that out and people began to say, well, I could do this and I could do that with it. And it’s interesting if people use them as planters.

37:19

I find the fascinating. I, when I mentioned you, they’re like, Oh, John, like so many, so many Johns. And I’m like, he’s got PacAPit. And they’re like, uh, I’m like, who, who always set up a fire? And they go, Oh, I love that little device. They were like, that’s such a cool thing. I’ve always thought about buying it. And then I don’t like, there is a uniqueness to it. It reminds me of when solo stove kind of hit the market where everyone was like, Oh, I love that. And now they’ve kind of like Wayne, but there, there’s a stickiness to like these unique designs. And it’s just.

37:49

Yeah, it’s such a cool thing, especially when you see the influencer start to pop up. Like I want to watch some of the videos of other people. I was like, they make it look much cooler than I could ever. Yeah. Yeah. And it,  but the reality is, is you’re looking at it from the outside in  and as you’re doing it yourself, you’re like, Oh, I’m not as cool, but  somebody else is watching you. Like, this is really cool. When you set it up at the beach, it was,  it, people are like, Oh, that’s really cool. Yeah. One of the other families were with the guy was like, Hey, I want to, I want to use that. Right. And.

38:18

I’m sure that he’s going to go look for it and stuff. Like it was one of those things where he’s like that material and like, don’t care how much it is. It’s like, it’s going to last me. And that’s always the appeal to people. It’s like, Hey, how long is it going to last me? it going to be a year and I abuse it and it’s done, or is it going to be maybe five years? And at some point I’m going have to replace a part or something. Yeah. So, you know, on the Kickstarter, which we’re, I want to start pushing this week is the durability of this thing. So this is aluminum and stainless steel.

38:49

Um, my goal when I made this was  that my grandsons  grandchildren, meaning when I’m dead and long gone and their,  their grandchildren are going through their estate, meaning they’re, you they’re old, they find this in their packaging of stuff. They’re like, that’s really cool. I still can use that. We all have some degree of an experience where we’ve gone through something and we found, you know, my grandfather’s watch or my grandfather’s knife or, you know, or my grand, you know, my

39:18

My grandmother’s, my grandmother didn’t cook, but my wife’s grandmother cooked a lot in a spatula or a pan. The sentimental value. It’s beyond sentimental. It’s still functional. It still works. It still does what it was supposed to do. A good tool, a good thing. And that, you know, if it sat on a shelf, what good is it? It’s collecting dust. If it gets used, that’s phenomenally successful. Um, and so if it has some of that legacy to it, I mean, good design, if it sits in the museum.

39:47

In a museum, I’d be happy. mean, my, my ego fantasy as an artist would be to see this in the MoMA. Um, there is a design wing in the MoMA and they have everything from telephones to, uh, typewriters to computers, to chairs, to pencils in the MoMA. I mean, utilitarian options. I don’t see why this can’t go in there. day I, I, it all goes back to your storytelling, even the part of like, you want it to be a utility.

40:14

Yeah. That’s stepped down. I’m thinking about that. Like, oh yeah, we use some stuff from my wife’s grandmother that cooked. it’s like, there’s a sentimental. Sure. Like, Oh yeah, we’re using it for Thanksgiving. And then you tell the grandkids or the kids, in my case, kids, uh, that, oh yeah, like your grandmother used to do this and this is how she did. And she used this, this knife that we have. it’s like, okay, that’s a really great story. But one day when you’re around the fire, you can be like, my grandfather made this  and we used it all the time. And we used to do that.

40:44

I think everything you do is really rooted in storytelling and that’s what your superpower is. And that’s what this is. This is a storytelling device. That’s what marketing is. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So back into your business, your business is to convert my BS that I throw out all the time into something that’s cohesive and measurable. That’s a big part of it. So you’ve asked me a couple of times, how do you measure this or how do you get this out and doing those things? I’m weak at that. And so finding

41:12

an individual like yourself and you’ve been helpful with this gap program here at Geekdom and providing some guidance. And you got an intern from it and I got intern from it. got it. I’ll have to, she’s, she’s back in El Paso, but she’s working for one more week, uh, St. Mary’s student. she sat in meeting, I think she sat in a meeting with you and came up with an idea that

41:36

diverted. Oh, it was our,  it was for Coachella and those people, but it was also the idea of the trail,  the road and the home.  Those three places are where this fire pit’s using. And so I think she’s done  having people, other people come up with ideas. And again, doing it by myself is good  and dangerous because you start feeding yourself and it’s like, I need people. And that’s why those markets were so good. I would not have invented a grill.

42:06

If I had not talked to customers, I would not have invented a bigger size or a smaller size had I not talked to customers. This one was again kind of on my radar, but this was the last one I’ve developed. that third party, that third eye coming in and saying, have you thought about this or doing that? Doesn’t mean you have to listen to every bit of advice, but it does give you something that’s sticky. And you’ve told me some things that have stuck in my head and it’s like, yeah, okay. And I kind of know it down. And then maybe three months down the road, it’s like,

42:36

Let’s apply that.  Let’s figure out how to make that work out or how do we take those things. I think,  Kireo, is that right?  You’re giving me some list of some,  of some websites that for marketing research. Um, but you’ve done, you know, so  it’s not so much that I’ve used exactly that,  but  that influence of where that is. Some of those, like those parts. I love that. Yeah. And it makes what it does do is it makes me think about.

43:05

Okay, am I thinking about this correctly  and,  um, and doing that. And again, back to the social network, this thing replaces that as a social, you know, we’re able to have that. Especially  right now there’s a movement to  kind of separate yourself from your phone, be healthier, be more outside. Like there, there’s just a natural progression  that, you know, we swung all the way hard to social media when we swung away from it  and it’s, and it’s there and.

43:32

It’s an addictive quality.  I’ll admit,  I will  look at my phone quite a bit and there’s doom scrolling. And I think, okay, it’s almost like sitting in a bar, know, 1977 drinking, you know, sitting there. That’s what we did. We just drank, you know, not that  we meaning us, but there’s that perception of what is the addiction of the time. And newspapers for a little bit. then  there’s always television, you know, whatever the brain rot,  the rock and roll, the rock, there’s always that.

44:01

damn kids, these damn kids are, you know, not in my day. So Socrates, think was one that said, you know, you know, children don’t listen to their parents and don’t understand anything. It’s like, okay, that’s,  there’s nothing new. see it now. Yeah. Uh, well, I really like it. I’m to put the show notes in there. I’ll put the Kickstarter, put the PacAPit. I’ll put your socials. Um, we’ll slide in all of that.  Really appreciate you coming on. Thanks. Like this is, this is super fun to do. And I also love all of this and.

44:29

You know, I’ll support your Kickstarter. I’m sure some of these listeners will more people support it. got to hit 5,000 for hit the goal. Once we do that, anybody that’s within San Antonio area, um, we’ll get their delivery very quickly. Cause I have, um, we’ve got the ability to produce them very fast. We’ll do some kind of event. Um, uh, I’ve got a couple of restaurants that have said they wanted to do something there. So we’ll, we’ll all roast marshmallows together and have a good time. love that. Thank you so much. You’re welcome. Thanks, Leon.