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We believe that "Walking with JK Boots" will be a great source of inspiration and entertainment for our customers, and we hope you'll tune in and join us on this exciting adventure. Whether you're looking for advice for the best tools in your trade, inspiration in your most difficult seasons, or just a good laugh, we're confident that you'll find something you love in each episode.
Our podcast is a long-form conversation hosted by Tim, with friends and guests including notable creators, tradesmen, and entrepreneurs, highlighting their stories, and the principles behind their life and achievements–both their successes and failures.
you know I've always dreamed about that too like you know imagine going on that episode I mean that'd be amazing anyways William Barton
do Will William what do you prefer I go by William but uh either way Mr William Barton AKA boots by thanks for coming
out seriously pleasure yeah so when I first I think I tried to emailing you once before like a long time ago and
then it just kind of got Lost in Translation but I remember seeing the first time and it was like awesome love it super cool and I think it's good you
know and yeah the boot world is a little interesting and it's surprising to see
that there's as much like traction I as a boot maker I never thought that there would be this much yeah I'll be honest
as a as someone who who writes about boots and films boot reviews like I also didn't know that there was such a
passionate Community behind boots it's pretty wild it is pretty wild yeah so just before we started recording you
mentioned um so you did the teaching thing San Francisco then you started writing so like full time you're
full-time dedicated to this what's your life look like day to day now yeah so you know I live the Glamorous Life of a
uh boot journalist so so yeah I so I kind of we have two two main things
going so there's boots by and of course that's the YouTube channel the website and then the social media channels and
all that yeah and then we also recently started a sock brand called Camel City Mill and we basically make socks that
are pretty much for like JK boots they're for work boots heavy duty socks yeah and so that's milled at a mill in
North Carolina and um yeah and just spent a lot of time because where I'm from Winston-Salem
it's like we have there's tons of mills in that area and that used to be where
basically every sock in the United States it was from is North Carolina I mean
there's different Mills elsewhere too but that's definitely like the Haynes the whole Haynes brand is from Winston-Salem I used to live in an
abandoned Haynes Factory and uh but so there's still a lot of cottage Mills smaller Mills that are
around there so I just spent a lot of time last year going to all the Mills I
went there's like I took a community college class on the programming for how to make socks which
was like what am I doing like this is wild like when you say Mill you mean specifically dedicated to making socks
yes do they have like a loom and stuff like that that like makes the sock like clothes yeah they got this like
they'd have dozens of these machines but they're like they have all these little needles in a circle I don't know if
their needles or what they are but it's like this I don't know it's like this weird Contraption it looks like the the
sarlacc pit in Star Wars okay but it's all mechanical okay okay and so it's basically just feeds all these threads
in there and just makes a sock in a tube and you're like whoa heck yeah yeah so I
like I learned the software behind some of that and then realized like okay I've gone too deep you know
um and then started working with a mill there uh in ha River and
we just started we started selling in November but we've kind of really started to gain more traction just
earlier this month or in March now it's April um but yeah so we started to sell our
socks and and it's been really cool because the whole thing is we want to make a sock uh one thing we learned through boots by was that a lot of
people were struggling with their socks either they had really sweaty feet or their socks would fall down all that
stuff or would wear them with steel toe boots and if it was Winter their toes would get cold and stuff like that so
kind of tried to go down the list of like all right what is bothering people and how do we make a sock that is gonna
you know how how do we make a stock that's going to solve those problems and so spend a bunch of time basically doing
that figuring that out yeah for Blue Collar guys and trade workers that's right a manufacturing companies private
labeling for you this is your brand Camel City you designed it kind of how you wanted it exactly exactly yeah is it
what's the makeup like polyester cotton what is it it's a 53 Merino wool and then we use so because we looked a lot
at like darn tough and Fox River and we kind of I liked you know Gotta Have
Merino wool because that's what keeps your feet from sweating that's where the durability is that's where the comfort is so that's you know you've got to have
that Darn Tough a lot of their socks have and they have a lot of different variety um so some of their socks have like up
to 60 I think they even have one version that's like 72 percent Merino wool which is which is awesome
um but one of the things about having such a high wool percentage is that you don't have the elastane you don't
have like the the stretchiness and that can cause the sock to fall down because like well if you had 100 wool sock it
would just it would be like wearing like a I don't know like a just a bag it would have no elasticity yeah you have
no shape to it so you gotta have to balance that out with with the um you know you have some what's the other you
know 47 so it's it's I think it's eight percent spandex it's 53 Merino wool and
then that leaves us with either the rest would be polyester that's pretty cool yeah it's a polyester and elastane
there's like a special fabric that's kind of like a mix of those in it so that uh made up of all that people are
happy with the sockets people are happy with it yeah that's awesome so that's been really cool so yeah I mainly do those two things and
um that A Day in the Life is I wake up early I wake up at like 4 30 in the morning
and I drink my first cup of coffee and I'm just you're on it I'm starting to write boots by articles reviews I'm
starting to play on YouTube videos yeah um you know doing maybe customer service for the sock business yeah
um right now I'm in you know I'm here in Washington yeah so my my pregnant wife is shipping socks out of the garage you
know good life yeah faithful they're not faithful with you there so it's a family operation that's really cool man good
for you that's really good yeah that's that's how we started to you know so it just you know
you just you have to do everything you can you know you're gonna if you're a one-man show it's it's everything and that's exciting like that's a lot of
work and I resonate and understand the difficulty there the hustle the hustle
and the hustle and the bustle and you just kind of don't quit and you got to keep going with the writing part of it I mean does that come easy Is That Flow
good like yeah I'd say so the writer's block you know no I do not get writer's block thankfully I I I've spent a lot of
time so um yeah kind of go back to a little earlier my story really wanted to be a screenwriter I
spent my whole all of high school like movies yeah writing movies and I was like oh man I'm gonna go to USC or UCLA
film school that's my my dream and that didn't end up working out because I think it just like sucked at it yeah so
um and then I was like all right well I can't get any of my friends to be in any of my movies anymore because like they're like sick of it so I'll start
writing novels and short stories and did that for a long time but that was basically where I picked that's where I
picked up the habit of waking up at four in the morning sitting down and writing because it was like I had to go teach so I was like all right
let me how do I sit down how do I just get a thousand words down on the page before I have to go to work and so I got
really good at just sitting down and writing and so when it came time to um you know for boots by it's like
that's second nature to me is to wake up and write two reviews in a day or something like that and really like or you know a review and a guide and stuff
like that and it just flows yeah just kind of comes easy so that's awesome so the screenwriting thing had no traction
no traction at all that's okay no but now I'm on YouTube so you know I think this some of the stuff that I learned you know that's coming back around and
yeah yeah it's been a it's been a journey compare the YouTube video making Journey to the you know blog writing
boots by.com SEO Journey yeah yeah so it's it's definitely it's definitely
different because you can write an article on you have a broader audience when you're
writing an article because you can you can choose to write about maybe some like really obscure brand and
people who want to find that they'll end up finding that and so he doesn't you don't have to have such a broad appeal
but with YouTube but when you're thinking about ideas it's like you have a it's almost like a different
audience so I'd say like the boots by YouTube audience is different than the boots by.com audience in a lot of ways
uh so I've been I'm still learning this but you'll try video ideas that were
like oh this is a really popular article on bluespy.com I'm gonna make a video version of this I'm gonna do a great job on it and you
do it it's like oh wow that's that's not the audience at all totally crashes yeah it's like yeah so it's been interesting
to kind of just learn like you know it's funny when you're when you're running a YouTube
channel you have your ideas of what you think is interesting and what people will like and still I'm like 50 wrong yeah 50
right yeah and so it's interesting to see like oh what who who is watching who who are the people watching this video
and trying to learn who they are and what they enjoy so I can you know just make more things that they like yeah and
so that is a that's been a it's a it's an Ever it's an ongoing process it's always changing yeah it's been such a
learning curve for us too yeah yeah um yeah I used to think that I understood
no and you know you do just at a level I think everybody has a basic logical level of
what people like to watch you know you have an idea and I think that like again just learning so much like sometimes I
was like man I knew nothing yeah like I I didn't understand this at all and like you're just kind of learning as you go along and
the whole media you know customer service customer opinion world is it first of all there's
so much it's huge yeah you know and there's so many facets and every facet has a Fanatics and every fanatic group
has courts of opinion and debates of opinion Etc so there's just there's so much
going on and so much happening it's sometimes a challenge I think like even for us to like we always bring something like what kind of content to make and
sometimes the best thing that you can do is see what's working and just do that too because you don't have to you don't
have to reinvent the wheel every time it's like people like watching video a then then focus on video a make a good
video a you know and then there's the other side of a tour we want to be original I have creative ideas and like you do run into this creativity block
but you know for us like all of our content that was is always based and focus on like how can we teach people
about a product how can we engage them show them our brand show them our business show them kind of what we're about what we do it's like that's like
where our vision comes from and so you know like um you know the the whole cut in half boot cutting cutting a boot in half
thing right right Rose Anvil was really popular for doing that and it's awesome I mean it is truly awesome we've we've
been cutting boots in half for like a long time like I think almost you know so probably about 10 years ago
seven years ago for like our retail like store here again to show it off we cut a couple bits in half and that's been an
old school thing blue makers have been doing that forever but you know just to see that apply to YouTube and like blow up yeah wow amazing so cool you know
um and you know we've done a couple Rose Anvil videos that so cool people love to see that and then we've cut our own boots and have to post them on our
YouTube channel you know and breaking it down showing that it's like people like that okay like we do it you know so yeah
um like our creativity comes from who wants to watch who's watching
what's gonna like keep their attention yeah and it's I kind of try to play this balance between like okay is it too is
it is it boring is it too crazy it's somewhere in the middle right you know right you know Mr Beast is Right obvious
of course you know like amazing and I sometimes think how can I incorporate
that form of a principle like into our industry and so then we kind of we have some videos right now that we're working
on that will be kind of like that style you're gonna crush a Ferrari yeah we'll
figure it out we'll see if we can rent one or something yeah and just say hey we nicked it on accident you know and um
yeah so stuff like that and like that's kind of where our creativity comes from and like with social media so do you
have an Instagram page for boots by yeah okay we do how many followers do you guys have I think we have like 1800 okay
okay it'll keep it'll keep going yeah um consistency you know just being
consistent and having I don't want to say the same message but a consistent
message even if it's a few different things it's a consistent message and so that's a lesson we learned big time too
is just do really really well and commit to it for a long time and like you'll
just you'll just see it happen right tick tock you know we committed to posting like four tick tocks a day like
my art team is amazing that's crazy it is a lot and it blew up you know and so it's just it's just a matter of
consistency and and again it's so weird Trends change um kind of feels like it changes on a
dime you know and we're still figuring it out too it's like we're still kind of going along the journey I think that like every Creator is in kind of a
similar boat um definitely like that's what I like to hear from you you're doing really well you know in in this space this space in
this space and like I want to learn from that and like honor that we're doing well on something I'll share with that it's kind of like
one big like everybody who's creating stuff on social media and YouTube they're all kind of on one big team ultimately
trying to get people to watch their stuff right right you know and so there are principles that do work across all
platforms yeah you know it's it's interesting I've been actually been thinking about that um a good amount the last couple days and
uh you know one thing I think about YouTube and there is um like feelings I think there's some
feelings out there of competitiveness or like there are competing channels but
it's kind of like I don't I don't think that there are at least on YouTube there's no
competition it's like it's almost more like colleagues exactly because it's you know it's not like you know you're gonna
not watch my video and watch somebody else's video maybe it's the first one they watch somebody else or you're not gonna stop somebody from watching
somebody else's video right right and it's like no the the audience the person who's watching YouTube on the phone they
just end up watching 14 more minutes they just watch another 14 minutes it's like right you know they they just okay this is another entertaining video yeah
yeah so it's like um yeah I think it's funny I think when with a world as small as like like or
like boots you know it's it's very compact very passionate uh group of people and so I think that
sometimes there can be like a an unwarranted feeling of competitiveness yes for YouTube particularly it's like I
feel the same way yeah I'm on the same colleagues yeah just before you came I was on a zoom call with another company
that's in our industry and we were just just chatting oh yeah you know and it was like very nice and very it was a
breath of fresh air that was like oh you guys are going through that too oh that's interesting how do you how did you navigate that oh well this this is
oh okay yeah I like that um so so what's what's your your background before I mean I know this is
a family business so I don't know if you sir always knew you were gonna be kind of are you yeah what is your I'll tell
you absolutely yes so that's funny um a little bit of everything yeah so okay so um growing up so I'm right now
I'm 23. so I got into this when I was like 14 15. okay um so so my parents
started this business a long time ago at first they were just doing tailoring and shoe repair okay so my dad was doing basic shoe repair my mom was a
seamstress from overseas so my parents are from overseas they came to America in 1994. and um my dad was a boot maker
overseas knew how to do everything overseas my mom was a seamstress overseas and so when they came to America in 1984 from the former Soviet
Union so um both my parents were born in Ukraine um you know American Dream straight up
classic story very awesome amazing I love this country it's the greatest thing ever and anyways so um parents
start up this business I was a kid really small and it was just very basic you know small mom-and-pop shop classic
mama pop shop style um working super hard I mean my mom you know she's in her mid-50s now
and this is you know so she was like working 5am going crazy working hard
building this thing up plus we were in a bad financial situation at that time because just you know there was like the
economical crisis and just just not good you know also it's hard to start a business you need money to start a
business right on I remember they were like buying stuff for their first shop on like a
credit card because like they didn't like have a lot of cash and I'm the youngest one out of four um and so I just I just remember that
season so well and there was even a period of time so my me and my brother will so who I work with now we're
together we he we're closer to an age and so there was a season where we were like gonna move and like we sold
a bunch of our furniture and then we we something changed big deal you know like economic stuff and then we couldn't move
so we had to stay and I we didn't we sold our beds and so I remember like sleeping on like air mattresses for like
three years you know um just just funny just stuff like that anyways so as my parents start this
business um starts to grow little by little more shoe repair more tailing and shoe repair
is nice because it's it's a skill thing and um you know it it's it can be profitable
certain things certain things are terrible you know because you got people who bring you stuff like hey like
my Loop ripped you know can you please like sew this up and it's like so
annoying and it's cheap dermantine material and right right they charge them 10 bucks for and they're like 10 bucks can she just go back there and go
be done stuff like that yeah most customers though are super awesome super nice super good we did a ton of cowboy
boot resource and you know women's high heels protection stuff and all that kind of stuff for years my mom was doing
hemming pants zippers jackets all that stuff so but my dad always had a dream
to start a business with his sons okay so that was his dream for a long time
so as things are getting better a little bit better we're kind of getting out of debt you know okay sorry to kind of make
some better income he starts just like machine here machine here machine there
equipment here there's a lot of opposition especially from like competition
um to the point where and then some competition helped you know and that was like that's an amazing Miracle story in
and of itself but there's like a million miracles in that Journey we're just God totally was involved and just so much
favor like the God's favor you know just over us and that's just the Lord but anyways
um a million miracles in between beginning to then and then as my older brother
will was like 16. he started 15 he started getting involved to ensure repair and then building like our he
built our first website jkboots.com through Weebly I don't know if you know what weebra is yeah yeah you know like old school old school like the most like
just cheap cheap cheap cheap I think it was the free version and you know it's made for like selling like hats or
something one skew one color right one price right and we're trying to do this super custom product through and
everything and will is amazing and he made it work and they started making little bit boots
like customer would come in for a true repair he sees that on the wall we've
got some boots that say JK boots ask about what that is oh interesting come back later order a pair we I
remember like we would get like two three orders a month and we're like oh my God this is amazing you know like
somebody just spent 400 I think at the time they're 400 bucks 400 bucks and a pair of boots oh my gosh yeah this is
unbelievable and then we had five orders in a month and then six yeah and then oh my gosh ten and
we're like what this is insane yeah yeah and then I was like 15 or 16 so Will's
you know three or four years older than me three years older than me so when I was like 15. I first of all I love my dad a lot very
much love my family and whatever it is that they were doing I just wanted to be a part of it we could have been
Carpenters or mechanics or whatever I just wanted to be with my family and this has just happened to be
what we're doing honestly at first I was not passionate about it I wanted to do other things and I don't know I just my dad didn't
get never gave me pressure never never forced me never said hey you're gonna do
this he was very open I actually wanted to be a United States Deputy Marshal okay like a law enforcement yeah and I
even like shadowed to Marshall for a day and stuff and like went to their office and everything uh my dad never gave me pressure or heat
about anything he was just like Hey listen do what you want to do I don't know call it a miracle call God I don't know if they're praying for me
but you know like um I just lost passion for the Marshall stuff and a fire of passion was ignited
for this business yeah because it seems like you have uh a passion for for business yes and you know specifically
boots but I mean yeah it's kind of the way you were talking about other companies and stuff like that yeah yeah I just love business in
general and I just got on fire for that like so when will and I were like 10 11 12 we used to mow Lawns was it garyvee who did it for you is that you know
later I got that guy later you know he he got into me later yeah uh but I think at that time it was more just like
I remember um like seeing like Clips or like documentaries about like John Rockefeller or like um you know Andrew
Carnegie um I have this memory of some movie scene
about a guy with a tie and a briefcase and on the phone and he's like making deals I don't even remember what movie it wasn't I sort of think that's cool
yeah you know yeah so anyways just like business and then it's like when I was like 15 um got involved I started the Instagram
page February 2nd 2016. I just remember that day very well today we have 167 000 followers you know so I just remember
that really well I was doing I was running the Instagram I was taking pictures with my phone I had like a Samsung Galaxy
I was traveling to fairs and logging shows and that was like when we started kind of to pick up a little bit more
seriously 2016 2016 2017 ishino and finally you know we made like okay this
is our model number one this is my like stuff like that made our logo you know like basic small tiny fundamental things
and remind you it's it's my dad will and I and my mom my mom's doing tailoring and seamstressing which is still
bringing in income we're still doing shoe repair and slowly slowly starting to build JK boots exactly yeah so will
my dad and I are making the product so selling the product fitting for the
product making the product sending the product I used to at the end of like around three o'clock every day go and
box up boots drive to USPS buy the labels with a credit card and send them
off like that's insane yeah yeah anyways um that's how it happened and did just one thing after another step by step
little by little self-taught um you know not perfect many many mistakes
along the way um create you know a million Miracles and just you just don't quit just don't
give up just keep going and here we are today I still don't consider us fully successful to the point that I want to
be there's still so many things that are not done yeah I'm curious about where you guys are going and what you have on
the on the docket because we're looking yeah we're looking around yeah this place is yeah it's huge so you have room to grow absolutely yeah yeah on the
docket is to be better so I don't know if I have like a number in mind
um I don't think I have a number in mind I don't think I even have oh like we made a thousand pair of boots
the quarter or something like that like I don't even like think about that I think more about like reputation and is the machine
flowing it's fun to talk to you about that because it's you know that's definitely something I think about a lot too and and as we're
building building our company as well and um you know how we're doing that and thinking about how to do that in the
best possible way so it's definitely something I think a lot about and sometimes I gotta pull back and just pick all right I just gotta go head down
like just just execute you know yeah even though I am like I think about it if I get hit by a car
like boot spy is done yeah yeah and then people will lose their jobs which is like that's kind of scary right right
now it's like oh man like yeah I got four or five people who kind of 100 it depend on that so it's like how do I it
does feel in a way where I'm just like oh hey how do I how do I get myself out
of this just because like yeah if I get hit by a car four or five people lose their jobs it's not that's crazy and even yeah even if like
I'm out for three months or four months what's gonna happen yeah it's the same thing yeah those people lose their jobs yeah you just think about that like feel
a sense of response a little sense of responsibility to where it's like okay I gotta I have to make this be able to run
without me too and sometimes I'll hear um
yeah you know there's a lot of like limiting beliefs that people have and um there's like a yeah there's just
weird things that sometimes you know just people say um that just is not true for example
um oh well as you grow your quality goes down that's not true that's a lie
as we grow our quality has gotten better do you know do you know why because my team is better right and instead of one
guy making sure it's good I got five yeah you don't have to go try and take pictures of the boots and then ship the
boots exactly exactly and I have a I have a person specifically dedicated to this one thing who's gonna do his utmost
best job at this one thing you know like we're just showing you we installed this you know two QC stations yeah and I hired for that like that's that's the
resources that we put in that like I expanded the team to be better right you know like I remember when I was younger
um we'd have like and it's kind of like maybe it's maybe it's not everybody but I would say it's like an old-timer thing it's like
um oh you know careful don't get too busy because you don't want quality to go down right
I never understood that and I just I that's not true I refuse to believe that and I'm not saying you know that
someone who's a one-man shop is gonna do worse than a company with 100 people right but what I'm saying is that the
company with 100 people does not have to do worse right right necessity yeah exactly you can you can you should
actually improve right because you have more people here you have more care more system more organization you know I know
the shoe repair cobbler in world really really well and I guarantee you I feel
confident saying this if I go into any shoe repair shop in America I bet you first of all they all look mostly the
same I can tell you ninety percent of the machinery and equipment in there and I can tell you that they're not
organized they're so not organized like this this Mom and Pop Shop shoe repair
style thing it's it's it's it's so different it's so it's so like because it's also it's not it's not fair
because it's just guys they're one guy or two guys or it's a father and a son we see a lot of that you know that they
have a skill but they're not really entrepreneurs they have an ability but they're not really organizational people
they have a talent but they're not like really good leaders or something yeah you know that's that's funny it's it's
kind of like I have a local cobbler Wyatt and dad and they're in Winston-Salem and then they
have I think two or three other shops in that's awesome that sounds more legit yeah and they're and they're they really
impressed me because I went in and rebuilt a pair of boots with them they showed me the whole thing it was super awesome yeah
um but they really impressed me because I I think Tony was I think his name was Tony I'm forgetting
um but he was kind of he was the older guy and he had the in-depth knowledge and then there was like two or three
younger guys you know guys who were like 28 sure 30. yeah and they were you know
it's it's fun to see because you have this like old tradition and then you get
the like younger guys like like you and me and stuff like that was coming in and
it's cool to see when a when an old business kind of gets modernized a little yeah and like just
oh it's just fun you see these like really Dynamic young guys come in and like change these businesses
fundamentally to what they do and yeah and um yeah it's just like that's one example where you do have that old world
or just that that old skill yeah like Tony he showed me this stuff the dude is a master yeah he knew that he knew
he knew so much it blew my mind and then you have the younger guys who are like shooting the videos building this
awesome website doing all this cool stuff and I was like oh man like what a yeah it's just cool to see yeah cool to
see yeah um there's a parable Jesus says that you know he gave one Mana one minus five minor and ten minor the guy who had
ten made ten more the guy who had five had five more the guy who had one buried it right and gave it back and and he's
like he took that one and gave it to the guy who had ten right and like what a principle that
if you've been given something multiply it do better with it don't just bury it like do the best that you can
like that's ultimately the mentality I think that will and I carry in like this is cool picture my dad actually haven't seen that my dad is a great man like one
of the I think the greatest man I've ever met and he's such a leader and such like a just so committed hard-working
good father all these things and we make a really good team me Will and
him you know and we have a good team that will has his skills and abilities I have will is actually you know I learned
a lot of this from him he's one of the um strategy organization you know
tactician system analytical mind you know he's like an Elon Musk figure you
know I'm more of the like probably like marketing media personality you know customer conversation service right and
I really like the boot making side of it you know that's kind of like more my thing but you know will will has pushed
us a lot to this you know if dude we gotta be better we gotta have better systems everything's got to be
documented Will's the systems guy will is definitely the system's guy and he has the Charisma sales side of it too
right but he's just more naturally geared towards that I I have the system organization inside of it but I'm more
naturally geared towards like the media side of things right right um so like we make sure I share that with you yeah yeah like we make a good
team for so my struggle is disciplining myself to mean better that way you know and so that's what I've been working on
and doing you know yeah it's you you have to um and you just have to grow as a man just be better you just you know
sometimes it's just pull yourself up by the bootstraps like you just gotta kind of get it gotta get it done and
yeah like this industry like there's some customers here that are just they're interesting and
um it's with with the marriage of online and social media right and like this old
industry of boot making it's funny to see and
learning how to deal with stuff like okay you make a pair of boots for somebody yeah my dad's got almost 40
years of experience um make them weird say that they're all good somebody
receives them but they say that they're not good um like first of all you have to turn off
the emotion right the personal side because personally inside you want to be like dude what are you talking about are
you like do you are you a boot maker yeah you know it's like I think anybody would have that response like if you get a carpenter has been doing it for 30
years and they go and they put together your cabinets and then the homeowner who doesn't know there's nothing about
carpentry no no that's not how it's supposed to be right so you have to learn to okay turn off that it's not
personal and it's actually not even about that anymore right now you're in a new face you're got a business and you
gotta have customer service where the focus is making people happy right it's
not even about being right right because in a court of law and technicalities I'm right I'm gonna prove it write it out
draw show but that doesn't matter it's not that it doesn't matter it's not important right what's important is it's not the question being asked exactly the
question being asked is I'm unhappy make me happy make me happy you know and
so that was a transitional phase I think for us too learning that you know figuring that out
um and instead of like trying to correct you I'm not I'm I I will not do that you know what sir
you're my customer you're not happy okay yeah you know so that was hard to figure
it out learning absolutely I think probably there's similar stuff in the viewer things viewer side of things as well yeah I think at times yeah you know
and there's haters out there too that you shouldn't listen to right now but there is constructive criticism and good feedback and then just in general just
good customer service you know have good viewer service you know give the people what they want yeah that's ultimately kind of what we're about because all
said and done we're making these products for people Ford makes trucks for people right they don't make it for
the sake of making a truck you know a guitar maker you know um Taylor and Martin don't make guitars
just to make guitars they make guitars for people you know so yeah just kind of learning that shifting that mentality
but overall you know 30 000 foot View praise the Lord we're doing super well
we're growing we're super dug in we're super focused on just getting sharper
and getting better and the media side of is a big thing too that's why I reached out to you because I liked what you're
doing you know the podcast absolutely yeah the podcast thing is a big side of it too you know we want more awareness
more transparency more Media stuff you know and
gotta gotta run with it yeah yeah yeah yeah so it's kind of like where you know where I'm at like where my husband is so I guess to answer your question when we
first started that's how I got into it right right I don't have a business degree I don't have a marketing degree I don't have a accounting or Finance
degree I don't I've never worked a job before okay uh actually not true I work
for will my brother about mowing lawns when I was 10. okay give me 20 bucks one time so I got I got 20 bucks one time so
that's my first trip and um yeah we so he was 14 I was 11. and we
had an old 1999 GMC Sierra pickup truck he didn't have his driver's license and we used to push our mowers around
the neighborhood and we got tired of that and we asked our dad dad can we use the truck yeah and my dad said yes so you
guys were yeah so but it was like you drive like to do house so will was a tall kid okay so he could
pull it over he could pull it off and his feet reached the pedals yeah so we're gonna wear like a fake beard no no no no no but he he looked older he
looked like he was 16 because he he's tall just he's a tall guy and taller and uh 14 you know he already looked like
maybe 15 or 16 so you guys and plus we drove three houses there right right four houses down whatever so we loaded
up our mowers in there and like we would drive and so like that was our first business that was like my first job but um no no 10 years old that was when I
was 10 or 11. yeah so you guys were just natural so we're just kind of naturally like entrepreneur type and I feel like a lot of people have that similar kind of
you know story so that's cool but yeah never had a job never never done that and so all of this is very much just
figuring it out learning listening being super humble you know
willing to admit mistakes figuring it out it's not personal it's not about me it's about the job it's about the
company it's about the product it's not about will you know it's about is this thing running good you know right um will and I we make it about our dad
because we honor him and love him and so the big part of it too is like we want to do this in honor of him and so also
He's our founder and he's alive today and he's still here and he's still involved I think that's huge yeah a lot
of companies don't have that they don't have and he's young you know he's 55 54
55 and um he's gonna be around for a long time like this is so cool this is
unique you know Ford can't say that right you know um some Red Wing can't
say that Danner can't say that I don't even know who founded them you know what I mean and so it's cool to be able to
have that history have that Heritage it's real it's alive you know he was 26 years old when he came to America oh
well you know so he was he was a young guy you know a little older than me a little younger than you baby how old are you yeah 33. okay there you go so a
little younger than you imagine coming to a new country nothing no language to kids you know it's like it's cool it's
awesome and so yeah the whole thing is really awesome it's um it's easy to get caught up in the stress of it um because
it can be very stressful and you know you have to learn to be more forgiving to
your mistakes and also just remaining relentlessly positive and living in the vision and I just try to live in that
Vision so like maybe that's a good advice for you you know it's like you're building something new and we're ultimately just getting started you and
I but like I always try to remind myself to live in the vision I have an idea of
what I want yeah I actually live there I don't even live here I live there yeah if something goes wrong here it's okay
because that's where it helps to have a systems person on your on your side that's that's definitely my business partner Dan he's like he's he's much
better on the system side yeah and so sometimes I can I can live too far in the vision that's also my wife
is also the systems person of the household so she's like take the dog out
exactly I'm living in the vision yeah yeah you need to do this stuff now too yeah absolutely that's funny but yeah
that's kind of that's kind of my story and um you know for for what's on the docket and the future stuff is like what I mentioned you know we just want to get
better and um more products for sure yeah variety of
products yeah different kinds of boots and styles of boots so I'll have a lot more stuff for you to share yeah as time
goes on you know and so we want to do all kinds of different styles you know we're going to be branching out and
we'll have a Western Line we'll have a we'll have a dress line we'll have a Heritage line we'll have an outdoor line we'll have women's stuff like that's all
coming it's all coming and coming quick yeah I tried the um I have the climber yeah the climber I think it's rough out
yep yeah I think it was Redwood color yeah Redwood rough out and that and with the um I got the safety toe on it too
yeah yeah and that is that is the beefiest beefy boot that is awesome that is for sure we're very heavy and we will continue to
be heavy in the work industry that's our bread and butter that's our foundation that's our that's our build also specifically like with firefighting so
we do a lot of firefighting boots and that's okay super important um customer base for us we got we take
we try to take really really good care of that there's something called the wildland firefighter Foundation there in
Boise okay they're amazing the president right now is Burke Miner his mother Vicki Miner started it
um and the the firefighting that that's definitely that's always been important to me too or you know I mean it it is a
cool thing to see to learn about like in in the boot world how closely those are related because I grew up in in San
Bernardino okay and every time I go to visit my dad's house yeah he lives in a place called Pennington Hills California it's like feeling California or
Wrightwood um anyway it's just out in the middle of nowhere basically in Southern California
and every time I go to this house there's like a fire there's a huge fire like four blocks up the road and just
like hey Dad now I'm in North Carolina I'm like it rains out here and it's not
always on fire like every time I come here it's like it's crazy so that's happening yeah that's crazy and yeah it's just you know the idea of
something I ever thought about but like a firefighter needs great boots because they're doing they're like walking up
the sides of mountains for cutting trees at a time yeah you're just out there just yeah yeah it is wild and that's a
huge customer base for us and um we'll continue to be you know we're never gonna not
have that be a focus for us um so Burke the president of the
foundation we're friends and you know he's he's probably the close the same age as my dad and
great just amazing guy amazing family Amazing Story
um if you don't know who they are look them up they do incredible things so anytime a wildland firefighter
either dies in action which does happen tragically gets hurt they're there they take care of the
family for not just once like for a while you know they go to the funeral they honor them they hang them they they
take it they have their photo in like in memoriam of them in the foundation they're never forgotten you know and so
um really cool we're partnered with them we um they they have our product in
their immune like their big Flagship awesome new building that they built and donate to that through every sale that's
made there and um like anytime that there's like an auction or something like auction off a
pair of our boots this stuff and that all goes to the foundation stuff so super cool that's a big part of who we are that's not gonna change and then in
general just the working Blue Collar man is the part of it it's it is the
business you know it's those people right that's who we're thinking about that's who we're focused on that's where
my mind is yeah and it's almost funny like um the online customer is a little bit
different from the in-store customer so we have retail stores and we have five retail stores oh really yeah so we have
Phoenix Arizona Reading California uh Kennewick Washington Spokane Washington and then Boise so we have five brick and
mortar stores yeah that's all coming yeah um and people love coming into the store
they love that that's big it's almost interesting that there's a category of people that don't want to do online and
then there's a category of people that only want to do online yeah and for those that don't want to do online they come to our stores super successful
they're doing really well and um yeah like they're they're different people yeah it's it's really interesting
to see that Dynamic and so now we're thinking about when did you do you mind me asking when did you expand into
retail 2021 we opened our first store in Reading okay 2022 was was Phoenix
mid-20s no um end of 21 was Phoenix um early 22 was Tri-Cities so Kennewick
Washington okay and then Boise happened like mid 21. nice yeah so all kind of close to the same time all right and
then Spokane has been around you know obviously since the beginning right right and then we have a couple more cities on the list that we'll be doing
you know we'll probably do something this year and then the year after so we'll just continually do that because it's a big resource it's nice you know
there's a lot of customers that they want to come touch it they're fit and I feel like that's actually a nice advantage to have
um over you know just competition because you know you want to go feel it and go
try it touch it on get fit make sure it's good walk around you know so that's nice and if it's in your city you just pull up you know right um really good
managers there they're awesome people um set that all up manage that set up that system so it's good it's really
good but anyways yeah those customer the customers there's a there's a disparity a little bit between that and so
um we're thinking about the online customer and their experience and we're thinking about the in-store customer in their experience and ultimately those
Journeys are slightly different so which adds another level of complexity to kind of the whole customer service experience
yeah so we're so customer focused so customer oriented and I think that our base they
like that we have stores they like that we're focused on the workbook Market they like that we're super driven to the
blue collar market and that heart you know is not going to change and as we do other brands
it's like okay we're super focused on this we're not changing now we have something cool interesting
coming we're not going to mix the two we're gonna add like we're going to apply the same level of tenacity now to
this Market to this base so I mean yeah so when you say different brands you're talking about are you talking about like a Heritage line yes how is that gonna be
is that gonna be like JK boots yes of course I'll be yeah I'll be under yeah totally but like uh okay a better word
is a line yeah like this line you're like Outdoors you know right right totally focused on this and like even so
like for firefighting um firefighting is unique and cool and um it's a work boot but it's a specialty boot right so it's
kind of like well which one is it and uh the what is it the red the red the red Souls holes and you know fire boots and
the thread and all that stuff and it's like even with the fire bits and work boots it's like you know even that was we had to make sure that we communicated
clearly that we make fire boots right and that's a super big part of our business but we're not just the fire
boot company right we're also just work boots but those are synonymous and they work they work well together right so
there's no need exactly it's kind of like a nice little marriage and stuff so yeah but you know as of the moment we're
totally fully dedicated to the whole work boom area working market and that's what we're so busy with and it's yeah
exactly it's awesome and so yeah just super customer focused um
try and get smarter trying to learn uh we just we're just committed to never stop getting better you know it's like again like what's on the docket don't
quit getting better yeah just always get better everything and what else what else am I supposed to do you know it's like what else what else is there to do
right it's just always get better always get better always improve and that's all facets that's
faster response types better sales better experience better communication better product you know so it's like all
those things together so that's that's what I'm about that's kind of what we're driven for in life media is a part of that now yeah absolutely that's really
exciting that's exciting and I'm yeah I'm Blown Away you guys have retail stores I didn't know that best yeah yeah
yeah so it's really interesting it is interesting so you got a dynamic operation going on trying to you know and the retail store again I'm very
passionate about that and um I think that you know I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this too but like as Ai and Technology gets better I think
that the Human Experience will be hot it'll continue it'll actually be
more valuable yeah absolutely so I think people will want to yeah come in talk
absolutely yeah yeah that's definitely something like for uh for bootsbie.com you know obviously there's a lot of
in that in the publishing industry there's a lot of talk of like AI coming in and sure and and changing everything
and it probably will change everything um but at the end in some regard I'm like
people still want to talk to somebody about like is this boot actually good right and so in some ways it's like
I think we'll be okay because like if I just go try the boot on take some pictures of me wearing the boot and right tell them my opinion right like
yeah yes that that is what it is that's that's the human that is valuable in itself yeah like that's the human touch
um I think I remember reading like in Denmark or some you know Norway some type of you know country out there um in
that Netherlands area there there's like a chain of Supermarket stores that they um specifically
only they they don't have automated self-checkout by Design because their
customers are requesting that they're asking to have people there and so they have like
a certain like some stores are all only fully automated and the others are only so they have like two types of stores
like only your automated cashier people so when you're when you're an old lady and you want to like right exactly with
the bad person exactly or whatever you know yeah and like full transparency I think I would also probably prefer I
mean there's both sides I like automation too because sometimes you want to get in get out you know right right um but like yeah I think the human touch
is super super valuable and it will continue to increase in value like restaurants you know like automated
restaurants that can only go so far I will say I went in I went into a
McDonald's like six months ago yeah I was driving I needed to use the restroom and I went into a McDonald's I was like I'm gonna get an Egg McMuffin sure and
there was like nobody in there I was like this is weird because I remember every McDonald's they had the play place yeah and it was like you know I was
getting all that nasty ball pit yeah because I said like that's how I remember that was the thing you bring your kids there yeah it's like a lunch
barrel and there's just like a there's like a an obelisk in the Middle where you just order from the Obelisk and it
just comes out yeah see like that's Innovation like ultimately the Innovative that's great but then if the
customers dominate somebody else they'll innovate again yeah you know because it's all customer centered customer focused they're gonna bring back the
sticky ball pit though they gotta they gotta have to bring that back that's that's it for sure there you go yeah so ultimately like yeah I mean there's
people that only want the automated stuff and then there's those that really really want the customer experience so that's why we're doing both and I think
that that's smart um I think that that makes sense because there's a lot of people in America and
not everybody is an online Warrior right most of them actually I think aren't yeah you know so and that might change
as we're going forward and so like I said we're so willing to flip on a dime you know do what needs to be done but
yeah absolutely yeah it's like you know with YouTube and like writing articles and stuff I think that the whole your face being in the video and it's
important it's important it means a lot to people to because there's also I mean there's so much publishing out there
that's that's like genuinely terrible and that's part of a you know these are these are not this is just random people
just spent like doing just random AI articles and throwing them up there and I think for particularly like in the you
know around boots at early early sites there is a lot of just
you could tell that the person has never worn a pair of boots they never did
anything about it and you know and that and that's not just boots I mean that's every industry that was just like the online publishing industry the affiliate
industry that's yeah that that was broad um so so yeah it's it's cool to be part
of Publishers who care like stride wise me um
Stitch down is another great example yeah I like people who who care and then they they build we have our own
audiences and you know there's a bit of the the psychographic element where it's like oh I like how this person presents
I like how that person presents so what's on your docket uh the socks have been that's been a big
that's been a big um kind of a surprise for for us so
gonna keep pushing that and keep keep going in that direction and kind of like you were saying like innovate the product and see how we can make it
better and better and uh just get the word out more and
then for boots by uh we're really kind of focusing in on
uh so we start we're starting a newsletter we have a newsletter coming out that's all about Heritage fashion so
we want to cater to that audience and grow that where you know we're basically
more the fashionable side of things so we're we're working on that and then we're also we're just
continuing to put out more articles and and keeping you know I'm trying to bring on more writers trying to bring on
different perspectives and and grow that article base to be broader so we can
just have we really want to be like the go-to resource where we get a lot of
people people searching on Google and they they find us um but we're really working on being
where like people just want to come back and and see what we have I think uh Stitch down does an amazing job of like
they have their Community they have when they write an article people go to their website they type in stickdown.com yeah
and they look they read it you know and that's that's something that I admire and like I think that's where we want to go is
getting to the point where yeah getting to the point where people want to know like you know go to the
website directly basically and that just that's like a quality indicator basically is how I how I think about that so really just boosting the quality
of everything we do both in videos articles uh originality of of like
researching the topics and like kind of crafting our own stories you know so doing stories that are more like hey
let's let's tell this story you know I have a dream I want to go to like Indonesia and do an Indonesian boot
maker video and and check them all out and write an article on it I don't think I'm gonna end up doing that anytime soon
because I'm about to have a baby so I'm like all right that's not gonna happen but Congratulations by the way thank you boy or a girl uh it's a boy it's awesome
boy yeah you got a name yeah his uh name is going to be Asher nice so it's a a blessed blessed by the Lord I love that
yeah that's good so you want to be like top gear but for boots top gears yeah
yeah yeah if we could be that way that would be awesome that would be awesome I like that just trying to yeah it's hard
it's hard being kind of doing a lot of the the writing in the video myself too it's like I need some
help you know yeah just need a team in um systems there's an old saying um
systems get you million yeah systems get you Millions people get you billions that's like an old like Carnegie thing
okay yeah um I think it's true yeah I mean ultimately
I see that when I bring on awesome people that are awesome and then like I said
they're gold you know everybody golden people good people want to do good
things they want to do better they want to build they want to be a part of something and so I think that's my job to give that place
and give that vision and allow people to be great like I think I challenge my my team a lot and I'll facets to like
go do something yeah I'm I back you I go do something awesome yeah I mean I I don't want to micromedge I don't want to
like nitpick I don't want to like I'm worried about people doing the good stuff though you know like for example
like with with um you know even like product production is a big one that's obvious you know we're super training training
training training training like super on top of that do I sometimes like you know worry like lose a little lose a little bit of sleep
at night if you know our production is perfect yeah you know but ultimately I trust
our foreman I trust our supervisors I trust the the the the key leaders
they're they don't they got it and they do yeah you know so I think it's just teammate you gotta you gotta build that
team you gotta have those people and it's gonna take time Rome wasn't built in a day yeah so some encouragement for
you there you go just keep going yeah eventually if you don't quit you will succeed yeah yeah I mean we've been
we've been we've been growing and and uh having a good time too that's awesome and your wife is semi-involved involved
yeah so she's definitely involved right now now that I'm I'm out here in Washington so she is back in North Carolina shipping out those stocks
um but yeah so she's been helping me a lot and uh yeah yeah and we we got we got a we got a nice little team we got a
nice little team uh that we've been piecing together over time and yeah do you have any connection with like any any other like cement to stitch down
stride wise you like communicate with them ever do you guys ever talk not not really not really um yeah not not the that's you know
that's something I I would like to do a little bit more I I've been very insulated just head down just trying to
write articles and then get it going yeah and uh but that's something more and more um would like to do and and
kind of become more of in the boot Community if if it hasn't happened yet I'm sure that at some time
it will there's probably going to be somebody online who criticizes you for doing something that's already been done
being able to do too many push-ups at once maybe maybe whatever totally just you gotta drown that out and you know
only listen to criticism that's constructive right or feedback that's helpful if it's hate just totally just
you know shut it off because uh sadly there are people that they just want to hate and they just want any opportunity
to do that it is it is funny so you know obviously you get some just like comments that are just like you know just just way out of way out of left
yeah and for me it doesn't bother me because it's just like okay that that's some comments you know something you're
like okay like when you when you sense there's a bit of Truth in it it can hurt a little bit Yeah but some some of them
are just way out there but even those ones it's really funny because I'll like laugh at it or something and
my wife will be like what are you what are you laughing at and then you're like oh this guy just said this thing and she's like what yeah how could they say
this about you I'm like no no don't that's funny she's definitely like
takes it takes it time yeah because she cares so much yeah she doesn't have the personality for YouTube no yeah she does
she does awesome pottery and um I was like you should make a YouTube channel she's like no no I don't I can't I can't
handle that yeah that's wisdom right there it's absolutely you know that's something that I had to work through to
and still am like the emotional side of it disconnecting from that and um
you know like do we make mistakes like yeah of course but you know it's about just fixing it right everybody does but
I don't know why garyvee talks about this and he he takes like a funny approach like he made this one real I
sent it to my media team after I saw it um I just laughed because it felt like a
release of pressure actually after Reddit he was standing in front of a dumpster and he's like you know he cusses a lot
right yeah yeah but he's like if you if some guy took the you know a lot of expletives in that right but if
some guy took the time to go to your post and dog on you that is so sad that
guy's like do you realize how sad that is and messed up that is that he actually took the time out of his day to spew negativity he's like I'm standing
up from this dumpster because Punk man 69's comments belong in there you know
it's like that's garbage and it was like funny yeah he's he's awesome I love Gary he's hilarious but like that was almost
like a little bit like of a liberating video because yeah that's I think there's truth to that and again feedback that's
constructive and criticism is constructive yeah it hurts a little bit because the pride Factor but right right Hey listen to it if you made a mistake
fix it if there's something better yeah do it yeah that's humility it's about the job but that's a little more rare
what's a little more common is just full out just criticism hate just kind of being a bit of a like a jerk kind of
it's weird it's weird don't fully understand it don't feel it wrap my head around it try not to just like read into
that instead just turn it off I want to spend less time on that stuff and I want to spend more time on the stuff that
matters stuff that matters yeah making people happy like why would I spend time reading you know bad comments when
there's people who emailed me and they want to know about hey what kind of boots are going to be best for me I'm a welder yeah yeah I'm gonna I'd rather
give that guy my attention you're you're awesome thank you you're asking a question I'd love to help you and I wish I could email you back 30 seconds right
and so instead of getting drained and emotionally drained in time just hearing
this like like dude that's not even constructive bro like yeah you know like gross like you know yeah I have people
that are like asking questions or someone hey I sent my boots in for an exchange I haven't really heard anything
um well you know just one just checking in oh my gosh I need to be helping you out you know so I'd much rather do that
I'd much rather make videos like this right I'd much rather go make our product better right I'd much rather go
train my team you know I'd much rather go make more media and think about how to make better boots and offer more
products like we have a a Facebook group for our for JK okay almost like 5 000 people in there and
um we'll we'll put out stuff like this like what do you guys want to see yeah man so much people people who want to
see somebody like can we get can we get cowboy boots can we get Romeos can we get Chelsea can we get internal met
guards can we get you know different kinds of insulation can we get this color absolutely yes you know and I've
how ashamed am I that I wasted time dealing with crap right when I could have been you have 5 000 people here
being like this is what I want yeah exactly and they're like nice awesome people and they're like hey we love what
you have like just give me more you know like absolutely I should be taking care of you that's so you know it's so right
so that's like where will and I our heads are at we don't ignore if people are upset we we address it and like fix
it make it right and we built we're building out a team right now we're we've built in our building a better
customer service team legit guys that are awesome because I'm only one person
I can only do so much will is only one person I can only do so much we need more people and uh but yeah like I want
to focus on positivity I want to focus on growth I want to focus on awesome Good Hope yeah I hope Joy hope join more
of that um also like not to get too biblical about it but like ultimately about to say that the
joy of the Lord is my strength so my measure how strong I am depends on my measure of Joy so if I'm depressed and
mad all the time then I'm that means I'm in weakness right if I'm joyful and hopeful and excited that means I'm in
strength yeah so I have to remain in that place of joy and hope and excitement that is when I'm strongest
yeah you know so all that other stuff is just draining so I wish you the same you know thanks man
turn off all that garbage and just focus on doing a better job um yeah you know I'm talking to um I've
talked before a little bit with um um so the essential Craftsman people are
amazing that team is so cool they're like another YouTuber team and they've mentioned similar things about how they just don't even really want to
you know like yeah they don't even like really listen to it because people just you know hate everywhere and like you know whatever I'm just like not gonna
listen and he you know the the so Nate is the Son and Scott is is the dad Nate's amazing Scott's amazing we did a
podcast with them too and um like Nate even mentioned he's like you know I don't even want to like listen to that
like I just I want to make better videos yeah I just want to focus on making better ways and I remember when I heard that and they have like almost I don't
know if they're like 2 million subscribers or one and a half but like they're a lot bigger than us on media right I was like
wow what a healthy what a healthy person yeah and like a healthy mentality at a certain point you
definitely gotta yeah exactly and I just really adopted that and I liked that and so that's kind of where I'm running from
yeah yeah that's the way to do it so that's the way to do it yeah the internet world is something else yeah
it's something else are you on Twitter I am yeah how's that yeah I love Twitter
I think I think it's pretty great I think it's yeah I like the the group that I follow a lot of um on there follow a lot of
other publishers and that's more like you know I don't I don't really talk about boots on Twitter
uh so that's more just like my my business passions do you have a boots by Twitter or just Will Barton yeah it's
just me okay this is me um but yeah so and and that's my business passion there where I kind of
follow people who are Publishers and then also who run econ Brands yeah that's awesome um and just trying to follow uh there's one for boots by okay there's
one for boots by that that melts the brain that's okay that's a brain melter for sure so I definitely uh try not to
spend anytime on Instagram or Tick Tock just because it just
uh if I'm trying to write something like I can just feel it's like um you know I
used to smoke cigarettes and I remember quitting and I remember there's like a it's like the front half
of my brain felt like it wasn't activated for like a week or something like that
and that like that's kind of how I feel if I go on Instagram or if like you know if it's tick tock or whatever and you
watch like the real after real and I'm just like okay it's time to do some work I'm like what am where am I wow so I
don't know it just doesn't it doesn't feel good on the brain side I try and minimize
for sure you can just get into like a fog yeah yeah it's like I don't even can't even focus right now yeah yeah
it's sick so I I I'll I'll get on there post because you know for for we do a lot
I've been doing YouTube shorts lately um because YouTube's definitely in terms of
video or in terms of media outside of Articles YouTube is like that's where my
main focus is yeah but I'll take the YouTube shorts and I'll put them on yeah Tick Tock and Instagram and stuff like that so if I'm ever on there it's just
like in and out so I should do that too yeah are you on Reddit
um yeah I just started a Reddit account you know that's one thing too where I don't know why I just never occurred
to me to be on there so I did recently start a boots by Reddit account and just
started doing a little interaction here and there and just you know it's like again I don't try not to spend too much
time there because it's like what is this really contributing but I do you know for for boots by stake I do want to
be more part of the boot community and I think that's like that's a great place to be to do that so yeah how did you
find out about us originally so the first time it was kind of funny the first time I heard about you I was
at a I was at a bar or I was at a brewery wise man North Carolina and there was another guy who was in there
and he asked me we were drinking a beer we were talking he asked me what I do I
kind of told him about boots by the whole thing he's like man have you ever heard of JK boots and at this time I had not
and I was like oh sweet like I'm gonna I'm gonna check them out for sure and we kept talking and then he started
uh his conversation went somewhere he went he went way he was
weird he was a weird dude and uh oh man he was talking about like Vikings and
and being on mushrooms and he's like yeah he was he was like and the conversation went from there I think he was a customer uh he desired to be a
customer he was like he was like you know these are the ones these are the guys JK booze if you want to know about boost these are the boots and uh and I
think he was into his cups at that point too so that's hence the Viking all kinds of people all kinds of customers out
there and um so anyway so he told me about that and I was like you know I I was like
my first like impression association with JK boots was like okay so they're
like a viking mushrooms brand yeah okay but anyways um but then yeah so that that was the
first there's a very first mention I'd ever heard of JK boots and then I started uh looking at you guys on I
think an Instagram page I started looking at the Instagram page checking that out and then saw your putting out content on YouTube too yeah some of the
Craftsman the you know building the boot and the whole thing so yeah um yeah and I feel like I I don't know
what your what the brand trajectory has been yeah but I feel like at least it seems to me the mentions
that I've kind of heard from from my perspective has been like almost like the last six months like yeah seems like
a huge acceleration for sure for sure that's very accurate um I'd say the last like six to eight months just a lot of
growth and I think it started when we um got a lot more consistent with YouTube
and Instagram just like a lot of consistent posting um we've had a long time already like a like a base just
like Grassroots type stuff yeah but the whole internet thing kind of really exploded um with consistency from Instagram and
YouTube and then doing some affiliate videos okay yes like there's a tree climber named guilty of treason Jake
Rogers great name yeah it is he's super cool um we'll have him on the on the on
walking the Jacobus here soon and um he's amazing great guy he was kind of one of like the first ones type
um came out here did like a dedicated video I made him a pair of boots oh nice he he filmed me making them for him he's
a dry Slimer and then he climbs in them you know so that's cool um and then there's a few there's like essential Craftsmen like the rose Anvil
stuff and we we would definitely grew a lot from from that stuff awesome
yeah awesome yeah that was that was a big one so the online community is you know hot right now because of because of
those things it'll just continue to kind of slow yeah you guys do you guys run
advertising yeah yeah interesting it's good it works it's good
um it's just another it's instead of doing a billboard to do a Google ad yeah
Facebook yeah yeah um it's good it works um you need to know how to do it right you need to have some experience
um and you kind of have to be like a little more like a sniper with the resources not like really like
blasting you know right um so there's there's some skill involved there it's not it's nothing too insane it's not you
know you're not it's not nuclear software here but right um but yeah we do that we do paid ads do you guys do anything like that yeah just
started with the socks and started that and that that's been like a whole do that for sure learning growth that's
been a whole learning experience because yeah we've all all been organic I've never but being like focusing on organic
probably for the last four years that's the best it's like now doing paid ads it's like oh I get you know the whole thing is just like
can you make it can you make an interesting video or can you write an interesting snippet right and it's like okay well I've spent four years right
trying to figure out how to do that so now you're like way more well equipped for paid ads is more of a
cherry on top and like help you know just kind of like helps like a turbo it's like boost yeah but um the organic
stuff is actually the substance you know yeah you still have to know how to make a good video absolutely something interesting totally and organic is built
through consistency for a long period of time of good product good service yeah good content yeah it's not Magic
it's not it's not there's nothing there's no secrets like sometimes I feel like with compete with competitors and
like you know just like insecurity weird stuff it's like oh you know keep everything close to the vest like
there's no secrets just do a good job and there's plenty of business for everybody by the way right you know and
same same in your in your area like there's plenty of people to watch and
read stuff I think there's 335 million Americans yeah you know let's say half of them will never be interested in your
in this that's a hundred and what is that 160 something yeah 170 you know that's like insane yeah that's an
unbelievable amount of people you know and so there's so much room to grow and
learn and do and take and build and so like the kind of mentality that I carry about
that and right and it makes sense to me we're just kind of going down every Avenue so you know trying to do Instagram trying to do Facebook
um YouTube YouTube shorts Tick Tock Reddit Twitter even had a Snapchat at one point which we didn't really take
too seriously yeah because that's kind of more I don't know maybe personal yeah yeah yeah um Tick Tock thing is interesting but it
sounds like they might ban it I don't know if you've been on top of that or not but yeah we'll see yeah well I still
post my boots by videos there and yeah and they ban it and it'll be are you monetizing your YouTube videos yeah
how's that going uh yeah it's going well okay it's going well um
the monetization the payouts and stuff like what it used to what they used to would reward you for that I think I've
read about that I've never really paid attention to it because that's not our Focus it's our monetization's on but yeah YouTube is more of a like way to
teach people about our product yeah also we use it as a resource for questions so a lot of times we'll Link videos and
like our email responses okay awesome yeah um but yeah I've heard that they're like cutting down on that so I don't know the facts though yeah I'm not sure
about that I haven't heard anything about that yeah it's I mean same thing like to me the the ad ad revenue is kind
of like all right sweet like yeah that's nice but yeah it's more about building an audience is like yeah is is the main
when did you start the YouTube channel we started the YouTube channel I think July 2020.
consistent growth slow growth happy with your growth yeah yeah so it's been it's been consistent growth I think it
doubles every year um and it's you know it's the first the first time is November October November
December it's like whoa this thing is taken off like a rocket and then January like this
thing is plateauing like a rocket yeah and then and then it kind of starts to go down I freaked out the first year I
freaked out the second year it's happening right now where it's kind of like down you know and so it's it's diving down because it's summer and I
think people are less interested in in Boots in the summer and more outside instead yeah but
come around October like we've seen just that this kind of wave wave going going
upwards too which is great so and yeah we're doing some cool things like you know our editor
um he's a great he's a great guy he's awesome and we're you know trying to do some interesting things where maybe
sharing a little bit of profit from the from the ads with them and yeah just to just to try and take care of everyone
and and grow a company and like when you find someone kind of like you said like when you find someone who is is good
you just you're like okay I want you on the team yeah like like let's get you let's get let's root you
let's become the Avengers here absolutely yeah yeah that's what you need you need an inventor school yeah I think we just crossed
um 200 000 subscribers wow congratulations that's awesome that's awesome crazy um definitely
so awesome so cool and um yeah it was just I think through consistency it's
just consistency and a lot of work you know our team is amazing yeah really really good hard workers and they try
really hard and it's good it's actually good quality content you know if it wasn't good quality content it wouldn't it wouldn't do well right right
um and I think also there's kind of this movement with like How It's Made stuff people just like to
watch I like to watch it yeah I like to watch like you know just like a house getting built like yeah so I really like
the F-150 Raptor I've watched so many videos you know and like how it's made
testing it reviews and all this stuff and so I recognize that when someone's passionate about something or they're
just passionate about passionate about a type of content I like trucks you know just in general people will just really
really watch that stuff yeah so I think our videos do really well with that the educational stuff also is doing well and
doing better like I try to put out videos about you know how to oil than a lot of those and what kind of boots to get right you know
all that kind of stuff so I think the educational side of it's important too I would if I was you I would do a lot of that which you do you do yeah
um and you know trying to get creative angles with like that kind of stuff like this let's talk about like
specifically how to take care of the rough out right that's right nice yeah cool like okay or um
um how do I know do I need to resole or rebuild or I'm gonna specifically talk
about this thing okay getting into that detail like I think people really like that yeah the build videos are super popular too yes I I'm learning how to in
a month here I'm learning how to how to make a pair of boots there's a guy uh Samuel Schmidt that's cool he's in he's
in Utah and so he does like you can you know he'll do a workshop with me and
I'll fly out to Utah and we're going to build a pair of boots together or something cool so I'm excited about that because you know that's another thing too where when I went to Y and Dad and
we resold this pair of uh Thursday captains it was like just tearing apart
the boot and looking at it and like we had this really funny moment and in the video it's very short but in reality it
was it was a very long period of time where I'm trying to attack in uh for
this this resole I'm trying to attack in you know take the um part of the resole whatever you're in
the heel yeah yeah you're like tacking the heel in okay and uh I just sat there with the cobbler's Hammer I didn't understand like the physics of the house
that's kind of angles and I sat there and I shot so many of these little males right here just yeah that's okay that's
right it was like 30 minutes yeah I was getting really sweaty because I was like all right this is there's like four guys watching me and it's embarrassing the
memory card's about to run out of footage like this is funny that's funny and they're like all right yep just just give it another shot yeah yeah another
shot I was like oh boy no like like anything it's repetition in practice Yeah you know like anything that's cool that you're gonna go learn how to do
that yeah yeah I'm excited about that that's good it should be pretty fun yeah um yeah it's it's Unique is different
you have to be crafty um not everybody I think has the tenacity for it um just because like
some people's hands just don't hiring and training and stuff there's
just I feel like some people have it right and some just don't and that is totally fine totally okay it's totally
normal yeah and you know just just kind of fulfill your function but
um that's cool I think I've heard of that guy what was what was the name uh Samuel Schmidt Samuel Schmidt on YouTube
uh yeah I think if you guys have a YouTube channel um I don't even know how I found him I
think I just typed in like boot maker boot making classes or something like that that's cool I guess how I found them so I think that there is like
schools yeah that exist that teach you how to make shoes but I don't know if there's a lot of cowboy boot makers yeah
there's a lot where it's just like you get the feeling like I just got to call that guy yep and he's like he's 74 and I
just got to be like hey you know there's a lot of that so yeah but I wanted to try and make it that's something that is cool with us is you know will and I are
young my dad's young you know and so we're gonna carry this on for a while yeah yeah so that's cool because it is
true a lot of the um so I think that um CEO of whites did a podcast not too
long ago and um I remember like there's like comments and stuff and um it was he he I didn't
listen to it but he he there was a quote where it was like um it's getting really hard oh it was like in the title of the
article it's like it's really hard to find boot makers right now because they're all like oh the good ones are
like retiring right you know like there's a level of Truth to that and that's why you have to make that commitment to like retrain and train
people and bring people and like Apprentice them and watch them and stuff like that so it's cool that I'm young
Will's young my dad is Young we are gonna we're making that investment we're training we're teaching we've got a lot
of people that we're investing into and they're doing well and we're picky about who we're gonna
who are going to invest into right you gotta Somebody's gotta have kind of that X Factor you know you have that ability to do it so absolutely that's cool
that's unique yeah yeah cool man yeah I don't know what else there is to share or chat how long how long would
chatting okay that's been a minute good where are we at uh we're at 217. nice yeah there you go crushed it crushed it
good sweet thank you a lot yeah for this thanks for having me absolutely man this is awesome um you know we'll post this up as soon
as we can and you know we'll probably sometime eventually run into each other again yeah probably doing updates you
know I think so I think it'll be cool cool thanks again awesome man pleasure thank you appreciate it appreciate it then we're good
can I