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My name is Jeff, and I'd like to welcome you on a journey of reflection and insight into the tolls and triumphs of a career in automotive repair.
After more than 20 years of skinned knuckles and tool debt, I want to share my perspective and hear other people's thoughts about our industry.
So pour yourself a strong coffee or grab a cold Canadian beer and get ready for some great conversation.
Alan Placer [00:00:07]:
We used to get a lot of calls from customers saying they want to make their Power Wheels faster because we also did repairs for Mattel there. And after a while, I just said, all right, there's this need for it. I'm going to figure out a way to, to answer the service. So I started working with some of the RC car manufacturers on motors. That was the first thing everybody just thinks is, hey, let me put bigger motors in.
Jeff Compton [00:00:32]:
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here with Alan Placer of M&L— ML Tools. They make, uh, hop-up parts, speed parts for, for power wheels. So it's kind of a, a different direction than where we normally go here, but we, we kind of thought this would be neat because, you know, a lot of us kind of came up working with, you know, at, you know, an uncle or a brother or father's knee working on a car or, you know, a go-kart back in the day or something like this. And this is just kind of the next inception of that. So, you know, You know, Alan, thanks for joining us today, man.
Alan Placer [00:01:05]:
Hey, thanks for having me. You know, there's no normal direction that leads to what we do. It's such a unique, uh, niche that we've created in the, the mechanical world.
Jeff Compton [00:01:15]:
Uh-huh. Now you got some parts in front of you there. That's— I'm— is that a gearbox? I'm gonna assume.
Alan Placer [00:01:21]:
Yeah, I got a variety of different things. I got two different gearboxes here that we manufacture. Um, you know, the little kid Power Wheel ride-on cars Um, our goal is to make them faster, more durable, more runtime, and look cooler, you know, just like everybody wants to do with their real cars, right? Um, yeah, so, uh, you know, what we, we've learned is, you know, just like a real car, if you just increase the voltage on a Power Wheels, you smoke the motors, you burn the gears up. Yeah, you know, other things can't handle it. So over the 16 years we've been doing this, we've been you know, in coming up with products that, uh, that solve for the need for more power that we all have.
Jeff Compton [00:02:04]:
What's the— what's the first thing that people— I assume it's probably speed. Is that the first thing they go for? Is it just wanted to go faster?
Alan Placer [00:02:10]:
Yeah, absolutely. Uh, when ride-on cars come into the country, they have a 5 mile— 5 mile an hour limit, uh, by all the toy government associations that control our world. So, uh, a lot of times kids get bored with that pretty quickly. And, um, uh, you know, nothing worse than spending— nowadays you can spend over easily over $1,000 on a ride-on, and then after, you know, a few weeks, the kid just sets it aside.
Jeff Compton [00:02:37]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:02:38]:
So this enables them to, uh, to do more. Usually voltage is the first place people go. They just think, hey, add more volts and I'll get more out of the car. And, uh, not necessarily the case with them.
Jeff Compton [00:02:51]:
It gets hard on the batteries, like you said. It gets hard on the motors. Um, what kind of— what's your background? Did you start out always as kind of— were you any kind of technician? I don't mean— how do I say that the right way? Any kind of technician? Do you have a technical background, I assume?
Alan Placer [00:03:06]:
Obviously no, not at all, actually. I spent my first 20 years as an EMT firefighter, uh, whatever the case. I was at World Trade Centers, uh, ended my career there.
Jeff Compton [00:03:19]:
Um, wow.
Alan Placer [00:03:20]:
Grew up though with my dad, uh, owned gas stations and then eventually opened a hobby store. So, uh, after 9/11, I went to work in my family's hobby store full-time. I was into radio control cars.
Jeff Compton [00:03:33]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:03:34]:
Always another popular, you know, thing to tweak and tune on. Yeah. And we used to get a lot of calls from customers saying they want to make their Power Wheels faster because we also did repairs for Mattel there, right? Um, and after a while, I just said, all right, there's this need for it. I'm going to figure out a way to, to answer the service. Um, so I started working with some of the RC car manufacturers on motors. That was the first thing everybody just thinks is, hey, let me put bigger motors in. Yeah. So, you know, we have a couple different motors now that we make, um, different sizes, power levels.
Alan Placer [00:04:11]:
Uh, and then once we started with motors, they would say, hey, you know, they call me back, be like, I stripped out the gears. So we worked with manufacturers that make hardened steel gears. We don't have clutches on these like a real car. Yeah, um, so we came up with hardened steel gears to replace the weakest gears in the gearbox. This one's got it in there. And, uh, very cool. Yeah, and that way we got more strength out of it. And, uh, I've just kept developing them.
Alan Placer [00:04:37]:
And, you know, like I said, I don't have a technical background other than that I've always been a tinkerer, right? Um, but I'm really good at finding people that can find the solution. Even if I had a technical background Like, if I had the equipment to manufacture a motor, that's not the same equipment that you hob a gear with, right? Uh, you know, so totally different stuff. And then, you know, we get into electronics on the cars and circuit boards and all. Um, so I, I just seek out manufacturers that can make the parts that we need to, you know, fit to our specs. And I have to do all the R&D in-house, you know, get— a lot of people think that these Power Wheels are all the same under the hood. Um, but they're as uniquely different as a Toyota versus a Chevy, and even each different model of Chevy.
Jeff Compton [00:05:23]:
And you, you touched on something really interesting that I think we relate to, is you, you said, well, you have to go and find people, you know, that can, that can fill this niche for this particular part and this particular upgrade. And that's exactly what shop owners really have to face every day, right, is getting a team together of people with the different strengths that they need in order to turn out the product. Now, you know, we're not selling new cars, but it's— the repair is the that you're selling, right? So your team's ability to, to get through a diag or work on an EV versus working on a gas system or, you know, working on a transmission, it's all part and parcel of being that one, you know, the best customer choice of being able to— so it's tough to find people for sure. But I think that's pretty, pretty freaking cool. Now what's some of the, the challenges when you're first starting out? What was it?
Alan Placer [00:06:17]:
When I first started out, I had $200 to my name, so that was a big challenge. Uh, I've never taken out a loan on the business, um, and it was— there was so many things that people needed in the beginning, uh, that, uh, it was just picking and choosing and, you know, waiting to save up enough money to develop the next thing, um, and then getting people to believe in me. You know, when you call up a manufacturer and you say, hey, can you make me, you know, a steel gear for a Power Wheels ride-on car? They literally laugh at you. Like, no, that's not something we want to get involved in. Um, and even today, uh, it, it takes, uh, some effort, you know. Sometimes I gotta, you know, blurt numbers out to them. Oh, you know, we're gonna buy 5,000 a year of this gear. Now all of a sudden they'll take you seriously.
Alan Placer [00:07:04]:
Yeah, but any starting entrepreneur, you know, even you know, a small garage, you know, when you're a one, a one or two bay garage and you're trying to get some clout, it's, it's tough.
Jeff Compton [00:07:16]:
Yeah, and it's very much like we, you know, we're very lucky in my industry in the sense that like everything comes on, on something with wheels on it, right? But with you guys, it's trying to educate the customer, like, that's trying— you're trying to look for manufacturers exactly how big the market is. 'Cause they might have always thought about making a gear for a piece of ag equipment, right? Agricultural or something like that. You know, traditional lawn care, something like that. And all of a sudden you say like a Power Wheel and they go, "What?" It's the same as, it's the same as me. I don't have one. I mean, I think it's fascinating what it does, but it's, that must be a riddle to unsolve for some people to show them exactly how many are out there and how many are still, because from what I can remember from the Power Wheels is like some of them would last a really long time.
Alan Placer [00:08:02]:
Yeah, the, the original Power Wheels, you know, they're plastic. They're solid plastic. Some of the new ones now have metal frames, but other than that, I mean, these things are never going to rust away. So the parts we sell— people are putting in Power Wheels from the 1980s.
Jeff Compton [00:08:18]:
Wow.
Alan Placer [00:08:18]:
You know, they'll— they will run forever, uh, which is a bonus for us. And Power Wheels, they generally make about a million vehicles a year. So I mean, blows away the auto industry. Yeah, um, the, the biggest trick is people don't necessarily know that it's even a thing that they can modify them, you know. It's a lot of awareness that we've had to bring about.
Jeff Compton [00:08:41]:
That's really cool. And it's— I know, like, we talked to all the— a lot of the automotive instructors, right? And they'll talk about these young kids that you want to get that are going to be interested in our industry, right? And they all say, oh, those guys with the RC cars, right? They're going to be really cool because That's what an EV essentially is, is just an oversized Power Wheels or an oversized, you know, uh, RC car, except that you're actually turning the steering wheel. But, and in a Tesla, you don't even have to turn the steering wheel, it does it for you. But do you— does that— do you fall in line with that idea that the kids that are really strong in that are going to transition to this very easily?
Alan Placer [00:09:20]:
Yeah, so I mean, I race RC cars semi-professionally as a, as a hobby. So that's a whole nother fun part. But that's given me a lot of the knowledge for the RC— for the Power Wheels. They definitely resemble an RC car in mechanics and electrical a lot more than a real car. Mm-hmm. But what we've found since we've been doing this for 16 years, and we have so many modified Power Wheels out there, as you guys know, if there's enough people out there modifying them, eventually races start.
Jeff Compton [00:09:50]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:09:50]:
And Power Wheel drag racing has become a national— huge trend, uh, at NHRA, IHRA drag strips. And, you know, sometimes they're just set up in, you know, neighborhood streets, but like sanctioned drag racing exists for Power Wheels. And we're finding it's so inexpensive to get a kid into a Power Wheels race. The, the kids and dads are working on the cars together, and we're talking about starting as young as 3 years old with these. They're doing zero— they run the 60-foot line at the drag strip And they're hitting up to 40 miles an hour now in, in 60 feet. So, um, it's moving, it's moving. Um, and what we find is the kids go from there up to either quarter midgets or junior dragsters. Yeah, you know, we used— those used to be the entry level, but entry level for those cars, even for a dad, requires thousands of dollars.
Alan Placer [00:10:46]:
Yeah, a trailer to haul them in, a lot more equipment. Whereas the Power Wheels, you can fit in the back of a Toyota Camry if you needed to, tie it down with the trunk and go to a drag strip and race.
Jeff Compton [00:10:57]:
And we know everybody, like, racers are a special breed in the sense that, like, to them, they just come home from the day job and then they clock in and work on the race car every night, right? Or— and, and, you know, it's part of a— oh, a sickness, I guess. And it was— it never really grabbed me. Like, I enjoyed watching it, but I was like, as soon as somebody had to say, wait a minute, you're gonna work on it every night? Too, and then you're gonna make hardly any money. Like, it would just— I'd rather fish. But it's, it's neat, like you said, because they can come in and, you know, a used Power Wheel or a handed-down Power Wheel and some hop-up parts, they can find somebody to, you know, enter into some competitions with. And then if they get bit by the speed bug, well, yeah, then it's junior dragsters and go-karts and, you know, all this fun stuff until they get old enough to get a driver's license and really start to race and, you know, tear. But That's really, really, really neat. I never— and see, I, I've never seen it.
Jeff Compton [00:11:53]:
It's not something— there was a company called Grind Hard Plumbing Company that I remember popped up on Instagram, but they weren't, they weren't modifying the electrics. They were swapping in complete other powertrains, right? Like, it was only a Power Wheels in the sense that it looked like Barbie's old Jeep.
Alan Placer [00:12:07]:
Yeah, they're basically taking, uh, go-kart chassis and putting a Power Wheel body on it just to make it look like a Power Wheel. Really cool what they do. That's more for, you know, the adult level stuff.
Jeff Compton [00:12:19]:
Uh-huh.
Alan Placer [00:12:19]:
You know, we're actually modifying your existing Power Wheels, which, like you said, you can get them for free on the side of the road all the time. Like, a top-level dragster doesn't cost $1,000 to build for the racers. And there's other forms of racing too. Um, actually, the most popular thing and, and least heard about, uh, is smash-up derbies. Um, they do them at, like, county fairs or, you know, the good old-fashioned stock car tracks that hold sma— you know, big car smash-up derbies. And our favorite way of seeing them do that is, um, put a balloon on all four sides of the car and last kid with the balloon wins, right? Because these cars, you know, when they're only going 5 miles an hour, you could smash them into each other all day long. They don't break, right?
Jeff Compton [00:13:01]:
That's pretty neat. I— and again, I would have never— what's available— how do I say that? How much do they get into before they start to drink break the, um, the suspension in them?
Alan Placer [00:13:15]:
You know, your basic Power Wheels doesn't have a suspension. Okay, so, uh, yeah, you don't even run into suspension issues. Some of the newer ones, they just basically have springs. Um, they look like shocks, but there's nothing on the inside of the tube. So, right, um, yeah, the suspensions are pretty— steering linkages get broken. Like, here's an upgraded, um, okay, uh, steering crossbar that we have for them, and we make upgraded linkages, more durability. And that's even for backyard play. Sometimes we do that, and sometimes it's just because the car has been discontinued by Power Wheels or the other brands.
Alan Placer [00:13:50]:
So look, if they made a million of them and the car is discontinued, we'll make the parts for it, right? Keep it going.
Jeff Compton [00:13:56]:
So what's kind of like when somebody comes to you the first time, what's the first thing that they want, like, as a goal? Like, what do you— when you tell them for— they'll do 40 miles an hour, does that scare some people and they go, I only want to do maybe like 20?
Alan Placer [00:14:10]:
Yeah, so just like real cars, you know, the drag racing, that's, that's 0.1% of the Power Wheel market. Most people just want their kid to be able to go faster in the yard, right? Um, and that's going from 5 miles an hour, like for backyard use. We don't make parts that make you go over like 12. Okay, uh, 12 miles per— it doesn't sound like much, 12 miles per hour for a little kid in a car, that's fast. And they're laughing, you know, that's the key thing is they're laughing, enjoying themselves. Um, when you come to the website, we have a whole, um, how to modify your car section that we always recommend you start with. Yeah, you gotta, you gotta educate yourself, you know. We broke it down into a bunch of little micro videos to watch to learn about the different components in the car.
Alan Placer [00:14:55]:
And then, then we break it down even further to an upgrades by vehicle section. So if you already have a Power Wheels, you can go see, well, this is what we make for your car. And then we'll have recommendations from our techs depending on how much you have to spend and how fast you want to go. Because just like real cars also, the more you spend, the faster you go.
Jeff Compton [00:15:16]:
That's awesome. That is really cool. This is something I'm gonna have to check out. I, I don't know if I'll buy one for my own use, but I think that's pretty neat. Like, what, um, do— I don't— do people need a lot of tools to get started into this, or do they need an understanding of basic, uh, any kind of programming involved, or could it just plug in and play?
Alan Placer [00:15:37]:
It would help if people had electrical knowledge and knew lefty loosey, righty tighty. Yeah, um, but we found the majority don't. That's probably the biggest challenge that we have. We make everything plug and play. Okay, the most you might have to do is cut a wire and splice, right? But we make it, you know, solder-free. Our electronics are pre-programmed. You don't have to plug into programming or anything. Um, the gearing— for the handy people, we make DIY kits.
Alan Placer [00:16:08]:
So you can buy just the motors, the gears, and, you know, do the work, the labor work yourself and make them fit. Um, or you can buy everything pre-assembled so it just drops in. You know, you pull out your old motor gearbox, drop the new one in. Same thing with battery packs, uh, so it just depends on the level you want to get into. Um, I, I hate that people don't wrench that much anymore. Yeah, but, uh, that's what this is great for, especially if you do it with your kid, is it's a great way to educate them on basic electrical. I mean, it really is that your basic Power Wheels is battery pack The gas pedal is an on-off switch. Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:16:51]:
And then you have, uh, a high and low, uh, shifter, which is just going from series to parallel wiring, and then two motors. So it's not rocket scientist— you know, science for them.
Jeff Compton [00:17:03]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:17:04]:
Uh, and then the mechanical, everything, like the gears just slide into place in the gearboxes.
Jeff Compton [00:17:09]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:17:10]:
There's no, like, building a transmission kind of thing to them. You can easily rebuild one of these yourself. Uh-huh.
Jeff Compton [00:17:18]:
Now, do you have safety equipment upgrades as well? Like, because I don't— like, do they have— I don't— do they have seat belts in them?
Alan Placer [00:17:27]:
Some of them come with seat belts. We do sell a 4-point harness for them, um, and that's really all you need. Sometimes with the power wheels, you know, they're light, and sometimes it's better to fall out of the car, right? Yes, then stay in it. Um, helmets on little kids is a very controversial thing. Right, because their, their heads are so heavy to begin with, and to add the weight of a helmet can be
Jeff Compton [00:17:49]:
rough on a neck. Yep.
Alan Placer [00:17:51]:
Um, we do make a, um, a, uh, soft braking system. Okay, so on a regular Power Wheels, when you let off the gas, it basically locks up the motors, right? And, and even on a stock one, the kids are hitting their heads on the dashboards, right? So we make, you know, a, uh, a a system that just ramps down the speed for them a little easier.
Jeff Compton [00:18:14]:
That's very cool. That's— you guys have thought of a lot. Um, and it's important, I think, because when we, when we talk, like, in my industry about how this, this ability to work on things and, and, you know, hop up stuff, and when we, when we take it out of the school shop class as an example, right, we, we've removed some of that, and it's We're all getting so much exposure to everything, right? Like, they can see motorsports, but some of them don't know the path to get into motorsports or get into, you know, fabrication or, you know, electrical engineering or any of that kind of stuff. And it's, it's so cool because I think, well, like, I had an RC car when I was a kid, and when it stopped working, I took it apart, you know? And then I took my bike apart, and then I took everything else that was interesting to me that didn't work, and I took it apart. A lot of it didn't go back together right, but it's still, you know, I was exposed to it. And I think that that's really cool that that's what you guys are doing, you know. And we, we think all the time, a lot of people grew up in maybe a rural area where they get exposure to like a tractor, or lots of people don't even have a riding lawnmower, right, on their— so they're not getting to ride that around. But lots of us can remember as, as young kids, that was just a joy to ride on Grandpa's knee on a, on a riding lawnmower.
Jeff Compton [00:19:31]:
Something that smelled and had, you know, vibrations and sounds. It was, it was a— it really was an endorphin kick. And this is good stuff. I like this.
Alan Placer [00:19:40]:
Thanks. Yeah, we have a blast with it. We have fun coming up with new stuff. We're actually, um, uh, right now designing our own line of ride-on cars. Um, you know, it, it's— I knew from the day I started the company that that would be the ultimate kind of thing to do, right? Because it's one thing to modify a Toyota Prius versus start with a platform that's designed to be modified right out of the gate. So that's the next level that we're getting involved with. And that we're really hoping is going to bring back a lot more of the mechanical tinkering to people. Because when you buy this car, it's going to be advertised— on all of our cars right out of the gate— hey, buy it.
Alan Placer [00:20:29]:
The way it is. And, you know, when your kid's ready for more speed, you can do that. You can change the looks on the car, you know, all the customizing, just like you do with a real Mustang, you'll be able to do with these.
Jeff Compton [00:20:43]:
Very cool. Now, is there— kind of starting out, did anybody, you know, from the bigger names, the Power Wheels name, did they kind of play nice, or were they threatened by what you were doing, or You know, I don't want to ask—
Alan Placer [00:20:56]:
Power Wheels, which, which is Mattel, uh, they didn't like what we were doing at all because they're run by lawyers, right? And they are so liability afraid. Um, so yeah, we used to— we were, you know, we bought parts from them, uh, and they didn't know what we were doing with them for years. Um, you know, before we had our own gearbox, for example, you know, we would take their gearboxes and modify them.
Jeff Compton [00:21:23]:
Right, right.
Alan Placer [00:21:24]:
Well, eventually they got wind and they shut us down. They were— they shut down sales to us. And that, that was, you know, half the parts we used, we had required Mattel's parts, right? But like I was saying with the ride-on cars, as soon as they shut us down, our only solution was, all right, if they won't tell us a gearbox to use, we're gonna have to make our own, right? So if we're gonna make our own, we're gonna make it better.
Jeff Compton [00:21:48]:
Exactly.
Alan Placer [00:21:50]:
Um, and that's what we did. We like little stuff— more durable materials, more grease channels in the gearbox so it doesn't overheat, things like that, that it doesn't look obvious to the user, but we know the performance is better.
Jeff Compton [00:22:05]:
Right, right.
Alan Placer [00:22:07]:
Wow.
Jeff Compton [00:22:09]:
It doesn't seem to matter what industry you're in, right? It's always— the lawyers are threatening with, you know, You— it's, you know, you stole our content, or you stole our design, or, you know, patent infringement and all that nonsense. And it's just— I mean, I understand where they're coming from because they, you know, people don't know if they go and get, you know, a used one and it's got some of your parts in it and it does more than what the, you know, stock one was, and somebody gets hurt, they're going to be, you know, coming after Mattel. And Mattel's gonna be like, hey, but I mean, that's People have got to do their own research. That's what I tell everybody all the time when they are asking me what to buy, or what about this. There's, there's no question that doesn't have an answer pretty much out there. You just have to do the research and find it. So, um, so what's it take to set up a company like this? Not— I'm not asking for financial numbers, but like, the— is it 3D printing a big thing? Like, you know, what can you build right in-house? Um,
Alan Placer [00:23:09]:
so yeah, that's a good question. Like I said, we, we started with $200, so, um, we don't want anybody else to build a company like this. We like— yeah, I mean, we literally— there is no real competition for us, uh, to date. A lot of people have started in their garage, but they never take it further. Um, competition is always good, of course.
Jeff Compton [00:23:32]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:23:33]:
Um, But it's different components to it. So like, we do have 3D printed parts. Um, we don't do the 3D printing in-house because there's actually— to, to do high-quality 3D printing, those machines are really expensive, and there's a lot of expertise to maintaining the machine and maintaining the print. As you know, one thing if you're printing one piece, but when you're run— doing a run of, you know, 100 pieces there's stuff that has to happen along the way with most of these machines. So we'd rather, you know, hire a company that, that does it, uh, in expertise. In-house for us, um, we do the battery pack assembly.
Jeff Compton [00:24:12]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:24:12]:
So we still prefer to use the sealed lead acid batteries in the car. There are lithium options, but the lead acids really outperform the lithium long term for backyard play, right? Um, so we assemble the battery packs, you know, soldering wires onto them and, uh, the proper connectors. Uh, different brands use different battery connectors. Um, we do the gearbox assembly in-house, the greasing and all, uh, and we do our own order fulfillment in-house also.
Jeff Compton [00:24:44]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:24:45]:
Um, we have lighting kits, uh, for the cars that we assemble in-house.
Jeff Compton [00:24:49]:
You got some neat tires by the looks of it there too.
Alan Placer [00:24:52]:
Yep, we have tires. These obviously not made in-house. Um, tires are always a big deal on the cars, um, because we don't have clutches in the cars, right? Uh, the newer ones use the electronics for a clutch, but the older Power Wheels, the spinning tire is the clutch. Yeah, first thing people want to do is add more traction to it. And as any auto mechanic knows, tighten the clutch, blow more parts.
Jeff Compton [00:25:18]:
That's right, she started breaking axles and drives and— yeah, everything. Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:25:22]:
But, uh, some of the cars come with such an aggressive off-road tread that on the street, it rattles your kid's teeth out.
Jeff Compton [00:25:29]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:25:29]:
So we sell tread options to get street tires for them. Um, and we are— we have actually next month, we'll have our first round of, uh, a more rubberized plastic tire. So you'll get more grip because we've made things more durable. Now we can start increasing the traction. So we are increasing the grip level. For the new tires that are coming
Jeff Compton [00:25:50]:
to— Yeah, I understand that method. I'm a Jeep guy from way back when, so I understand that, you know, when you air the tire down— now you guys don't have air tires, but when you air them down and you start giving the go pedal to it, right, you're going to hear stuff break. It's just inevitable. You're getting up that hill, but it's going to— you're going to hear the cash register ring. Yeah, that's pretty neat, man. I really like that. What, um, so After, after fast, is that the next step that they do is they go to a tire?
Alan Placer [00:26:22]:
Uh, so back here, person, after motors, you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So generally, batteries, batteries and motors go first. You can do whichever one you want first. Um, you know, if your car came as 12 volts and you up it to 18 or 24 volts, okay, the motor may last a little while But eventually, you're, you're over-volting the motor. It's going to smoke.
Jeff Compton [00:26:46]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:26:48]:
So it's motors and batteries. That's the main thing for speed. Then maybe you'll change your traction up. We can change gear ratios on a lot of the cars too.
Jeff Compton [00:26:58]:
Sweet.
Alan Placer [00:26:59]:
It's not huge. You can get 1 more mile per hour of speed.
Jeff Compton [00:27:04]:
Right, OK.
Alan Placer [00:27:04]:
But the bigger motors have so much more torque that it's OK to give up some of that low end to them.
Jeff Compton [00:27:10]:
Yeah, very nice. What, um, what's this— what do you see, what do you see returned a lot as under warranty or break— broken, or where do you see the weak points show?
Alan Placer [00:27:22]:
Uh, weak points are usually the gears. If something's going to give out, it'll be the gears. Something has to give at some point, you know. Again, as we make these, and if you run the car stock as it is, you know, with, with our modifications, you should be fine. But we get guys that, you know, once they put the modifications in, now they build trailers to pull around, or they're putting adults in the car so it's overweighted, or, you know, they're, they're challenging the car to see how much they can make it do. So we like to try to keep the gears to be the weakest point. Electronics are harder for people to diagnose. There's no repairing a circuit board nowadays.
Alan Placer [00:28:02]:
You toss it out. But replacement gears, you know, if you break the nylon— and that's why we don't make them all in steel— a nylon gear is $10, $15. So keep a couple spare ones on hand if you're gonna play that hard.
Jeff Compton [00:28:15]:
In less than an hour to swap out, Alan?
Alan Placer [00:28:18]:
Oh, easily. Yeah, cool. Yeah, gearboxes are easy to access. Like 15 minutes, you can rebuild a gearbox.
Jeff Compton [00:28:24]:
Yeah, so that's not like— if you only need a little bit if you're gonna go out for a day and, you know, and, and carry some spare parts for it. It's not like, wow, I like that. And so putting adults on it, that's not a good idea.
Alan Placer [00:28:38]:
Generally not. I mean, I'm a 170-pound adult and I'll drive around in a car to test it, right? That to me is the standard. Like, it has to be able to handle my weight. Um, and, and again, we know people who do. We actually sell for one of the kids cars. We call it a big, big kids kit where it's a metal rail chassis, but it's got a front module, a seat, and a rear module. Sorry, we just made a longer chassis for it. Yeah, so now you could fit an adult in it, you know, and it's a fun kit.
Alan Placer [00:29:12]:
So, um, you know, we don't want people to not have fun, but you have to realize, just like we're— again, I'm going to keep saying, just like with real cars, you're getting into it as a hobby. Yeah, so things will break because you want to push it to the highest level of performance.
Jeff Compton [00:29:28]:
What about, um, would we ever see boats come along?
Alan Placer [00:29:33]:
No, no, I would love to build a boat, and we— there's been a couple of dads that have made their own. Um, the liability of, you know, me saying, hey, put your 3 or 5, you know, 3-year-old in the water with a boat. Yeah, we know the kid can't swim yet, but you know No, it's not coming.
Jeff Compton [00:29:53]:
No, I imagine— I just— I, I think of like, we've seen some of that, that little tykes boat that was meant for like a sand, you know, box, and, and guys do weird stuff on the back of that, and they're all of a sudden they're out there like, you know, I see grown adults out at it in little videos fishing, and I'm thinking, well, I don't need anything quite that small, but I mean, you know, it's just fascinating to me how everybody takes an idea and just makes it their own. I think it's so cool, you know.
Alan Placer [00:30:20]:
Yeah, it's a different liability level if you're doing it with your own kid versus me selling it to you and telling you it's okay to do. Yeah, we don't— those 40-mile-an-hour dragsters, that's not us, you know. They're not using all our equipment. They may use pieces here and there, right? But we don't sell a 40-mile-an-hour kit, right? So wheelie bars.
Jeff Compton [00:30:44]:
Which is saying, go, go give it. But yeah, what's— so what's the obstacles that you've run into with this business?
Alan Placer [00:30:51]:
Um, the biggest obstacles besides like when Power Wheels says we won't sell to you anymore, uh, is the variety of cars, right? Um, Power Wheels actually stopped making cars about a year and a half ago, Mattel's Power Wheel brand. And what that did is it opened the floodgates into what we used to call the cheap Chinese cars. Okay, um, but they're, they're not so cheap anymore. They've been improving the quality on them because the demand's been higher now. Uh, but they're, you know, we used to— like, Power Wheels used the same gearbox in all their cars and that same analog switching in all their cars. Now we have as different, again, from Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, all flooding into the country, and it's— I can't just go buy one car and say this is going to work you know, on everybody else's cars. So the R&D is a lot more— there's a lot more expense to R&D, um, and it takes a lot of work to, um, you know, first of all, they have to produce enough of that car before we're going to produce modification for it. There's a really cool tank that's been out for 5 years.
Alan Placer [00:32:01]:
Like, the kids sit in it, the turret rotates, it shoots. It's a tank. Who doesn't want that?
Jeff Compton [00:32:07]:
That's right.
Alan Placer [00:32:08]:
And we really want to modify it. We hear complaints about problems that it that we could solve for, but man, they, they just got to make more of them first. Yeah, but then some of the cars, once we get a couple of them in, like, we started realizing there's like 5 different gearboxes that are being used, but they were so similar. Some things were off by like a 1 or 2 millimeters or 1 or 2 teeth on gears. So this transmission is actually going to be on the market next month that replaces 90% of those import vehicles' gearboxes with more speed and more durability. We put steel gears and ball bearings in it, faster motor. Um, but that's been the biggest challenge for us is, is just the wide, wide variety that's coming out now.
Jeff Compton [00:32:57]:
Because people can— must contact you with something they didn't buy from Mattel but from somewhere online, Temu or Amazon or something like that, and then You know, it breaks like it probably will, and they want to fix it, and it's, it's tough to tell them, well, you know, it's only a whatever, $300 car, like, there's no support. There's always a market for support, you know. It's just, yeah, that's how the basement hobbyists like yourself start up, right? It's just trying to fix what breaks.
Alan Placer [00:33:23]:
Yeah, most of the, the cars sold on Amazon, there's no parts sold. The people that are importing them into the US are not interested in parts support, and we've even reached out to the manufacturers and said, hey, we'd like to be a US card stealer, they're not interested. It's, it's a, a shame. It should be illegal. Uh, and that, that's, you know, was one of the catalysts to us bringing in our own line of cars, um, is that we're going to have full parts support, tech support, everything that you need for them.
Jeff Compton [00:33:53]:
Now, go ahead.
Alan Placer [00:33:55]:
Sorry, I would say we even just started a program where you can book time to have a Zoom call with one of our mechanics. So bring your phone next to your car while you're working on it, and the mechanical sitting and help you work through that. Don't you wish you had that for real cars? It'd be great.
Jeff Compton [00:34:12]:
Is that a free service?
Alan Placer [00:34:14]:
No, no, but it— we're only just $20 for 30 minutes because it's education for us. It helps us to see where the pain points are for the customer. So it's a kind of a win-win for sure.
Jeff Compton [00:34:27]:
Yeah, for sure. What, um, what's the challenges, if there are, of finding— is it, is it hard to find people that can, can kind of do this kind of work?
Alan Placer [00:34:40]:
Very hard. Most, most of the mechanics out there for power wheels do it for maybe 3 years while their kids are into it, and they move on to something else. Um, so like in our shop, we hire mostly retired engineers, technicians, because they, they latch on and figure this out really quickly and they enjoy doing it. Retired guys that want to get out of the house are the best. Uh, and then our local high school has an engineering program, so we have students come and work with us too, which is super rewarding for us. And not only do they learn the mechanical and electrical, but they're in the shop where we're doing order fulfillment and they get to see how the— a business runs too. Yeah, which, you know, so many mechanics open garages and, you know, they don't understand the business end of it.
Jeff Compton [00:35:31]:
Well, then that's it. There's so many, you know, because even when I went through, like, my, my college program was 2 years and I went through and not once did we ever talk about— was there ever a classroom or 2 weeks at the end of the semester or something where we talked about, okay, so if you should make it to your own business owner level This is the important stuff to look at, right? Was how to, how to find people, how to, how to set your labor rates, how to, you know, run cash flow, all that kind of stuff. They never taught us that. And the young people, again, like, they're getting even less training on money management in, in secondary school and public school and all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's really lacking. That's the joke, is that mechanics are terrible with money, and we are. But there's, you know, I would argue that just like you said, there's so many mechanics that start a business or anybody that starts a business and doesn't really understand what it, what it takes, you know what I mean? Everybody thinks I can just put the work in, and yeah, you got to put the work in, and you got to have the product that people want, but there's lots of guys with lots of talent that didn't make it because they didn't know how to set up their numbers, right?
Alan Placer [00:36:40]:
Yeah, yeah. Marcus Lemoine always says, you know, people, products, and process. And most of the mechanics know the, the product.
Jeff Compton [00:36:48]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:36:48]:
And they're really good with people, maybe, but they don't know the processes.
Jeff Compton [00:36:52]:
Yeah, some mechanics— yeah, some mechanics are
Alan Placer [00:36:55]:
mechanics because they don't like people.
Jeff Compton [00:36:57]:
I know. Yeah, like, you wouldn't, you wouldn't see us being doctors. That's the thing that always rattles me, right, is, is they all— they're just like doctors. No, they're not. Every doctor that I've ever met has some decorum of bedside manner, but yet I know mechanics that just like, you can just look at them and you know that they don't want to talk to Yeah, you know, a person— now we're getting better, but that's a whole other, you know, where does that come from? A lot of us, we're on the spectrum, right? So it's like we're not always really super comfortable with crowds and strangers and stuff like that. We're comfortable with, with nuts and bolts and gears and, and, you know, wiring and colors, and that's what makes us comfortable. You know, people sometimes trip us up. So yeah, I wish the business side was, was taught more.
Jeff Compton [00:37:43]:
Um, the young people— so these high school kids, are they shocked too when they see this stuff?
Alan Placer [00:37:49]:
I think they're shocked at the scale of it.
Jeff Compton [00:37:52]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:37:52]:
You know, they— nobody thinks that, you know, what we do can be as big of a business as it is, right? Um, so they're shocked, but they're also, I think, thrilled then because, you know, they're never sitting around bored. We always have stuff for them to do. Um, I think they may get a little shocked by the repetitiveness of it. It's one of the struggles we deal with. Uh, you know, anytime you're doing assembly of products and stuff, we try to rotate them around.
Jeff Compton [00:38:17]:
Yeah, because it can be, you know, it's like, how many brake jobs have I done in my career, right? And easily close to thousands of them at this point. Or tires is the other one that, like, I've probably done a million tires, right? So it's not like— it's no stimulation anymore about that, right? You've got to keep the, the young people, like you said, constantly trying new things until they find that thing that, you know, they can do multiple times and not get burnt out and not get bored and not get, you know, to where they start doing it with their eyes closed and make mistakes. Like, they got to be constantly challenged, and I think we got to move them around. The idea that it's one thing to be specialized for sure, but there's a lot of technicians now that have glaring weaknesses in other parts of fixing cars because they become so specialized on one facet. And I think that that's been another detriment to where we're going.
Alan Placer [00:39:09]:
So, you know, yeah, that's why I like to move them around. Even if they're good at one thing, I want you to work on other things so you can get good at the other things too. Uh-huh.
Jeff Compton [00:39:17]:
Yeah. What, um, so what, what do you see— like, you got your new gearbox coming out. What's some other things that are— you're, you're hoping to give us in the next year from a, from an ML Toys perspective?
Alan Placer [00:39:32]:
The big thing is definitely the ride-on cars that we're coming out with. Um, that's huge. So right now on the way to us is our first vehicle, uh, is going to be a fire truck. Okay. Um, we went simple. It doesn't sound like a performance vehicle, um, but to get started, we bought an existing mold of a really cool-looking American fire truck. Um, but we're putting all of our electronics and mechanicals under the hood, so it'll actually work well now, right? I mean, a fire truck is just What kid doesn't want a fire truck? It's got a working water cannon, flashing lights.
Jeff Compton [00:40:07]:
It has a working water cannon.
Alan Placer [00:40:08]:
Oh yeah, yeah, I couldn't— I couldn't— I used to be a firefighter. How do I not have that?
Jeff Compton [00:40:13]:
I was just gonna say, that must tug at you then, right? Like, you must have— when you thought the idea like that, you must hearken back to your— they have a soft spot for you. Like, I— yeah, what kid doesn't love fire trucks, right? Like, they're, they're loud and shiny and, you know, yeah.
Alan Placer [00:40:28]:
And you'll be able to modify that one as well. I don't know that people will want to so much. You don't need a 12-mile-an-hour fire truck. Or maybe you do. Who knows? We'll see where it goes.
Jeff Compton [00:40:38]:
I just want— I want a bigger water cannon. That's what I want. Like, I don't— I just want to sit there and spray the neighbor's dog. I don't need this.
Alan Placer [00:40:45]:
Yeah. So then, um, for next— 2027, we should have out, um, an on-road car. Okay, that basically looks like a tea bucket. Oh, one-seater. I like one-seaters because you can get more speed, more maneuverability. You got more than one kid, you should have more than one car. Don't have them share a car. Who want— who— what kid ever wanted to be a passenger in a Power Wheels? You want two Power Wheels and let them race each other.
Alan Placer [00:41:15]:
So, um, yeah, it's gonna have a, you know, a small block motor up front with the blower on it. Um, we're actually going to sell the blower as a separate part, so if you've got one of the old Power Wheel Corvettes, you can bolt it to the hood Very cool. Um, it'll be very much modifiable for more speed, uh, you know, both in motors, gears, batteries, uh, wheelie bar will be able to attach to that. The drag racing world is really in need of a new chassis to start racing with.
Jeff Compton [00:41:43]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:41:43]:
Uh, so this will suffice for that, for that community. Um, but it's going to be really cool. The motor and exhaust are going to light up and— That's awesome. Just fun stuff. And then, um, we're doing an off-road car. Which is a throwback to the 1980s, um, California dune buggy, uh, all, you know, radio control cars of the 1980s. It's gonna kind of have that look to it with the vertical shocks on it. And, um, that is actually going to be changeable from two-wheel drive to four-wheel drive if you want to upgrade to that.
Alan Placer [00:42:20]:
And we'll have tire options, again, all the speed options. So that's been taking a lot of my time. You know, I thought when we went into this, I'm like, well, we make motors, we make gears, we make electronics, we make steering, we make tires. How hard can it be to make a car out of this then? Yeah. Oh no, it's hard. It's very hard. And there's a whole different logistics world to importing a full car versus small parts and to shipping them to the consumer. Right.
Alan Placer [00:42:49]:
So we've been learning all of that process as we go too with it.
Jeff Compton [00:42:54]:
What's some of the things when people are, are buying one of yours, what's like— is maintenance other than the battery? Is there— what's involved in maintenance of it? Just the battery, keep it charged?
Alan Placer [00:43:06]:
Just the batteries. Yeah, it's a great thing with electric cars. All you do is, you know, if you're using the lead acid batteries over the wintertime, remember, remember to charge them once a month.
Jeff Compton [00:43:16]:
Keep them fresh.
Alan Placer [00:43:17]:
Yeah, the cars are otherwise 100% maintenance-free. The motors, you could run them underwater. People don't realize that, but, you know, we don't recommend you get, like, the electronics wet and all.
Jeff Compton [00:43:30]:
Yeah, don't go crossing the creek in it, but for sure. Yeah, because I was thinking, like, as a Canadian up here, like, there's some snow, right? And I have seen a kid on a Power Wheels in the wintertime, you know, in parades and stuff like that. At Santa Claus parades, they tend bring them out and drive them along and, you know, stuff like that.
Alan Placer [00:43:47]:
The all-wheel drive ones will do snow okay, you know, not too deep, you know, obviously you sink into the snow. Yeah, um, but yeah, they'll handle it.
Jeff Compton [00:43:55]:
Very cool, very cool. What, um, so is— how much of the, uh, how can I ask that? How much of it is built in the USA and how much of it's built like pieces are built offshore?
Alan Placer [00:44:10]:
Yeah, so this sucks. Every time I come up with a part that I need, I try to get it made in the USA.
Jeff Compton [00:44:17]:
I understand.
Alan Placer [00:44:18]:
Um, the steel gears are the only thing we have made in the USA, right? Um, everything else has to be made overseas, not because of pricing, but because the manufacturers don't exist here in the USA. Yeah, these electric motors— like, you have these electric motors all over your car, your windshield wipers, your power windows, anything that moves in your car It's, you know, by a button. The motors aren't made here in the US. So this tariff situation isn't helping us because, yeah, it's not making me go to a US manufacturer. The manufacturer doesn't exist. Circuit boards in the US cost 20 times more if you can find the manufacturer to make it. So unfortunately, we're still going overseas for a lot of this stuff. Um, but I, I'll always price it.
Alan Placer [00:45:07]:
I'll always check. Just our metal fabricators, you know, these metal bars. We have other metal parts that we have made. They're cheaper to have made here in the US and locally too. Even better for us.
Jeff Compton [00:45:19]:
And we get that on the automotive side, obviously all the time too, right? Like people and it's— they don't understand that most of the parts shortage problem, you know, especially COVID talked about that was because there were shipping containers and shipping containers sitting overseas that they just expired the parts because all of a sudden they couldn't, they couldn't get here. You know, and it drove them— it really changed the market. Like, it was— and unfortunately, like, I don't know, don't get political, Jeff. All that money that should have, you know, was whatever COVID relief, it didn't go into— I feel into the infrastructure to, you know, boost production and manufacturing. I think it just went other places. And that's— it should have woke a lot more people up to the reality that, like, we're too reliant on some foreign, you know, Now I get it, you have people that work for $5 a day over there versus people that, you know, won't go to work for under $100 a day here, right? And, and I, and I understand both points, and I'm not trying to say we're overpaid. That— please, the shorts are going to blow up, Alan. People are going to be like, you're a communist.
Jeff Compton [00:46:24]:
But we have to think about how do we get things back to being made in North America, because I'm a Canadian, right? So it's like, we have tariffs up here that are even affecting Now, like, my, my wonderful leader— sarcasm there, uh, you know— is gonna make a deal with China to bring in EV, you know, uh, Chinese EVs. And we're already going to start building the batteries for these, you know. And I like the idea that anything creates a job, for sure, but it will come at the effect of, like, we'll shut down a GM plant for sure. It's going to close. And then we move people that are, are not from that company to these jobs now building, building batteries. It's, it's, it's ludicrous to me how we— how that can happen so fast, you know.
Alan Placer [00:47:11]:
I don't know where all the tariff money is going, but it would be nice if they use that tariff money to create grants for people to start businesses here in the U.S. Yeah, you know, they're talking about giving it a lot of it back as a rebate to you know, American taxpayers. And I will tell you, up until this past year, the busiest sales day— single sales day we ever had was the day that people got their first COVID relief check, right?
Jeff Compton [00:47:37]:
Oh yeah, same. They were bored. It was the same up here during COVID uh, ATV, boats, like, every— it was, it was a boom. And, and that we saw the used boats shot up in price like they were ridiculous. You would have thought— I'm looking at this going That guy's crazy. That's a 20-year-old bass boat and all of a sudden it's back up to $20,000. Like, no, it doesn't work like that. But there was a market.
Jeff Compton [00:48:04]:
I don't know, the, the discount thing to me, or the rebate thing, or the grant thing, the discount rebate— we see it right now where they're, they're telling us we're going to give you a $300 grocery rebate. You know, that's not— it's not that it's not appreciated But it's not solving a problem, and it doesn't help the people that really need it the most. That's the other thing too.
Alan Placer [00:48:28]:
But give it as an incentive to start a business. Yeah. And now you're teaching somebody to fish. Uh-huh. Yeah, you're giving them— and they're gonna hire employees. And I don't know, but we're getting political.
Jeff Compton [00:48:40]:
Yeah. What's— so do you have— does ML Tools have a succession? Like, is there family that wants to,
Alan Placer [00:48:46]:
you know, to take over? Yeah. No, ML Toys, um, it's just me as the owner. Uh, I was actually going to retire but then decided, hey, let's make my own ride-on cars instead. Let's go the opposite end of retiring and selling the business. Um, yeah, so no, right now, hey look, anybody wants to get into the game, contact me. Uh, you know, I, I, you know, I got a couple more years left in me. I'm young. But, uh, you know, I, I'm open to somebody else, uh, if they wanted to get into the game and, and bring it bigger.
Alan Placer [00:49:23]:
Like I said, we are, you know, we're Summit Racing, and, and even Summit Racing has competition. Like, yeah, it's a very unique position we're in to have a business that has no, no real competition. And at the size we're at, it would be very hard for somebody to start from their garage and and create it, right? Right. And again, that's another reason we're excited about having our own ride-on car line is because it's going to be on such a different level than all these other cars that you can get.
Jeff Compton [00:49:52]:
Well, not— and that's the same as like there's Chevrolet and then there's AC Delco, right? Like the people that are in the know know what the— how they're linked, but everybody knows what a Chevrolet is, but not everybody knows. It'd be the same with you guys. Like if in— I don't want to say 10 more years because you tried to retire, but if in 10 more years like you guys really take over that market and all of a sudden we're not calling it a power wheels anymore. We're calling it, you know, an ML. And that's, that's a pretty cool thing to be able to say, this is Alan's legacy, right? Shop owners are trying to do that same thing, is they're trying to build up something that when they walk away from it, it's, it's worth something. And either, you know, if there isn't a succession of, you know, uh, children that come up in the business and they want to take it over— and that's, that's a reality. Like, it, it amazes me because starting out I just assumed every shop out there had a kid that worked in the shop, daughter or son, and, and they were going to take it over. And now I see so many of them talking, they're like, I don't want anything to do with it, you know, I don't want them to be involved in it, or I don't want— or they have zero interest.
Jeff Compton [00:50:53]:
And now I'm just trying to, to make this, excuse me, marketable to another investor, and then I can walk away from it and go fishing or sailing or, you know, like, whatever they want to do, right?
Alan Placer [00:51:06]:
Like, it's Yeah, my son is a big-time car guy, um, but he's just not interested in the ride-on car business, at least not right now, right? And, uh, so, you know, he's off doing his own career. And for me, the legacy of it, you know, I'll sell the business and make money doing that, but that— the legacy for me is seeing all these kids, the dads and kids having a good time. Hey, let's not rule out moms and daughters, right? And then that they're seeing them grow. I love nothing more than seeing a kid that used to drag race is now into a stock car, you know, because we've been at it 16 years. I've been watching these kids grow up, um, and that's, that's a great part of legacy. Or just that it's invoked them into some kind of mechanical career. Maybe they'll become an engineer and build bridges or whatever it is. I love that part of it.
Alan Placer [00:51:58]:
And then And because this started as a grassroots, you know, side hustle for me, I've had the opportunity to work, you know, with entrepreneur groups to do a lot of coaching and teaching. And that's the other half of the legacy for me is helping other men succeed in their businesses from what I've learned.
Jeff Compton [00:52:17]:
Any famous customers of ML Toys?
Alan Placer [00:52:21]:
Uh, yeah.
Jeff Compton [00:52:22]:
Should get into trouble or?
Alan Placer [00:52:23]:
I don't, I don't think so. One of the, we have quite a few actually. One of the things that really launched me me from being a side hustle, um, we have this, this $200 battery pack. At the time, it was one of the most expensive things I had. This was like 4 years into being a side hustle.
Jeff Compton [00:52:38]:
Okay.
Alan Placer [00:52:39]:
And I woke up one morning to 20 orders for this battery pack.
Jeff Compton [00:52:43]:
Wow.
Alan Placer [00:52:43]:
And, you know, when you're doing this from your living room at the time, I wish— so I called up one of these, one of the customers. I'm like, hey, I think this might be a credit card scam. I want to make sure you really ordered this. And he's like, no, Richard Rawlings posted a video of your stuff in a kid's car and I gotta have it, ship it out today please. So I looked online and sure enough, it wasn't even Richard doing it, it was MadRam11. Okay, uh, I don't even know his real name, but he does the, uh, rock racers, the jeeps that go straight up a mountain incredibly fast. And he had modified one of his cars with our kids' stuff, and Richard Rawlings had reposted it. Yeah, uh, oddly, I met Richard in 2019 at SEMA.
Alan Placer [00:53:31]:
Okay. And he had no idea, right? Like, I went up, I'm like, thank you, you've created this million— multi-million dollar business for us and all. And he's like, who are you? Yeah, no idea that his video did that. Um, and then since then, um, Probably our, our biggest as far as coming back the most customer, Joey Logano. Okay, kids love our stuff. He's got a YouTube video, uh, of the baby reveal they did for their third kid. Okay, uh, they took a Power Wheels and did a burnout, popped the smoke out of the Power Wheels. Yeah, and of course his Power Wheels Mustang is painted up just like the real one.
Alan Placer [00:54:11]:
Uh, Clint Bowyer Uh, Dennis Anderson from Gravedigger. Yeah. Um, there's been others, you know. Unfortunately, now I don't see the daily orders going through anymore, right? Uh, you know, I'm busy on the R&D and marketing and all that, so there may be names going past that I don't see.
Jeff Compton [00:54:30]:
Uh-huh. But how many years have you been going to SEMA?
Alan Placer [00:54:35]:
I just did the one SEMA. Um, I need to do it again. We don't show it— SEMA— I go there to meet with different manufacturers and try to come up with, uh, you know, like we met with DuPont to try to come up with paints for the cars and gauge manufacturers because we do gauges and— yeah, yeah, same. It's cool. And I'm a car geek, so why wouldn't I go?
Jeff Compton [00:54:58]:
Well, that's— I've only been twice the last 2 years. In the first year, I was the same as probably you were, like my eyes bugged out of my head and I never felt like my feet touched the ground. It was incredible, right? And Richard Rawlings, he's a trip, that guy, you know. People— he's very polarizing. People either love him or hate him. But I mean, if I got to that level of money, I'd probably be a lot like that, where I would just be like, let's just throw money at the problem and have some fun. Like, you know, he— that freedom that comes with that. And then again, people don't realize what makes a lot of people that way is just a high level of confidence, you know what I mean? Like, they, they— you, you all know we never see some of their backstories, their failures.
Jeff Compton [00:55:40]:
You just see the success and you go, oh, they had it, you know, they got it handed to them. And most of them have all had some— at some point, like, hit rock bottom and then crawled themselves back out again. And I mean, that's, that's what truly tests you, you know what I mean? And shop owners, it's the same thing. Like, I've talked to more than one shop owner that the first kick at it, they failed, and they had to, you know, swallow some pride and go back to being an employee again. And then they come out of it, and, and it's those lessons that they learn. So I tell everybody, like, you're not done until you decide you're done, you know what I mean?
Alan Placer [00:56:13]:
Like, it's— it doesn't— started this business for me, like I said, I had $200 to my name. I was going through a divorce, you know, lost my other career. I was at rock bottom, and I was just like, let me do this, and felt, you know, filled the need. I never— I've never tried to sell any of these products. Right, right. I listen to what people are asking for and make it on that. And that kind— you know, when you're serving, people give you money for serving their needs.
Jeff Compton [00:56:39]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [00:56:40]:
And, um, and I— there's been a lot of failures along the way with this. When you're the first to the game, oh my God, you have failures. You have electronics failures, gear failures. I've had cars go up in flames on me, you know. Yeah, it's, uh, it's part of it. And they're, you know, they all come at a financial cost and That's the difference between a Richard Rawlings, you know, and, and a guy that is just always doing the same thing, is you've got to be willing to take the risks and know there's going to be failures and just pivot. Okay, that didn't work. All right, how else am I going to make it work? Keep finding a way.
Jeff Compton [00:57:17]:
I say that all the time because it's the same thing, like the— just like a technician, the first time you do a job, it's slow, and then you realize there's a sequence to this, and you, you know, certain orders of doing things. Speeds up the process exponentially. And then the next day you get to do it again maybe, and you're like, wow. And then that's how we get to that point where we're so fast, we're so efficient. And then, you know, they jerk the rug out from underneath you and they change the platform, and all of a sudden, you know, you're back down to— they wire it different, different programming, different networks, and all that kind of stuff. And you're, and you're like, oh crap, here I go learning again. But this is what this is— life's about learning. It's not about You don't ever stop.
Jeff Compton [00:57:56]:
You just continue to, like you said, pivot, adjust, you know, listen to your customers, market to them, meet them where they are. That's key. A lot of people are, you know, they think they're doing marketing, but they're not meeting them where they are. And that's like— takes a lot of listening and good people that want to hear what they have to say because they drive the market. Unfortunately, I had a lot of conversations with a lot of people and they say, oh, you know, you can't charge $200 an hour as a door rate in the shop. And it's like You most certainly can. There's shops already doing that. And, and, you know, part of the, the naysayers is that, well, I'm never going to pay that.
Jeff Compton [00:58:32]:
It's okay, you know, everybody can't build a business that satisfies everyone. There are people that won't eat at McDonald's because they just won't put that in their body. And then there's people, unfortunately, that's all they can afford. And, and it doesn't mean that the person that's making, you know, selling a steak for $100 is ripping anybody off. It's just, it's a different clientele, a different customer base. And, you know, I, I— people get so wrapped up in saying the word can't, and yet, you know, like, I don't know, I'm going to throw— but, you know, you can, you can sell a Power Wheels and people will spend $1,000 on a Power Wheel, right? And then we turn around and we say, but I can never charge $500 for a brake job. People are spending money on toys. We can certainly always, you know, meet our market where it is.
Jeff Compton [00:59:24]:
It's just how you have to sell the value of it, right? You have to get behind the product and say, this is why I'm worth what I'm worth.
Alan Placer [00:59:31]:
Yeah, like you said— just said, it's all about solving their problem. How much are they willing to pay to solve that problem? Not how much are they willing to pay. It's about solving the problem.
Jeff Compton [00:59:41]:
Yeah, yeah. What's, um, Do you have a— do you have a, an exit strategy, like in terms of a day by when you want to be out? What do you like to do when you're not doing this? Like, you know, you don't want to go back to being a fireman, obviously.
Alan Placer [00:59:58]:
No, I'm not doing that anymore. Um, so my, my spare time, I hinted at before, I race radio control cars, right? Um, I do 1/8 scale off-road racing. Okay, so the tracks look like supercross tracks, and I travel around the northeastern US and, uh, and, and go racing. We'll be at a 4-day race, uh, this coming weekend in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Jeff Compton [01:00:20]:
Very cool.
Alan Placer [01:00:20]:
And, um, I'd like to do more of that. And then, um, because of the racing, I wound up getting an RV, and my wife and I have fallen in love with RVing. I mean, as a car guy— yeah, you know, RV is kind of the ultimate car. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, so I, I love, uh, you know, we want to do a lot more traveling around and all. But I don't have a specific exit date, um, for the company. I'm gonna— as long as I'm enjoying it, I'll, I'll keep going, right? Uh, or if somebody offers me the right amount of money. Everything's got a price, right? You know, there's certainly, um, uh, an opportunity for somebody else to make wealth off of this if they have the, uh, that same servant attitude, right?
Jeff Compton [01:01:04]:
Right.
Alan Placer [01:01:05]:
It could be very easy to just make parts and say, hey, I'm going to make parts that you should buy.
Jeff Compton [01:01:10]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [01:01:10]:
And that won't work. You just got to keep listening, keep on developing. You know, a lot of what I do is really more in the development. I have a marketing company, so I don't have to deal with the outbound marketing anymore. Um, I'm, I'm the brains behind the operation that listens. I go on the forums and the Facebook groups and listen to what people's pain points are.
Jeff Compton [01:01:32]:
Great.
Alan Placer [01:01:32]:
And then I find companies that can make it. And again, I'm no engineer. To me, if an engineer would own this company, he could take it to another level above.
Jeff Compton [01:01:42]:
Yeah, I think they're all getting snapped up by the car companies though. But I mean, you must have some talented people already that work for you that, you know, uh, are just surprise you every day with what they can do, right? Like, I think that's, that's part of
Alan Placer [01:01:55]:
the guys that work for me or the companies that I reach out to that— because that's what I do. I just like, when I need a gear made You know, I just reach out to companies and I don't know how it's done, and they'll always come up with a better way than what I was thinking of myself, right? You know, the popular saying in the world, ask who, not how. I stopped trying to figure out how to make a part and just start figuring out who can make me the part.
Jeff Compton [01:02:20]:
Yeah, yeah, there's always someone, eh? Um, what's the biggest pain point then for the business? Just lack of— Lack of— like, is it the, the, the cost?
Alan Placer [01:02:31]:
Um, the tariffs have been a big pain point for sure. Okay. Um, working with that, costs are tough because there is only so much money that people will put into a ride-on car. You know, they'll put way more into a dirt bike, a side-by-side, any other motor vehicle.
Jeff Compton [01:02:48]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [01:02:48]:
So, um, that does limit some of the stuff I'd like to design, um, because I can't, you know It's really hard to make a $500 part for a $500 car.
Jeff Compton [01:03:00]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Alan Placer [01:03:01]:
So there's nothing too painful anymore. Maybe I don't perceive it as pain because I'm willing to take it on and figure it out. Tires were a big pain point for the longest time. I tried to make tires for over a decade, but the expense was just way too high.
Jeff Compton [01:03:16]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [01:03:16]:
And then, uh, I think it was before COVID right after COVID, the, the cost to make a mold this size got way cheaper. And, uh, so now we can pop different tires out for the different cars.
Jeff Compton [01:03:29]:
Yeah, I would think that'd be a ton of tooling to do a tire. A ton.
Alan Placer [01:03:33]:
Yeah, it's the, the mold, you know, to have a mold like this, people don't realize there's a gigantic block of aluminum that gets laser cut and it's two halves, so there's two of them. Yeah. And you don't want to just make one tire at a time, so they have to make multiple That's an expensive mold to make for something like that.
Jeff Compton [01:03:52]:
Yeah, for sure.
Alan Placer [01:03:54]:
Learning the processes.
Jeff Compton [01:03:57]:
Well, I want to thank you for being here today. I, I, I really had no idea that this was such a subculture almost of the, of the, the motorsports thing, and I apologize for not knowing, but I'm definitely excited to, to see more of your stuff out there on YouTube and everything else and Um, you know, I think it's fascinating. I like the idea that, you know, some of these stuff that have got ML tools in it— or ML tools— ML toys, excuse me, um, could be an heirloom toy for somebody, you know, for a family. Like, you can pass it down and, and get kids hooked on, you know, going faster and tinkering with stuff.
Alan Placer [01:04:34]:
So any final— we have had a lot of customers now reach out and say, hey, I got this from my dad or granddad and it's got your stuff in it. And we'll try to research what they have. I do want to mention for your custo— for your, for your customers, for your listeners, I think this is important because most of your listeners are mechanics. Yeah. We have a program now that we started a couple months back for service centers. So as we're coming out with vehicles and even with our existing parts line, there's some parents that they'll get the parts and they just don't want to put them in, or they can't figure out— something breaks, they don't want to work on it. And with our new cars, we're doing this also. We're getting service centers around the country where people can take the cars to and have the work done on them.
Alan Placer [01:05:25]:
And also, the service centers can sell the parts. And as the cars come in, they can sell the cars too.
Jeff Compton [01:05:33]:
Yeah.
Alan Placer [01:05:33]:
So it's a big help for— it brings customers, you know, if you have a garage, it's a way to bring customers into your garage and be family friendly with it. So that's something else they can reach out to us, and we can set them up on our service center program. Not— it's not for the, the, the at-home garage dad, because you do need liability insurance and all. So it's generally for the established facility.
Jeff Compton [01:05:58]:
Gotcha. Gotcha. Uh, available in Canada and the US?
Alan Placer [01:06:02]:
Yeah, we ship to Canada. You do have to pay the— unfortunately— shipping fees and import tariffs and all. Um, but yeah, we ship actually worldwide. Um, we do a little Mexico, Australia, uh, and all the military bases around the country— around the world. Uh, very cool. And for your listeners, we have, um, a coupon code too I created. Uh, 15% off all products, even if it's already on sale. And it's Jaded Mechanic.
Alan Placer [01:06:32]:
Try to keep it easy.
Jeff Compton [01:06:34]:
Yeah, so thank you, Alan. That is awesome. I've never had anybody do that yet. That's pretty cool.
Alan Placer [01:06:39]:
Just makes sense.
Jeff Compton [01:06:41]:
I, I want to thank you for coming on today, uh, and putting up with my, my sinus congestion, my coughing. I appreciate it. Um, I'm really going to look into this stuff because I think it's neat. Like, it's really, really cool.
Alan Placer [01:06:52]:
If you go on YouTube, you put in modified Power Wheels, Power Wheel drag racing, Power Wheel Demo Derby, you'll come up with— you'll go down a rabbit hole.
Jeff Compton [01:07:01]:
Yeah, yeah, very cool. Well, thank you for coming on today. Um, all the best in the future. Keep me, keep me posted on everything. I'll go follow you and keep me posted on, on new developments and stuff. And, you know, anybody, if you want to, you know, reach out to me and find out how to find ML Toys, get a hold of me and I'll set you up with Alan quite easily. So he's a great guy to talk to. And like I said, he wants to solve the problems that are out there.
Jeff Compton [01:07:27]:
So, you know, get a hold of me. Alan, thank you for your time today, man. I appreciate you.
Alan Placer [01:07:31]:
Thanks for having me, Jeff. It was good to be on.
Jeff Compton [01:07:34]:
We look forward to seeing what's coming down the pipe from M&L Toys. So everybody, as always, I appreciate you. I love you. Be good to each other. We'll talk to you soon. Hey, if you could do me a favor real quick and like, comment on, and share this episode, I'd really appreciate it. And please Most importantly, set the podcast to automatically download every Tuesday morning. As always, I'd like to thank our amazing guests for their perspectives and expertise, and I hope that you'll please join us again next week on this journey of change.
Jeff Compton [01:08:05]:
Thank you to my partners in the ASAR Group and to the Changing the Industry podcast. Remember what I always say: in this industry, you get what you pay for. Here's hoping everyone finds their missing 10mm, and we'll see you all again next time.