How Big Waves, Volcanoes, and Grit Built Dr. Rob Yonover’s See Rescue Streamer

In this conversation, Dr. Rob Yonover explains how surfing heavy North Shore days and studying volcanoes shaped his approach to invention, risk, and business. He details the origin of the See Rescue Streamer, how a simple, visible signal solved a life-or-death problem, and why persistence, lean ops, and direct outreach beat spray-and-pray tactics.

What you’ll learn

• The bootstrap formula: keep your job, keep costs tiny, prove demand, scale slowly
• Scrappy acquisition: fax blasts, niche PR, and being a polite pain in the ass
• Calm under pressure: training, free-dive reps, and biomimicry to manage fear
• Product rules that win: simple utility, small form factor, easy storage and shipping
• Defining success: profit, freedom, and flexibility over vanity metrics and burn
• Why nature time unlocks better ideas than screen time

Episode highlights

• (00:25) Who is Dr. Rob Yonover, big-wave surfer, volcanologist, inventor
• (03:36) From Miami to Oahu, science, surfing, and a paid PhD path
• (11:45) Nearly drowning on a 20-wave hold-down, training calm into your body
• (19:33) The See Rescue Streamer insight, from Christo’s art to orange visibility
• (32:56) PR like fishing, why niche media and persistence compound
• (48:37) Founder advice at 30: low overhead, profit first, permission to quit losers
• (55:10) Inventory and shipping reality, build what fits an envelope

Listen and explore

• 🎧 Growth Mavericks Podcast
• 🚀 Pentane — The Command Center for E-Commerce Profitability
• 🧭 See Rescue Streamer and books by Dr. Rob Yonover (search “See Rescue Streamer” and “Rob Yonover” on Amazon)

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Callinan

Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Adam Callinan (00:25)
Our conversation today is with Dr. Rob Yonover. Rob is a big wave surfer, a volcanologist and the inventor of the Sea Rescue Streamer, which is used by a bunch of different organizations in the military, SpaceX on boatloads of planes. And it comes from his experience doing survival things in crazy situations out in the ocean. He's been down 2000 feet underwater multiple times as part of his studies in and around island systems.

Lives in Hawaii. We spend a lot of time talking about bootstrapping, which is how he has built this product and company staying really lean. We spend time talking about why you, if you have an idea that you're going to go and pursue why you probably shouldn't run out and just quit your day job. the importance of keeping your overhead really, really low

and how you define success on your own terms, not on a VC's or investors terms. We talk about really scrappy customer acquisition tactics, being what he refers to as a polite pain in the ass, which I think is fantastic and really resonated with me in my alternate version of that being more of a soft offense that I learned from Dr. Jeff Spencer.

The part to me that was the most fascinating about this conversation is really the mindset discussions and how his training in big wave surfing, like real big wave surfing and remaining calm under pressure, looking at the animals around him in that deep water scenario and how they're interacting with the waves helped him formulate his own training strategies around again, being calm, being prepared.

in that really, really, you know, potentially dangerous, not even potentially really dangerous situation and how all of that helps to unlock creativity and the importance of stepping away into nature, which, know, if you've ever listened to this growth mavericks podcast show, you will know that I talk a fair amount about and is a big part of my life. some really

interesting parallels with my being in the mountains and his being in the ocean, going out and doing hard things that have some risk associated to them in his case, from my perspective, a lot more risk than some of the things that I go and do. But it's a really fun conversation, really interesting with a really fascinating guy. So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Rob Yonover.

Adam Callinan (02:46)
So you are calling in today from Hawaii. Which island are you on?

Dr. Rob Yonover (02:50)
Oahu.

Adam Callinan (02:52)
Okay. Have you been there for a long time?

Dr. Rob Yonover (02:53)
Honolulu, South Shore.

41 years, came here to work on my volcano. Yeah, I've been here a long time. I'm a surfer, so it made sense. And I worked on volcanoes. I got my PhD working on here.

Adam Callinan (02:57)
So yes.

Dr. Rob Yonover (03:05)
It's kind of a crazy story, but it's good. Have you been out here?

Adam Callinan (03:07)
Let's let's have

there's a good rabbit hole. You have enough. I never time to spend a while.

Dr. Rob Yonover (03:12)
Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean, I got so many rabbit holes. I don't think you have enough time. So you gotta pick what you wanna talk about, but I'll...

Adam Callinan (03:16)
Well, let's...

How did you get into,

okay, let me rephrase this. I have a four year old son and I feel like if he had the option to choose today of something really cool to study, volcanoes are probably top of the list. So is that a thing that you wanted to do since you were a four year old boy?

Dr. Rob Yonover (03:36)
Well, I grew up in Miami, so it was nothing but flatness and the things we could look up at are billboards. I never even saw a mountain until I was doing summer trips. So unlike Montana and I like science, you know, and then science was cool and I did well in science and math and I just kept going. And what I learned early on is if you do well in school, no one hassles you. So, and then people start throwing money at you. So I got paid to get a master's.

And I got paid to get a PhD working in Hawaii. And I also got to go down into two mile deep submersible dives off Galapagos in the Alvin. So, you know, that also was paid for as part of my PhD. So those types of experiences are great and tell your son or daughter that it's all about school. You know, you do well at school and doors open up and you never, you never, never give up learning. I mean, that's where I'm at. I just keep, I keep going.

I want to learn everything I can and of course ideally stuff you're interested in, right? So volcanoes are all the ultimate for me next to waves of course.

Adam Callinan (04:38)
Yeah.

Did you?

OK, well, we'll talk about that, too. Where where did you go to school?

Dr. Rob Yonover (04:46)
Hahaha

I went undergrad Florida State, state school. then during my undergrad in geology, my professor was the guy that got me interested in freshman geology, talking about volcanoes, earthquakes, mining, diamonds, everything was so cool. And he kind of challenged me and kicked my ass. And I took an optical mineralogy class from him. And I kicked his ass and got all A's. he became my master's.

professor and he hired me to teach and get a master's at Florida State and we worked on a gold deposit in Nova Scotia and then I got I used to pass this building in Tallahassee every day with a picture of University of Hawaii with pictures of volcanoes and ocean I'm like shit I got to get out there I'm a surfer in Miami and the waves were tiny I wanted to surf real waves and also the women were mean in Miami and they seem to be nice in Hawaii so

Adam Callinan (05:40)
That's my parents both went

to both went to Florida State so I grew up I grew up watching Florida State football back in the Bobby Bowden days and The the heyday, that's great

Dr. Rob Yonover (05:44)
Really? Alright.

Of course, of course. It

was wild. They were a losing team when I got there and they kind of turned it around. It became a big thing, but football wasn't a big thing when I got there. But it was a cool place. I really enjoyed it. That's funny.

Adam Callinan (06:07)
So you're in Florida

looking at the billboards of the volcanoes in the surf, you know, that's not relying on a storm swell or a big boat to drive by. And you're like, I need to go there. So you packed up and flew to Hawaii.

Dr. Rob Yonover (06:09)
⁓

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, I got, you know, again, getting back to get get it. I got straight A's. I had derelict friends, but my parents preached responsibility, resourcefulness and respect. So I kept doing the more you do of those three R's, the more responsibility you show, the more you get.

And my friend, one of them turned out to be a big rock star, the other OD'd on opioids. They were crazy, but I got all A's so everyone trusted me. And I just realized this is the formula. Get all A's, no one can touch you. And then my parents would just lend me the car to skip school when there were waves. I even barred the car one summer and drove to New York as a 16 year old, no GPS or anything, with my three derelict friends. So.

It just traveled. They didn't still travel in on us, on us, you know, and I just kept looking at the globe and the map and you know, volcanoes were so foreign and even mountains and also waves like Hawaii seems to be the ultimate and I applied for a PhD programs in Hawaii, New Zealand and California and the New Zealand offer came in first, but I looked at a globe. I'm like, shit, that's far from Florida and then and cold water and sharks and

Then the Hawaii offer came in, I was like, shit, warm water, it's only halfway as far as New Zealand, I'm in. And I hated Hawaii as a kid surfer because the waves were perfect, the women were beautiful, and I was stuck with one inch waves. It was such a tease, but the second I got an opportunity to come here, I was on it. And I've never really looked back, 41 years and counting, and I'm still surfing big waves on the North Shore.

And that's when I get my good ideas for inventing, know, when I'm in the water. And I'm a survivor, I invent survival gear. So it's fitting that the heavier shit you're in, the more likely you are to figure out a solution. And I also fish in rough water. I got this crazy little power cat, 22 foot boat, but it's like a big surfboard. And I go out in like eight foot seas, 25 miles out. And I tie myself into the boat and catch fish and sell them to the restaurants.

Adam Callinan (08:04)
you

Hm.

Dr. Rob Yonover (08:27)
So there's all these mental breaks in deep nature that enabled me to really get into inventing and also deal with what I had to deal with at home. My wife got paralyzed with MS and she was in a wheelchair for 19 years

while we had a seven year old, a four year old. So that was a heavy, heavy run, but all these things helped me keep it going. And, you know, we talk about perseverance and kind of scrambling. That's my middle name.

It was pretty challenging.

Adam Callinan (08:56)
When there's so much in there, this is going to be great. When no, don't be, don't be sorry. This is, this is exactly what this is for. This is the point of this podcast. When I, when I moved to Montana. So I've been an entrepreneur for a long time. I've been in a couple of different businesses. I did not realize the value of doing extremely difficult physical things that have some danger element to them. Like.

Dr. Rob Yonover (08:59)
I know, I'm sorry, just putt, just putt.

Okay, perfect.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Callinan (09:26)
you know, 15 miles back, horseback, back country archery, hunting in grizzly bear territory, blow clay, whatever it is. Like I didn't, I never recognized how mentally beneficial going and pushing yourself in those extreme environments can be until I moved to Montana and start and found opportunity to go and do those things. How did that land on you? I mean, you moved to Hawaii, but you didn't just like one day go, okay, I'm going to be a big wave surfer. I mean, there's a progression to.

Dr. Rob Yonover (09:34)
Yeah.

Well.

Yeah, right, exactly. I mean, to me, it's all about training and prep preparation. You know, you don't just paddle out on a big North Shore day, you'll get killed. So I watched other people and I used to say, I'll go half a foot a year. You know, I'll surf four foot, then maybe four and a half. Maybe I was a five or five. Five foot is still a 10 foot wave here, 10 foot face. So I just go in half a wave. And then as a scientist, I started analyzing it and going, okay.

what is surfing really and what is surfing big waves and 99.9 % of surfing is paddling, right? So I'm gonna be the best paddler I can be and there's a thing called a prone paddleboard. You lay down on it. Before stand up paddleboards came around, prone paddleboards were the thing. Now they're kind of very rare. Only a few hundred people even do it. And I started paddling.

Couple miles a day and and just cuz I'm like well I may not be the best surfer But I'm gonna be the best prepared surfer for paddling and then a few years later on the North Shore I was out on like a 20 foot day It was heavy and a big like a 30 foot set came in and drilled me I was on my 12 foot long pointy gun big big waveboard with a 20 foot leash and I had 20 waves in a row on my head and and a 20 foot wave

That might be a 30, 40 foot, you know, it's huge, 30 foot face. When it breaks, it's only like 10 or 15 feet of whitewater, which I say only, it's a lot. It's like a house full of whitewater. So I dive under it to survive with a 20 foot leash. And I was a big free diver back in Miami. We used to sell fish and lobster to tourists. But I realized if you go down 10 feet, the 20 feet of whitewater goes over your head. You can come up for a breath and then there's another one. I keep doing that.

Adam Callinan (11:25)
It's a lot.

Dr. Rob Yonover (11:45)
I had to do it 20 times in a row. I almost drowned. I got to the ocean. I was so close to dying that I was tired for a week. I never had that happen before. That's how extreme that was, that experience. But I learned from it. I'm like, okay, I've got this paddling thing. I gotta learn to free dive like that. So now when I paddle, my lunchtime break, I paddle two miles out, I have a 20 foot string in my pocket. I do 20.

Now 50 one breath free dives in a row. So I get used to going down 10 feet, one breath, down 10 feet, one breath. And I also, even in my inventing, there's a thing called biomimicry. You mimic what nature does. early on I think, what would a turtle do in big waves? I watch turtles all the time. They mellow out, they get into their shell, they go underwater, they come up, take a breath, they're calm. You gotta be calm. So I try to...

emulate that by practicing how they swim. And even like a whale that swims from Alaska to Hawaii, they don't swim on the top doing freestyle. They go down. It's mellow down. I just, it just seems like our bodies and minds have so much more than we use, obviously. And when you push yourself, like you do back country, you start, you know, kind of mining those extra energy or mindful sources in your brain and body.

that you didn't know exists and it's so gratifying to survive those. And again, I don't do it haphazardly just like I'm sure you don't. You take measured risks. That's kind of how I do it. So to me, a measured risk means the right material, the right equipment, but also the right mindset and the right mindset comes with the training. You know, I eat well and I'm old now. I'm 66. I'm still surfing big waves, but I'm confident because I train right.

And I've done a lot. The other thing is repetition. I go to the same couple big wave spots on the North Shore and I go, even when it's shitty, I go just to get that experience. So I've seen it all the 50 faces it shows me, choppy, glassy, big, small, medium, cross shore, on shore. So then you're kind of used to it. So it makes you more comfortable. that's kind of, and then when you're in that state of comfort,

Adam Callinan (13:54)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (14:04)
That seems to let my mind explode with thoughts of any, you know, they may be inventing survival gear or just relaxing and just thoughts that things pop in your mind. The brain works in mysterious ways.

Adam Callinan (14:17)
I guess my I just had my first daughter. She's now seven. So six and a half years ago I was I was surfing in the motor and I had a I had a similar experience to that first experience and to the listener when we talk about measuring wave heights those are measured off the back of the wave so when he's talking about like a seven foot wave that's seven feet measuring off the back of the wave which means the face is double that so these are massive waves but I took this huge outside set on the head

Dr. Rob Yonover (14:21)
Alright.

okay.

Right. Right.

Right, exactly. Exactly.

Adam Callinan (14:44)
And I tried to get under it, didn't get under it. And I just got hammered over and over, pushed me all the way into the reef. I honestly thought I was going to die. I was, you know, the surfboards tomb stoning. This is a seven foot leash. So I'm like climbing up the leash to get to the top. And of course I made it out, but it was, it was a really, it was kind of a life altering experience. mean, honestly, because I made it out, like reset my perspective of what I was capable of.

Dr. Rob Yonover (14:51)
sure.

Yep.

out. Alright.

Exactly. ⁓

Adam Callinan (15:11)
to be able to

like make it through and get out. I've, you know, I took the rest of the day off, like paddled immediately back to the boat. They're like, I could barely get in the boat, but, it was these amazing mindset resets that are so incredibly valuable.

Dr. Rob Yonover (15:16)
Ha ha ha ha

Exactly, but but you don't it's dangerous. You don't want to advise people to do that You have to do it within your comfort zone. So, you know and

Adam Callinan (15:31)
Of course. I, you know,

I was, I surfed, I was in really good shape. I paddled my face off to be prepared for that surf trip. So, mean, I wasn't actually in, I mean, I wasn't going to die. I could have gone over the reef and paddled in in the flats, but, but it was hard. It was really mentally a challenging thing to do.

Dr. Rob Yonover (15:38)
All right.

Yes, absolutely. it's just but I think it's calm under pressure, know calm under storm and and even when I do get drilled if I don't get under and I the worst one of the worst things that ever happened to me turned out to be nothing but like a 30 foot face was coming in one day at my big wave spot on a 12-0 I'm 12 foot board. I'm palling up up up up to get over it and Sure enough. I didn't get over I got pitched backwards the worst pop-up position you can be in a 30 foot wave going backwards

Adam Callinan (16:12)
⁓ man.

Dr. Rob Yonover (16:16)
And I just laugh going, this is how I die, I guess. But nothing happened. I hit and because I was so far out, there was not another way behind it. the other thing is to relax. I got in a car wreck early in my life. Someone hit me from behind in Texas when I was working for Exxon. And I flipped over and ended up upside down in water. But when I got hit, I knew what happened. In that instant, I'm going, someone hit me.

Adam Callinan (16:27)
and

Dr. Rob Yonover (16:45)
And I, the car started rolling and it was just like waves. When you get hit,

Adam Callinan (16:48)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (16:50)
the thing you want to do is tense up, but the thing you need to do is relax. So I learned from surfing, just go with it. You you go with the, with the violence and then when it stops, then you get out. that, that's helped me in the car wreck and it helped me in surfing. Just relax and get out. Maybe that's analogous to life. You know, when you, when you have a challenge, don't tense up, roll with it, take your beating, take your flogging.

and then reassess. They say the number one tool in any survival situation by far, the number one tool you should have at all times, and you do have it, is your brain. So your mind is so powerful to assess your environment, what tools you have, what's your next step, but you have to relax and let your brain do its work. So those situations, how do you, like for your kids, how do you get your kids...

Encourage them to have experiences like that without be called being called an abusive parent, you

Adam Callinan (17:46)
Yeah, I mean, I

think I'm I'm I'm reasonably aggressive about this kind of stuff. And I with my kids because I see the importance and the value and I and I see the downside of what being fragile looks like, because unfortunately, our society is full of it. And the result of which is, I mean, you know, 12 percent of Americans are on antidepressants.

Dr. Rob Yonover (18:03)
Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Adam Callinan (18:14)
I mean, it's like, it's a huge societal issue and my kids will not, they're not going to be raised like that, but that starts small. It's like, literally we'll have contests, you know, we'll be in the hot tub after a ski day and we'll have a contest of who can do the most snow angels. And it's like, all that is, is about creating, creating opportunities to go get uncomfortable and that be okay. Like realize that you're not going to die from going and doing 20 snow angels for, you know, 45 seconds to get back in the hot tub. And at a young age, they think they're going to die.

Dr. Rob Yonover (18:24)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Right. Right.

No, that's good. It sounds like you're good parent. Even now, I got a granddaughter and she's crazy. She jumps in the pool and goes, she can't swim, but she doesn't care. She goes right in. She's fearless, which is kind of scary for what may come in the future, but it's a good experience. I'm trying to teach her to swim, but she loves diving in. So it's just like a mindset. And also the mindset of...

Adam Callinan (18:43)
So yeah.

Yeah. ⁓

Dr. Rob Yonover (19:07)
parents showing that this is, you know, you do the snow angels too. You you show them that what's possible and you show them what other kids, you know, I like to always put kids against each other, not that competitive, but just to say, you know, that's how the big kids do it. You know, don't get stuck being a baby. Babies don't do that. The big kids don't complain about this and they try things, right? So it's...

Adam Callinan (19:12)
Absolutely.

Yeah, mean, leading

leading by example is critical. You could say the thing is all you want, but you got to be you got to be leading by example. But so how did you your first product then was that it seems like you've probably invented a lot of products. What was your first product to come out of that survival?

Dr. Rob Yonover (19:33)
Absolutely. Exactly.

Yes. Well,

the main one is Sea Rescue Streamer. And basically, I was in Hawaii only a year or two and my friend rented a plane and we flew to Kauai and there was a rental plane. It was kind of chugging along and I thought this might crash. Looked down all that blue water and I'm like, there's flares, smoke, sea dye in the plane. And I'm like, I'm a good swimmer. The plane's going to sink. I can get to the shore. But my wife and these two

other people are gonna die. So it got me thinking and I flew to Miami where I grew up a few weeks later and Christo, the artist, I like to get my inspiration wherever I can get it, he wrapped little islands off Key Biscayne in pink plastic. It was so striking from the air looking down on that and I go, that's it. I just need a little piece of pink plastic. And it took me years to figure out putting spreader bars in there. You can see it back here, these white bars. So it's like a centipede, it doesn't twist up.

Adam Callinan (20:28)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (20:40)
So instead of you looking like a floating coconut in the ocean, you got a 25 or 40 foot long orange tail. And it's such a simple idea. I mean, a kid could have thought of it. But the beauty of a simple idea is the patents are broad. Because it's so simple, it's hard to design around. So I got military approval after they stopped laughing at me, because the original one's pink. And they said, got to lose the pink. So I went to International Orange and

Adam Callinan (21:06)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Dr. Rob Yonover (21:10)
just kept bugging people, you know, I'm a polite pain in the ass. I'll keep calling you till I try to get what I think you should do for me. And if you don't, you don't, but you gotta keep trying. you know, it's got military approval, it's used all over the world, it's under the ass of every astronaut on SpaceX rocket flights, it's saved lives, the guys have thanked me, got it on Shark Tank, you know, it's huge in its own way. It's still not the home run.

Adam Callinan (21:34)
.

Dr. Rob Yonover (21:36)
which is it should be on every life raft, life jacket, flight jacket. It is with certain militaries around the world, but that'll probably happen when I'm dead, but that's okay, I'm trying.

So, you know, I've invented a whole bunch of other stuff too, like pocket flotation device, portable desalinator, video search and rescue, all this stuff around survival, that seems to be my niche.

Adam Callinan (21:58)
Thank

Dr. Rob Yonover (21:59)
You know, it's a long road, as you know, and you just kind of, the whole key there is perseverance. So I always tell people don't quit your day job, you know, so you can quit your day job, you know. It takes twice as long and twice as much money, so you gotta have some staying power, you know.

Adam Callinan (22:16)
Yeah,

that is the name of the game. It always to your point, like it's always going to be two or three times what you think it's going to cost. It's going to take two or three times longer than you think it's going to take. I was having a conversation yesterday with someone on the same topic who also gives very similar advice in that when we, and I do the same where you have all entrepreneurs that have had any amount of success. Other people come and ask you questions like, I have this idea. want to do this thing. And their, their mentality is

Dr. Rob Yonover (22:26)
Alright.

Right. Right.

Adam Callinan (22:43)
generally like I need to quit my job and go all in on this thing. And I'm like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, Yeah, keep your job for as long as you can keep your job. It makes it gives you the ability to take the time to figure the thing out.

Dr. Rob Yonover (22:48)
Exactly.

Exactly. And if you do that, I'm a math guy too. So you do the 168 hours in a week, 40 hours sleeping, 40 hours working, you still have 80 hours. So you do it on nights and weekends, turn off your phone, stop scrolling, stop wasting time, stop giving yourself excuses why you can't do it. But you're right, you should never quit your job because it's too much pressure. I mean, you gotta have an income so you can have the freedom.

to fail, achieve, have delays, whatever it is. Another thing is my big mantra has always been low overhead. That's the difference between me and a lot of these people. the idea is, get investors and blow it up. Well, only do that if you have to do that. I'm more, they make fun on Shark Tank about the mom and pop hobby business. I'm like, screw you, that is the way to go. I don't care what you guys say.

I don't want a bunch of partners telling me what to do. Even Mark Cuban, they all love the streamer on Shark Tank, which was great, great PR. It's getting 58 million hits right now on YouTube and it's seven years old and they've shown it on CNBC a hundred times. But they see it as a failure. I'm like, no, no, this is a success because I've used that and I've gotten my overhead so low that if the orders come, great. If the orders don't, I can weather any storm. And that is a key.

for anyone that wants the business to continue. I want to perpetuate a business. I'm not into just blowing up and selling it. I mean, that's fine for some models, but not for me.

Adam Callinan (24:29)
They have wildly different visions and definitions of success. And that's really important for people to understand. mean, there's a lot of ways to skin that cat. And your version of that is similar to my version of that. And I also was on Shark Tank maybe two or three, two or three years after you, we never had any investors. We didn't have any employees. You know, we ended up having a couple of employees by the time we did get acquired, but it was still, we had no investors. was built on cash and

Dr. Rob Yonover (24:33)
Right.

Right, yeah, Okay.

Perfect. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (24:55)
And it was, and we got to control it. We got to travel four,

four or five, six months of the year while doing that because of the way that that was structured.

Dr. Rob Yonover (25:01)
Exactly.

Exactly. And you travel where you want. mean, you know, a lot of people said, it's too bad Mark Cuban didn't invest. yeah. But then his person, his 30 year old kid would be calling me saying, why don't you go to this trade show? Why don't, why do you build them in Hawaii? You build them in LA. You know, all these things that I don't want to hear that, you know, sure. Someone could do it better than me, but you know what? I don't want to. It's just not worth it.

I mean, I thought it was going into the show because I thought I'd blow it up and get a mandate and become a millionaire and save all these lives. But the other shocking thing to me, and you were in there, the sharks are really, really greedy people that only care about money. That was a shock to me, especially for what I've approached them with, which is saving lives. Look, I've saved a bunch of lives with this. We can save thousands more. What a great feeling it was. I'm sharing this with them.

They didn't give a shit. Which I, when you have that much money, what else is there in life? I still don't get it. I really don't get it. And I have a lot of friends with a lot of money and they're still so competitive. They're so hungry and I give them credit, but you know, smell the roses. What's the point? You know, and you get so much money, you start worried about all this shit. My one friend has seven employees at his house. What a hassle. I'm people in your face all the time asking you stuff and.

Adam Callinan (26:14)
Yeah. ⁓

you

you

Dr. Rob Yonover (26:24)
you know security

cameras all this shit like well you know i want to live a simple life but that's me you know i i i

Adam Callinan (26:31)
Yeah, I mean,

these are all choices. And all the choices have consequences, good, bad and indifferent. But the reality is we get to make choices.

Dr. Rob Yonover (26:36)
Exactly.

Exactly. And it's good to be flexible. Like my father was, he was one of the early entrepreneurs. had a mail order business and I wrote a book, I wrote a book, Hardcore Inventing and the original title was Inventing in Your Underwear. And it was an homage to him. The guy worked at home in his underwear. He said, have to tell him, Hey dad, can you put some pants on? My friends are coming over. You know, it was awesome. And then at like Tuesdays, he'd take us fishing or whatever. The guy was totally flexible.

Adam Callinan (26:45)
Amazing.

Ha

Dr. Rob Yonover (27:05)
And my mantra lately is, know, I'm still an amped out person. This guy was so mellow. So I have a mantra, it's called Jimminry. And I try to aspire to be like my father, which is jolly, mellow, no rush ever. I'm kind of opposite to all of them. I'm jolly, but I'm not mellow and I'm always in a rush. So I'm always trying to live that kind of laid back.

mental lifestyle that that guy had and the reason he had it was he was his own boss for 60 years. So the guy, know, the value of flexibility and he had all these friends that had money and big careers, but they kind of all envied him. You know, he lived in Miami, he had the lifestyle and he didn't work pants. I mean, what's better than that?

Adam Callinan (27:53)
That's quite an amazing thing to be known for. That's great.

Dr. Rob Yonover (27:55)
I think so. mean, I try to live

that I wear surf shorts, but I, you know, I covered, I'll go one more layer on top of my underwear, but you know, I dress up, I'm going to big military international survival meeting. part of every year I go next week and I stay out of the sun. I shave, I cut my hair, I wear a suit and tie and it's fun. It's like, it's like dress up. It's cosplay, you know, not really. I mean, that's

Adam Callinan (28:03)
Ha ha ha ha.

Yeah.

Dr. Rob Yonover (28:22)
I mean that's my job, but it's funny because a lot of people only know me in a suit and tie and I'm like, Jesus, I never even wear a shirt. So anyway, it's funny. It's lifestyle.

Adam Callinan (28:30)
Living

it. mean, living in Hawaii and maybe this is different in Oahu just because of where it is. But living in Hawaii is I mean, it's island time. Like, are you are you are you known as like the local crazy man?

Dr. Rob Yonover (28:41)
Well,

a little. mean, the thing that people look at me, first of for years I would serve for Tuesdays at one o'clock. Everyone thought I was a drug dealer. You know, like this guy has so much flexibility. But the other thing to do that, to number one, live in Hawaii and number two, run your own business, you have to be self-disciplined. And, you know, as loose as I'm sounding, I'm very, very disciplined and rigorous. you can't, you have to be driven and you have to...

drive yourself because you know yeah it's beautiful every day there's waves somewhere on the island every day you can screw around all day but no you got to pick your spots so it's really a challenge it's not really been a challenge for me that regard because I know I pick my windows and I get it and then that whole paddleboard thing is I condense that into an hour a day for lunch break so I can have the busiest day but I still get my ocean time and it's like a drug I get it and then

It prepares me for the good surf day I'm waiting on. I'm tracking the weather all the time. And my schedule, it's like, and it's way easier now with surf line and all these things that forecast. In the old days, we had to go look at the maps that the airport weather station would put at the university. We'd have to physically look at maps and make guesses. Now you can say, oh, no, no, I can't have a meeting Thursday. That's a bad day for me. Why is it a bad day? Well, you don't need to know, but it's a bad day for me.

Adam Callinan (29:51)
Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

When you first started the streamer, Sea Rescue Streamer, How did you sell your first unit? How did you sell the first 10 products? Was it just on the

Dr. Rob Yonover (30:59)
a great question. first of all, I made a mock-up. I made one and I put it in my pocket, got a suit and tie on and went to a trade show, some military trade shows, and I basically sold the whole concept on a before and after picture. Without it, this is all blue water, all brown land. With it, you're that same blue water before and with the little orange stripe, that's you. So I had this little thing in my pocket. Before you had a booth, I was able to walk around and

pitch people and then I tried to make it look like what existed already. So the initial streamers were in a tube, an orange tube. It looked like a flare. And I showed it to guys and they go, yeah, I've seen that. go, you haven't seen this. I just invented it. He goes, no, no, no, I've seen that. go, okay. To me, that proved the point. I was on the right track. I was showing something new to someone and they thought it already existed. So I basically, you know, that's the other thing. A lot of guys,

They build like a whole factory, a warehouse full of stuff before they have an order. I waited till I had an order. So you're right, I went around, there's a kayak shop, they're still buying them from me. One of my first sales was a kayak shop. But in parallel to all that, it was all PR and media. My brother was an advertising guy and he told me that all these ad guys are sitting on their ass wondering what to write about in magazines, editors, all these people. And there's this thing called Bacon's Publicity Checker in the old days before the internet.

Adam Callinan (32:02)
Yeah.

Mm.

Dr. Rob Yonover (32:27)
You could look at every magazine editor and their fax number. So I made a one page fax, fax for your listeners, fax simile. And in the olden days at 1101 phone calls were cheaper in Hawaii. So every night I'd wait till 1101 and I'd sit there and just send this one pager a hundred times. And then it's like fishing. put a hundred lines in the water. My first hit was believe it or not, the Miami Herald.

Adam Callinan (32:34)
Amazing.

Dr. Rob Yonover (32:56)
some sports writer wrote, hey, this looks cool. I go, yeah, I'm gonna be in Miami. So I demoed it to her and she wrote about it, which is really cool, because my father-in-law, who thought I was a nut and not good enough for his daughter, he saw it in the paper, it was in the sports section, and all his buddies are going, man, your son-in-law, what a genius, that's smart. And guess he's gotta accept something. So I took that Miami Herald article and I sent that out 100 times.

Adam Callinan (33:16)
Ha ha ha!

Dr. Rob Yonover (33:23)
So I fished with better bait. And then what I learned is to let these guys do their job. That's the one thing that I'm pretty good at. I don't micromanage people. So if you want to write about the streamer, do your own thing. So for instance, Men's Journal wrote about it and their headline, their tagline was Gillian's Island would have been one episode if they had a streamer, which was brilliant. I didn't think of that, but they did because I didn't bug them. And then my other

theory or MO is to be a polite pain in the ass. So I will contact you forever till you do what I would like if you agree to it. And that like, for instance, outside magazine, I talked to them for three years before they wrote about it. Every month or so I call them and the guy would say, it's you again. And I go, hey, come on, man, when are you gonna write about this stream where this thing's, you know, and I would add all the new stuff. Well, the Navy approved it and the Herald wrote about it and.

I go, when should I call you back? I keep pinning them down. kept calling them. Finally, they wrote about it. So you gotta be persistent. And of course, ultimately, you gotta be okay with having the phone slammed in your face. failure is huge. I know it's kind of colloquial now to say that, but it is true. You can't be afraid.

Adam Callinan (34:39)
No,

honestly, this is this is beautiful. I think that we are we are rapidly with AI. We are rapidly moving back. I mean, we're not moving back. We are there. We are now back in the space where technology no longer solves your problem because everybody's using it. Everybody's doing it. You can no longer like inexpensively acquire a customer on Facebook. You could 10 years ago. You can't anymore.

Dr. Rob Yonover (34:45)
Thanks.

Adam Callinan (35:07)
And so we're going like full circle back to exactly where how you started this, which is personal and authentic. And it's calling people on the phone and it's hard fricking work and being persistent. I love the, the polite pain in the ass. That's, is exactly what it should be. It's like a really soft offense. You gotta be offense, but it can be soft. Don't be abusive, but like you gotta push. And it's business as a whole is now moving entirely back in that direction, which I think is so fantastic.

Dr. Rob Yonover (35:14)
Right.

Alright.

Alright.

Exactly.

I think so too. I, of course, have never left it, but the problem is how do get people on the phone? And the other thing people overlook is most businesses are niche businesses. you know, and I tell people, well, if you're doing a little thing, start in a community and they don't have community newspapers anymore, but they have community bulletin boards and just community groups. You got to start small. I, you know, and even crowdsourcing. In the old days, I would bounce this idea.

Adam Callinan (35:54)
Hmm?

Dr. Rob Yonover (36:02)
Ideas off people all the time people I don't even know like when I'm getting my bean burrito at Taco Bell. I'm Hey, what do you think of this? You know, I want I want the whole range of Opinions and then I make my own later, but I'm not afraid to get shot down or say, that's a good idea That's a stupid idea, know, so it's you got to get yourself out there I know that you know, it's sales 101 and it's uh, who's the guy that talked about public speaking all that and and the funniest thing is

Adam Callinan (36:30)
Thank

Dr. Rob Yonover (36:31)
The analogy for me was as a kid, I was really shy. And my parents, one year I was in high school said, what are you gonna do? I'm going into PR, public relations. And they laughed at me, which was really mean. Because clearly I could barely speak. And then in parallel, I didn't have any girlfriends or anything. And my friend had a mustache. I had a baby face when I was 15. This guy had a mustache and a car. Shit, I didn't have any of that.

Adam Callinan (36:58)
the

Dr. Rob Yonover (37:00)
So I picked up a book to try to gain some knowledge and the book which really changed my life, it sounds horrible now, I'm like a misogynistic pig, but the name of the book was How to Pick Up Girls. And you know, the thrust of the book was, you know what the best line is to try to pick up a girl back when you're 15? Say hello, you know? that, yeah exactly, so the whole book is all these great lines, but the real truth is, you know.

Adam Callinan (37:21)
Yeah, start with high. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Yonover (37:28)
across the border and I was a pool boy in Miami, really shy, my friend with the mustache, she had the cheerleader girlfriend in the car, all that. I had nothing and that next day after reading the book, beautiful woman jumps in the pool with a leopard skin bikini and my friend goes, man, I'd like to meet her. go, no, you're not gonna meet her, because I am. And I jumped in the pool and said hello. So, you know, it's just a mindset. I overcame that and I used that.

in business and polite pain in the ass and pitching sales, everything. You have to get yourself out there. And a lot of it is you got to create a rap, you know, the whole elevator pitch. And I got really good at that. I've gotten to where I can, you know, I can refine a pitch from 10 seconds, 30 seconds in an elevator. have to wait, you only have a couple seconds to impress some guy at a trade show. Boom. So.

You have to have all these different versions of yourself or what you're trying to pitch and very short, sweet, and you also have to read the cues. This is what's so disappointing in the world with phones and texting, the lack of phones. And like you say, full circle, I'm very encouraged to be in this space, if that's true, where you can meet people in person and look at them in the eye. Even this video, I'm looking at you. I see how you micro react to things I say. Are you falling asleep? Are you excited? Are you encouraged?

Body language is everything. And the voice on the phone works too. But texting and emailing and social media, you don't have a chance. You don't know how people, it's not a two-way street. that, for a guy like me, I enjoy that. And I think that's what's been lost. And kids today, I taught my kids, you look at someone, my father taught us this. If someone's talking to you a long time like I'm doing to you, look in the middle of their nose. It seems like you're listening to them.

You because you're trying to pay attention

Adam Callinan (39:17)
Ha ha!

Dr. Rob Yonover (39:18)
to them. And it was just a little important little things like that. And kids today, I'm so enthused when I meet a kid that shakes my hand at some sort of event. I do a lot of entrepreneur outreach stuff and looks me in the eye and can have a conversation. That's so rare now. And then more so is the kid that's read a book, which is really sad. And now with my grandkids, I'm thinking, ultimately, I got to pay them to read a book.

and I'm gonna have to grill them to make sure they didn't chat GPT it, right? How do you get kids to read? How do you get kids to meet, talk, have conversations, phone calls, and hopefully, I'm a big negative fan of AI. I'm totally against it. I'm totally against the phones. I was the first guy in 07, I think, when the Apple One came out, the Mac, whatever, the iPhone One came out, everyone was saying how great it was. I'm no, this is horrible. This is the worst shit ever.

Adam Callinan (40:07)
Hmm.

Dr. Rob Yonover (40:12)
And they thought I was just saying that for a reaction. But now, what is it, 10 years later, I've been proven right over and over. Those phones are horrible. And just to practice what I preach, that's my phone. It's like a big, it's like, no.

Adam Callinan (40:17)
Yeah.

I love it. So so yes, showing

a fantastic just like old school phone with buttons on it. I think it's fantastic. I've tried to do that a couple of times and man, it's awesome.

Dr. Rob Yonover (40:33)
Exactly. even...

No, I have an iPad, of course. That's what I'm doing now. My latest theory is phones are great, but you shouldn't have the ability to get online away from Wi-Fi. That's my newest thing. So when you're out in public, you shouldn't be able to scroll. That has to be done in the office or home or maybe even car. But when you're with other humans...

You shouldn't be able to phone or text, that's it, or talk. And someday people are gonna realize what a mistake these phones things are, because all they're doing, and even Shark Tank and all these companies, what my big gripe is, they're making people fatter and lazier. Every new idea, just push a button and food will come to your house. Push a button and ChatGPT will do everything for you.

Adam Callinan (41:20)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob Yonover (41:24)
You know, what happened to earning it? You I mean, I'm big on, you earned something just like training for surfing, whatever it is, earn it, I have respect for you. If you got it instantly and you bought it, I have no respect. So that's my rant on that. And I, you know, I'm sticking with it.

Adam Callinan (41:39)
Yeah.

It's an important, no, I mean, you're, I think you're largely right. And I think that, that this is happening more in rural. I mean, I live in Montana. I know if that's technically rural America or not, it's pretty rural. mean, there's a less than a million people in the whole state. ⁓ but I, but I spent, mean, we moved here from Southern California, from Manhattan beach, six years ago or five years ago or whatever. So, I mean, lived in big places.

Dr. Rob Yonover (41:54)
Sure, definitely. Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Adam Callinan (42:06)
And we were, we were actually just back there this last week and the, difference of the things that our friends, kids are dealing with in school that versus what my kids are dealing with in school are entirely different. And a lot of that revolves around screens and phones and what they can and can't have in class at a very, at an age of seven, like my daughter's in second grade. It's crazy.

Dr. Rob Yonover (42:16)
you

chocolate.

I know, it's unbelievable.

And to me, I like to throw kids in the water and tell them their phone's gonna get ruined. You know, coming on the boat with me, don't bring that phone. It's gonna get ruined, it's gonna get smashed, and then you got them. Or in the pool, now they're making them waterproof, unfortunately, so people can do that. I totally agree. And I taught for years, I can't even imagine teaching with kids scrolling. I would go crazy, you know.

Adam Callinan (42:46)
Yeah.

You're seeing a lot of schools starting finally to deal with that where the kids, kids can't have phones in classes. They can't have Apple watches and classes. And again, I think you're seeing that much more in the non-coastal big city things, but, it is, you are also, so you are also starting to see it there. So we, are, we're starting to come around on that and there's no question. I mean, to anybody,

Dr. Rob Yonover (42:51)
Right. Right.

That's good to hear.

Adam Callinan (43:14)
you know, I'm 43. So like, you know, anybody over 30 sees, and this isn't a judgment. This is really just part of reality. Like sees this generation that can't make eye contact and can't socialize. And it's not their fault. It's because of how they were raised. It's their parent. It's their parents' fault and it's society, but I always take it back to their parents and

Dr. Rob Yonover (43:19)
you

Right

Exactly.

Right, exactly.

Just like obesity, it's kind of the same thing. What as parents do we give our kids? Do we give them an iPad and a big gulp of soda? Or do you give them nature and experience and good food? So they're parallel to me. And they're all sucking your brain dry. And that's the saddest thing, because this is the greatest country. I mean, I think it is. And we are the greatest entrepreneurs. And it's like...

you've got to feed them the good stuff. I'm constantly disappointed lately, because when I go to these Shark Tank type things or business plan competitions, the ideas are so... I'm saying hardware ideas are the best, but it can't just be an easy way to get food or an easy way to do this. It just can't be. People have to have bigger ideas than that. And bigger, like we said earlier.

Adam Callinan (44:16)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (44:26)
The bigger ideas come from when you're in a situation, you're in a survival situation, or your mind is open to new things. can't be, you know, my kids give me shit for, you're on, scroll, I go yeah, but I follow smart people. I'm reading smart links, I turn the volume off. I don't really watch videos. I wanna see a link to someone who sends me to read something. So it's like, what is the quality of your friends?

Adam Callinan (44:30)
Yeah.

.

Dr. Rob Yonover (44:50)
So if you're following idiots, you're kind of an idiot, you know? And the value, the way money and status has become the pinnacle. When we were kids, it was more like someone doing a cool lifestyle or some good idea person or some good creator, musician. Now it's more like Gucci this and exclusivity and private jet, which is, you know, it's like being a pro athlete. It's a one in a million. So stop dreaming about that.

Adam Callinan (44:56)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (45:18)
So it's hard and

Adam Callinan (45:20)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob Yonover (45:20)
I kind of consider myself a defender of the kids and the kids that aren't even born yet because they're screwed. I'm glad to hear it's coming around.

Adam Callinan (45:27)
Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I think, I think the point is really important. And I think that it, that is, is a absolutely valid point. I also do think that, that it is cyclical in nature and that we are starting to see the other side of it, even from an entrepreneurial standpoint. I, I avoided social media for a decade because it was not good for me. I didn't enjoy doing it. It wasn't great. And with Pente, my, my latest company, I am now back in it because it's an important part of building.

that business is like talking about who I am as a human. And you see a lot more engagement there around sort of detesting the, there's this concept of a nine, nine, six work week where you work nine to nine, nine AM to nine PM, six days a week. And that's like supposed to be, that's like a positive thing. That's a smart thing to do, which is, which is ludicrous because not only is that just insane, like sure. In a startup, there are times you're going to have to work more than others. get that. I've been there.

Dr. Rob Yonover (45:55)
Right.

Whoa.

haha

Right.

Sure, sure.

Adam Callinan (46:24)
multiple times, totally get it. But you're not 99.9 % of the people doing that are not building the next Apple. Like they're not building then it to your point, like they're not building a thing that's gonna dent the universe. They're building an app that makes some things slightly easier for some other thing. And they're literally like ruining the best parts of their life to do that. It's just ludicrous. But we are seeing a lot of pushback against that, which is great.

Dr. Rob Yonover (46:42)
I know.

Exactly. No, I don't That's great.

And I think creativity is the key. And I don't know how. I I got lucky. My father was a tinkerer, inventor type. My mom's an artist. They expose us to travel, expose us to nature. I mean, those to me are the important ingredients. And when you're on your phone, it's so artificial. Yes, you can see cool things, but you're bombarded about other things that fire your brain. It takes up too much space. To be creative.

You have to go simplicity to me. I and I hope we get back to that. And I know, I mean, I'm trying for, not for me, I'm old. I always tell people, you, have a five. Yeah, but I'm old as shit already. Okay. I've read a thousand books. I've done a bunch of shit. I can put my brain on scroll mode and have fun and look at stuff. That's entertainment for me. That's not my life. And I also like to stay current with what's going on. And then, and the media.

Adam Callinan (47:21)
Yeah.

.

Dr. Rob Yonover (47:40)
You know, my brother who's big anti-social media forever,

I think he kind of missed the boat a little because it's good to at least stay current. I know what you want to know what it's about. You don't need to be on there all the time, but you need to know about it. And if you get too old, you're like the Unabomber. You know, you're just living in a shack somewhere. Not that my brother is.

Adam Callinan (48:02)
Yeah, I love that that progression. It's great. From anti social media to you to Unibomber. That's perfect. So what do you I mean, these are probably relatively apparent. You spend a lot of time in the water. You do a lot of very hard physical things. What is some advice that you would provide? You know, a 30 year old entrepreneur that's just starting their first company. What guidance would you give to them?

Dr. Rob Yonover (48:04)
Yeah, well that was a big jump.

sorry.

Adam Callinan (48:32)
that might help them withstand like these wild ups and downs that we deal with as entrepreneurs.

Dr. Rob Yonover (48:37)
I really think the low overhead is the key and kind of pretend like you're a one person business, even if you're not contract stuff out if you can and don't rely on it making money. and, and, know, and if it starts to tell you it's not a good business, get out. mean, it's okay to fail, right? People hold onto things too long, but I found that if you, if you, you treat it like this is my, you know, my father was like that, his business was small.

But he always treated it like, this is nickel and dime stuff, but it still rolls in nickels and dimes. So he never had any grand illusions of what it was going to be. if you find, and even my daughter, she started the business. My kids are very entrepreneurial. What a surprise. And she has this business going and she's making good money. And she keeps talking about expanding. I know, no, don't do any of that. That's how you fail. know, if you keep, if you formalize it too much, then the overhead and that's what.

Adam Callinan (49:24)
you

Dr. Rob Yonover (49:36)
Again, people get sucked up into the whole shark tank model of blowing things up, but you know what? You want to ideally make it profitable. And it may not be profitable right away, but the chances of it being profitable are way higher if it's a one man show and you have low overhead. And I know that the business people in the world don't want to hear that, but yeah, it may take off and that's fine, but don't jump to that.

Adam Callinan (49:41)
.

Hmm.

Dr. Rob Yonover (50:03)
that you need money and once you start taking other people's money, you know that used to be the thing of friends and family and other people's money and I'm like I don't want anyone asking me how this thing's going, you know because that is a whole other layer of hassle and and even taking money from friends or family that to me is worse you're gonna you're gonna ruin your relationship with your friend or family by taking money on something that may or may not pan out.

Adam Callinan (50:05)
Bye.

Thank Thank

Dr. Rob Yonover (50:30)
It's just crazy. And the other advice is to do multiple things at once. You know, the one thing I've done all the time is I'm working on this streamer, but I'm working on this desalinator. I like to move around because it's like a fresh set of eyes. You get stuck in a problem. So for an entrepreneur that has one product or one company, start another one. Keep a couple going, if you can, small things, because you never know which is going to go well. And it gives you a break. The other one...

The fresh set of eyes is a huge thing. And that's where to me, nature and surfing, getting out, you get good ideas in nature, you get good ideas from leaving your problem and coming back. And your nine, nine, six thing is horrible. You never leave it. How can that be good for creating anything or problem solving? It can't be. And I think it was Gore-Tex or DuPont. Someone used to have these big companies. Some of them were really smart. They would build a building.

Adam Callinan (51:13)
Okay. Okay.

Dr. Rob Yonover (51:23)
and they'd have 50 parking spots in their building. And when there were no more parking spots, they would start another division. They knew, I don't know, I forget which company did this, they knew never to grow it too big. So that's kind of analogous to what I'm saying. I'm saying one man, because I'm into the tiny show.

And I licensed, the other thing I did for years is licensing. I think still that's a great way to go if you can pull it off. But I had a...

profit sharing license agreement for 15 years, which was great, which enabled me to survive, taking care of my wife, raising the kids, still had money coming in all the time, guaranteed royalties, which is really hard to do. But with the streamer and the Navy military approvals, I was able to do that. But then when I got it back like 10 years ago, I'm like, that's great. And I tried to license it again, but the guy that makes my surfboards on the North Shore said, hey, man.

Do you know how to build them? I go, yeah, I invented how to build them. He goes, well, build them yourself and keep all the money. I'm like, geez, that's brilliant. So then you don't have to worry about China tariffs, all that shit. And it's made in USA. And if I have big orders, I contract out, I expand my work assistance. But to keep it lean and mean is good. I think that really, people don't get that because...

Adam Callinan (52:23)
Hahaha

You

Dr. Rob Yonover (52:41)
Again, the whole mantra in business is to grow, grow fast, get it funded. And I'm like, no, don't take any money. Start another company, know, start another little thing. And it's like, I think was a guy Kawasaki. He's a Hawaii guy. He worked for Apple. He's one of the original guys. And he said, if you can build something for a dollar and sell it for $3, you got a great business. So that's kind of in my mindset all along. Can you build something for a dollar that you can sell for three or $5?

Adam Callinan (53:00)
Thank

Dr. Rob Yonover (53:11)
That's it. There's your formula. And the other thing I learned by mistake is build something small so storage and shipping are easy. One of my later inventions, and I love this idea, but it's so impractical I gave up on it, which is a water bike. And when you pedal, instead of a propeller, again, biomimicry. I like to mimic nature. So have you ever seen a fish with a propeller? No, they have a tail or a fin.

Adam Callinan (53:14)
Thank

Hmm.

Dr. Rob Yonover (53:40)
So my water bike, you pedal and the thing goes like that and it's cool, it's got a splash behind you and you can ride on water, it'd be very cool. Then I started thinking about it, bouncing off people and I'm like, wait a second, if I build a hundred of these, where am I gonna put them? How am I gonna ship them? Where are people gonna put them? They're too big, it's just too big. So, you know.

Adam Callinan (53:40)
Ha ha.

Dr. Rob Yonover (54:04)
It just was a non-starter. So the streamer is this big, I can put it in an envelope and send it. So that was a big advantage.

Adam Callinan (54:10)
Ahem.

So I will, I will depart with you on one of those points. And that is for most people like you, you are a inventor at heart. I would not suggest to most like first time entrepreneurs to start a bunch of things at once because it's really hard to focus on making one of them happen and work. However, I would instead take that time where you might focus on doing another company, take that time and go outside. I a hundred percent agree with that.

Dr. Rob Yonover (54:22)
Yes.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay,

right, right, right. I'm an ultimate multitasker. Right.

Adam Callinan (54:42)
Like, get your brain away. Yeah,

which is hard for most people. I mean, it's hard for me to do. It's like Elon Musk is the perfect example of like the one human ever that can actually successfully create multiple companies. But the go outside piece of that is critical because it forces you to detach your brain from that thought. And when you come back to whatever that problem is, you think about it entirely differently. The other thing that out of that,

Dr. Rob Yonover (54:49)
Right, right,

Right.

Definitely.

Exactly.

Adam Callinan (55:10)
that is incredibly valuable is that last piece on inventory. I see this all the time in Pentain. We have a company that has incredible margins and they sell this $3,000 couch and it's great, except it costs $800 to ship it to a customer. Like, do you know how hard that is on that business? My goodness. Yeah, so as you're starting up, that is a huge piece to consider.

Dr. Rob Yonover (55:28)
Alright.

Exactly and then ideally you should fill your stock of your company in your closet so So you can ship by well riding your bike to the post office and put in an envelope and then putting them back in the closet when you build new ones that the ultimate so It's hard. I mean

Adam Callinan (55:52)
Yeah, I mean, I'm

offered, do it as lean, do it as lean as you can, for as long as you can prove it out, get it working, if and when it gets big enough, because of that, you have to move to a fulfillment center. Great, but don't start in the fulfillment center. I learned that lesson the hard way, like do all of it yourself for as long as you can. And by then, by the time you need to go and hire a person or do a thing, you know exactly what they need to be doing, which makes hiring them and training them and managing them way easier.

Dr. Rob Yonover (55:59)
Right.

Exactly. Right.

Exactly.

Adam Callinan (56:21)
Cause you're not

relying on their, you know what to do. You know how to run that role. ⁓

Dr. Rob Yonover (56:25)
Exactly. And I saw it. mean, my family, they

were small companies. He's doing all these things. And I worked for my father forever. We all did. All of us kids. So you see all the little things that it takes. So you're not delusional about kind of the new business guy gets sucked in. Oh yeah, what are you doing for fulfillment? What are you doing for email marketing? Who's your social media guy? And all of sudden, you're spending all this money and bringing all these people in before you have sale number one. So I agree with you completely.

Adam Callinan (56:53)
Yeah, yeah. And the next one, the piece to that that I'll add and then we'll move on is, and I see this a lot, companies start to, they have that sale number one and number two and number 2000 and they start to generate revenue and think they need to hire those people to continue generating the revenue, but they do it without understanding like how the revenue needs to change to pay for those people. A huge thing. We see this a lot and that that's kind of the other side to that is it's all weight. You just have to make sure that you can figure out how to pay for the weight if you're going to do it.

Dr. Rob Yonover (57:04)
Right.

Right?

Exactly. ⁓

Exactly. I

always feel bad for someone I say, well, you know, got a company, how many employees? And they say 10 or 20. I'm like, oh, that's hard. You gotta feed a lot of mouse. Even my friend in a band, he's got, you know, there's four people in a band. I have another friend that has a band of 10 people. I'm like, that's horrible. How are you guys gonna ever make money? You gotta split everything 10 ways. It's better to be like Bob Dylan and you do all your stuff and you hire bit guys to record for you.

Adam Callinan (57:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. Where do you, where would you like people to find you or find your companies? We'll put all the links and everything in the show notes, but.

Dr. Rob Yonover (57:47)
Anyway, that's good stuff.

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

mean, Rob, you're on all the social medias and Amazon, Sea Rescue Streamer and all my books, Hardcore Inventing, Caregiver Survival Guide, Hardcore Health. It's all on Amazon and for better or worse, and I like them. I mean, in early days, they were great because they said, man, I can have all this stuff farmed out. I just got to give them 15%. And it is brilliant. It's great.

Because otherwise I don't have the whole fulfillment center and I'm sleeping in Hawaii with weird hours and they're selling for me. So yeah, Sea Rescue Streamer or Amazon, just Rob Yonover or Sea Rescue Streamer. I'm around and you know, I always like input from people and it's cool. It's cool to talk to people. And like I said, someone took my Shark Tank pitch and they put it down to a minute and they put it on YouTube. It's got 58 million hits right now.

Which is unbelievable. And I'm barely on social media and I'm viral. And they did it a couple years ago and it was on TikTok up to 16 million. So I'm around, you know, cause I kinda, I'm on social media, but those are the places you could find me. It's pretty simple.

Adam Callinan (59:05)
That's amazing. Yeah, that's a pretty great accident for someone else to clip your thing and turn into tens of millions of views. That's great.

Dr. Rob Yonover (59:06)
Yeah. I know, it's unbelievable. The

only bummer is that, you know, I was in the hair and makeup room when I was younger, seven, eight years ago, so people go, what happened here? I'm old as shit now. This is what happened.

Adam Callinan (59:22)
Amazing well, thanks a ton for being here. This is a really really really fun conversation

Dr. Rob Yonover (59:24)
All right Same here Adam.

That was awesome. Thank you my pleasure