[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. Now I'm taking that short little hex wrench and putting stuff together. Yep. And I'm

[00:00:12] Jeremy Barker: you sitting on the floor? Yeah. Yep. And we don't use cheap screws cuz you know why that is my pet peeve that they break the head off and I didn't even put any tension on it. Yep. Or the strip before you put an attention on it, like when it comes to putting our stuff together, that hardware is one of those things that I test, like how bad's this gonna strip is where's this.

[00:00:33] Jeremy Barker: Like it needs to be solid. And I don't want to have a stripped out head if they have to take it back out again. Cuz the nice thing with the Murphy door, even better when you move, you can take it with you. All of our doors are delivered to where they're universal in swinging outswing left or right here.

[00:00:48] Jeremy Barker: So if you go take it to a different house, put it in another door, but it needs to be an inswing and it was announcing no problem. Change the hinge position when it comes to remodeling and renovating your home. There is a lot to [00:01:00] know though. We've got you covered. Is around the house.

[00:01:04] Eric Goranson: Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B, where we talk everything about your home every single week.

[00:01:11] Eric Goranson: Thanks for joining us today. I have got a friend on the show today who you might have seen out there. I've heard, you've heard me talk about him. Murphy door and bad, hidden indoor solutions. Welcome Jeremy Barker to around the

[00:01:26] Jeremy Barker: house for the first time. I'm excited. Thank you very much for having me today.

[00:01:31] Jeremy Barker: Thanks brother.

[00:01:32] Eric Goranson: And you know, my buddy skip Bidell introduced me to you. I'd seen your stuff around cuz you know, it's everywhere. It seems, but finally got to know you down at the international building show where you won a pretty cool award down there this last year.

[00:01:47] Jeremy Barker: Yes. Uh, interior product of the year, which I, I that's awesome.

[00:01:51] Jeremy Barker: And there's a lot of great competitors out there and we got fortunate enough to walk away with.

[00:01:55] Eric Goranson: No kidding. So, and, and you showed it well, I mean, you showed it, well, [00:02:00] your booth was packed.

[00:02:03] Jeremy Barker: that was a scary investment. Eric. I could tell you, like, man, do we wanna roll this out? Cause the past, you know, the trade international builders show the national associational builders, it's been great to work with.

[00:02:13] Jeremy Barker: But as you know, we started at Murphy door, our, you know, I was a full time firefighter. Yeah. And, and every dollar that when we started was so important, I mean, I'm taking home 760 bucks every two weeks with a mortgage that's $2,300. So there isn't much, you know, that math doesn't add up and I'm well aware.

[00:02:32] Jeremy Barker: It took a lot of car jobs, concrete jobs to fill the gap, but, uh, Every dollar mattered. So when you get these type of investment requests to do a big, huge trade show booth, you're like, man, that is a heavy role and let's see how it shows. And when we first started, we had one door in the trade show and it was my wife open and closing the door, you know?

[00:02:53] Jeremy Barker: And, uh, good thank goodness. She was cute. So we did get some attention because it definitely looked more or the booth. Right. And, [00:03:00] uh, after that it was, you know, that was an investment. Was really scary. And I think we only paid like five grand for the booth or whatever at the time. And sure that was nerve wracking.

[00:03:07] Jeremy Barker: You figure it out by the month. And then this one, you know, we'd get a few people. And I had a little lady that just said, Hey, you know, perception is reality in the trade show world. You oughta put together a booth that shows what you're truly trying to do rather than this, cuz it doesn't give the story of your CAPA capabilities or your true.

[00:03:25] Jeremy Barker: And I took it to heart and we changed, we kind of upgraded and I kind of built a collage of our booth changes this last year. And it was interesting to see the, the growth and the changes, cuz this one really did it. And I can say, if you can afford it, it did work as you saw. So

[00:03:39] Eric Goranson: yeah. And, and $5,000 didn't pay for the cleaning of the booth this time.

[00:03:43] Jeremy Barker: Probably. No, no, absolutely did not pay for even the cleaning or one quite unload. I think exactly that way its anymore. Think the forklift

[00:03:53] Eric Goranson: driver charge of that just to get the

[00:03:54] Jeremy Barker: first crate over there. So, no, that's exactly right at a dollar a pound. I mean, it goes quick. [00:04:00]

[00:04:01] Eric Goranson: amen. Amen. Well, let's talk, I wanna talk a little bit later here about kind of how you got into this, but I wanted to kind of set the stage a little bit and talk about Murphy door for a little bit and.

[00:04:11] Eric Goranson: Of course, how you got into Murphy be as well. Cuz that's its own story, but Murphy door, if you're just joining us and you haven't seen what we're talking about here, it's basically. A door that looks like that it's that hidden bookcase. That's a doorway, right? Exactly, exactly. Probably the easiest way to

[00:04:28] Jeremy Barker: discuss it.

[00:04:29] Jeremy Barker: Yep. And, and I think that was the idea initially, Eric and not to bore you where we start, um, was we wanted to create a hint system that made sense a lot of the hidden door style for the bookcase door systems that I'd been looking for to build my own theater door ran off of a regular three hinge system or a piano hinge.

[00:04:45] Jeremy Barker: But I, the theater door I was trying to create was heavy and every time I'd try to Mount it, it would peel the sideway. And if you think about it, you can have a piano hinge. It has 70 screws in it, but you're only good as the six little screws that tie the side into the bookcase shelf. Yeah. Right at the top of the bottom.

[00:04:59] Jeremy Barker: [00:05:00] And it just kept breaking. I I'm like we gotta figure out a different type of hardware system that really can create a functional bookcase that doesn't bear the weight all on the side. So we did that and. Again, the idea initially where we started a fire was just to be a hinge system and sell that cuz it was an easy side job to fire.

[00:05:16] Jeremy Barker: Sure. Well, more and more people say, I want the bookcase, I don't wanna build my own. And so we had to kind of go out with that and it I'm gonna take you back to another, that first trade show story, a lady from, uh, one of the big interior design magazines came up. She says, Hey, quit trying to sell. I mean, what you're trying to sell is a door.

[00:05:32] Jeremy Barker: I get it. But only 1% of the people need security. We need function. And she took the sexy out of panic room and put like functionality into it. which really kind of deflated me really bad. And again, I don't wanna be a storage solution problem. I wanna be a neat, cool factor to talk about in your house.

[00:05:51] Jeremy Barker: And, and she helped convince me that we can do both. We can be the cool factor and not only do that, but also offer. Every [00:06:00] single doorway in the home, an opportunity to be functional. So if you think about a standard three foot door in your house, you've got a slab that's taking up estimated nine square feet, seven to nine square feet of your footprint, just so it can swing open and closed.

[00:06:14] Jeremy Barker: And then you have this dead space in a wall. All over your home. That's not being used for any type of capacity. So you're losing floor square footage and you're losing wall decor to a slab that everybody has. So you can have a multimillion dollar house, but you're still running the same type of quasi generic six panel four panel, two panel door.

[00:06:32] Jeremy Barker: Right. And, and you, yeah, the same as the guy that has a 2000 square foot home and you have it in your 20,000. So what we decided to do is, is refocus our efforts into saying, look, there's a solution for every room in every. To bring in storage and functionality as well as a sexy talking point to it. So the point of the Murphy door, if, if you guys aren't familiar with it is, is this, it starts as a standard like bookcase, but what we've done is added [00:07:00] options that you can make it be a bookcase, a shoe rack, a laundry hamper, and a shoe rack.

[00:07:05] Jeremy Barker: You can reverse it, put the mirror facing your bedroom. Bathroom mm-hmm and then have the storage systems behind it. We can do gun system doors. We can do pu pull queue doors, wine rack doors. I mean, you let your imagination go. Whatever you can do in a cabinet, we can create a door that functions like your cabinet.

[00:07:23] Jeremy Barker: Instead of having a fixed stationary piece that takes a footprint outta your floor, we can stick it in your dead wall space and create beauty functionality. And have a talking point that people leave your house going, dude, did you see Eric's freaking door? , it's crazy. Open it with your fingerprint, open it with a book.

[00:07:40] Jeremy Barker: It, it doesn't matter. You can do whatever you want. So as a

[00:07:44] Eric Goranson: designer, I have used a whole bunch of different people's custom systems that they tried to do. That was kind of how you first started out doing it. And, and I can easily say it. I'm not saying this because you're sitting here with me right now, but yours is the smoothest [00:08:00] easiest to run

[00:08:01] Jeremy Barker: when it's loaded up.

[00:08:02] Jeremy Barker: Uh, absolutely. And that's one of the things that we learned. Initially, we didn't put ball bearings in our hardware. We didn't make it smooth. We used washers and spacers and bolts to try to get this thing to pivot on. And at the time, the more we used it, the more sag we. Right. And then that got harder and harder to open.

[00:08:20] Jeremy Barker: So we had to quickly come up with a solution that offered a ball bearing system on the bottom, that where the weight sat as well as one where the pivot pin that we insert is pivoting around. So now we're not wearing threads, we're not rubbing washers together and making 'em rough and we don't want to caster.

[00:08:35] Jeremy Barker: Right? I mean, part of the idea, the sex appeal to this door is. The fact that you can't see that black rubber wheel running across your carpet, this door can hold 300 pounds on top of the way to the door. You can load it fully loaded with books, keep its rigidity, keep it square in the wall. As long as your wall square.

[00:08:52] Jeremy Barker: Now keep in mind. A lot of people don't know how to frame and there's also boat two by four. So we have that conversation quite frequently. Sure. Nonetheless, we can keep [00:09:00] that sexy and make it. So you're not having that take over the room. It blends into your story and theme, and only the people that you want to know that, that functions you can tell 'em if not, it is just a build in system.

[00:09:12] Jeremy Barker: It's a cabinet it's it's, whatever you want it to be. Yeah, it can

[00:09:16] Eric Goranson: look like just a typical built-in in the house that nobody has any idea that's what's in there. You know, it could be that mirror in the bedroom that people go, oh, that's a really cool built-in

[00:09:24] Jeremy Barker: mirror. Right. And then you open it up and it's actually got your dirty laundry and your shoes inside and there's room behind it.

[00:09:31] Jeremy Barker: Yep. Think about a 36 inch door by a standard height creates 20 cubic feet of storage. Dude, and that's free storage. You didn't have to pay for not an, not a nickel. And if you think about what you're spending per square foot on current homes these days, while you're wasting for door swinging, that's not bringing you any kind of benefit other than keeping you from seeing me change or letting you see my dirty laundry.

[00:09:53] Jeremy Barker: Right? Yeah. We can do that and still make it look really, really good. And, and bring both and the, with the investment [00:10:00] you're putting in. I think it's well worth looking at it. And I'm not saying that just cuz I'm trying to sell it. Let me be forthright. I didn't have a Murphy door in my home. Number one, cuz I probably couldn't afford it until like the third year we were in business.

[00:10:11] Jeremy Barker: Right. Yep. And I thought they were cool to build and they were fun, but my wife had no desire to put one. Right. She's like, I don't see where we'd use it. We don't need a hidden room. We can barely make our freaking electrical bill. Well, let me be honest. Sometimes I didn't and then I'd have to put the garage door open or it wouldn't open.

[00:10:28] Jeremy Barker: there's a pink tag on the front door. Paint that pink tag . But anyway, we put one in and then now, I mean, everywhere, every room, my mom or my mom, my mom too, by the way, she has some, but my wife would come in. You know what we need that hamper door. We need the pantry door here and Presley needs a trophy.

[00:10:44] Jeremy Barker: She's a, a big time competitive dancer. She goes, I'd like a, a display case closet door system that we can put the trophies up front and then open the door. And then on the backsides are dirty laundry. Like, so it's been a fun deal and to see how even my own family members incorporated it. And [00:11:00] you know how it is, they don't talk.

[00:11:01] Jeremy Barker: You as much as you would, and they don't wanna use your stuff cuz it's not cool anymore. You do it every day. but now to see him use it and want it is kind of fun, you know, it's totally

[00:11:10] Eric Goranson: the it's. It's awesome. And I I've run into that with my wife where I've, Hey, we're gonna do this in the house. And she just kind of rolls her eyes at me and goes, yeah, I don't think we'll ever need that.

[00:11:19] Eric Goranson: I don't think we'll ever use it. Six months later, she doesn't know how we didn't

[00:11:25] Jeremy Barker: have that. Right. She wants another one for the other room. Right. That's exactly. That's exactly how it goes. And you know, I think that's what kind of brings value to the product when people use it. And not only are they not frustrated, but they're wanting to add more doors.

[00:11:39] Jeremy Barker: And especially now where we're, we have so many doors out there we're approaching about 150,000 units out and around. Um, our competi. Base or not our competitor base, but our consumer base is becoming more and more repeat customers, which I didn't think would be an existing category. I didn't think that would be something we'd go after.

[00:11:57] Jeremy Barker: Sure. But we're seeing more and more people that have had one [00:12:00] door by the second. And I think there's two reasons for that one, the functionality two, the ease of installation, right? This door comes pre hung in a jam. It takes six screws to put it in. And that is it. You put some trim around it. Six screws, just like a normal pre hung door.

[00:12:15] Jeremy Barker: And I think that's what scares people, right? Mm-hmm they don't know who, how and the heck they're gonna install a Murphy door. They've been so complex in the past to build a hidden door in your room. And you're hiring cabinet companies are charging five, 10,000 bucks for a system that we can get out door for, you know, 1500, 1200 bucks, depending on what you're doing.

[00:12:33] Jeremy Barker: And up of course, depending on how elaborate you want to go. But. It's just six screws. You don't have to be a professional. We have instructions that are 3d and digital on your app, on the app, on the phone. Like you, you can do whatever. It's simple.

[00:12:46] Eric Goranson: It's awesome. And, and you guys also do not just single doors.

[00:12:49] Eric Goranson: You've got French doors. You've got bifold surface mounts. You've got a whole bunch of different stuff.

[00:12:56] Jeremy Barker: Yep. We could do double doors. Like you're saying we could do a BI folding surface [00:13:00] Mount. If you don't want it in front, let's say you're trying to hide a gun safe in your house or some type of secure wall, even as dumb as let's call it an electrical panel.

[00:13:08] Jeremy Barker: That's just always in the wrong room, in the wrong space. You're trying to decorate it. You're gonna put some picture frame in front of it, which is against codes. Most of the time, this door we can put in. You can bifold it out of the way, it looks like a bookcase. It can be as pretty as an armoire. And that thing just bifold and smoothly rolls outta the way the panel's right there.

[00:13:28] Jeremy Barker: You can access it and close your door. Just fine. Like, like furnace rooms, water, softeners, whatever that's in the wrong spot. You can hide, hide simply with that.

[00:13:38] Eric Goranson: Well, even the double door, solution's amazing. Cuz you know how many homes in the nineties and two thousands were built with the master bedroom doors being that like four foot or five foot.

[00:13:48] Eric Goranson: Double swing door that goes in there into the room. Think of the storage, just going into the room that you could have right there

[00:13:54] Jeremy Barker: a hundred percent. And you know what, that was probably, we've grown about 300% over the [00:14:00] last 24 months. And that's been a hard growth piece, right, dude. So we've done a, a pretty it's awesome, but COVID really brought us.

[00:14:07] Jeremy Barker: Back to home and people were trying to convert their bedrooms into office spaces. So during these zoom meetings, it didn't look like they were sitting in their daughter's room, which a lot of them weren't . But if you me included, right? So let's, let's say as bad as I didn't listen to most of those regulations, but I, you know, while the.

[00:14:23] Jeremy Barker: First couple weeks, we sat there and, uh, we noticed more and more people taking out closets to put these bookcase systems behind them during a zoom meeting, it made it look like their bedroom was their office space. And that was just an explosive French door systems by far outsold. Every other category we had during those.

[00:14:43] Jeremy Barker: In two years

[00:14:44] Eric Goranson: before that you would never have guessed that was gonna

[00:14:47] Jeremy Barker: be the case. Well, how would you, right? I was, it was usually singular doors in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in a bedroom, but all of a sudden these French door systems just exploded and I'm like, what? And the world's going on. And we started getting customer.

[00:14:59] Jeremy Barker: We [00:15:00] started doing the customer surveys heavy, cuz one, we wanted to find out what was causing such growth factors to why are they buying what they're buying? And so we started doing email follow ups, phone call, follow ups. COVID staying home, trying to make their office or their bedroom look like an office more so that's awesome.

[00:15:15] Jeremy Barker: Yeah. Kinda fun, kinda

[00:15:16] Eric Goranson: fun. That's super fun. So let's take a side step before we go talking about more of the accessories and stuff and, and even the bads, but how did you decide to go from firefighter to. A huge production company. How did you go? Okay. I mean, we talked about kind of how you Des how you kind of fell into this, but there's also a story there too.

[00:15:40] Eric Goranson: My

[00:15:40] Jeremy Barker: friend. Yeah, there is. I, I can say that number, one thing that all firefighters do and it's unfortunate, but they can't really live on the singular wage and I'm not speaking for big cities like LA and the cities that really have a budget that can afford a, a livable wage. But most of us out there are living on that.

[00:15:57] Jeremy Barker: Just under 50 or mid fifties [00:16:00] and, and in today's world, it's not much. So you're trying to raise a family and pay a car payment and house payment. It's just not, not feasible. So we all have a second job or a third job. And usually you have a second fire job that you're using a part-time at another department.

[00:16:13] Jeremy Barker: So you're living mm-hmm . Not only the 48 hours during that six day period, but you're also working another 24 hour shift at another place. And then you're doing most of all the people around here do carpet or tile. Like that's a pretty popular second job in this for fire guys. Well, we didn't wanna do carpet or tile and I didn't wanna do any more cement work and I'm not great at it.

[00:16:33] Jeremy Barker: And it, it just did, you know, it was hard on your back and it wasn't what I wanted to do with my time off. So I know passion, it's not. Right. And then because of the level of non-cash that I had, I was doing my own basement, right? Like, well, this would be fun. And I, I told my wife, I think this would be something that could sell if we could make it simple.

[00:16:50] Jeremy Barker: Like there was no real solution anywhere that gave me the opportunity to go on and just order a system, find a hardware set that made sense. Like, this'll be [00:17:00] something that I believe. People are gonna need. And I thought they'd need it faster than that. I mean, we've been at this for quite a while now, and I thought it was gonna have a quicker adoption period and it never is.

[00:17:09] Jeremy Barker: Right. It's always twice as long and cost twice as much to get people to understand what you're trying to say. But in the meantime, We, we designed this little hardware system that I had a local CNC shop come up with and, and build. And I thought, you know what? This'll be super easy. Asked him if he'd be willing to package it and ship it out for me.

[00:17:25] Jeremy Barker: So I could still do my fire career. And then we could, we could just have this guy fulfill and I could do a little internet online business. We did it the first year we did $30,000 nearly doubled my annual revenue. you know what I mean? Like that's a bad little side gig. Yeah. But more and more people came in and I thought, you know what?

[00:17:41] Jeremy Barker: I think we can come up with a system that, where they were asking for a door to be made and I have never built a cabinet. Eric, this is never something I've done. I'm not as good of that kind of stuff as you are. And I could truly say now I have, but then that's. But it took a long time to get there. And, uh, [00:18:00] in the meantime we said, Hey, let's figure out a system.

[00:18:02] Jeremy Barker: I met with another guy Merrill cabinets in Rigby, Idaho. And he helped me design a, a system that would make sense. That was really standard. Like we only did 80 inch stores and we only did 24 inch 30, 32 and 36 offered four wood types. Keep it simple, stupid. And, uh, our prices at the time we started around 3000 bucks.

[00:18:23] Jeremy Barker: Okay. Right. Which, you know, trying to pay him to do it. And he, by the way, also fulfilled the orders. Nice. So we, this was just a passive type income for us. Well, that was during the real last downturn in the economy. Yeah. Is when we started, cuz it's always smart to start something whenever,

[00:18:40] Eric Goranson: you know, I I'm the same person of that though.

[00:18:43] Eric Goranson: Every single downturn I look at it and go, all right, the doors are opening up. Let's roll. And it's. People call me crazy for it too, but that's when I could create my craziest stuff. Well, I wish it was things go down,

[00:18:55] Jeremy Barker: Eric. It wasn't that forethought. It was just, I wanna do this business and didn't think about the [00:19:00] economy going.

[00:19:01] Jeremy Barker: And, uh, in the meantime, it, it kind of took off, like when I say took off, it went from, you know, 30,000 a year. So 2,500 a month. Next thing you don't, we'd sell a couple doors, a. Now, you're talking about a business that's doing 24,000 a year at that price tag. Um, well, Merrill cabinets got really busy, so we had to find a, another guy to help us when the economy started to lift up again and kind of free up.

[00:19:24] Jeremy Barker: They're like, man, we can't get it. Customers were waiting way too long and we had no control of fabrication. So we found a closer one here in, in Kaysville Utah at trim art and they helped us really get some more production. Well, then they got busy again and we got busier again. And we were running up to, I don't know.

[00:19:41] Jeremy Barker: I think when we left them, we were doing about 50 units a week. Wow. And they just said, man, I don't, I don't have the time to do this. So we, uh, we bought our own meal in 20. 16 mm-hmm is when we first started doing all of our own production. Nice. So all of Murphy door, by the way, and our breads are made [00:20:00] 100% in the USA.

[00:20:01] Jeremy Barker: So we have our hardware being made in the United States in Utah here. We also have our doors being fabricated here in Utah and in Kentucky for the east coast. So we didn't struggle during this COVID piece. I mean, yes, there was some material supply issues that came. But overall, because we were so concentrated on being made in America, being proud American and not looking for outside supply change, which would absolutely significantly have decreased our cost.

[00:20:27] Jeremy Barker: But let's be honest when you're porn scrappy, you can't afford a container of stuff. Amen brother. Amen. Had to find different solutions that made it so I could buy one offs. Right. Yeah. And then, and then that kind of went on, but. Yeah, it's it it's evolved in just a simple bookcase system and all the way into what you're seeing today and where we've added the beds.

[00:20:49] Jeremy Barker: And to be transparent on the bed piece, the new bed release that we had, uh, Murphy bed is, is a generic it's now put, considered public it's the Kleenex, right? It is right. [00:21:00] So we trademarked back in 2000. 12 Murphy door mm-hmm and we were able to get that through the us patent and trademark office. Yeah. As Murphy door, um, Murphy bed back in the day when it started in 1879 was Murphy door and bed company.

[00:21:17] Jeremy Barker: Yep. Right. So we said, Hey look, we, we don't do beds and we're not doing beds right now. Well, we had to sit in that non-tested period for quite a while before we could even entertain it. Sure. So we could get through the non-tested and we got through that. We were issued and registered our trademark. And then after that we could start rolling.

[00:21:34] Jeremy Barker: You got your foot

[00:21:34] Eric Goranson: in the door a little bit. And

[00:21:35] Jeremy Barker: you're like, all right, we're halfway there. We're halfway there. And then now, um, we we've able to add the bed piece, which also has a nice blend if you so choose to add the door pieces mm-hmm and all keeping it right here. And I, I don't know if you had the opportunity to jump on our website, but it's super easy to configure your choosing your product by the inch.

[00:21:54] Jeremy Barker: Just give us a rough measurements. We do all the math. It comes in. Choose your wood, choose your [00:22:00] color, choose your add-ons. Choose all that stuff. So. Um, it's it's, it's

[00:22:03] Eric Goranson: like ordering a sandwich, man. I mean, you can literally go through and order the door as easy. You can jump on like Jimmy Johns and go, I'll take that.

[00:22:11] Eric Goranson: I don't want that. I need that. I need

[00:22:13] Jeremy Barker: that. It's that simple? Yeah, it's that simple. And I think it's even, I would just order a door dash today cuz you know how our lives already candid . Um, and I think it's even better than DoorDash and our new website releases September 15th, which is even better. It'll take more into VR and AR and all this other stuff that's coming up.

[00:22:28] Jeremy Barker: Right. So you'll be able to in the long run, not this initial release, but our goal is you'll have your VR glasses. You'll be able to choose your door and change colors and put it in your room and see how it functions. But that's where this, this piece is gonna go. In the meantime, we offer color pictures that you can see what it is.

[00:22:44] Jeremy Barker: You're actually ordering and door dash. When I was. I just ordered LPO what El polo Loco. Right. And it doesn't get pictures of what rice I'm getting or that, and I'm like, no, I want this to be so transparent to the guy that isn't a carpenter to the guy that mm-hmm , you know, right now our customer base is, is pretty [00:23:00] people that don't typically do it themselves all the time.

[00:23:01] Jeremy Barker: Right? Yeah. So they need to understand, I don't care what wood type it is. I like that wood look, I don't care what color that is. I want that color. I don't care what hing. I need it to swing that way. So we try to use a picture. Selection process and have it walk through the process that matters. And the coolest part about that, Eric is when they're doing it, it's actually programming our systems.

[00:23:22] Jeremy Barker: Nice. So we've integrated our software using a couple different local software groups to where you putting in your order. Are actually programming our systems. Now we do go through a final checkoff to make sure that you're not doing a crash, but we have soft stops that don't allow you to go too far.

[00:23:38] Jeremy Barker: Mm-hmm . And the interesting piece is when people call up and say, Hey, this order's measured wrong. Um, we're like, well, or not measured wrong or built different. I'm like, well, yeah, we didn't put it in. This is you brother. You programmed our. Dude, I

[00:23:50] Eric Goranson: have designed these systems out. So I've got 30 years as an interior designer and specializing in kitchen, a bass.

[00:23:56] Eric Goranson: So I have run large cabinet shops. I have [00:24:00] worked in that integration of getting into that. I know that, okay. I got CNC drilling sequences that I have to put in of where the pins go and where the data goes. And it is complex to get you through that. And I'm sure that was tough. Going from the buying cabinets out to, we have a building and I gotta put machinery in here.

[00:24:20] Eric Goranson: How do I get the machinery to even

[00:24:21] Jeremy Barker: do this? So, uh, you know what, I'll tell you what I did early. That helped me a ton. Cuz like I said early, not a cabinet guy. Mm-hmm I'm not a manufacturing guy and right now we're turning a door every six minutes. Whew. And that's a fully customized door. Yep. Built to your specs, your color.

[00:24:38] Jeremy Barker: There's over a hundred million skews that we run through this. Right. And that that's a hundred million, not a hundred thousand. Yes, I understand. But you take wood types, colors, swings, handles locks, all the different things that can hit. And you add the beds in the plywood versus MDF. And that's a whole different conversation.

[00:24:56] Jeremy Barker: We have both, it really takes it in, in every, as, [00:25:00] you know, a CNC needs to know thicknesses. It needs to know all this. And so it does take an immense amount of data. What I didn't know is what I didn't know. And I was, I went into this knowing I had no money to, I had no extra dollars to lose. Sure. I leaned heavily on extremely smart people and what was nice about, and I'm sure it's like this in most states, but it's Utah.

[00:25:20] Jeremy Barker: Loves to brag about Utah building Utah, doing that mm-hmm successful or executives and owners in are willing to help. Right. So I was fortunate enough to reach out and say, Hey, Don, you've been a COO of. Everybody like in this Utah area, you, you are a king of manufacturing. Hey, Jeremy, you, another guy, you know, you're incredible at marketing.

[00:25:45] Jeremy Barker: And then, Hey, Justin, this, this you've blown up, retailers, how do you do it? And I took it and rather than going with, I know everything and it's my money at risk, and I'm gonna make the final decision. I took a backwards approach and said, I know nothing. And your [00:26:00] guys' advice is gonna help me keep me from crashing and you're gonna help build it and take the advice.

[00:26:05] Jeremy Barker: You guys so I can implement it. And now we have such an incredible board. I mean, we have bill Hamlin, one of the executive VPs of home Depot from the beginning under Arthur mm-hmm and Marcus. Right. Um, they, we have him and then we have Don bloom, like I said, and then Nicole beer, who was the CMO of Hewlett Packard, north America help us with the digital side and John Porter who has a huge customer service group.

[00:26:28] Jeremy Barker: And I, I looked at the things I don't underst. Manufacturing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Digital internet marketing. I dunno how to manage employees at that level. I don't know how to do a lot of different things retail. Like when you take on a bear like home Depot and we have home Depot now, and we just finished up signing with Lowe's and you're in these national chains.

[00:26:47] Jeremy Barker: Um, they're a whole different animal and they can take it. Oh, aren't they broke. Yeah. They, they run, you broke fast, so you need to know. Yeah. And I think early on in my career, I was way too arrogant to be able to sit back and [00:27:00] say, look, you can teach me something. Right. And now it's like, I look at 'em we had a board meeting today and I'm like, man, help me.

[00:27:08] Jeremy Barker: And that's why it went a little long. We we've got some dry paint drying issues in Kentucky where the humidity was so high this year. Yeah. What are we gonna do to solve the problem? How do we fix the flow? Where's your puddles? And it was incredible to listen to the different. Voices and go immediately put those into play and say, Hey, let's try this, this, and this may not always be a hundred percent.

[00:27:27] Jeremy Barker: Right. But even if it's 80%, right. It's much better. So yeah, I, if I gave anybody advice, that was not that we're trying to get off Murphy door, no lean on mentors and ask favors like Eric he's been at it 30 years. That's why he does what he does or why you do what you do. I should say. Mm. Is you're there for, to give people advice and keep from making these big, huge mistakes, and don't lose your money in an investment that doesn't work.

[00:27:50] Jeremy Barker: Like this is what we're trying to do here today, inside our own business. And I think there's mentors like you yourself that are out there trying to help people understand [00:28:00] you don't have to make these mistakes that, that we did. There's people there to help

[00:28:03] Eric Goranson: you. Amen, brother. And I spent probably eight to 10 years of my career going around in the Seattle area, working with companies that were struggling.

[00:28:13] Eric Goranson: That were kitchen of bath companies like cabinet manufacturers and trying to get them creating systems for them. And that was the one big thing that had always put those companies in that bad position where I was going in to help 'em was that they had an ownership group or an owner. That didn't know, but thought they knew and didn't want to change.

[00:28:34] Jeremy Barker: Yep. That's the biggest problem. We don't know what we don't know. Right. Mm-hmm and, and as bad as that saying in the EMT paramedic world, this is always a debate, right? Because EMTs, their paramedics vice versa, they think, and, and they do have a skillset. But there's an education period. That's different.

[00:28:51] Jeremy Barker: And so we teach the EMTs, we'd be like, look, you guys just don't know what you don't know. Yeah. You can do the same skill set, but a lot of the times they don't understand the algorithms and why we're making the decisions that [00:29:00] we make as a paramedic. It's a two year difference in school, right? I mean, there's some time, at least in Utah, that's what it takes to get through our Weber state program.

[00:29:07] Jeremy Barker: And same goes for your education. It takes more than two years to learn everything that you've learned, but oh yeah. We as investors or owners come in, like, dude, you don't even know, do you realize where I'm at today? You, you can't teach me anything. Right. And, and I think that can be a, a huge problem in all businesses.

[00:29:23] Jeremy Barker: And I hope mm-hmm, someone, especially if you see me acting like that, covering my neck and say, dude, you're going to sink. If you don't realize that you're still teachable, there's still something you can.

[00:29:32] Eric Goranson: I'll call you on it, brother, I'll call you on it. That's what friends are for, you know, exactly right.

[00:29:36] Eric Goranson: Vice versa. Exactly. Right. You

[00:29:38] Jeremy Barker: know, vice versa. I, I wish the best on all these people that take those risks and jump into this bed. Cuz as you know, when you don't have anything to lose, it's a super scary deal. And the only advice I'd say is man, reach to your mentor. Please realize what you don't know and, and look at that more carefully than what you think, you know?

[00:29:57] Eric Goranson: No kidding. And by the way, talk about weird digital marketing stuff. [00:30:00] My phone's lighting up right. And it's Jimmy John's ad showing up on my phone and heard me talking about it. you're creeping me

[00:30:07] Jeremy Barker: out guys. Yeah. That's called Qualtrics. We do that. We search computer from keystrokes 30 times a day. You say, and we'll start popping you some ads up, but you knows one of the few countries that still legal in, so we've gotta do it.

[00:30:22] Jeremy Barker: gotta do it.

[00:30:25] Eric Goranson: you? It had have been hard to go from that day that you're like, I'm gonna stop being a firefighter.

[00:30:31] Jeremy Barker: Oh, yeah, that's a great story. So a fire chief that I had extremely. We kind of, I was the IFF union president for our, for our department. Mm-hmm . And so, as you know, a lot of the time, depending on departments, the union president, doesn't always get along with the chief, cuz you kind of have different goals, right?

[00:30:50] Jeremy Barker: Typically they're budget related and, and they're kind of frictional and you're always involved in the type of friction conversation and some chiefs. And I, again, it doesn't go for everyone. Some chiefs take it in [00:31:00] strive and they'd like, Hey, this is great. Let's win. And others are kind of pushed back.

[00:31:04] Jeremy Barker: Well, I'm sure it doesn't all stem from that, by the way, I'd like to think it was all because of that. I'm sure. I so fairness to Jason, but, um, he came up, he's like, Hey Barker. Um, right now we, we sat out on the apron in the fire department and he put a giant rock. Well, I say giant rock. Let's call it a softball size rock in the middle of the right.

[00:31:22] Jeremy Barker: Then he put another one half that size side's and another one half that size on the driveway. And he said, look, this is Jeremy's universe. He said it should stem Jeremy's family being the biggest rock Murphy door being the middle rock. Cuz you have 70. Well, not at the time, but like 25 families around that one.

[00:31:38] Jeremy Barker: And then you had the fire department. Yeah. And he said, but unfortunately where the fire department is the only thing you can't change, you have to be here on this day. You have to do this. You're mandatory overtime. You're this. And it takes 48 outta 96. And at the time we were doing a modified Kelly, which was 24 on 24 off.

[00:31:57] Jeremy Barker: You do that for four shifts and take a few days off and then do it again for four [00:32:00] shifts and take a, you know, six days off. So yeah. Um, he's like, you cannot shift that and everything is revolving around that. And every day off you have is Murphy door. So your family gets left over and unfortunately the biggest rock is running on the outside of your wheel instead of the center of your hub.

[00:32:14] Jeremy Barker: Amen. Where RPMs can't go too fast until you throw that weight. And unfortunately the first weight that goes is your wife, your kids, your family. Well, We had that conversation. And I don't know if he called my wife or not, but when I get home, I'd been outta town. I came in and I noticed she was clean the floor.

[00:32:30] Jeremy Barker: She had her earphones on. And I don't know if you met her in, in Florida or not. Yeah, Shannon. So she's a beautiful lady. And she had her earphones in, she was cleaning and then my daughter was playing on her iPad and my son was over here doing whatever he's doing. And the only person that came to greet me at the door was my.

[00:32:47] Jeremy Barker: Right. So I'm like, well, I here's your sign. Right. And so my wife takes her earbuds out and she goes, What, and I go, I'm not even getting a high. She goes, well, if you want people to recognize you're here, you might wanna try to be here. Other than [00:33:00] that, you're just a guy that's staying over. I'm like, oh, okay.

[00:33:04] Jeremy Barker: Got . Yeah. So I quit the next morning. Yeah. Um, I kind of set a parameter around what I wanted and I, I told my chief, I said, look, my goal is I'm gonna go from full-time fire to part-time fire. When I hit 5 million in gross revenue, and that was kind of, and it wasn't because that was the dollar, but that was the dollar I needed to have the, the manpower I needed.

[00:33:25] Jeremy Barker: And as well as take at least what I'm making salary wise at the fire department and keep the same health insurance. And yeah,

[00:33:31] Eric Goranson: you got a family to take care of on top of that. So that's

[00:33:33] Jeremy Barker: the tomatoes. And I didn't want to pick the pocket of a baby. And I think that's what a lot of entrepreneurs do early is like, man, I can't wait till I make a hundred grand.

[00:33:41] Jeremy Barker: Well, the company does a hundred grand and they keep a lot of it or 200 grand and they keep a hundred. Well, if you're mixing a baby's bottle, that's like you still in half the milk. Yep. And you're wondering why your baby's the run. Well it's because you're not giving all the food that it needs. And, and I wanted to let that money ride and I never took any Murphy door money until I was able to leave the fire [00:34:00] department.

[00:34:00] Jeremy Barker: I never paid myself extra. Yeah. And it was really hard when you're seeing that type of cash flow a month. And I'm sure a lot of people listening you're like bull crap. I still did other jobs. I still worked part-time at lane fire and Weber. Like there was, it was a hard decision, but at the same time I knew.

[00:34:18] Jeremy Barker: That the company couldn't afford for me to dip yet. Like I needed to put a lot into marketing. I had a lot of smart man ation and R and D to make my product better. So that was the number I said, okay. When we have 5 million, I can afford, afford to pay myself 52,000, which is what I started. Yep. And I can pay my health insurance and my dental vision, and I can put this much money in my 401k.

[00:34:39] Jeremy Barker: Nice. And that was, that was it. And so when that happened, I went to the fire station the next day and said, well, Jason, that freaking weight thing that you talked about yesterday is just came to reality last night. And I don't know if you called you see the dead in the side of my head, that was the weight hit, right?

[00:34:55] Jeremy Barker: I said, and then I put in my notice and my last day full time was June 16th. Of [00:35:00] 2016. Nice. So which, you know, that was an extremely hard decision. That is brothers. That is family. That is what you know, and it's weird when you leave a fire job, you're, you know what? You don't exist. Yeah, you thought you were family, but now you're not on shift and now you're dead.

[00:35:18] Jeremy Barker: now,

[00:35:18] Eric Goranson: now you're dead. Yeah. Now, now you're fading off into the sunset, you know? Yeah. You're on the horse riding off and everybody's still working.

[00:35:24] Jeremy Barker: Everybody's there and they're going to see all the excitement and that morbid curiosity that we all have, like, dude, did you see that? I wanted to see that like, no, so you miss it all.

[00:35:33] Jeremy Barker: And, and so I do miss it and I think that's probably what's helped me take some of the chances in Murphy door is know. I'm not afraid to go back to fire. Yeah. So if worst case scenario, I have to go back to full-time fire, then that's not such a bad case scenario, right? There's there's some want there.

[00:35:52] Jeremy Barker: Yeah. There's some want, so it's like, Hey, I'll take that risk. And if I had to go back to the fire department, I've done it a long time. I could do that. Oh,

[00:35:59] Eric Goranson: the road you're [00:36:00] on now, man. I think the fire department's way back in the history now,

[00:36:03] Jeremy Barker: brother. I know. And I'm still on the part-time roster and I was, my chief actually texted me just while we were in here and I haven't worked in over six months now and we're supposed to do 48 hours a month.

[00:36:14] Jeremy Barker: And I'm a, there's only a couple part-timers at this full-time department and it's usually legacy firefighters. And I don't mean that in a legacy stance, but it's people been there a while that could get that little bit of a chance. So I'm like, man, I wish I could find time, but you fly. You know what I mean?

[00:36:29] Jeremy Barker: It's just, you you're like that live on the airplane, you living on the road and you're trying to improve things and make products better and make exciting new ideas, come to life and try to change people's lives and make it even easier for them to put it in, easier for them to install. And not only that make it even sexier, like try to bring it all into an excellent program and product that looks better functions better.

[00:36:54] Jeremy Barker: And. Quicker and easier for them to, to use.

[00:36:58] Eric Goranson: Amen. And speaking of that, [00:37:00] you guys brought the Murphy beds. Out back out, you know what I mean? Back out on our brain, I'll say back out with a

[00:37:06] Jeremy Barker: trademark, but, uh, , that's back out and, uh, those are awesome. Yes. And you know what we've done here? There's a couple things that we noticed that the whole industry was missing in the bed world.

[00:37:18] Jeremy Barker: One, we produce a ton of doors and I don't know of another bed company that produces the volume of units that we produce. Right. And I don't mean that in an arrogance stance, but we have a, we've really nailed down packaging delivery and experience with our products, to our that's. Some of the hardest

[00:37:35] Eric Goranson: part of the whole equation is getting that product from that shop floor, without forklift holes in it, into somebody's

[00:37:41] Jeremy Barker: residence.

[00:37:42] Jeremy Barker: That's a huge problem. And then on top of that, you have to think about the out of the box experience. And here's the difficulty when you start delivering these big king beds or queen beds with side cabinets, these things are so big. You can't really get 'em down a hall. So the downfall and I'm to be forthright is there is [00:38:00] some assembly required.

[00:38:01] Jeremy Barker: Has to be, has to be right. So it's, it's kind of a knockdown in some aspects where they have to be, and then the other stuff could be put together and, or you just install it or in, you know, put it in place. But what we, when you think

[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: about it, you think about it. Jeremy, how many people out in our audience right now have carried.

[00:38:18] Eric Goranson: Into an apartment, their house, that queen size bed up the stairs that

[00:38:23] Jeremy Barker: mattress just the mattress, the mattress. Yeah. Let alone this giant frame, functional, you know, hardware set that comes through and is heavier than four of those mattress. Yeah. And then not only that, how many times you've had to bend the queen bed around the corner to try to get it in the room.

[00:38:38] Jeremy Barker: How everybody raising their hand. Yeah. Every one of us specifically they're taller than the door. Like you're, you're gonna have some assembly, but what we've. Is the, the hardware that we're using in assembly, the instructions on how we do it is all digital 3d, you know, and it's nice, really, really easy to put together.

[00:38:56] Jeremy Barker: Um, it's gotta be better than the Ikea model. Like we, [00:39:00] that that lasts that is forever. We stand behind our product. We have a no argument position, so I'm not the moral police. And this was a, another maturation piece that we took at Murphy door. When you're, when you're new and you're dealing with some of these small companies, it's not saying anything negative, but they have to be careful on warranties cuz they can't afford a lot of them.

[00:39:21] Jeremy Barker: Right? Yeah. So whether they decline your warranty or repair and we were guilty initially, like, no, that was your fault. Right. And we had a meeting with one of our board guys, he said, Hey, so since, when are you the moral police? I go, what do you mean? He goes, so that you're deciding that, that customer's lying to.

[00:39:38] Jeremy Barker: I'm like, well, I'm not, he goes, well, when you decline these type of arguments, he said, it's broken. You said, it looks like you broke it. Are you trying to say they're liars? Or are they just lying to you? Is it up to you? So we went to the position of like, now if you call and say, it's your fault, we're sending you a new product.

[00:39:55] Jeremy Barker: Anyway, you just have to pay shipping. If it's our fault, we send you the product and [00:40:00] we pay shipping and it's like, the only difference is shipping, right? Is it 25 bucks? Is it 10 bucks or is it a whole new door that costs you 200 bucks? It's like, look, we're gonna replace it. One way or the other. And if, and I had to be forthright, most of these people on in the world today, as bad as the news makes it sound, they're freaking honest people.

[00:40:17] Jeremy Barker: They're good people. Yeah. And most people don't lie about it. If they come up and say, Hey, look, this was damaged. And I didn't notice when it got shipped. And unfortunately for freight carries, you have to mark damaged or you have to put it on the ticket. Oh, call within 24 hours. And some people, their house is under construction.

[00:40:31] Jeremy Barker: The door's three months from being put in. They don't. Right. So, well, if it fell on the construction site, so be it. But most of them are like, dude, I think it fell down when it was being moved. Um, now we're in a pickle. Do I have to pay the whole thing? I'm like, Nope, we're gonna replace that door. Nice. I know it was a $3,000 unit.

[00:40:48] Jeremy Barker: We're gonna do it for free. You just have to pay the shipping. We don't want to sit there and make it, so it's a double negative for them. So we step up, even if it's your. Right. And we let him, that's awesome. We're ING it. [00:41:00] Anyway, my man, and I think, um, that was a big, hard lesson. And you know what, fortunately, for us, we're running at about a 0.7% callback dude.

[00:41:08] Eric Goranson: That is great. I know of kitchen cabinet manufacturers that are celebrating

[00:41:13] Jeremy Barker: 3%, right. Well, we were well into fives when we first started. Yeah. There was a lot of problems, lack of clarity, lack of understanding, lack of instructions that were properly done. Um, and now we still have, and this is, this is mind blowing, but we have the exact same amount of customer service reps today, as we did when we'd left.

[00:41:37] Jeremy Barker: Wow. And most of it is because of how clear our instructions and the availability of video response. Right. You can look, yep. We have an opportunity to chat in our, in our website, or you can do a video conference called directly FaceTime with one of our reps, but before they even get there, you have YouTube, you have a video gallery of instructions on our website.

[00:41:58] Jeremy Barker: You also have our built [00:42:00] app, B U I L T. Bill B I L T sorry, B I L T app. Yep. Uh, the software that does everybody's using, we were their fourth customer and now everybody has it. So that's an amazing thing. If you're a producer yourself or you're a manufacturer that built software is something that has a game changer, it answers those questions.

[00:42:18] Jeremy Barker: It does the warranty response. It does everything, right. So it's been a, it's enabled us to really. Focus on product and deal with customers that have a problem that can't be resolved on the phone. And it's not that we're trying to be cheap on customer service. Keep in mind. One of my board members owns one of the largest call centers in the us so he's not afraid to give me some call center people if I need it.

[00:42:42] Jeremy Barker: That's awesome. We're all in house, customer service. They're all located right here in Utah. They they're all fluent in English. We do have some Spanish speakers as well. Sure. But, uh, ultimately. I think that's another key metric when you're looking at companies like how, how is their data? How is their information?

[00:42:57] Jeremy Barker: And honestly, how good is the delivery of the product? Does it sound? [00:43:00] Yeah. And can I do it without having to call and, and I think we've done a dang good job of improving that experience out of the box. Like, yes, there is some assembly, which is frustrating for everyone. Believe me, I hate it. That I just bought.

[00:43:12] Jeremy Barker: I went down to RC, Willie, a big furniture place. The other day. Mm-hmm paid 400 and I guess that's irrelevant, but some, I thought expensive money. Kitchen chairs and you buy 10 of them and guess how they came broken down unassembled. Yeah. I'm like, wait a second. I did not go to Amazon for this. I went to, and I chose some of your nicest kitchen chairs and you, not that they're the most expensive, but some of their nicer ones in the set and.

[00:43:40] Jeremy Barker: They came unassembled. Are you freaking kidding me?

[00:43:44] Eric Goranson: now I'm taking that short little hex wrench and putting stuff together. Yep.

[00:43:49] Jeremy Barker: And I'm you sitting on the floor? Yeah. Yep. And we don't use cheap screws cuz you know why that is my pet peeve that they break the head off and I didn't even put any tension on it.

[00:43:59] Jeremy Barker: [00:44:00] Yep. Or they'd strip before you put any tension on. Like when it comes to putting our stuff together, that hardware is one of those things that I test, like, how bad's this gonna strip is where's this made like, it needs to be solid. And I don't want to have a stripped out head if they have to take it back out again.

[00:44:15] Jeremy Barker: Cuz the nice thing with the Murphy door even better when you move. You can take it with you. All of our doors are delivered to where they're universal. Inswing outswing left or right hinged. So if you go take it to a different house, put it in another door, but it needs to be an inswing and it was an outswing.

[00:44:31] Jeremy Barker: No problem. Change the hinge position already template it in the door. Oh, you wanted to be on the right hinge instead of a left hinge. That's okay. Flip it to the template on the other side of the door. You're good to go. So we've tried to think of what is it that customers have. If you're gonna invest, you know, a thousand, $2,000 on a door, our average ticket right now, Eric is 1780.

[00:44:51] Jeremy Barker: So if you're gonna invest 1,780 bucks, Then you're gonna want more than likely to take it with you unless you're using it as a selling point. Yeah. So if we don't [00:45:00] make it simple for you to take out with you, then it's even more frustrating. If it's a one time, leave it forever. Um, it's less desirable than if you could buy another $50 note brand door and stick it in the hole and take your Murphy door with you if you haven't been yeah.

[00:45:12] Jeremy Barker: Recognized for it. So, yeah. Anyway, that was one of those things that I think is a contractor. And I know that you've been here. You get into the house and you, you order your door package that looked great on plans. And you're like, dang it. The switch is on the wrong wall or that should have been a right hand.

[00:45:25] Jeremy Barker: Well, now in the past, you're having to order a new door, right? Yeah. Well,

[00:45:31] Eric Goranson: Caroline, and you know, my co was just talking about last week. She just had to sit there. She ordered a, it was an Anderson slider door and the people were putting it in. She didn't open the box up when it showed up, they put the slider in, she gets home and.

[00:45:46] Eric Goranson: Huh let's go in the wrong.

[00:45:48] Jeremy Barker: Um, and it's already installed, done, done. You're stuck, stuck. And the nice thing with us that would be a quick, we have a quick removable top hinge pin. Yep. And by the way, this has been a [00:46:00] complaint being open. We had a plastic pin removal tool and the tab would break off. So you'd just take it up twist and pull down on the tab.

[00:46:06] Jeremy Barker: And this, the top hinge pin comes out. Well, the little tab was breaking out the plastic pin. So now they're all. So we've nice. We've upgraded. 'em all to machine aluminum. They're just a quick key. You pull the pin out, you lift the door off the bottom hinge right now you have the door out. It's, it's truly a five minute process at the most taking these doors outta the hole.

[00:46:25] Jeremy Barker: And then you take it, reverse the hinge pin on the top of the door and the top of the jam and the template. And now you can swing the other way in swinging out. It doesn't matter.

[00:46:34] Eric Goranson: That's awesome. Well, I can't be, I can't miss the one thing that you have on your website that, uh, you've got as well. Murphy ladder.

[00:46:42] Jeremy Barker: Yes. So that's, let's talk about that for a minute. That little baby. So. One thing I can say is in the fire industry, there's a lot of uses for ladders, as you can, as you know, they used to call 'em ladder men, right? Mm-hmm . So now what we found in the ladder world is that they had a thing called an attic ladder [00:47:00] and an attic ladder is a ladder that the rungs fold into themselves.

[00:47:03] Jeremy Barker: Right. Instead of folding in half, it becomes a long stick or they'd call them a stick. Yep. Well, they're really, really convenient and they're good to go in a house except for when you run into a hallway or a corner, or when you're trying to go up a tight set of stairs. When you have a 14 foot long stick, you can't always get those in the places you need.

[00:47:23] Jeremy Barker: And so. As a, as a bunch of fire guys that work here, I mean, we're sitting with several that work here either. Part-time or full-time now we're like, these would be cool, but we just need to hinge 'em in the middle. And now you only have a six foot or we have a five. Well, we have a seven foot ladder, which folds down to like 42 inches when it's up.

[00:47:38] Jeremy Barker: And then we have a nine foot ladder and 11 foot ladder. They're all 375 pound rated, but they compact up into like a seven by seven. Right. So here's a really cool story. When we came up with the design, we, we kind of 3d printed a bunch of stuff, and then we put it on some rungs and we made it here. We're like, holy crap.

[00:47:58] Jeremy Barker: It works. This thing works. I can't [00:48:00] believe it worked right. We did a whole bunch of things like that was just a brain fart, but why didn't they do this in the past? And by the way, we just were issued our patents. Dude congrat that's issued today. So kind of funny that you asked the email before I came in here and said, Hey, congratulations, your patent's been issued.

[00:48:15] Jeremy Barker: So when we have several around this ladder, but nice, what's neat about this ladder is not only does it fold long ways into itself, but it also folds in half into itself. Right? So you got this little square, it hangs on the. But it's also controlled by a single hand lever on the side to be able to, to you want to collapse, isn't the right word, but to fold the ladder into itself, we made it so a gloved hand can fit you just lift up on the handle and it folds into itself.

[00:48:44] Jeremy Barker: It's got a little locking pin and it has carry handles. So now it'll fit in the Tesla and you can have a freaking, you know, 10 foot open ladder when it's out inside the back of your little economy car. So every

[00:48:55] Eric Goranson: salesperson out there that's selling roofing gutters, [00:49:00] insurance, adjusters, everybody else should have one of these things in their vehicle, cuz they're not having to run around with a,

[00:49:05] Jeremy Barker: a big extension ladder on the top of their car.

[00:49:07] Jeremy Barker: Yep, exactly. You know who our biggest clientele right now, ironically enough truckers have been a huge hadn't thought of that truck drivers. RVers this summer have just been crazy. Right? Cuz they fit beautifully on an RV instead of these giant ladders they have on the back mm-hmm um, that they're carrying around termite pest control.

[00:49:29] Jeremy Barker: Oh yeah. They've been ordering these things by the pallet. I'm like what in the world are termite pest controls doing, ordering these and then home inspectors. Yeah, right. Cause they usually run around their little pickup trucks that are nice and home inspectors. I'm like, look at this marketplace that wasn't even in our math.

[00:49:45] Jeremy Barker: Initially our goal was like, Hey, these are perfect for multi-housing Highrise buildings in New York, city and Chicago for people sure. That are having to go put the ladder, these fit under the bed. They can fit in your closet. They can fit wherever you want. [00:50:00] Um, but that was another idea. So that just kind of tells you how my a D D runs while we go with the door and then we invented this ladder.

[00:50:06] Jeremy Barker: The neat side about it is from 3d printed model to present to home Depot, to in store full rollout was about nine months. Dude in every store in home Depot. Now there's also with a good, there comes bad, right? Most of the time that's crazy time when we launched was the announcement of COVID yep. In store.

[00:50:29] Jeremy Barker: So what we, home Depot did an amazing rollout. They put 'em in every single store in the nation. And then not only did they put them, they went in 1100 bays and 2000 stores, some the other 900. Cubes. So the 30 unit packs that sat by the register, but what couldn't you have in the aisles during COVID special buys.

[00:50:51] Jeremy Barker: Yep. Right. So now we stuck all the ladders out of the way or up in the racks. They had to keep aisles open so people could keep their social distance distance. Yep. [00:51:00] So my gosh, and then we got stuck with the shipping problems we got stuck with to oh yeah. We got stuck. Tariffs were right before. Yep. And then we had COVID and then we had shipping CRI increases, aluminum double.

[00:51:12] Jeremy Barker: So this is all in the first year and we did 15, 15000001st year insight, right in ladders. And then after that, with all the price hikes and all the shipping and all the difficulty, we had to make the tough decision to say, look home Depot didn't they wouldn't grant us the price. They wouldn't give us.

[00:51:31] Jeremy Barker: They're like, Hey, Warner's not moving. Um, we're not just the justification. Department's declining your price raise. Yeah. Well, so when we finally said, Hey, look, we can't do this anymore. We were losing about on average 30 bucks a ladder. Yeah. Well, you can't sell a hundred thousand ladders at a negative 30 bucks.

[00:51:47] Jeremy Barker: That's what I was just gonna

[00:51:48] Eric Goranson: say is that that's the bad part of the $15 million mark is that if you're losing in one place that extrapolates out really

[00:51:54] Jeremy Barker: quickly, really fast. And by the way, that's $30 on. That's landed, [00:52:00] not including insurance on a ladder company. That price is $1,100 a day, $400,000 a year, just in insurance that's liability alone.

[00:52:09] Jeremy Barker: Plus all the other cost, digital marketing employees, warehousing freight, trucking, internal, you know, Intercontinental like, so we just said, look, um, not to put the poo poo to the story, but we said, Hey, we've gotta pull this back. We're gonna control some price increases. We wanna, we wanna not be too far outta line.

[00:52:26] Jeremy Barker: And so that's been a little bit right now. We're selling, you can get it at camper world. You can get it@murphyladder.com. You can get it on Murphy door.com. So they're not available in store. They're still available on home depot.com. But, uh, ultimately you just gotta, you just gotta take it in. In stride.

[00:52:43] Jeremy Barker: And we'll push that back out now that we're seeing some, some relief in freight, now that we're seeing some aluminum correction and I believe next F is potentially a tariff reduction, and then we can be back in play. But I, you know, as an owner, you have to make the tough decision, even though you're seeing a top line of 15 million [00:53:00] bucks in revenue.

[00:53:01] Jeremy Barker: It it doesn't.

[00:53:02] Eric Goranson: Yeah, but when you see 15 million in revenue and all of a sudden you're going, wow, I got 14, five in hard costs

[00:53:08] Jeremy Barker: just right out the door. It's like, wait a minute. That was the hard cost. It was more like 17 five in I know, trying

[00:53:14] Eric Goranson: to nice to you.

[00:53:20] Jeremy Barker: Absolutely. But that was a fun, fun run.

[00:53:22] Eric Goranson: That sounds like that's a fun run and there's a, a big future for that, cuz I think there's just a huge demand for that product cuz

[00:53:29] Jeremy Barker: nobody else. Well, and you think about our houses, right? Everybody. And that's where all of our products you take Murphy door for one, what does it do?

[00:53:36] Jeremy Barker: Everybody's needing to, they want to downsize houses. You can't, you don't get 'em as built as big as you used to. Which means we have to be smarter on space and smarter on storage and smarter on function. And then the beds, the same thing, you can create a multi-use room where the bed goes away and it looks like a desk.

[00:53:51] Jeremy Barker: You can use it as a desk. We have fold out desk options. You've got side cabinets. You can do whatever you. Have a bedroom have your dresser door in the door. We have a full [00:54:00] operational dresser that operates like a door. Right? You can take that. And then also you have a ladder component that doesn't take half your garage to park it in, right?

[00:54:07] Jeremy Barker: It can hang in your cupboard. So the things that we're focused on here as a company and the future products that are coming out now is truly stuff that is gonna make your. Easier to use smarter, to use more functional as well as take less space, deliver the exact same or better experience with less of a footprint and demand on the size of house you that you need.

[00:54:27] Eric Goranson: Amen brother. Amen. Well, thanks for coming on today, man. What's the best way for people

[00:54:33] Jeremy Barker: to find you? Oh, absolutely. www.murphydoor.com for our doors and our beds. Right. They're both inside that. And then the ladders would be the same Murphy ladder.com. As far as me, you can always reach out and. However you wanna reach out.

[00:54:49] Jeremy Barker: Right? Exactly. So that's, that's the, that's the deal. So we reach indirectly. We'd love to visit and talk. So,

[00:54:54] Eric Goranson: and you have a podcast or a videocast too as well. Let's talk about that for just a quick second before. Jump

[00:54:59] Jeremy Barker: out. [00:55:00] Absolutely. I'd love to, if you give the opportunity, it's called 90 proof wisdom. And not that we have any, we went with 90 proof because it's not a hundred proof.

[00:55:07] Jeremy Barker: It's not a hundred percent, right. We had to make up a little bit, some of the stories get kind of exaggerated. Most of the people we've been working. Our founders in business for one that have got, that can share the struggle. Like we had hydro jug in here the other day. Um, he got number four, uh, fastest growing company in the state.

[00:55:23] Jeremy Barker: He's number 33 ink, 5,000 good kid, 30 years old. And this tells you how wrong I am a lot. I told him that idea was an extremely stupid idea when he brought it to me, his dad was the, my captain and I go Hayden. That is dumb. Like, I dunno why you wanna compete against. I was completely wrong. They're blowing it up.

[00:55:39] Jeremy Barker: He's under 30 amazing kid. Uh, but we, a lot of the stuff that I've tried to focus on lately is kind of tribal inside my group, dealing with PTSD, substance abuse and, and in the fire law enforcement and military careers and what they're doing next mm-hmm and how they've gotten through those, those problems and showing people there is a [00:56:00] pathway.

[00:56:00] Jeremy Barker: To success through your difficult times. And, and as I think that's a hard lesson to learn, especially you, as you see some of the trauma that we see and everybody has it, it doesn't matter if you're in law enforcement or not. We have trauma as humans. Right. But absolutely the lesson of understanding the fall is, and how difficult a climb back is.

[00:56:19] Jeremy Barker: Is where we truly build, just like building muscles, breaking 'em down is where they get the build out. It's just hard to recognize we're in the middle of the, the massive, but when you get to the other side and I'm sure you've been here, cuz anybody that's tried anything in their life has we're like, man, this sucks.

[00:56:34] Jeremy Barker: I don't wanna do this. And then all of a sudden you're looking back, I'm like, dude, I did it. And we got through it and I'm a happier, better person. And those mistakes that I made before. I know how not to make those same, oness, I'll make more. And hopefully I do soon. Um, I tell my guys here fell fast and fell frequent.

[00:56:53] Jeremy Barker: Right. Yep. Make sure you do it every day. Find where you lost every day. Recognize it. So if you're not waiting till the end of [00:57:00] the year to fail, cuz that cliff is huge. If you're only falling eight inches a day, it doesn't hurt near as bad. If you don't recognize what you're missing. Amen brother. So that's just kind of where we great advice to talk about it, you know, and that's our, that's our share.

[00:57:13] Jeremy Barker: We need to get you on there again, it was 90 proof. Wisdom is where it is and you can find it anywhere. You, you listen to podcasts.

[00:57:20] Eric Goranson: All right, brother. Jeremy Barker. Thanks for coming on today. Murphy door.com. Appreciate

[00:57:26] Jeremy Barker: it, man. You're awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. You have a wonderful day.

[00:57:30] Jeremy Barker: Thanks

[00:57:30] Eric Goranson: man. I'm Eric G and for Caroline B, you've been listening to around the house