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NWA Founders is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, and is hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
'NWA Founders' is a voice for Founders, Owners, and Builders driving growth in Northwest Arkansas, hosted by Cameron Clark and Nick Beyer.
To recommend a guest or ask questions, reach out at nwafounders@gmail.com and follow us on YouTube and LinkedIn for video content.
[00:00:00] John Musser: Our industry is kind of built on showing up at the end and making the technology work. We brought a new perspective to what we do
[00:00:08] Nick Beyer: values and how that plays in to the team here.
[00:00:11] John Musser: If we make every decision in those five core values, we'll never make a bad one.
[00:00:15] Nick Beyer: Feels like just the right time before everything starts going vertical.
[00:00:19] John Musser: There's lots of projects that put us on the map, but ledger's the one. It stretched us too.
[00:00:24] Nick Beyer: Y'all have had opportunities to be acquired, so why haven't you done that?
[00:00:27] John Musser: Construction's taking twice as long as it used to take. As the technology guy kind of watching from the outside of the projects, it's clear to me what the problem means.
[00:00:47] Cameron Clark: John Mustard Custom Electronics. What a beautiful office space we're in this morning here in Lowell. Uh, thanks for joining us.
[00:00:54] John Musser: Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks for coming in.
[00:00:56] Cameron Clark: Yeah, absolutely. Um, I wanna kind of go through everything y'all do, [00:01:00] but first, um, YI think outside looking in, so you're, you're in what may seem kind of blue collar as from an installation standpoint, but it's, it's a technology business too, right?
What are the challenges there? Navigating both silos?
[00:01:19] John Musser: Yeah. You know, the, the challenges are also the benefits that we're, we are in a very white glove, high tech industry. You know, most of our technicians probably assume they're gonna end up at Google and have a ping pong table in their office and all.
And the reality is, is that. Our secret sauce is that we work like brick masons, we just happen to do technology.
[00:01:43] Cameron Clark: Hmm. And it has to work too.
[00:01:46] John Musser: Yeah. You know, it's, uh, your reputation hinges on that executive's video conferencing work or the audio being on in the lobby of the hotels. So, you know, the cool thing is that technology just continues [00:02:00] to reinvent itself.
[00:02:01] Cameron Clark: Sure.
[00:02:02] John Musser: So, I, you know, I have, uh, 24 years experience now in it, and the stuff that I knew 22 years ago doesn't matter. Yeah. The stuff that I knew 10 years ago doesn't matter. Mm-hmm.
[00:02:13] Cameron Clark: So,
[00:02:14] John Musser: um, yeah.
[00:02:15] Cameron Clark: And I mean, in that, in that process after installation, I imagine, is there an onboarding process for most of these larger jobs?
[00:02:21] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:02:21] Cameron Clark: Kind of getting
[00:02:21] John Musser: going.
[00:02:22] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:02:22] John Musser: Customer education is the hardest part of what we do. Yeah. You know, I, I've said it several times that I should have been bored a, a concrete guy. 'cause nobody forgets how to use their sidewalk.
[00:02:32] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:02:33] John Musser: And, uh, you know, that. That really drives the, the quality of the project.
You know, we can nail it on design, the guys can nail it on installation, but if there's, if the people don't know how to use it, um, then we, we end up struggling.
[00:02:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Give an overview of, of the different silos of the, of the business. So there's, I guess, audio and video is, is one, and what are the
[00:02:57] John Musser: Yeah, so, well, we're a residential [00:03:00] and commercial integrator.
[00:03:02] Cameron Clark: Mm.
[00:03:02] John Musser: On the residential side, there's home alarm, audio automation, um, thermostats, door locks, garage door integration.
[00:03:13] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:13] John Musser: Uh, and then wifi obviously is one of the most important. Now, on the commercial side, it holds those same. Scopes, but then you introduce life safety. So elevator integration, fire alarm.
[00:03:26] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:03:26] John Musser: Access control, shooter detection systems.
[00:03:29] Cameron Clark: Oh wow.
[00:03:29] John Musser: Um, school lockdown. And then the, the fun part, the audio, the, um, video conferencing systems.
[00:03:37] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Yeah. And li I mean, so everyone listening, life safety, that's just like every municipality, you know, it's, it's part of regulation. They've gotta have it in their building.
Correct.
[00:03:47] John Musser: Right. Yeah. It's the one thing that's required.
[00:03:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:03:49] John Musser: So as budgets continue to cut, the fire marshals are gonna say what the fire marshals want.
[00:03:54] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:03:54] John Musser: And, uh, the fire marshals are getting more educated in northwest Arkansas. You know, when [00:04:00] we, when we first got our teeth, the fire marshals didn't understand the code and they depended on us quite a bit.
Um, but over time, the fire marshals are, are becoming more educated.
[00:04:10] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:04:11] John Musser: And so. And fire alarm's kind of the gateway into the other technology. So one of the sales tactics that we've seen used in the past was get the fire alarm. Then when you're on site, the GCs gonna want you to be the one doing the rest of the scopes.
[00:04:27] Cameron Clark: You're already out there.
[00:04:28] John Musser: You're already here. We don't wanna manage two of them.
[00:04:30] Cameron Clark: We trust you.
[00:04:31] John Musser: That's right.
[00:04:31] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:04:32] John Musser: That's right.
[00:04:33] Cameron Clark: Um, so talk, so talk about the beginning of the company and then also kind of the beginning of your story. Um, so there's two, two other founders, correct?
[00:04:44] John Musser: Yeah. There's two other partners.
They are the founders. Yeah. Um, their name is Victor and Daphne Rell. Uh, I think that their story is, is far more impressive than mine. You know, those, those kind of bush whacking bootstrapping days to get it [00:05:00] started. Um,
[00:05:01] Cameron Clark: when was that? When was that?
[00:05:03] John Musser: So they incorporated in 2008.
[00:05:05] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:05:05] John Musser: Um, as a residential integrator.
[00:05:08] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:05:09] John Musser: And, uh. Kind of built on the backs of the booming construction market.
[00:05:15] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:05:16] John Musser: Um, you know, our, our industry was new to residential construction. You know, the, you would have the electrician pull a couple pieces of cable where you think you might want a tv and that was it. Yeah. And the HVAC guy would put a thermostat in, but the idea that we would want to use an app at some point, um, wasn't there.
So I joined the company in 2014. I think Victor and Daphne had a strong desire to get into commercial, and commercial was my background.
[00:05:44] Cameron Clark: And where you, where'd you grow up? Where are you from? How, how did you get to there?
[00:05:48] John Musser: Yeah, so I, I was, uh, I grew up in Springdale. I would say my family moved to Springdale in 2000, uh, I'm sorry, in 1994.
[00:05:58] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:05:58] John Musser: Uh, I was [00:06:00] raised prior to that. Up and down the East coast. My dad was in the Navy, um, they kind of just put their finger on the map and chose northwest Arkansas. Wow. Um, yeah, we, our family's roots are in central Louisiana and they knew for sure they didn't want to go back there. Then we had some more family in the Springfield area.
Okay. I think the story my mom tells is that they vacationed at Devil's Den when I was a baby and then went through, um, went through the Navy. We moved a lot up and down the East coast and, uh, and then settled back here.
[00:06:34] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:06:34] John Musser: So
[00:06:35] Cameron Clark: what a story. And so, so yeah. They settled here. You grew up here, grew up in Springdale.
[00:06:39] John Musser: Yeah. Yeah. I grew up on, on Elm Springs Road in Springdale. A different Springdale back then.
[00:06:45] Cameron Clark: Was it paved back then?
[00:06:46] John Musser: Yeah, it was, uh, we actually lived right next to 49 and 49 was obviously 71 at that time, and then became five 40. But my bedroom window was, you know, 25 feet. From one [00:07:00] of the lanes on, on, uh, five 40 at the time.
Yeah. And you know, that time on the East Coast is what really kinda shaped me. We grew up in very, very diverse navy towns. Um, and, and some of 'em were rough places to live. I think my, I have an older brother and he and I kind of accustomed to, to being in lots of different cultures. You know, the Navy brought lots of people from lots of areas.
And then, uh, yeah. And our last stop in Goose Creek, South Carolina, um, he and I were the minority.
[00:07:35] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:07:36] John Musser: And, uh, and fast forward, my parents moved us to Springdale, Arkansas. And, uh, so a little bit of culture shock in the seventh grade at Central, junior High. Uh, met some, some good friends and kind of settled in.
Wow.
[00:07:50] Cameron Clark: Um, and did you go to, did you go to college? You, you kind of start working afterwards?
[00:07:54] John Musser: No, I barely made it through high school. You know, I joined, uh, I joined a work [00:08:00] study program, which at the time was for troubled kids that weren't gonna graduate high school if they didn't. And, uh, got a job as a electrical helper at the old Washington Regional Hospital on North Street.
[00:08:14] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:08:14] John Musser: So my, uh, I'd say my electrical career started then. Um,
[00:08:20] Cameron Clark: is that how most people get into the industry? They go in electrician route or?
[00:08:25] John Musser: It is, it is now. I think, you know, Springdale schools in particular is doing a great job with their workforce study program. They're churning a lot of good, um, a lot of good talent out that, that knows it.
You know, when I was in high school in the late nineties, you went in the trade if you weren't smart enough or dedicated enough to do anything else, and we've seen him. A change in that.
[00:08:49] Cameron Clark: Yeah. What do you think about that? Like your, are your, your kids, did I forget how, how old you said they were? Yeah. Did you, do you want 'em to be in college or did you say, Hey, just go work?
Or what's the Yeah,
[00:08:58] John Musser: so I, what do you think? I have a, [00:09:00] a 22-year-old son. Mm-hmm. He's actually down the hall right now in the project manager's office. And he knew right out of school that he wanted to be in the trades. Hmm. Um, I, I also have a 10-year-old son who thinks he is gonna be in the MLB one day. Um, and is, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know what his path will be.
[00:09:20] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:09:21] John Musser: I think one of the things that's happening right now is that we've had this shift from everybody needs to go to college until the, into the modern times now where it's everybody should join a trade and the right answer's somewhere in between. You know, I think Springdale program's doing a great job.
You know, they have a signing day. Every year for people to joining the trade. Really? Yeah. That's
[00:09:44] Cameron Clark: cool. Mm-hmm.
[00:09:45] John Musser: So we get a, get a table and have our banner on it and they, I think we took six out of that program last year. Oh, cool. We hope to take a dozen this year. And those six are still, here's awesome. Um, yeah, it's, it's a really, Springdale [00:10:00] is kind of leading the charge on, on the workforce studies.
[00:10:03] Cameron Clark: That's amazing. So, so back to your story, you got outta high school, went to work a electrician or kind of, I don't know, you call it a apprentice at Washington Regional.
[00:10:16] John Musser: Yeah, it's a, it's a wild story. So we, I grew up in a house that didn't have excess income and uh, I was destined to, to make it in a trade and, uh, yeah, kind of climbed through the state driven apprenticeship program.
Um, and I took a job with National Home Centers.
[00:10:38] Cameron Clark: What is that?
[00:10:39] John Musser: It's a kind of a builder supply company based in Springdale At the time it became, uh, called stock. After that it was sold, uh, during the recession to stock, but we were doing a job for national home centers. I was an electrical apprentice and I got to know some of the leaders from national home centers, and they actually offered me a [00:11:00] job in leadership as a 23-year-old.
Um, at the time, granite countertops were becoming a thing and they were gonna start building granite counter shops, um, all over the state.
[00:11:12] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:11:13] John Musser: And so I went from the blue collar side to the white collar side, went through a divorce at that time, and, uh, got out of the trade.
[00:11:21] Cameron Clark: Okay.
[00:11:21] John Musser: Um, and then on a Tuesday, everything fell apart in northwest Arkansas.
You know, we saw the fall of a builder that created the fall of a bank. That just kind of made us all open our eyes to the. How much supply we had and there wasn't enough demand. Um, so I was, I was called in and, and told, Hey, you, uh, you're gonna be the first one of a lot, but today's gonna be your last day at National Home Centers.
[00:11:48] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:11:49] John Musser: Um, and I ran back to the trades after that.
[00:11:52] Cameron Clark: And Was that in oh eight or oh nine?
[00:11:54] John Musser: That would've been in oh eight.
[00:11:56] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:11:57] John Musser: Yeah. So, um, went back [00:12:00] into doing electrical, you know, I think one thing that isn't talked about enough is what a crutch the Pinnacle Promenade was at that time, you know? So we, uh, the Hunts had developed that area.
Um, they had all of the corn shell up, nobody could find any work anywhere, but these nationwide companies still needed to put in. So we pivoted from, from Houses into the Gap and the Banana Republic and Yep.
[00:12:25] Nick Beyer: And
[00:12:25] John Musser: things like that. And it gave. Gave Northwest Arkansas about nine months of runway after the housing market collapsed
[00:12:34] Cameron Clark: of just of work to be done.
That's right. There's at least something out there. That's
[00:12:37] John Musser: right.
[00:12:37] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:12:38] John Musser: Yeah. Um, then I left doing that and joined the low voltage industry, you know, and in 2009 there was no electrical work to be had. One thing that happens when the economy drops is that crime raises. And so I went to work for a local alarm company doing cameras and fire alarm and security alarm, [00:13:00] and, uh, never looked back.
[00:13:03] Cameron Clark: And that, that company, was that Custom Electronics?
[00:13:06] John Musser: No. Is
[00:13:06] Cameron Clark: that
[00:13:07] John Musser: No, no. That was a different company. Yeah, it was a Fort Smith based company.
[00:13:11] Cameron Clark: Yep.
[00:13:11] John Musser: Um, been around for 50 years. Still does a great job. Um, I, but you know, in my, as a result of, of my childhood, my parents taught me how to work. They didn't know business that well, and I was destined to be a businessman in my mind.
So I started going into all why, eh, but I think when you're in your twenties and you're in northwest Arkansas and you get to see people like JB driving around it, it kind of plants a seed in you of what greatness looks like.
[00:13:46] Cameron Clark: Anything's possible.
[00:13:48] John Musser: Anything's possible, but you don't understand the work that goes into that, anything's possible.
So, uh, fast forward to 2011. I had left the job with the alarm [00:14:00] company and was destined to be Warren Buffet. I got into cattle farming. I had a antique store in downtown Springdale. I bought out a lighting store. I was building a house. Uh, I was doing whatever I thought it looked like to be an entrepreneur.
[00:14:19] Nick Beyer: Hmm.
[00:14:19] John Musser: Um, without any reference for. You know, I think the great ones, pick a lane and stay in it. And I was, I was swerving all over the highway.
[00:14:29] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:14:29] John Musser: So, uh, met my wife in 2012. I think she was immediately intrigued by all of the stuff that I was doing, but shortly realized that it wasn't that cool. And, uh,
[00:14:41] Cameron Clark: he's not around that much.
[00:14:42] John Musser: Yeah. Well, not only is he not around, he is, he's betting the house every three months on some new venture. And, uh, she came from a family that was long tenured career, a lot of educated folks in that family. And she, she didn't gimme an ultimatum, but she did say, Hey, [00:15:00] it'd probably be cool if you had a job.
Um, and so got back into the industry, actually went back to alert alarms and said, Hey, I, I'll take another swing at it. And, uh, started doing fire alarm again. I was building a house in Pinnacle when I met my wife. I, uh, asked the architect for a low voltage guy
[00:15:24] Cameron Clark: mm-hmm.
[00:15:24] John Musser: And he gave me Victor's number. Okay.
The owner of Custom Electronics and Victor showed up and we kind of hit it off and then, uh, went our separate ways and then had a connection a couple years later where he, I knew he was wanting to get into commercial.
[00:15:39] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:39] John Musser: And, uh, yeah, so we started the conversations
[00:15:42] Nick Beyer: and for people who don't know what low voltage mean, what, what does that, what does that mean?
[00:15:46] John Musser: Yeah. It's, it's kind of a buzzword of everything that connects to a piece of cable other than your basic electricity.
[00:15:52] Nick Beyer: So dumb it down in that house in Pinnacle, what was victory?
[00:15:55] John Musser: Yeah. So in that house in Pinnacle, at that point, theaters were home, theaters were [00:16:00] a big deal, so the homeowner wanted a pretty good audio system.
Wifi was just coming on at that point strong. And, uh, we needed somebody to come pull cable and put speakers in and, and make the home theater work.
[00:16:13] Cameron Clark: Cool. So. Yeah. Did you ever feel like a failure going, like getting a job, is what you're saying? Like, I don't know that that's some of the words you used it, but like, or was it kind of from the get go when you and Victor met was like, Hey, this is gonna be somewhat of a partnership scenario?
[00:16:31] John Musser: Yeah, it, it, you know, I was hired in, in a role called commercial sales. There was no partnership at all. It was a, uh, it was a job where I was gonna get in and grind and, uh, when I first got here, I don't, I don't know what our head count was, somewhere around 10. And, uh, I was, I started on a Friday. I'm not real sure why I started on a Friday, but I quickly learned the culture of the company was [00:17:00] just to grind.
Um, so my first day I sat down and started learning the systems. And what had happened was that, uh, one of our partners, Daphne. Had done a fantastic job of acting like we were a lot bigger company than we were. So the CRM was in place, the accounting software was in place. It was really built to launch at that point.
Um, so the, you know, the founding of the company is you've got a, an old satellite installer who was a mill ride at one point and a framer at one point, and a tree planter and a mechanic. And he brought that we're just gonna outwork this issue every time. And then Daphne, who was gonna keep it all together mm-hmm.
You know, as time progressed, she would say, you guys riding a speed boat. And I paddle a canoe behind picking up the things that fly out.
[00:17:50] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:17:50] John Musser: Uh, and still to this day that it's been a great, um, I'd say partnership. The partnership began and officially began [00:18:00] in the early twenties, uh, 21, 22. But yeah, I, I saw something that would allow me.
I have the stability that my wife wanted and have some health insurance and a steady paycheck while also feeding that entrepreneurial spirit to grow something. Um,
[00:18:18] Cameron Clark: what would you tell someone who's evaluating an opportunity like that?
[00:18:22] John Musser: Yeah, you know, don't, don't shy away from stability. I think that there's lots of opportunities in northwest Arkansas to run your own small business inside of a business.
That happens a lot in sales more than anything. Um, but whatever vertical somebody chooses, if you can, if you can settle in and then grind as hard as possible, it, it always works out really well. Um, you know, now I know now what those struggles look like Back in the day, you know, I was, I was trying my hardest to grow our commercial side of the business at that point.
But I didn't think [00:19:00] about how much payroll cost on Friday or what the truck insurance was like. Um, and, and that was a real luxury for me. I was able to focus on the projects and the customers and, and keep things moving that way.
[00:19:13] Nick Beyer: So talk about, before we dive more into your story, talk about those early days, Victor and Daphne.
You said 2008 was roughly when the company was founded. Yeah. Talked a little bit about their DNA, but like the story you gave us out there of Victor driving around talk, share, share, like how the company started. Yeah. So you know, what they had, well, how much they had to spend, what they, you know, just back then Yeah.
What was going on.
[00:19:35] John Musser: Yeah. So the, the story that I've, that I've been told by both of them was that there was a, Victor was a satellite installer with Dish Network. And he would be doing satellite installations. And then the homeowner would say, Hey, I've got this new amplifier. Can you help me connect it? Or, I would really like to have speakers on my porch.
And so he, he started to create this for [00:20:00] better term side hustle that ran alongside, uh, installing satellites. And then in 2008, decided to take the leap. And the story I've been told is that he borrowed a truck from a brother-in-law and went to a local distributor and got some boxes of cable and then started driving neighborhoods, calling builder signs and saying, Hey, this structured cabling part of a house is a new thing.
Um, can I wire that house? And so, and, and we've done a fantastic job. Even today. We still have those same builders here. Um, one of the kinda most shocking things about custom electronics when I got here is that. I had had some struggles in, uh, 2008 and oh nine in the recession. Victor had been in an industry previously or in this industry previously that didn't work out, a strong aversion to debt.
Um, and still to this day, this company's moved at the speed of cash. Um, we've [00:21:00] never, uh, we've never taken debt to create growth. There's never been a line of credit that allowed that one bad month of February to, to need to make payroll. Um, so from that first borrowed truck now to our 54th truck, um, this thing's moved a hundred percent at the speed of cash.
And our fleet looked like it for a long time. You know when you need, uh, when you need the self-generated profits of the company to continue growth. What you have to do is, one, not suck it, drive resources. And two, be very, very smart with the purchases. Our, our fleet looked like a well lettered, really bad used car lot for a while.
You know, we'd, we'd buy a Toyota one day and afford the next day. And, um, still to this day, if the team comes and says, Hey, we're gonna need four new trucks. We're gonna have to figure out how to fund those four new trucks on our own, [00:22:00] because debt is, is still something that's not found its way into custom electronics.
[00:22:04] Nick Beyer: And how did you respond to that? I mean, you already talked a little bit about your appetite for risk. Yeah. And your wife now noticing that as maybe not a problem back then, but just something different that she was used to. So, talk about how that, how those collisions happened, your, your appetite for risk and that aversion to debt.
[00:22:23] John Musser: Well, I had an appetite for risk and an aversion to debt. You know, I, I tell. Um, I tell folks often that I got my MBA on the courthouse steps in downtown Fayetteville. Mm-hmm. That I knew at that point that my personality alongside debt wasn't gonna work. So I actually, I, I tried to live my life debt free in the same way.
Uh, so from that and, and in our negotiations of coming to work at Custom Electronics, he had explained how important Dave Ramsey had been to them and how they lived, uh, life in an envelope system, cash flowing, everything they [00:23:00] could. And that was actually one of the draws that brought me to, to the company.
[00:23:05] Nick Beyer: That's cool. Um, so those early days, Victor's driving around in a truck just grinding it out, and that's where the grind starts.
[00:23:14] John Musser: Yeah. And really the market was wide open at that point for somebody to grind it out. And, and it still is. We've, I. This is a very soft handed industry. You know, it is not looking to work.
The electrician pulls a lot of our conduits and gets our strings in place, and our industry is kind of built on showing up at the end and making the technology work. And so you take a, a guy who grew up in electrical and a guy, um, who grew up as a millwright and a framer, and we brought a new perspective to what we do.
We, we lead with, with grit and determination. Our team looks like it. Mm-hmm. Um, so he added a couple staff members in the second year. You know, it was just him and Daphne at [00:24:00] first. And, um, a couple of those are, are still here. Um, they, I think we have two employees who predate me at custom electronics and, uh, yeah, just the man would drive hiring and he would go find somebody to help.
[00:24:16] Cameron Clark: And when you, you joined in 2014? Mm-hmm. There's 10 employees
[00:24:20] John Musser: ish. I'm not, I'm
[00:24:21] Cameron Clark: not really,
[00:24:21] John Musser: yeah.
[00:24:22] Cameron Clark: And your main initiative was, let's figure out this, uh, this commercial business,
[00:24:28] John Musser: right? Yeah. My, my personal goal was to take 10% of the revenue and convert it to commercial annually. So I, I got in midstream in 14, in July.
Uh, had a good relationship with a hometown grocer in town. Um, I think we. I started on a Friday and two weeks later we did our first grocery store, um, for harps. And, um, yeah. So every year that was the goal. Take take 10% of this residential and turn it into [00:25:00] commercial. And there, there were several reasons why.
One, we were still in somewhat of a housing recession. Mm-hmm. Um, but our residential customers, one of the things that hurts a lot of companies like ours is you either have to scale or you have to die. Because if I do your house in 2014, I get all of the revenue you have to give at that point. But you still need me in 15, 16, and 17 to make sure that system's functioning and that your investment's there.
And so we. We were struggling to have talent to go do installs because we were spending all of our time servicing the installs we had already done. And technology's tough. It doesn't, it is not paint or concrete in a set it and forget it kinda way.
[00:25:49] Cameron Clark: How, and I mean in those like the installs 2014, I mean is it like an every five year, every 10 year?
How often does it, does the home need to turn over some of that [00:26:00] technology?
[00:26:00] John Musser: Yeah, it, that really depends on the homeowner. You know, you get a certain homeowner who always wants to be out in front of the technology. Um, we've got control four systems from 2012 that are still limping along.
[00:26:14] Cameron Clark: Yeah,
[00:26:14] John Musser: those, those create some tough conversations, you know, that, hey, this stuff was out when iPhone had iPhone four, we should probably upgrade.
Um, but
[00:26:25] Cameron Clark: the apps have changed.
[00:26:26] John Musser: Yeah. The apps have, you know, I'll tell you, I remember a conversation in 2014 when Control Four came out with an app and I was sitting with Victor and one other guy and I said, Hey, we gotta stay away from this app thing. This app apps are never gonna make it. The customers need a hard remote, they need to control it.
You said
[00:26:46] Cameron Clark: this.
[00:26:46] John Musser: Yeah. Yeah. Um, and now everything we do is driven by an app, but yeah. I remember saying, you know, this, this phase of apps will go away.
[00:26:56] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:26:56] John Musser: Um, what we need to be doing is selling hard, clunky remotes [00:27:00] for people to use.
[00:27:01] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:27:01] John Musser: Um, yeah.
[00:27:03] Nick Beyer: That's awesome. That's great. Talk about 2014. I mean, everyone now, Northwest Arkansas is on the map.
Everybody knows what's going on, but when you look at the landscape of Pinnacle, when you look at the landscape of Bentonville, when you look at the landscape of Fayetteville back in 2014, what was there? What was going up? You know, like, and it was a little bit, that feels like just the right time before everything starts going vertical.
So
[00:27:33] John Musser: yeah, it was, there was a lot of cow pastures left between our office here in Lowell and downtown Bentonville. And, uh, it was a, it was an exciting time to be in it. You know, one of the challenges was when you're growing at the speed of cash, which we've always wanted to do, you can't build for the growth that you want.
You have to fix that plane mid-flight. And so I would sit with architects and general [00:28:00] contractors and try my hardest to convince 'em that, hey, we could handle this seven story building, like we're built for this. And if they ever looked behind the curtain, they'd know we weren't built for that. Um, and, and grind got us through that grind, created the profits that allowed us to continue to hire folks.
So the, when the promenade happened. You know, that, that all set on the east side of what is now 49, and there wasn't much on the west side. My actually, my first construction site as an apprentice was the, uh, the hotel there in Pinnacle, I can't think of the name, suite, the N Embassy Suites. Yeah. So I'm a, I'm a Baptist kid who's never been on a construction job site.
I get on this hotel, um, I saw a, a safety instance where a guy passed away right in front of me. Mm-hmm. I, I did, you know, I was thinking, boy, this, this construction thing might not be for me. Um, and then once Embassy Suites happened, [00:29:00] that would've been in oh three. Um, it just kind of set for a little while until, you know, the Hunts did the tower next to it.
And then I, I think when, uh, when JB passed in, in oh eight, that was kind of. His vision for what all that was gonna be. So we saw in, in 2012, we saw the 10 story get built and I, I think, you know, Marshall and Tom could talk better about this, but that 10 story was the anchor for everything that happened around it.
You know, we had the neighborhood, uh, we had the hotel and the, and the original hunt tower there. Once the 10 story happened and then got to capacity quick, um, yeah, we saw it explode. It's been fun to, to take that journey. I saw the picture, um, a couple months back of 2004 versus 2024, and it's wild.
[00:29:51] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:51] John Musser: Um, and, and now we get the opportunity and our staff gets the opportunity to drive past and say, Hey, at that amp we were involved in, in the [00:30:00] Kellogg's building or the General Mills building, uh, we've been really blessed to be a part of, of most of that growth.
[00:30:08] Nick Beyer: This is a probably more technical question, but when you build a building like that and you put however many dollars of technology into it,
[00:30:15] John Musser: right?
Right.
[00:30:17] Nick Beyer: Do they just budget for like, they know in 10 years this $5 million we put into this building is gonna be at, like, how does that work?
[00:30:26] John Musser: Yeah. Well, they don't budget for it at all. Okay. I wish they would. And they're starting to, um, you know, the, the keyless approach to entry to a building was kind of the driving force behind it.
We had fire alarm, which was a requirement, and the, the first non necessity that came out was the key FOB system. Um, and we, I had been doing key fob systems for a long time, but you saw them primarily in hospitals or schools. Um, and, and once developers started to realize, you know, re-keying this building every time somebody's terminating is gonna be a [00:31:00] real problem.
So access control was the second scope to kind of hit hard, uh, alongside cameras. I would say fast forward now it's, it's a expectation. You know, the talent that we're trying to bring to Northwest Arkansas is coming from buildings that have all of this technology in it already. And we will talk about Ledger, but the, the push for technology in buildings really got going in probably 2017.
Uh, but we still weren't seeing budgets. We, we were seeing it as FFF and e we were seeing it as an afterthought. And, uh, it's hard in our industry. You know, you're the last man in for rough out or for rough in, and you're the last man out at the end. And so because of that, the GCs are exhausted and the owners are exhausted and there's no more money to spend and everything's over budget.
So you had to get creative on, on what you were sailing and, uh. We started in 2019 to [00:32:00] really try to focus on the architects. You know, we would, we would have meetings with architects and say, Hey, you know, this stuff's gonna be a requirement of this building, and if I tell you that we're gonna have this digital directory in the elevator lobby, well then the electrician's gonna have to have power there.
And there's this nasty change order game that's happening in construction right now where it's a, it's a bid it where you can cover your cost and then make all of your profit on the change orders. So we started to convince architects to allow us to be on the design teams. Uh, it was a cool feeling because the, at that point they're asking you for your brain, not your back.
And so your, your years of experience in what you knew the building needed. So we went and hired some Revit technicians and some AutoCAD technicians, and started sitting in the precon stuff with the architects to make sure that. Um, the technology was on the construction documents before it came out.
[00:32:59] Nick Beyer: That's cool. [00:33:00] So allows 'em to better, at least anticipate the cost. Right. Maybe not budget for them, but anticipate it.
[00:33:05] John Musser: That's right. Okay. And the, you know, the architects are incredibly sensitive about what the speakers look like and how they line up with the other things and the ceiling. And if we can get in the Revit model early enough, we can coordinate all that now.
[00:33:16] Cameron Clark: That's
[00:33:17] Nick Beyer: cool.
[00:33:17] Cameron Clark: And was that, uh, you know, I guess the pre-con, uh, initiative, pre-development initiative, was that really pushed by the ledger or was that kinda happening beforehand?
[00:33:28] John Musser: You know, it, it first started, um, probably a year and a half before the ledger. I think the, the first major design that we were involved in would've been the Tri Delta House on the campus in Fayetteville.
You know, construction in northwest Arkansas is, is very, uh, seasonal, meaning that there's a flavor of the week every year. I can la this year's flavor of the week was hotels. It seemed like every conversation was about a hotel, and it was [00:34:00] multifamily the year before that, and it was food and beverage the year before that.
And COVID kind of pushed some of those things backwards to allow enough demand. Um, but yeah, it seemed like every email we got was about a hotel. Hotel over the last couple years.
[00:34:15] Cameron Clark: Interesting.
[00:34:16] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:34:17] Nick Beyer: Kind of walk through. So 2014 comes on, when does the, like buckle the seatbelt? Like we're, we're kind of taking off because it seems like.
The growth since 2014 has been exponential. Right?
[00:34:31] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:34:32] Nick Beyer: And was it, is there somewhere in your head where you're like, this project, like this is, when we started this, it just feels like everything kind of started rolling from there?
[00:34:41] John Musser: Yeah, it, there's a lot of those. You know, we did a, we did a Wesley Foundation building in 2015 on the campus in Fayetteville.
And without a marketing budget and still moving at the speed of cash, you had to lean in hard on the relationships you created along the way. And so, [00:35:00] you know, 15 tells the story of, of that. And then 16 we got into the, um, healthcare side of assisted living and memory care. So that really drove 16 and then 17, we saw this spike in Greek housing at the university.
Um, 18 starts to push hard with hunt ventures in the, in the Kellogg's building. 19 is when the talks first started about ledger. And, uh, it seems like every project was a stepping stone to a bigger project, but solely based on the relationships that happened. Um, in those we've, we've still, to this date, our marketing budget includes lettering, the trucks, and a couple community outreach things.
You know, we, we've got a very strong Hispanic culture inside of our company. I think cooking tacos for the rule of three bike race or, or the bike races that are happening in town. Victor's very passionate about cycling. Um, but the only I, I heard, um, [00:36:00] my good buddies wag say that if you're marketing, uh.
Idea is word of mouth, and that means you don't have a marketing idea. But it's, it's what's gotten us here. We've never been big on spending those dollars on getting, uh, on getting more business.
[00:36:18] Nick Beyer: Well, it seems to me like, and I think we have interviewed founders on both sides of this coin, right? So no, I mean respect to, to both of the perspectives, but one of the perspectives is like, sales market.
Sales market, go knock on doors, go send flyers, go market, go push, push, push. And then the other side of the coin is like, we're gonna freaking execute. We're gonna execute, we're gonna deliver. We, whether it's the best brisket you've ever had or the best coffee you've ever had, or the best electronics inside of a facility, like, we're just gonna execute.
And, uh, I don't, I'm not saying one is better than the other, but it sounds like that's kind of the side of the token that y'all are from. And was that in the DNA from Victor? Was [00:37:00] that just kind of. How you guys adapted over time or where did, where do you think that came from?
[00:37:05] John Musser: Yeah. You know, everything's in the DNA from Victor and Daphne.
It, but it was more out of necessity. You know, growth is expensive and you can use those profit dollars to buy more trucks and train more humans, or you can spend them on marketing. And so it, I don't think there was a, a decision to be made. We didn't have any money to spend on marketing.
[00:37:27] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:37:27] John Musser: So, kind of in, in the same way with Jordan, if you put a great product out there, you know, one of my favorite quotes in business, I don't remember who said it, but if the dogs don't like your dog food, the packaging doesn't matter.
And, and we just always tried to make sure that we had the best dog food possible and now we needed to polish up on the packaging. We needed the trucks to look better. Um, but yeah, it was more outta necessity than anything else.
[00:37:55] Cameron Clark: That's cool. Well, I wanna talk about. [00:38:00] Some of these just I iconic Northwest Arkansas projects.
[00:38:04] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:38:05] Cameron Clark: Well, let's talk about the ledger.
[00:38:06] John Musser: Sure.
[00:38:06] Cameron Clark: Um, um, talk about your involvement in it, kind of the, how did the conversation start at the beginning in the design process with, with y'all?
[00:38:18] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:38:18] Cameron Clark: To the end,
[00:38:19] John Musser: that conversation starts at the university. We did a small housing project with MO, or a small part of a big housing project with Modus.
Mm-hmm. Um, right next to Bud Walton. And they needed a, a small production room, needed some av, and IT, and NAB holds just happened to be the GC on that. So normal fashion, we went and did the job or. Our ability to do what we said we were gonna do, uh, struck that particular project manager well, and he called and said, Hey, we've got this, this project and Bentonville called WeWork and we've got this 900 page spec book for the av, and will you take a look at it and see what happens?
So, [00:39:00] um, Victor and I got together, had a couple meetings with some architects out of New York, and, uh, read the spec and, and decided that we could deliver exactly what they were asking for. And at the time, what they were asking for was in the first security building on, in downtown. They were taking the second floor and turning it into a model for the ledger or what would've become the ledger.
So they wanted to test chairs and test drink beverage machines. And all of that. So we follow the spec, we put the equipment in, the project comes to the end and I'm down at Bomb Stadium one day and our, our project manager calls and says, Hey, there's this IT guy here at at ledger's showroom, and he is taking all of our stuff out.
And he kind of looks like Jesus and I think he probably should get up here pretty fast. So I raced from the university to that space and I climbed the stairs and sure enough, there's a guy in behind the TV just pulling parts out. [00:40:00] And I said, I buddy, I don't know who you are, but you better take your hands off of that stuff.
And he turned around and said, hi, I'm Josh Kyles, I'm the developer of the Ledger and this is all terrible technology. We don't want this stuff in. And from that point forward, it created a bond between Josh and I that uh. We ended up getting on the design team. We sat in Revit for two years, planning the ledger, deciding where speakers would be and what rooms were gonna have, what technology and, uh, yeah, the IT guy that looked like Jesus and I have become pretty good friends out of it.
Um, but that, that project, there's lots of projects that put us on the map. I would say the baseball performance center at BOMB was a big one for us. Um, but, but Ledger's the one ledger's the one that kind of put us in a spot where we didn't think we could fit. Um, it stretched us too. You know, we finished Ledger in 22.
It was a [00:41:00] 86% growth year and 86 percent's too much. You can't stomach 86% growth. Um,
[00:41:07] Cameron Clark: everyone feels it.
[00:41:08] John Musser: Everyone feels it. It created a really scrappy 23 because the one thing that's never happened at this company is whatever pushed us to grow, we've needed to catch up with next year. Mm-hmm. And 23 was a weird year.
That's when we started seeing interest rates playing around. And um, I think our average transaction cost was, was tiny in 23. It was a really scrappy year for us. Um, but Ledger gave us the portfolio that we never had. You know, it started, we started getting our name called for, whether it be Project Peloton or Crystal Bridges or some of the things with the Compton Hotel.
Um, but in each of those we've had a seat at the design table, making sure that. Um, we were getting the right technology in the construction drawings.
[00:41:53] Cameron Clark: So when, when you're at the design table, do you, are you hiring someone who's an architect by trade or someone who is an [00:42:00] electrician by trade, or you are they, are you, you are training them up?
[00:42:03] John Musser: No, it's a same bootstrap mentality. Our first Revit technician was a kid who wanted to be a video game designer in Fort Smith.
[00:42:13] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[00:42:13] John Musser: And we taught him Revit and he took off on Revit. And, uh, then we did, we took some internal resources and turned them into Revit technicians. And, uh, yeah, that's the story of, of custom electronics is that we've used talent that didn't know that they had it and, and brought them to the table and then poured resources into them.
[00:42:35] Nick Beyer: Talk about that. Yeah, I mean, we walk through the office, there's pictures here of guys. I mean, and you can talk through some of those pictures, maybe why they're important to you, but. Talk through, and I don't if you want to use numbers, someone who started here making $10 an hour and now they're making X.
Like just for someone who's listening who doesn't know if they want to go to college or doesn't even know when people [00:43:00] talk about trades, like what's even out there? Yeah, I mean, just kind of talk about that.
[00:43:04] John Musser: Yeah. So when we really started growing in 16 and 17, kind of the playbook for talent was to take everybody else's talent.
And so we would use relationships that we had, try to get technicians from other companies to come join. And what I learned was that if you can take somebody's technician, there's a reason they'll let that technician go. And uh, probably mid 17 we changed our hiring strategy to where if you know how to work, we can teach you technology.
And so I started looking around at landscapers and concrete guys and chicken plant workers. I would be at a gas station and the speed at which a guy would get out of his truck to his, to the gas pump let me know that he was in a hurry, and I would walk over and offer him a job. So right now we're running somewhere mid seventies on technical staff, just over a hundred on total staff.
[00:44:00] And, uh, I think there are three, three employees of custom electronics that had industry experience before they got here. Uh, and I'm one of them. Um, because you can't teach somebody how to work, you can't teach work ethic or grind. Um, and because technology reinvents itself so often, um, what we, what we do is an easy skill to teach,
[00:44:24] Nick Beyer: man.
Talk about the life change. Maybe it's a person who's in this office.
[00:44:28] John Musser: Yeah. I mean, so the office right next to me actually is, is who I would consider to be my right hand man. Uh, his name's Adrian Soto in the early grind. He started in 2015. And he was my apprentice. And you know, back then I would have to make a deal, sell a job, design the job, go install the job, and then sit at my kitchen table at night and make the invoice for it.
And, uh, Adrian was by my side through the whole thing. And, and he, he grew over the [00:45:00] years to become an industry expert. Uh, he's our senior project manager. He's ultimately responsible for about 80% of our staff. His job prior to custom electronics was in a poultry plan. So, you know, fast forward, I think, I think Adrian's first hourly rate was $12.
Um, he's well over six figures now. But we had a moment in a poultry plant in Gentry a couple months ago where we were called on to come look at some system types. And there was a moment where I turned around and I could just see the glow in his face of, of what life change had been at Custom Electronics.
He sees very hardworking folks processing chicken on a production line. Uh, and I think there was a lot of self-reflection in him at that point. And a lot of our senior leadership team, um, is that way. They, they come from, uh. Operating a forklift in a warehouse, or pouring [00:46:00] concrete, or being a landscaper.
Um, and we've, we've created a place for, for people's lives to change.
[00:46:08] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Talk. So talk about your leadership team and then, you know, before we jumped on, you mentioned a lot about values and how that plays in
[00:46:15] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:46:15] Cameron Clark: Yeah. To, to the team here.
[00:46:17] John Musser: Yeah. So we, we established core values in 2017. There's five of them.
I, I have them actually tattooed on my hand as a reminder of, of if we make every decision in those five core values, we'll never make a bad one. So, humility, efficiency, dependability, generosity and excellence. So when it's time to offboard somebody or onboard somebody, if you lead with those five core values, um, you never get 'em wrong.
We found out that they spelled the word hedge at some point, but efficiency's the one that leads, you know, this is a. It's a hard place to work. It's a place where the grind is expected.
[00:46:59] Cameron Clark: You tell people [00:47:00] that on the front end.
[00:47:01] John Musser: We do. Yeah. I don't get a chance to talk to 'em much anymore, but I think the message is even louder when it's not coming from me.
Um, and it's not for everybody. You know, this is probably the most rewarding place to work that I could know of. We're, we're generous to a fault. We take a percentage of top line revenue and give it back to the team every year in the form of Christmas bonuses. Uh, we create opportunity for these folks, but in exchange, we, we expect tussle.
[00:47:29] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:47:29] John Musser: And, and if we always remember that our roots are in construction and, and attack every problem, we've got a saying called Ponte los Pli, and you'll see it on people's t-shirts walking around here. The English translation of Ponte Los PLIs is charge your batteries. But in the Mexican culture. It's something that the mother or father would say to the kid when they wanted them to get outta bed or get their homework done or something like that.
And that sure [00:48:00] effort or, you know, I like to say that I have an obsession with urgency, um, is summed up in those one statement, but that's true in accounting. That's true in hr, that's true in the warehouse. It's not just a, a, a phrase for somebody to pull cable faster, dig a ditch harder.
[00:48:17] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:48:17] John Musser: Um, it's, it's really in our DNA and because of that, it's not for everybody.
[00:48:24] Cameron Clark: What was the cue in 2017? Hey, it's time to, I don't know if you already had the values identified mm-hmm. Or if it was like, Hey, we need to get some, write 'em down. What was,
[00:48:33] John Musser: yeah. I think Victor and Daphne attended a, a Entree Leadership Summit with Dave Ramsey and I think there was a big talk on core values, and it's hard to sum that up into five core values and so.
It was probably a year and a half long process before those were actually put on paper. Um, I think we nailed it. I think that we can take humility to mean lots of [00:49:00] different things. You know, to me it means, um, not thinking less of yourself, but thinking about yourself less. That's probably the greatest example I can give up to these people.
We don't need our salespeople to lead with humility.
[00:49:15] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:49:15] John Musser: We need our human resources department to lead with humility or the guy running parts to the job, but it doesn't mean a lack of confidence.
[00:49:25] Cameron Clark: Yeah,
[00:49:25] John Musser: for sure.
[00:49:26] Cameron Clark: Is it ever too late to identify some values or,
[00:49:31] John Musser: you know, I, I don't think it's ever too late.
I think if you stand on top of those five values, you need to bolt some on over time. I, I think that if, if the way that. You view your core values as a set it and forget it, you kind of lose sight of society. You know, the the reality is, is that society is, is pushing out into the market less and less folks who understand the value of hard work.
[00:49:57] Nick Beyer: Yeah.
[00:49:57] John Musser: And I, I don't don't want to be the old man in the [00:50:00] company that's saying back in my day. Um, but it, it's true. The, the, the value of an honest hard day's work doesn't mean what it meant when I was a kid.
[00:50:10] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[00:50:11] John Musser: And so we've gotta be strategic on who we hire. You know, there's the state and federal government gives a bunch of guidelines on what you're allowed to ask in an interview process.
But if you can find that kid whose dad was a brick mason, um, who, who had a great example of how to work, um, you can take him anywhere you want to take him.
[00:50:32] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
Well, I wanna get up to kind of the now
[00:50:39] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:50:39] Cameron Clark: What the, you, you kinda mentioned employee count over a hundred employees now. That's right. Is that right?
[00:50:43] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:50:44] Cameron Clark: Uh, I mean, gi give us some other metrics, whether it be like, hey, number of jobs y'all do now, or just like how have the size of jobs changed? Just,
[00:50:54] John Musser: yeah.
[00:50:54] Cameron Clark: Like, I mean, y'all are doing a lot.
[00:50:56] John Musser: Yeah. We're, we're moving as many mountains as we can. You know, I think [00:51:00] marketing released some statistics at the end of the year. Just fun stuff to know, like 19,000 hours of overtime worked, or 33,000 gallons of fuel used or whatever data they can get their hand on.
Number of speakers or feet of wire pooled. Um, to really talk scale, we have to talk about subdividing the company, you know, and that's been a, that's been a kind of a cultural drag over the last couple years, is that. We have to acknowledge that whatever substructure was built in place where I knew everybody's name, I did all the interviews, I did all of the annual reviews, you eventually outgrow those, those metrics.
And, you know, there's, there are young men that walk through the warehouse on a daily basis and say hello to me. And I have to get good at using words like Buddy or pal, um, because I've never seen that guy before. And, uh, it's, it's awkward. It's, it's strange for us. But, [00:52:00] you know, the headcount growth is probably the greatest metric that we use.
Uh, the projects are, are growing in size, but I think construction costs are driving that. Yeah. More than anything. Um, our name's getting called for very, very impressive and large projects at this point. And, uh, so it. It helps to grow that headcount, but the problem with the very, very large projects is that construction's taking twice as long as it used to take.
So we talk about designing Ledger in 19, starting construction in 20, and finishing construction in 22. There's a part of this current undertone in construction where that would be a four year project now.
[00:52:42] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:52:43] John Musser: And, uh, uh, you know, there's some, some identity issues happening right now with the speed of which projects are moving.
I, I think that, you know, as the technology guy kind of watching from the outside of the projects, it's clear to me what the [00:53:00] problem is that we can get a project out of the ground quick. We can get it in the dry, but once the piece work. Happens. So your insulators, drywall hangers, vaporers painters, those guys, all their skillset fits on residential as well.
So you can entice them with, you know, 10 cents more square foot in commercial, but you gotta have a lot of capital to move one of these projects along. You know, our average day to pay on a construction payout project's over 70 days right now. And when you're competing with residential single family where you do it on Tuesday and get paid on Friday, the extra 10 cents a foot isn't worth it.
Mm-hmm. So we've gotta work on being able to speed up the middle of the project.
[00:53:46] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[00:53:46] John Musser: Um, where the, where the talent crosses over between residential and commercial easier. So I don't think I answered your question at all, but that was my soapbox.
[00:53:58] Cameron Clark: It
[00:53:58] John Musser: was good.
[00:53:59] Nick Beyer: [00:54:00] Um, yeah, it was really good. Talk through the different parts of the company.
Um. I know we talked a little bit about, uh, residential versus commercial and just the size of that business. Um,
[00:54:13] John Musser: yeah, residential's about 8% of our company now. We've still got a small team doing residential, electrical, um, commercial's, the engine that's driving the thing right now. I would like to have more of the residential work.
I think there's a big push, uh, in 26 to create more opportunity in residential. Uh, we didn't turn our back on it and there's a lot of months where residential kind of floats the ship along. You know, the average day to pay on a residential jobs, three days, average day to pay on a commercial, 70 days. So we need that trickle of revenue, um, in a cash flow company to keep applying.
Design is a big upcoming scope for us right now. We've learned that our knowledge fits particularly with this AI push that's [00:55:00] going on in town. Where we can scale fast on putting somebody in front of a computer and filling them full of institutional knowledge to, to just work on projects that we'll, we'll never design.
I was, I was in the Walmart, our Walmart team utilizes our old office, um, now, and there's probably 10 designers over there working and they're working on a Supercenter in New Jersey or a Sam's Club in Arizona. And these are projects we'll never physically step in. Um, and I, I think one of the big things that's happening right now in technology is that at a retail setting, AI only happens two ways.
It happens with a POS system or a surveillance camera. And so a lot of old technology and a lot of retail sectors where they're wanting that gender based data or height based data or, or average head count walking down an aisle after 4:00 PM and they need modern cameras to do so. So, [00:56:00] um. You know, AI is a complicated story to tell in business.
Uh, I think that it's a, it's a story that's existed forever. If you see the photos of what the banking industry looked like in the 18 hundreds where there's 25 dudes with pen and paper running ledgers, and then calculators replace that, and then typewriters replace the handwriting. And so far, and that's where we're at right now, it seems a bit accelerated.
Um, but we like to think that we're on the right side of ai. You know, that camera and that computer and that POS system's gonna need a cable plugged into it. And, and we'll be ready to be the one doing it.
[00:56:42] Cameron Clark: So,
[00:56:43] Nick Beyer: so, but you won't be running the cable in New Jersey you're designing?
[00:56:46] John Musser: No, we can't scale fast enough Yeah.
To get out there. So there's a lot of really good national companies that can perform the rollout work. We think we can scale fast on the design and survey side from here in [00:57:00] northwest Arkansas. Uh, and again, with that same grit and determination that we take into everything, we're doing that in design.
So we've taken 14 day designs that, uh, you know, Walmart will give you a, a design. They'll say you have 14 days to do it, and they'll have it back in three hours. And that same Ponte Las Pless part of Custom Electronics is working really well on the design side.
[00:57:25] Nick Beyer: And then, I mean, is, is all of your work here in northwest Arkansas?
Is any of it out of the state or,
[00:57:31] John Musser: yeah, we've been drug out of the state, uh, willingly drug, but still drug out of the state a lot over the last couple of years we've had. Uh, grocery chain work in Mississippi and Louisiana. We've been in Memphis, Tennessee, some, uh, I think there's a team in Denver today that's working a lot in Oklahoma.
So, no, we, we used to say that all of it happened in these four counties, but if you, if you've got great [00:58:00] dog food again, people want it in other states and we've got some licensing stuff to work through to be able to roll that out fast. You know, our, because we deal in alarms and access control and cameras, we've gotta make it through state police.
Mm-hmm. Background checks and fingerprints on everybody. And every state has a different approach to what those license look like. And so our ability to scale and get a truck in New Jersey to pull cable just isn't there. Um, but we're, we're continuing to try to spread our wings. I think the hope is that we stay with a single geographic location.
Um, just, just like Sam said, we're right dead smack in the middle of this country, and so we should be able to control the Midwest, um, from here.
[00:58:48] Cameron Clark: Yeah. Talk more about the future.
[00:58:49] John Musser: Yeah.
[00:58:50] Cameron Clark: So we like what, so it, you're saying, yeah. Keep the headquarters here. Is like more national growth part of the, like the hey, the [00:59:00] vision goals for the future, or is it just, let's just get better at the new technology that's coming out?
Or do we want to double our people size? What, what, what's the vision for the growth?
[00:59:09] John Musser: Yeah. I, I think growth has kinda always done its thing. You know, we've, we've averaged 34% since 2020.
[00:59:17] Cameron Clark: Holy cow.
[00:59:18] John Musser: Um, we're 10 x what we were when I started in 2014. Um, we think we're involved in all the cool stuff that's happening in northwest Arkansas, but we still have less than 1% of the market share.
So there, there's still a ton of growth to be had in northwest Arkansas.
[00:59:37] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[00:59:38] John Musser: You know, a lot of our competition, particularly on the residential side is, uh, you know, Larry's cousin that has a ladder can put the technology in your house too, and he's gonna be cheaper than we are.
[00:59:50] Nick Beyer: Mm-hmm.
[00:59:50] John Musser: Larry's cousin might not be available on Saturday afternoon when you have a wine event at your house and you need your audio to work.
So we're constantly battling [01:00:00] what we call the trunk slammer side of the residential market. And then we have a lot of National Com competition in northwest Arkansas. You know, these are billion dollar companies with resources we don't have. Um, we've done a good job keeping them at bay with our current clientele.
Yep. And. I think one of the things that I haven't touched on is we didn't have a sales department until 2023. One, 100% of the sales was either Victor or myself. Wow. Um, and we kind of thought naively that you had to have our industry knowledge to be able to sell something to somebody. And the reality is, is that you can talk technology to an end user better than I can.
'cause I tend to start to tech speak, you know, uh, you want to ask me what time it is, and I want to tell you how the clock's made.
[01:00:54] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:00:54] John Musser: And, uh, we added a sales department. 23. We've had some great success. [01:01:00] Sales employees are a different breed. You know, you can't lead folks in sales the same way you can lead technicians.
[01:01:06] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:01:07] John Musser: Um, and that's been tough to learn, but we're going after different verticals. We've never been in, I think the, the K 12 market is something we've historically not played in. As AI continues to happen in cameras, we feel like we have a seat at the table to help with shooter events or lockdown events, weather events.
Um, I think the Woodland Junior High was a project we were the on the design team for Modus came to us and said, Hey, we Fayetteville's gonna have some very specific technology that they need in this school and we need to, to hire your firm to sit on the design team that rolls into construction. So we we're under contract to, to provide all of the technology for that as well.
And now I think we're gonna actually have the opportunity to do Remy now that we made it past the city [01:02:00] council, which owned Northwest Arkansas for the last six months.
[01:02:04] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:02:04] John Musser: Um, I think if you would've asked my wife. On what was the most important thing that happened this week? It would not have been business or this podcast.
It would've been that City hall meeting on Tuesday night.
[01:02:16] Cameron Clark: They were able to build a school.
[01:02:18] John Musser: Yeah.
[01:02:18] Cameron Clark: Uh,
[01:02:19] John Musser: yeah.
[01:02:19] Cameron Clark: Well, both of those are gonna be beautiful projects. I mean, that's, yeah. That's, that's,
[01:02:23] John Musser: yeah. And they're projects my kids will go to.
[01:02:25] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:02:25] John Musser: So that's the, that, I think that's the, the real secret to sitting in front of a, a, uh, school superintendent or their technology guy is to say, Hey, I'm gonna, I dropped my kids off at Happy Hollow Elementary this morning in Fayetteville.
I'm pretty concerned with what the, um, what the safety's like in these schools. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, in that particular Woodland job, we had the relationship with the architect, which got us to the school. We had the relationship with the general contractor and the electrical contractor, and that's kind of the story of how all [01:03:00] of the projects happen.
It's just a. It's a relationship.
[01:03:04] Nick Beyer: So you talked through the national competition, um, here.
[01:03:08] John Musser: Yeah.
[01:03:09] Nick Beyer: And I know we briefly talked outside. Doesn't seem like the, there, there, the regional competition's more one-off. Right. Um, and I asked you why and you said, well, private equity is just kind of gobbled up our industry.
Right. And so, I mean, I think it would be safe to assume y'all have had opportunities or will have opportunities to be acquired. So why, why haven't you done that?
[01:03:34] John Musser: Yeah. Uh, that's a very, both personal and multi factional conversation. They do come in waves. If I stopped and checked my email right now, there's probably 10 emails asking to have a conversation.
We became the flavor of the week shortly after the HVAC industry kind of ran through its thing, but. I [01:04:00] can't speak for the competition and the decisions that they made. What I can say is that I hold the culture of this company in my hands every day. It's a strange company. You guys saw the banners hanging in the warehouses.
We, we kind of own who we are and you can't replicate that. Um,
[01:04:18] Cameron Clark: there's a realness to it, is what it feels like.
[01:04:20] John Musser: Yeah.
[01:04:20] Cameron Clark: As we're walking through.
[01:04:21] John Musser: I hope so. I, I, I think, you know, I, I do my best when I'm underestimated. In fact, I kind of lean into being underestimated. It's my goal, uh, it's part of my aesthetics.
You know, I, I don't look like the CEO of a company this size. Uh, I am, I'm always thrilled to hear things like there's no chance that that residential company's gonna be able to do the ledger. Um, you know, one fun story. In 22, we had finally grown enough to need to add a, an extra accounting person. And we told the accounting folks, Hey, go [01:05:00] ahead, do the first round interviews and then I'll do the final interviews.
So I generally aesthetically don't match my role at Custom Electronics. You know, usually I have a caller on today 'cause my wife told me I needed a caller on today, but it's normally a Dodger's hat and a t-shirt and some work boots. And that's what I do every day. So this sweet lady comes in, she's probably 55 years old.
I'm the only person in the office that day. And she says, I'm here for an interview with John. And I said, well, I'm John, it's nice to meet you. And she looks me up and down and says probably the other John. And, uh, and, and the joy that it brought me in that moment, I, I love, I love being underestimated. You know, I, right now the, the design work that we're doing is all against national competitors and they're freaking out wondering what this ragtag bunch out of Lowell, Arkansas is up to.
I, and that probably stems from, [01:06:00] you know, as a child, we moved so much from city to city to city that I never really was concerned with what the other kids thought about me, because in six months I wasn't gonna see 'em anyways. And, uh, yeah, I, I really love being underestimated in business. I find ways to be underestimated because it creates a hunger and a, and a, uh, competitiveness in me that works out really well.
[01:06:25] Cameron Clark: Well, it's, it shows, I mean, kind of back to us just walking through the office here. Okay. You know, an hour ago, whenever that was, the, we've, I think this is our 32nd episode maybe. Yes. So we've walked through quite a few offices now. This place is immaculate. Yeah. I mean, it is the cl probably the cleanest place.
We've, we've, we've walked through and just down to how things are placed on the shelf in the warehouse. I mean, the, the way the spacing is between the, the lettering, I mean, it was. I mean, I think the hard part outside looking in at what, what y'all do is you ha [01:07:00] you have to, it has to be right, right? If, if you, if you turn the system on, it doesn't work.
We're gonna, I mean, even if it's one, oh, we have, we forgot one wire or whenever it's like people are like, I'm not using you again. That's like, that's what I would, that's my, what I'm my response would be. But like, and you can tell that y'all live that. Like you, if, if I came in here as a, you know, a customer, I'd be like, man, this is, this is it.
[01:07:22] John Musser: Yeah. You know, first of all, I'm, I try my hardest to have my hands in everything that they're doing and what the signage looks like and how clean the trucks are. And before you guys got here, I was walking the yard looking at trucks to make sure that their, their ladders on top were in the right order and that the, the lettering was there and nothing was peeling.
And when you call custom electronics, from the moment you get Ashley at the front counter. Until the moment you get your invoice, every part of it paints a picture of what custom electronics is. I, I try to tell the sales team all the time that if you get [01:08:00] a, if you get a lead that comes through the phone and that lead gets handed to you, the speed at which you reply to that lead is gonna set the tone for what they think about custom electronics and how great your truck looks when you arrive there.
If you have good looking company swag on, at that point, the installers should already have the plate set for them by everybody else up until that point. And the building obviously, um, fits that way. I've always lived by the, your inbox looks about as clean as your desktop looks and, uh, I'm, I'm kind of known for not wanting stuff sitting around or for things to be a certain way, but it, there's a level of PR to it as well.
We, we need our warehouse to be as organized as our rack will be in your house full of equipment.
[01:08:48] Cameron Clark: Yeah. So, you know, getting towards the end here, but I want people to understand when, when you're going into a house. Sure. I mean, these homes have gotten a lot more [01:09:00] luxurious. I'm sure that a man on your end has gotten gotten higher of like far as the, what's the standard, uh, the standard is designed, I feel like in northwest Arkansas has gotten higher, like the way things are built, but like on, on your end, what are you saying when you're walking into a residential home?
[01:09:15] John Musser: Yeah. You know, interest rates have affected how much of our technology can fit in a house right now. But we kinda led in the early years with complexity and you need this home theater and it needs to do 25 different things. And what we've kind of refined over the years is that we're trying to sell convenience more than anything.
So, you know, I've got a, a 10-year-old that plays baseball and he has practice and it ends at nine 30. And when I get home, my options are. Make sure the garage door's closed, then go draw all the shades, then adjust the thermostat, then lock the door, then change the lights, then turn off the music, or push a button that says bedtime.
[01:09:59] Cameron Clark: [01:10:00] Hmm.
[01:10:00] John Musser: And, uh, you know, if you're, it's, it's not a necessity, but once you live with it, it's hard to not live with it.
[01:10:07] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:10:07] John Musser: You know, we were in, um, seaside a couple months ago and I remember laying down in bed, the bathroom light was still on in this house we had rented. And I went to grab my phone and I was like, oh God, I gotta get up and turn this light off.
And I'll tell you, 1998, John would've punched me in the face for thinking the way that I thought in that moment. But it, it really is when you've got a family that's moving as fast as our family is moving, or a lot of our clients, or you have two executives in a home that are just kind of running past each other all the time.
Anything you can do to simplify the home with as complex of technology as possible. Um, it's really cool to live in a house that's fully integrated, you know, at the moment where you decide, here we're gonna leave and you want to hit a button that says adios [01:11:00] and make sure that whatever your kids left on, or the music's there or the thermostats need to be adjusted.
It just creates simplicity through very, very complex systems.
[01:11:11] Nick Beyer: Can you talk about, and we can cut this off if you want to, but like, can you talk about what an average order value for something? Like if someone's listening, they're like, man, that sounds like super fancy, and maybe they just have never heard the numbers before.
Maybe it's not as expensive as they think it is. Or, obviously everything's custom, so if you have the shades and blah, blah, blah, but like, what's an average house?
[01:11:33] John Musser: Yes.
[01:11:34] Nick Beyer: You know, full package. Yeah. Just to, yeah,
[01:11:36] John Musser: sure.
[01:11:37] Nick Beyer: Is
[01:11:37] John Musser: that a we, we, we have packages for the builders, so, uh, take a house in scissor, tail subdivision, you know that that house comes with.
Four zones of audio. Um, master bath is the new hottest topic of audio. Something that we didn't see coming where homeowners are saying, Hey, we bought this house and it had speakers in the master [01:12:00] bedroom, but not in the master bathroom. And I don't hang out in the bedroom.
[01:12:04] Cameron Clark: Jamming in the shower.
[01:12:04] John Musser: You jamming in the shower?
Yeah. Yeah. So that the package that we're putting forth to these builders has a pretty good wifi package. Four zones of audio, a home alarm, a video doorbell, and maybe one or two smart light switches to control the outside lights. And the builders are paying 12, 13, 14,000 for that. Some folks will move into the house, love the system, and that's the end of the road.
Um, the majority of them will buy the home, say, Hey, we've got four TVs we'd like to have you hang, and will you make my kids' Xbox work without cables everywhere? And from that point, you know, the average ticket. Five, $6,000 goes up to seven, eight, $900,000 in a home. If you want to get fully automated in a really large home.
We don't see very much of those, uh, particularly this time of year or in this current economic [01:13:00] season. Mm-hmm. Um, but it's not unheard of for somebody to say, Hey, I've, I've got 80 grand. Can that get me pathway lighting to and from my, from my garage to my bedroom, integrate my thermostats, maybe a couple door locks, and I'd like three cameras on the outside of the house.
[01:13:18] Nick Beyer: And those are like nice cameras. Like
[01:13:20] John Musser: yeah, it's the best of the best, you know.
[01:13:22] Nick Beyer: Okay. And do y'all use different cameras in commercial than you do in residential?
[01:13:26] John Musser: We do, yeah. Okay. So the, the analytics that are coming out of cameras right now, you know, when I first got into the trade, I would sell you cameras because a bad guy was gonna do something at some point.
You know, we called them security cameras. Um, and that's just not what they are anymore. You know, we're using analytics on our residential cameras to send you a message when there's a package sitting on the porch. So the analytics can say, I know that's a cardboard box, and send you a text message that there's a box sitting there.
Um, it could tell the [01:14:00] difference between human and, uh, animal. You could tell the color of a vehicle. So we've, we've got one customer that says, Hey, my landscaper drives a red truck. I would like to know anytime a red truck comes in my driveway. Um, and then we push the notification to them for that. The analytics in the commercial side need to be far more robust, so we're trying to provide, you know, what's the temperature of this piece of equipment in a poultry facility is running at, or how many people walk through the front door of this store and what's their average height?
Or are they male or female?
[01:14:36] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[01:14:36] John Musser: Um, so the, the analytics that are getting pushed outta this camera are pretty incredible. Now we're getting into visual weapon detection, whereas the camera can say, that's a brandish weapon. I know it's a brandish weapon. And when I see that, I'm going to send a notification to the school resource officer and I'm going to lock down all of these doors, um, and move forward.
So the analytics on [01:15:00] the camera have really taken them from being a, a investigative tool after something happens to being a preventative tool, um, in most settings.
[01:15:10] Nick Beyer: And like, what's a camera like that cost the, the hardware not, you know, not
[01:15:14] John Musser: sure. Sure.
[01:15:15] Nick Beyer: Yeah,
[01:15:15] John Musser: sure. Uh, in the warehouse right now, there's cameras that do the analytics that cost $500.
There's cameras in the warehouse right now that are thermal and can see 2000 feet, and those are $30,000. Um,
[01:15:30] Nick Beyer: and where would those be? Like in a Walmart parking lot or what? Like where would
[01:15:33] John Musser: something Yeah, if you're trying to protect the perimeter around the runways at an airport. Um, if, if you're in a correctional facility, um, if, if you've got the means and you've got a big piece of property and you just want to know, there's no humans on it.
The human detection part of the thermal cameras is there. You know, when our commercial cameras are called a lon, it's a Motorola product, and [01:16:00] the bowl of Reynolds, Razorback Stadium used to have close to 200 PTZ cameras. So that means pan tilt zoom, there's a joystick, and, uh, underneath the field there's a command center where the security folks are sitting.
[01:16:13] Nick Beyer: Hmm.
[01:16:14] John Musser: With a fight broke out in the student section, the person from UAPD would zoom in and, and then dispatch the people to go do it. But when he zoomed in, he was losing the rest of what was happening. There are now four cameras doing the work of all of those cameras. Wow. Um, it's just what technology has been able to do.
Um, just in the last two years with cameras is, is pretty amazing.
[01:16:41] Cameron Clark: That's crazy. Yeah. So, kind of back to, you know, the headquarters is here in Lowell.
Mm-hmm.
[01:16:49] Cameron Clark: The business is here in northwest Arkansas. What you're saying is, Hey, that's what we see for the future. Maybe we keep growing outside, but like heartbeat's here.
This is so we ask all of our [01:17:00] guests, but, so if you're sitting down with someone who wants to build a business in northwest Arkansas, what do you tell them? Why build a business in northwest Arkansas?
[01:17:09] John Musser: Yeah. You know. For me, this still very much has a small town feel. You know, you're always just one connection away from every deal.
You and I talked about it earlier, my architect on my home is your architect on your project, and we had never met be met before that. So it seems like in the business community, we still have that Mayberry vibe of, you might not know everybody involved in the deal, but you can get to them pretty quick.
Mm. And in a, in a market that's growing the way ours is, you know, we, if you put 3% inflation on top of 7.5% growth, if we're not doing 10 and a half percent growth, were shrinking in size and the next custom electronics is coming after us at that point.
[01:17:55] Cameron Clark: Mm-hmm.
[01:17:55] John Musser: Um, and there's so much talent getting pushed out of the high schools right [01:18:00] now.
The technology from either the coding side or the, Hey, I just grew up with a laptop and I really like this thing that. The next victor in Daphne is possible. And if we don't keep racing up the ladder, they're gonna catch us and surpass us.
[01:18:15] Cameron Clark: Hmm.
[01:18:16] John Musser: So what I, the, the part about northwest Arkansas that I enjoy the most is that we're still personal enough to where people appreciate what you're doing.
You know, I'll, I'll tell you one funny story. The week that COVID started, I got a call from Jordan Ru, and if you've ever gotten a call from Jordan, you know, you, you gotta kinda have a flow chart for what he's trying to tell you. 'cause he is all over the place. And he called and he said, Hey. What are you doing?
And I said, no, I'm, I'm at the office. What do you need, buddy? I got an emergency. I said, okay, how can I help you? I'll call you back. And then he didn't call me back. And then two hours later I called him and was like, Hey, what's the emergency? What do you need? [01:19:00] Oh, I don't, oh yeah. Can you come to Lowell or can you come to Johnson?
I need wifi. I said, well you, you got pretty good wifi. And he said, no, we're shutting down the dining room and we're gonna cut a hole in this wall and we're gonna create a drive-through. 'cause I think that drive-throughs are gonna be a necessity with this sickness that's going around. And, you know, our ability to lean on that personal relationship with him and him know that if he had a need, we were gonna come running
[01:19:27] Cameron Clark: and figure
[01:19:28] John Musser: it out.
And that afternoon we had wifi stood up in the parking lot and he had created a traffic route for people to come through and get their food. And
[01:19:36] Cameron Clark: Wow.
[01:19:38] John Musser: There's a downside to this, which is, if we're not great at what we do, I don't wanna be seen at my kids' baseball game. Mm-hmm. You know? You're only as good as what that person perceives your company to be.
And so in this small town vibe where you see customers at every restaurant or, um, or your kids go to school with a [01:20:00] customer, you gotta really stay on top of your game. You know? It, it'd be lonely to be the guy that was ducking and hiding his face because, you know, his project didn't go really well.
[01:20:10] Cameron Clark: Yeah.
[01:20:10] John Musser: Um,
[01:20:11] Cameron Clark: yeah. So, well, and that, um, yeah, keeping the good re reputation, I mean, I think there's a different definition for everybody here, but how, how do you find, define success, um, for you, for the company? How do you define success?
[01:20:27] John Musser: Yeah. You know, that's a, I think it changes its definition as we get older. You know, I, uh, one of my favorite stories to tell is that was with a plumber who said, Hey, you know what Ms.
Daphne told me? She's, she said that success meant. She had a room in her house for the washing machine. She had never lived in a house that had a laundry room. And that's what true success meant. And I think that as you're coming up in business, there's a lot of really superficial things that success means.
You know, I, [01:21:00] Hey, I can go to the grocery store and buy the food I want without looking at the price, or I'm not making financial decisions. But those things fade pretty fast. I think that moment in that poultry plant where I saw Adrian beaming because he remembered working in the poultry plant or the amount of life change we've been able to create with the organization, if I get to the end of, of this journey and I have a list of folks whose lives were better internally because of it, then I, I think that that's what I'll consider success.
Hmm.
[01:21:35] Nick Beyer: So good. Um, well, one of the things we do at the end of every, every episode is we try to capture and condense what we learn from you today and what we think our, our listeners are gonna learn. Um, whether you're growing a business, you own a business, you're starting a business, you want to be a business owner one day, um, these are all super applicable to you.
Uh, execution I think is the first one. And like I said, we've interviewed 32 people now [01:22:00] and everybody's got sales, marketing and then some are just pure, like, we are gonna execute and you captured it Well, think of the PBS guy saying the same thing when they're walking down a grocery aisle and they see a client, they see a customer, they want that customer to view them as an excellent service provider.
And I think you, you captured that really well. Um, you just want to have the best product or service, the dog food saying captured it really well. And so I think it doesn't matter if you can sell or. You can market if you can't deliver an excellent product. And so I think that's a big thing I learned. Big thing we learned and and our listeners are gonna learn.
Um, I think the second thing, and it, and it has gotten lost over time is just this idea of hard work. Um, and that those words mean different things to different people. But I think the kind of saying that captured it well that I'll take out of this is you don't know the work that goes into anything is possible.
Mm-hmm. [01:23:00] Right? Like anything's possible. You have no idea how much work went into that. You have no idea how much work went into that project when you're driving by it. And we we're driving by a huge building and we're like, man, there's a lot of technology. You have no clue how much, how many overtime, hours went into that, how many late nights went into that?
So I think that's really special. And it doesn't matter what business you're in. Um. If you want to grow and you want to do things excellently like we just talked about, it's gonna require a lot of hard work. So love that. And then I think the last piece that's very unique to, to this business you John, and just being here today is the culture.
And, uh, I that that'll be the, probably the biggest personal takeaway for me. I look at some of these pictures on the wall of guys whose life looks completely different than when they started here. And I think that is what makes Northwest Arkansas special. That is the reason why we're doing this [01:24:00] podcast.
And I mean, it's just amazing, like people's lives being changed through businesses and Cameron and I believe that business in northwest Arkansas is the greatest culture driver. If we have a lot of healthy businesses, a lot of healthy CEOs, a lot of healthy business owners. Shepherding people in northwest Arkansas, we're gonna have a thriving economy.
We're gonna have a thriving place to live. And so you get to do that. You have a hundred over a hundred people that you get to do that with. And so thank you for doing that. Uh, it's, it was just really awesome to be here today, so thanks for your time, John.
[01:24:33] John Musser: Yeah. Thanks for hanging.
[01:24:35] Cameron Clark: Yeah. People want to get in touch with custom electronics or you, what's the, what's the best way?
[01:24:40] John Musser: Yeah, I think the website's probably the best option. Mm-hmm. Um, there's LinkedIn, but custom electronics.com. All stop by, um, follow a truck where they're going. Yeah. Um, yeah. Whatever it takes to get a hold of us.
[01:24:54] Cameron Clark: Well, thanks John.
[01:24:55] John Musser: Thanks, John. Thank you guys.
[01:24:57] Nick Beyer: Thank you for listening to this episode of NWA Founders, where we [01:25:00] sit down with founders, owners
[01:25:01] Cameron Clark: and builders driving growth here in northwest Arkansas.
For recommendations are to connect with us, reach out at nwa, founders@gmail.com. Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, then please consider leaving a rating, a review, and sending it to someone who you think would benefit from it. We'll see you in the next episode.